The New Project: Bella's Kindness!

Sometimes it takes a special person to remind us of everything we already know we should do but aren't practicing - or just aren't focusing on.

Enter my amazing cousin Bella, who sees the world through kind eyes that most 13 year-olds will shut during those tough years when conformity and peer acceptance often mean more than what you learned at church or from your parents.

Bella doesn't flinch when someone says something mean to her; she brushes it off. And she doesn't hesitate to go out of her way if it means someone else won't be bullied.

Here is her 13th birthday wish:

 

 

In a nutshell, she asked everyone who came to her 13th birthday party to pay it forward by doing three kind things each day. She even, at 13, understands the motivation that comes with setting a goal: If she and her mom do 50 kind things combined, they will have a girls' day together.

There is so much to be grateful for - it's all a matter of how we interpret it (Example: Oh, great, the dog is licking my son's milk cup. OR... Wow. My one and a half year-old is so generous, he loves to share with his dog!)

It's just very easy to forget! Climb on board and try to do three kind things each day for someone else. I know Bella would really appreciate it if you sent her an email about it at bellaskindness@yahoo.com.

Thanks for your support, and let's be kind together!

xoxo Petrea

My #100HappyDays Finale!

I couldn't close out the 100 Happy Days Project without an update, so here it is. After 100 crazy, wonderful, happy days, I am finally finished. My social media obligation is over! ...And I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about it. There were nights I had to scramble to find a picture - Shoot! My Hundred Happy Days! My cute kid is already asleep! What will I take a picture of? And a few times I had to find something small to be happy about when I didn't feel particularly happy.

Now that it's over I have the constant urge to snap a picture of a special moment, big or small. I'm sure my friends, family and colleagues appreciate not having a camera shoved in their faces every time I recognize a "moment." But even my husband - who inspired me to put down the smart phone in exchange for family time - suggested that I can always take on the challenge again, whenever I want.

I don't have to take pictures anymore - I'm just more attuned to capturing those moments, because human memory (especially Working Mommy Memory) is fleeting.

Monday

I bought these Sesame Street slippers because I thought my son would like them (and he does: he points to them and tries to say "Toes!"). Who knew they would be the most comfortable thing to wear around the house and even to bed? I love comfort!

Tuesday

It isn't every day I get to come home to this! (In our current, "We don't hit people/ourselves/random animals" phase, hugs are very appreciated.)

Wednesday

Grammy and Pops doting on Johnny even while he's asleep!

Busy day! Registered Johnny for child care, worked until 8pm, and Matt's parents flew into town for his graduation ceremony. They live in Indiana and haven't seen their newest grandson since he was two weeks old. It was quite a moment.

Thursday

Did anyone else know that one year-olds don't pose well for pictures? Here is one attempt to capture the three of us in our matching shirts from Grammy and Pops.

Friday

Graduation day! After lots of hard work and what felt like a decade (!) the whole family watched Matt's graduation ceremony.

Saturday

Our families got together to celebrate the milestone. We could never have done it without their support!

Sunday

Pops bought Johnny a new kite after ours got stuck in a tree.

Last day. After a whirlwind visit filled with activities and fun, the 100 happy days ended like this. A kite in the sky on a windy day. I feel calm, grateful, and yes - happy. #100happydays


It's never too late to join the challenge! Sign up here. Just remember...

Source

P.S. - Learn how I overcame my smart phone addiction.

Weekend Roundup: This Week's Happy Days

Here's my latest 100 Happy Days in review!

Sunday
We finally bought our little guy his OWN toothbrush - so he can stop pretending to use mine (and, occasionally, carefully placing my husband's on the dirtiest section of the bathroom floor).

Johnny clearly doesn't think I'm using enough toothpaste.

Monday
This is what happens when my husband is in charge of filling out childcare paperwork.

 

Other gems include:

Q: What would you most like your child to get out of this experience?

