My Happiness Project--Heart

This summer, I read The Happiness Project. It was right before my birthday, so I started a similar journey of my own. I began with Home, mainly order of said home. I cleared out tons of clutter, making several trips to the donation shed for the local Salvation Army. I worked on the projects pretty consistently, tackling small areas of the house each day. The phraes "Do It Now" really started to sink in. And then school happened.

I totally skipped a month...no idea where it went. I had planned what I wanted to do next, but I just never got around to it (so much for "do it now" huh?). And here we are in mid-September. However, yesterday was the 18th, which reminded me of this project. Even though I missed a month, I figured late was better than never. 

This month's focus is going to be Heart. What that means to me is doing things that make others smile and doing things that make my heart happy. Yesterday, I had quite a few of these "heart smiles"...making domino trains with the kids in the floor, restoring order to a good chunk of the house, opening the windows, and just sitting still in my nice, quiet bedroom thinking about these things.

Today, after school, I reminded myself to enjoy the time with the kids. Yes, I did manage to do a little laundry and pick up a few things, but I also sat and really listened to Sarah Beth read her story for homework and played chess with Ryan and all his crazy rules of the game.

I wish I could say these little changes were making things all rosy and perfect, but the challenges are still the same. I still had moments of frustration with the kids or with what needed to be done. But I did enjoy the time I spent with the kids this afternoon and even had more patience with their dinner time antics and silliness before bed. And even now, I'm enjoying sitting in my slightly-less-cluttered-than-this-morning bedroom for a few minutes.

I'll continue to work on enjoying the moment and being present this month (all while not forgetting or letting order slide) and keep you updated.