Reflections

As 12 months of Happiness Projects have come to a close, I can reflect back and see that I've made some "subtle but significant changes"in my life this last year. (Those that are LDS might recognize this as a quote from Elder Bednar's talk from Saturday morning General Conference.) It really is remarkable to set small goals to focus on throughout the year and then to look back and see how those small goals have led to something much bigger.

The goal that was the most important for me to change: making a conscientious effort not to yell at my kids--at all. Prior to that goal, I'd noticed that I was increasingly frustrated with their messes, their whining, their fighting and more and more often I was responding with losing my temper. I needed this goal to take a step back. To laugh more. And most especially to love more.

The goals that I loved the most: Without question my two favorite goals were the goals where I practiced the piano for an hour each day and when I read The Book of Mormon in a month. With the first goal, it reconfirmed to me just how passionate I am about music. I am ever grateful to a mother who pushed me to practice and develop this talent.

As I am now a couple months out from the goal of reading The Book of Mormon in 31 days, I can see now just how powerful and impactful this book is on my life and how there was an increase of the Holy Ghost that month as I devoted my extra time to reading in this book. It really was a different experience reading The Book of Mormon more quickly than I ever have before. It flowed differently rather than being a little disjointed with only doing a couple chapters per day. It gave me a different perspective and helped me link all the people and places together better. I'm excited to do this goal at least once per year.

The goal that provided the most peace: focusing on our food storage

The hardest goal: Sadly, not nagging my husband or saying anything negative for a whole month. I realized my positive to negative ratio was off and that I needed to put more effort into doing more of the little things--leaving notes in his car, sending him a random email mid-day to say "I love you," etc.

I made great strides and improvements throughout the year, but unfortunately old habits die hard. My goals of being more charitable, not judging, and being friendlier are probably areas I'll always have to work on improving.

Each month I also had the on-going goals to index 200 names, read a church book every other month, exercise regularly, and work on turning my blog into books by year.

-I am proud to say that I have now indexed over 2200 names since I started my Happiness Project!! (I missed a month of indexing when we moved. Too busy.)

-I ended up averaging reading a church book every 3 months...could have done better.

-I faithfully exercised most every day. I ran a half marathon 4 months out from having a baby, and I'm running another half marathon in a few weeks. This is a whole other blog post, but I've signed up for another marathon! After running the first one, I swore I'd never do that to myself again. Long story short: peer pressure from a friend. I'm just hoping to figure out some of the aches and pains that have been creeping up during and after my runs.

-Over the last year, I finished 3 blog books and am halfway through the 4th book. It's so fun to have a hard copy of "my journal" with lots of photos included!

Overall, my Happiness Project was a success. As the saying goes, "when Mom is happy, everyone is happy." While I worked on areas that I didn't like about myself or that I knew needed a little attention, I was able to more completely love me and feel happier. Most importantly, it was worthwhile to strive to reach the potential that my Father in Heaven sees in me. There's still lots to do in the refining process, but it was a neat experience to track some goals and, at the end of a year, look back and see the improvements.

Month 11: Food Storage

For the month of August, I enlisted my husband's help and we worked on the goal of improving our food storage. Since I knew we were moving, the 6 months prior to moving, I didn't worry about replenishing anything that we used. It would be less to move! Now that we're moved in, it was time to take stock of what we had and figure out what we needed to fill in any gaps. There is definitely a large measure of peace that comes with working on your food storage. And I love that I have a small room in the house devoted only to food storage!

One aspect of this goal that I will carry over to the month of September is 72 hour kits. Matt ordered some items to improve our 72 hour kits, but we haven't reassembled them yet. (It's been a few years since we've updated them, and you're supposed to do it every 6 months!) So we'll do that for FHE one Monday this month. August was also a super busy month getting ready for preschool, so it was difficult to work on anything else!

September is my last month in my Happiness Project, and as I looked at my initial month where I talked about all the things I wanted to work on, I've realized that I'm down to one month and didn't do everything I wanted to do! I didn't do a craft month or a family service month. For the service month, I wanted to organize a family service project so my boys could realize the importance of service and its value in helping others as well as the benefits in our lives. We'll have to set it as a goal in the future.