A: Care.
Q: What would you like us to know about your child?
A: He's a cool little dude.

Tuesday
Said husband had his last official day of school, ending with a 4.0 GPA and a job he already started!

Wednesday
What does no more night school for him mean for me? Among other things, delicious grilled dinners together again after a long nine months!

Thursday
What does it mean for our family? All three of us TOGETHER after work! No more evenings spent missing Dad!

Friday
I've only ever received performance awards at my job, but this one meant more to me than all of them combined.

Saturday
Whenever our dog comes around, Johnny imitates his panting ("huh, huh, huh"). Now, when he turns to the animals page in his flap-book, he pants at the dog picture. It's amazing to watch him put things together in his growing little mind!

Bonus: He spent the day with his dad at the pool - hence the chlorine-enhanced hairstyle and shirtless attire.

Sunday
Finally got some cleaning and organizing done around the house. It's amazing how difficult this becomes when your 1 year-old would love to help by taking everything out and leaving it scattered around the floor for you to trip over.

Want to feel happier? It's never too late to join the challenge! If you don't believe it, check out my #100happydays and prove that if this busy working mom with a dog, a cat, a husband and a 1 year-old can do it, you can too!*


*Seriously, though, why did we get a puppy when I was 8 months pregnant? Feel free to question my logic there...

Isis' Style

Here she is - as always - dressed to impress for the work day!

 

Belt, scarf and earrings from Express.

Blouse from Forever 21.

Watch from Coach.

Shoes from Guess.

 



 

 

 

  

PS - See more of Isis' style or learn about her fashion sense and where it comes from!

Could You Work With Your Significant Other?

Could you work with your significant other? Annie and Chris do, so they shared some tips and insight into what it's really like to go to work with your significant other - in the same building - and how they make it work.

 



Meet Annie and Chris. They are bartenders at The Hut on Fourth Avenue in Tucson. No, they don't work in a corporate office - typically, he works the inside bar and she works the outside bar. But they schedule their shifts together and they live together. So how do they make it work?

What Is the Most Interesting Part of Working With Your Significant Other?
Annie: "Watching each other get hit on. For most people, this would be a relationship problem. But we're very driven by money, so when Chris sees a customer hitting on me he walks by and says, 'Flirt it up, baby! Make that money.'"
Chris: "It's funny to me. People come in and hit on Annie, and I know she'll get a bigger tip. It doesn't bother me, because I know she's coming home with me."

What Is the Best Part About Working Together?
Annie: "I have a sense of security knowing that Chris is here. He has more experience than I do, and if I feel like I have a stupid question I can ask him without risking judgment. He's also on top of stuff - I trust him the most out of all my coworkers."
Chris: "Communication. Because we're so close, it's a lot easier to communicate with Annie than with other people at work. We're together, so we're more in tune with each other. We can read one another's needs and moods."
Annie: "We're able to ask more of each other than we could anyone else. And we help each other more readily because we have the common interest of getting everything done at the end of a shift so we can go home!"

What's the Biggest Challenge?
Annie: "I talk to him differently than any other coworker. I'm more demanding and don't feel like I have to be polite with him. I don't worry about the usual workplace etiquette, and I worry sometimes that it might affect our relationship."
Chris: "We don't really get to see each other as much as you would think. When we're at work we're doing our own thing, and when we're not at work we're exhausted."
Annie: "I know this will sound annoying to some people, but one of the hardest parts is that we love our dog. Because we work together all the time, we're never really home enough to be with him."

Could you work with your significant other? Most people say no! (My husband said he couldn't listen to me talk all day and all night.) Take the poll or share your thoughts below!

Weekend Roundup: This Week's Happy Days

If you haven't already joined the 100 Happy Days Challenge, come get in on the fun! Here's my happy week in review.

Sunday
Johnny can't stop hugging and we are LOVING it!*

Hugging Daddy

Monday
I got an unexpected gift from my two favorite boys! My husband painted the mug and Johnny put his handprints on it.

