Mending

The dog and I seem to be feeling better.  He slept through the night with no bathroom emergencies (me too!).  We got 10+ hours of sleep and it feels good.

Tackling my to-do list early today.  We are leaving mid-afternoon to miss the traffic into the city.  This should be a great night.

I'm also going to take an easy walk on the treadmill.  I did some serious sitting all afternoon yesterday and I feel stiff.  And boy my arms are sore from the workout yesterday - yea!

I've discovered something about the "new me" and My Happiness Project -- it takes effort.  Real effort.  Not to be mistaken with being hard.  It just takes energy and effort to keep it going.  My default (for whatever reason) is my old ways.  Ingrained in my psyche?  A natural baseline?  To add variety to my life, I need to work at it.

In the beginning, I was super pumped for anything new. Variety - I'm a changed woman - whoop whoop.  Look at me - amazing.  Excited, happy about a new adventure, roll with the punches - fantastic.

Now I noticed I need to make an effort to say "yes."  An effort to look forward to something rather than looking forward to it being over.  An effort to get negative thoughts out of my head about what takes me out of a comfort zone (i.e. I don't want to dress up, so I don't want to go).  It's a mindset, but one I have to notice and remind myself to change.  Some of the glory of "being changed" is blase.  And not all of the "yes" things have turned out wonderful - some have been a disappointment.  I need to focus on the successes, find the HAPPY in the failures too.

I'm working on the balance between my routines, my certainty with room for variety, excitement, etc.  I didn't realize what a strong-hold CERTAINTY has on my life.  It not bad - often serves me well, but my life without VARIETY is a boring existence.

This is a big variety week that I've looked forward to for a long time.  I need to keep the negative thoughts out of my head and enjoy what this week has for me.  That's my focus - the HAPPY.

I have a feeling this hiatus (and MHP) will teach me more than I expected.  I just need to listen and learn.

Off to tackle the yucky on my to-do list (HAPPY when it's finished) so I can get to the good stuff for today.  Later gators.