One other thing that I didn't do that I wanted to was to spend a month stimulating the mind in a new way...reading books I normally wouldn't read, taking time to learn new things. Throughout the year, I've read a few books that were outside of my normal genres including Killing Lincoln, a fascinating book about the death of Lincoln and the events that surrounded it. History was always a subject I did not enjoy in school, so I usually steer clear of historical fiction/nonfiction. The way I've decided to meet this goal of stimulating my mind in a new way is fairly simple and something that I think most people do already (but I don't!). I'm going to spend at least 30 minutes reading/watching the news each day. I am embarrassingly naive about what is going on in the world, so this month I'm going to work on that weakness and hopefully establish a habit!

Month 10: Scripture Reading

For July's Happiness Project goal, I decided to challenge myself to read The Book of Mormon in 1 month.  I love to change up my scripture reading so that I have a different focus each time. This time the focus was to read The Book of Mormon more like a novel, to purposely turn to it whenever I had a spare moment in the day. (It should probably be this way always!) Usually I read it relatively slowly with outside sources to aide my study. In order to accomplish my goal, I had to read 8-9 chapters per day/night. I learned quickly that I did not want to get behind and have to play catch-up! It was a difficult, but very rewarding experience. I enjoyed the experience so much that I'd like to do it again, perhaps on a yearly basis. As with each time I read The Book of Mormon, I felt the Holy Ghost witness to me that the words are true. This time around, I had a greater appreciation for all the orchestration that went into The Book of Mormon coming forth in these latter days--the plates being handed from father to son or prophet to prophet and then being preserved so well. Overall, it was neat to see how spending more time in the scriptures each day increased the Spirit in my life and in my home and thus made me happier. :o)

My goal for month 11 is to make improvements in our food storage (take stock of what we have and fill in any gaps) and update our 72 hour kits!

Month 9: Love to my Children

For the 9th month of my Happiness Project, I focused on filling my boy's love tanks. I read The Five Love Languages of Children to determine the way they receive love best. This was a no-brainer for Caleb. His primary love language is quality time. Anytime grandparents are over, he frequently asks for them to play a game with him. He thrives on Matt's or my undivided attention. Caleb goes through phases of games that he obsesses over. Over the last year, his obsessions (which last 1-2 months) have included in order: Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Uno, Parcheesi, Trouble, a Dr. Seuss matching game, Sorry card game, Farkle, and Ticket to Ride (his current obession). His Aunt Lindsey taught him how to play Ticket to Ride, and with some guidance at figuring out his route, he is able to play independently. This last month where I really focused on giving him all my extra time, I definitely have played more Ticket to Ride this month than in my entire life! The most games we played in one day was 4.

 Carter took this picture for us.

Daddy playing Farkle with Caleb about a month ago.

(My family called the game Farkle by a different name growing up: Zilch. Matt and I argued for several years which is the appropriate name of the game. He finally bought me the game for Christmas one year as more of a prank gift since he won this battle.)

In order to meet Caleb's love language, it basically meant turning off technology, in reference to Sister Wixom's latest General Conference talk. I stopped watching any TV (except for So You Think You Can Dance, my all time favorite TV show) and was on the internet a lot less (I still kept on top of emails every day after Caleb went to bed).

A fishing trip with Daddy

This is Caleb's second-largest fish he's ever caught. It's hard to tell in this picture because the fish wouldn't cooperate and hold still. :o)

Random picture of Caleb. He's been really working hard on being able to do a head stand.

2 other love languages that I discovered are really important to Caleb (as with most children) include physical touch and words of affirmation. Physical touch is an important one for him. I have pictures of him all growing up falling asleep literally right next to Matt or on top of him. He's always loved to snuggle and still does. The security of that physical closeness provides a needed assurance of our love and protection. I've also noticed over the years that I have to be very careful how I say things to Caleb. He can get discouraged easily and be extra-sensitive.

I wasn't able to determine Carter's love language after reading the book--the book says that it's difficult to determine under the age of 5--so I just focused on doing all of them for Carter: gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch. Specifically, I really focused on saying positive things to Carter. Because I was really concentrating on him this month, I had the realization that a lot of things that come out of my mouth towards him are negative. How horrible is that?!? Carter is perhaps a typical boy, but more so than Caleb ever did, he makes messes all day long! I feel like I get something cleaned up while he's making a mess somewhere else in the house. He keeps me busy for sure. I found myself making comments like, "Ugh. Carter I just cleaned that up!" or "I asked you to eat your popsicle at the table. Now there are popsicle drips everywhere!" "Stop doing that to the baby!" etc. etc. Once I had this "ah ha" moment that a lot of what I say to Carter is negative, that became my focus for the month.  I concentrated on being more patient and forgiving for his messes that cause me extra work. He's just being a kid! And I focused on only saying positive things including how much I love him. He is such a sweet and funny boy that has Matt, Caleb and I laughing at all the funny things he says!