It sits on my desk, and this makes me smile every day.

Tuesday
One of my coworkers showed me this cartoon and it now hangs in my cube. It's nice when people know and accept your extroversion - even to a fault.

Wednesday
My son was in the car almost all day, so seeing him run around and giggle afterward made me happy.

Thursday
Had a great, productive day at work. It motivated me and I felt inspired to change futures and lives!

Friday

With 7 school days of school left, my husband already has his first commercial electrical job starting Monday. (Hooray! and phew!)

Saturday
St. Patty's Day Celebration! Our family is very big and very Irish. My Aunt Petrea does corned beef and cabbage like nobody's business. Here is Johnny soaking up the love (and attention) with his cousin Kathleen!

Seriously, the 100 Happy Days Challenge makes you FEEL better. Get on board, and track my progress here!


*He wraps his arms around your neck and says "Ahwudgu," which (roughly translated) means I love you. How much happier can you get?!

The Best Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo I Ever Had

I have to share this recipe for hands-down the best chicken fettuccine alfredo I've ever tasted!

 

My husband is one of the best cooks I know. While my recipes rely heavily on butter, garlic and bread crumbs, he is wildly creative and if something can be grilled, he will grill it. This makes all his food more flavorful and healthier.

Ingredients:

Half a box of fettuccine noodles
2 chicken breasts
1 red pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoons Grill Mates Montreal Chicken seasoning
1 fresh minced garlic clove or 1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Serves 2.

First, marinate the chicken using olive oil, vinegar, oregano, Montreal chicken seasoning, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Put all the dry spices in a bowl, then add the oil and water and whisk together until it becomes a watery paste. Dunk each side of the chicken in the marinade and cover with saran wrap in the fridge for at least an hour.

Your marinade ingredients

Put the chicken on the grill until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. You can use a regular meat thermometer or a digital one like we have (one of the advantages is being able to set a timer so you can focus on other things while your food is heating up outside. Slice the whole red pepper in half lengthwise and grill until heated through. Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and the pepper into inch-long strips.

 

Grilled chicken and red pepper. Very hard not to eat before everything else is ready.

 



Cook the fettuccine according to package directions.

For the sauce, my husband very loosely follows a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (14th edition). If you don't already have it, buy it here. It has a recipe for just about anything you want to cook, and we use it as a reference guide any time we're cooking something new.*

Melt 2 whopping tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and add the cream.

`

Note:
There has been a lot of confusion in my house over the years about the difference between whipping cream, heavy cream, heavy whipping cream, etc. Here's a pretty good explanation of the breakdown. We used the stuff pictured below from Walmart.

Add the salt, pepper and minced garlic and bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat. You want to keep a gentle, rolling boil going for the rest of the process, which can be tricky so give it your full attention because scraping burned whipping cream off your stove is a huge pain - take it from me.

Boil gently for 3-5 minutes (the longer it boils the thicker it will be; and remember that it will continue to thicken up after you take it off the stove). Add the parmesan cheese and sliced red pepper and stir.

Pour the sauce over your pasta and then add the chicken to top it off. Here's your finished product:

Sooo good.

Take it from everyone who's tried it this way: it's amazing. Grilling the chicken makes a huge difference in the flavor, and I would rather eat my husband's than Olive Garden's any day.**

 

*Though I love Pinterest for many things, the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook is much more reliable. I've ended up with some scary-looking foods that don't remotely resemble their gorgeous pictures on Pinterest.

**No disrespect to Olive Garden - their food is delicious.

Update: Trading Screen Time for a Healthier Family

I had every good intention when I decided to give up my smartphone during family time, and I'm counting on you guys to keep me honest. So I'll tell you: it's not as easy as I thought it would be.



Johnny getting an early start on the screen time addiction

I took the day off, and I never considered the amount of work-related correspondence I engage in when I'm not at the office. In the grocery store my husband pointed accusingly at my phone while I texted.