Carter taking a silly picture

Bryson's love language is definitely physical touch and quality time :o). He has started feeling separation anxiety if I am not in his sight. If I leave the room for one second, he starts whining. If I'm in his sight and not holding him, he starts whining. If anyone holds out their hands to see if he'll come to him/her (including Matt), he will lean that way, then quickly go back to Mama. He's a little obsessed with Mommy right now.

Bryson loves his new bouncer/exer-saucer!

Also as part of this love-toward-my-children month, I took the Orange Rhino 30 day challenge of not yelling. Not raising my voice is something I've been working on for the last several months, so this aspect of my monthly goal was not too difficult. I even had my boys help me out. Whenever they sensed that I was getting angry, they would call out, "Orange Rhino!" as a reminder to keep my temper in check.

Making banana bread at the beginning of the month. (Carter's in bad need of a hair cut in this picture!)

Because of all the time I spent playing games with Caleb, this is my first month since I started my Happiness Project that I didn't complete my 200 names of indexing. :o(

My goal to increase my happiness for month 10 is a spiritual goal to spend more time reading my scriptures. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon in a month, which requires approximately 8 chapters a day. I'm on track right now; any time I would normally spend reading a book for fun, I've now replaced with reading my scriptures, which I consider a worthy replacement.

Month 8: Love to My Spouse

I attempted this goal on a previous month and, sadly, was doing poorly by day 2, so I decided to save it for another month. I knew I was going to set this goal to treat my husband with more love and respect for one month of my happiness project, so I have been making gradual changes leading up to this goal. I used The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick to guide my days. There are some great day goals in the book; one that was really good for me was Day 7: Love believes the best.  In general, I worked on not nagging my husband, greeting him in a good mood when he came home from work, having more patience, allowing him more guy time (and not complaining about it!), not complaining once about picking up after him, and I tried to set aside quality time for him each day. I also read or listened to Elder Clayton's talk from General Conference frequently throughout the month to serve as a focus and reminder.

For the first half of the month, I was feeling pretty good about how I was doing. There's a group that plays Ultimate Frisbee, Matt's favorite sport, on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings for a couple of hours. The time they play on Tuesday night is during dinner/bedtime hours, so I usually say no for that night. On May 7, I suggested he go, and even when the night ended up being more difficult than usual, I didn't complain to him about it. Matt got plenty of back scratches (which he loves), and I left a few surprises in his car to let him know I was thinking of him.

I thought May would be a great month to focus on this since it led into our anniversary on June 2. But the closer we got to our moving date, the more things started tapering off. Our to-do list was always a mile long each day (it still is!), that we literally fell into bed each night exhausted and prayed that there would be no interruptions from our children that night so we could get a full night's sleep.

So I definitely could have done better, and Matt would probably be surprised reflecting on the month to realize that this was my goal for the month. I still worked on having more patience and I did accomplish not complaining once about picking up after him (he takes his shoes and socks off and forgets to put them away), but it became too much to try to do anything "extra" with how busy we both were with preparing to move on top of our other daily duties. I'm looking forward to continuing to try to do something extra each day to let Matt know that I love him.

Also this month, I managed to fit in some indexing, not quite my goal of 200 names, but close.

I am SO excited about my goal for the month of June! This month I'll be focusing on my children...giving them more of my time and focus and love. I'm also doing the 30 day Orange Rhino challenge with my sister where you yell less and love more. I loved Sister Wixom's talk from General Conference about turning off technology and spending quality time with your children. That will also be another focus. These three boys are my world, and I don't want them to have memories of Mommy losing control or getting angry or yelling. I love them to pieces and there are definitely ways to show that more.

Month 7: Getting Ready to Move

My focus for month 7 of my year-long happiness project was getting our house ready to put on the market.  Check it off the list!  We've sold our house!  The buyers need to move in May 30, and we have been able to push our moving date up to May 25.  There's still lots to pack up around the house, and we'll spend a good few days doing a thorough cleaning after all our stuff is moved out.  It's super exciting that we're now 3 weeks away when this move has been anticipated for almost a year!

At the same time, I'm very sentimental about leaving our current home.  We've put a lot of hard work into this house, and it's very sad to say goodbye.  I've already planned to make a book that will include pictures of every room in the house (and how they have changed through the years) as well as several pictures of monumental things that happened while living in the house.  This house represents our hard work in saving up to buy it in the first place, we grew our family here from 2 to 5, all the hours spent working together inside and outside to beautify our home, and many, many other happy and cherished memories.  As I've been doing my regular cleaning lately, I can't help but think I'm winding down to the last few times I clean these bathrooms, or mop these floors, etc.  I know there are many more bathrooms to clean in my future, but I feel like I know every nook and cranny of this house as I've cleaned it over the last 6 years and in many ways it's difficult to say goodbye.  I'm sure I'll have a good cry at some point as we get closer to shutting the door on this chapter of our lives.

Besides getting our home ready to sell, I made a small goal to stop biting my nails.  I made some progress, but overall failed miserably.  Ha! Some habits are hard to break!  I did index 200 names, and I started The Continuous Atonement by Brad Wilcox.  I'm learning a lot and plan to finish it in May.

May's happiness goal is to do my part to improve my marriage.  I've attempted this goal in a previous month, but I didn't feel like I was ready to commit to this goal fully at that time.  Especially since we're coming up on our 7th anniversary on June 2nd, I thought May would be a perfect month to put a little more focus on my marriage.  I'm using the book, The Love Dare, as a guide throughout the month.  A part of me feels it is sad that I have to make a conscious goal in order to be more patient and loving to my husband, but adding children to a marriage adds a whole new element to the mix.  I'm no longer just "Haley" or "Matt's Wife."  First and foremost I am "Mommy."  My children's needs always come first. Hopefully I'll create several habits that carry over long after this month is over!

Month 6: Friendship

I would consider myself a shy person, and I prefer to keep to myself for the most part.  I usually don't go out of my way to say "hi" to people, but I always try to be friendly if a neighbor or someone approaches me.  For month 6 of my happiness project, I decided to work on going out of my way to be more friendly to people.  Here are some specific goals I worked on:

1) Say "hello" to everyone that I pass by when I'm out running.
2) Talk to the cashier when I check out at a store.
3) When making a business phone call (to pay a bill, etc.) where a person introduces him/herself by name, remember his/her name and call him by name throughout the phone conversation.
4) Be open to talking to people at the park.  If the baby is asleep, while I play with Carter at the park, I usually have an earbud in one ear listening to a book on tape.  What can I say? I love to read!  But I realize this isn't very social.
5) At a church function, go up and talk to people instead of sitting back and waiting for people to approach me.

All these things may seem so simple to other people, but they were all out of my comfort zone.  It took a concerted effort each time.  It was a good goal for me to force myself to be more social.  I really enjoyed getting to know some people throughout the month that otherwise probably wouldn't have happened!

For the month of March, I indexed my goal of 200 names and completed my running goal of a half marathon to get back in shape after having Bryson.  I completely spaced reading a church book, so I'll have to do better about that this month.

My goal for April to improve my happiness can only be one thing: packing and getting our house ready to put on the market.  I don't have time to focus on anything else right now!  We'd like to have our house on the market by the end of the month (move-in date for our new house is June 1) so each weekend is precious time to knock out big projects, and during the week I need to be organizing and packing things we aren't using right now.  It is so overwhelming!  I HATE moving, and I'm realizing that I like it even less with children since it's more things to go through and more things to move!  I should work on not complaining and just do it. :o)

This is a small thing, but I also have set a goal not to bite my nails at all this month.  It's a habit I've had off and on again throughout my life and something I need to currently break right now.  I plan to meet my indexing goal and read a church book as well.  I hope to get ahold of a copy or purchase a copy of The Continuous Atonement by Brad Wilcox.

Month 5: Positive Thoughts

For the month of February for my Happiness Project, I worked on having positive thoughts about other people--no judging, giving the benefit of the doubt, and in general just being more loving.  I was surprised how many times I had to dismiss a judgmental thought from my mind.  This is sad, but it took a conscious effort each day to choose to think positively toward other people and/or situations instead of assuming the worst.  I didn't become perfect by the end of the month, but I made huge strides :o).  The reward of my efforts was I felt happier choosing to have loving thoughts about a person rather than thinking negatively.  Dismissing uncharitable thoughts from my mind will hopefully be a habit that sticks. 

Also this month, I completed indexing 200 names, almost finished turning another year of my blog into a book (just finishing up some editing), I finished the church novel I started in January about having more holiness in my life, and I ran my 5th half marathon!

The visiting teaching message in February inspired my goal for March and my February goal leads into this one nicely.  I want to work on being more friendly.  I didn't realize just how shy I am probably until I married Matt.  He is on the opposite scale of the spectrum than me when it comes to being friendly.  He and I will have discussions all the time where he'll say something to the effect of, "Going up to that person and talking to them is hard for you?  Why?" [said in an incredulous voice].  I've learned a lot from him: he always initiates a conversation with a cashier when checking out of a store; when talking to a cashier or a service person on the phone, he always calls them by their name; he goes out of his way to greet people or say goodbye to them; he is so genuine when he talks to someone and truly listens; and his goal is to brighten everyone's day whom he comes in contact with.  I know I won't be able to cone near his level in just one month, but I'm going to improve from where I'm at and make more of an effort to go out of my way to be friendly.  It's going to be scary for me and will require me to check my inhibitions at the door.

Month 4: Improving a Talent

As part of my year-long happiness project for the month of January, I worked on practicing the piano every day for an hour. I loved this goal, and it did indeed make me happy!  It was so nice to have an excuse to play the piano every day when I otherwise would have found more "productive" things to do.  It was difficult some days to fit an hour in, and there were two Saturdays where the day was so busy that I didn't get a chance to practice at all.  There were also a handful of days where I practiced longer than my allotted time because I was enjoying myself so much!  If I couldn't fit it in during the day, I would practice after the kids went to bed when I normally would have watched TV or read a book to wind down the day.  Over the course of the month, I worked up a piano solo which I'm going to play in church, I enjoyed playing through several Broadway musical piano books, and I played through several classical pieces.  This month I relearned just how much I love playing the piano and that making the effort to practice every day lifted my spirits.  I can do with less TV and more piano-playing in my life!  I'm so grateful to my aunt for teaching me how to play and to my mom for pushing me to practice.

Last month I also indexed almost 400 names, I got over halfway through James L. Ferrell's book, The Holy Secret, and I continued to train for my half marathon race on March 2nd.

This month I'm going to work on positive thoughts about other people--no judging, giving the benefit of the doubt, and in general just being more loving.  I also want to finish another year of my blog book. We'll see how it goes. :o)

Month 3: Staying Calm

Month 3 of my year-long happiness project was very enlightening.  I focused on staying calm all month whenever I felt my temper flaring, and what I learned was just how often I let myself get angry, often over little things.  The very first day of the month, I lost my temper and yelled about something Carter did and then thought to myself that it was going to be a long month if I already failed on day 1!  But each day got easier and easier the more I focused on it and prayed for help.  Reflecting on the month, I realize I rarely raise my voice now; let's hope this new habit is here to stay!  As I knew it would, the whole atmosphere in the home changed as I changed my attitude and perspective.  I still made mistakes throughout the month, but each day it was worth the effort as it truly did make me happier (and the rest of my family!).

I originally set the goal because Carter could be too rough with the baby and my Mama Bear side came out in order to protect my baby.  Looking back over the month of December, Carter made some huge strides as well and is now very careful around Bryson.

The religious book I read this month was a Christmas one called the 13th Day of Christmas.  The overall message of the book was an important reminder for Christmas.  Sometimes we focus on Christ leading up to Christmas and on Christmas day, but this book was a reminder that we need to have faith and remember Christ the day after Christmas and throughout the rest of the year.

I got back into indexing this month and completed my goal of 200 names.

For Christmas, I got 4 new piano books from my mom that I'm super excited about.  This next month's main goal is going to be setting aside an hour a day to practice the piano and learn several new songs.  I realize that the hour most likely won't be in one sitting and that some days I won't quite make it.  So far I've really enjoyed this goal of improving on one of my talents for the month of January.

Month 2: Gratitude

For my 2nd month of my year-long happiness project I focused on writing in a gratitude journal everyday.  As expected, it really helped me with perspective as I focused each day on what I would write in my journal and therefore was looking for the good.  I also tried to think about how I recognized God's influence in my life each day--mostly those observations turned out to be our safety and health.  I know these are precious blessings that I hope never to take for granted.  This month's project was especially enjoyable as I was able to focus on all the things I love about newborns.  Third time around, I feel like I'm able to enjoy a newborn a lot more due to being an experienced mama.  I love all the grunting, stretching, and cute cooing noises.

Each month I'm trying to read a spiritual book as well.  This month I read: House of Learning: Getting More From Your Temple Experience.  Several good thoughts and ideas included that I know will improve my experience in the temple.

Exercise also is a daily goal because it makes me happy.  At my two week OB appointment, I was shocked when my doctor gave me the go-ahead to start running again.  So you better believe I was out there running the next day!  I'm 4 weeks out from having a baby and have run 4 and 4 1/2 miles for my Saturday runs, and I'm running 2 miles during my weekday runs.  It's tricky to do my running when Matt's at home to watch the kids so it usually happens at night as I'm not getting up early these days.  I'm still working on getting my time down; I can run 9-minute miles on my short runs, but about 9:45 miles when I go longer.

I set a goal to index 200 names a month as well.  That didn't happen this month. :o)

Next month my goal is to work on being calm and controlling my anger.  Carter is not always very nice to the baby, and I can't take my eyes off of him--ever it seems, which just isn't realistic.  I've noticed that Mama Bear comes out when he's too rough with the baby or he does something really naughty when my back is turned.  I need to work on my patience and control as I remind him how to act around the baby.  (I never had this problem with Caleb when Carter was a baby!  And my boys are all the same distance apart.)  Patience is an attribute that's lacking right now anyway when I'm going on little sleep each day.  I figured this would be a good month for this goal especially as I have Elfie, our elf on the shelf, to help encourage Carter (and Caleb at times) to behave so that they don't get any Christmas presents taken away. :o)

I've also gotten behind on my blogging, so I hope to catch up in the next few weeks.  Especially the exciting news that I'm a new aunt--my sister has adopted a baby girl!

Month 1: Organization

The first month of my happiness project was focused on organization and getting ready for the baby.  My goals specifically included going through the closets in the house, going through baby clothes, and making some freezer meals.  I discovered right away why I haven't taken the time to really organize the closets as they collected more junk...it's so time-consuming.  It was difficult to do these tasks on top of the daily cleaning and laundry that I do.  Carter takes a nap about every other day or every third day, and it's always so tempting to use a portion of that time to take a nap myself.  But in order to accomplish my monthly goal, I had to utilize this time to go through closets or to prep freezer meals.  At the end of the day, it felt so good to look at all that I accomplished.

All of it was rewarding, but it felt really good to go through my own closet and weed out all the clothes that don't fit anymore.  I lost some weight due to nursing Caleb that I've been able to keep off for the last 5 years with running, but a part of me was afraid to get rid of these larger sizes of clothes just in case I ever needed them again.  It was liberating to donate them all and clear out that space in my closet as well as promise myself that I won't need those larger clothes ever again. :o)

So I went through everything in my closet, the boys' closet, the baby's closet, and a linen closet organizing and throwing out.  (Matt went through his closet as well!)  Another good feeling was going through our filing cabinet of insurance papers, house papers, bills, etc. that we've been hanging onto since 2009.  I organized clothes and dressers to get ready for the baby.  I also have 5 meals in the freezer that will hopefully make things easier when baby Bryson comes.  (I wrote this Thursday night, but didn't post right away.  I had no idea Bryson would come in just over 12 hours.  Post to come on that soon!)

Some other goals I accomplished this past month that I want to be monthly goals were to read a spiritual book, finish another year of turning my blog into a book, and index 200 names.  I read The Peacegiver, which had some insights in relation to the atonement about the story of Jonah and Abigail from the Bible that I've never considered before.  I'm really enjoying indexing, and I love finishing my blog books by year.  (I just got year 2009 in the mail today!)

I wanted my goal for next month to be simple since I know I'll be super busy and out of it with no sleep.  I decided the perfect goal, and fitting for this time of year, is to have a month of gratitude.  I'm going to keep a gratitude journal every day writing down at least one thing I'm grateful for each day.  That's it. :o)  I plan to work on my monthly goals as well again and just see how I do.