"What are you doing?" he asked, gesturing to the child in our shopping cart.

It also took a lot of restraint not to check Facebook and obsessively track my blog stats. I did my best, and we had a great day. But when my husband left for school in the evening, I knew what I had to do. I plugged my phone into the charger in the bedroom upstairs and went into the downstairs playroom with Johnny.*

The first toy he seized was his beloved soccer ball. Luckily, our playroom is big, so I decided to play catch with him. (Bear with me while I parent-brag - my 16 month-old not only throws balls directly to us, but he also dribbles the soccer ball with a dexterity he certainly didn't inherit from me.)

I discovered several things during this roughly 30 minute activity.

(1) When I used team-sport jargon like, "Johnny, I'm open! Throw it over here!" he was into it. It felt like we were playing a real game (without rules, of course).

(2) He got the hang of throwing the ball and waiting for me to throw it back, as opposed to chasing it.

(3) He really enjoys watching me run from one end of the room to the other. Consequently, if at any point I stood still, he nudged my leg with his hand to encourage me to dart across the room and throw him the ball.

(4) Apparently I haven't high-fived him enough in the past few months, because every time I tried he gently kissed my hand.**

(5) I am really out of shape. I broke a sweat within 5 minutes.

(6) Most importantly, my son and I laughed so hard we could hardly breathe (again, I'm out of shape).

Sorry I don't have any pictures or video, but as you know that was against the rules - and it would have broken our focus. We had a blast!

See the origins of this endeavor here.


P.S. In the spirit of honesty, I did jump on my phone once he was asleep (I'm weak!). So here are some links that made me laugh (or smile) this week.


*I never go into the downstairs playroom without my phone. What if he does something adorable and I don't catch it on video? What if he stands in the perfect light and I don't capture the image to share with all our friends and family? Or... what if his next word is "IPhone," as my aunt Peg suggested the last time I posted one too many videos?

**He high-fives his dad all the time. Definitely need to do this with him more, so he doesn't strictly associate Dad with playtime an Mom with hugs and kisses.

Links That Made Me Laugh

Note: I changed the language on my page but not on the links, so don't click if you don't want any bad words on your screen. #momtomom

1. 6 Things Every Extrovert Secretly Has to Deal With
Favorite Line: "Being an extrovert is a full-time social job that requires you to entertain the crowd, so when you suddenly stop doing what you’re supposed to do, you’re gonna get boo’d off stage."

http://thoughtcatalog.com/macy-sto-domingo/2014/03/6-things-every-extrovert-secretly-has-to-deal-with/


2. Jim Gaffigan on Hot Pockets
Favorite Line: "Will it burn my mouth?" "Oh, it will DESTROY your mouth."

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&pli=1#inbox/144954713b5b975b


3. The Story Behind "Love You Forever" Is Probably Not What You Thought
This actually made me tear up - not laugh - but it's definitely worth sharing.
Favorite Line: "It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing."

http://moms.popsugar.com/Truth-Behind-Love-You-Forever-31923286


4. 35 Pictures That Will Mess With Your OCD
Favorite Line: "Time to rewrite some notes."

http://www.newageman.co.uk/35-pictures-will-fuck-your-ocd


5. Dude Wears Yoga Pants, Tricks Guys Into Thinking He's a Girl
There is no favorite line. Just watch and smile!

http://www.doyouyoga.com/dude-wears-yoga-pants-tricks-guys-checking-ass/


Happy Friday everyone!


1. My friend Susie posted this. Extroverts do have complex thoughts! With that said, my mom (an introvert) always says of us social butterflies: "If they're not interrupting, they're not listening." Point taken.

2. A coworker sent this to me because I am disgusting and eat a Hot Pocket every day for breakfast. Judge away!

3. A short but beautiful story.

4. Another gem from Susie!

5. From my friend David, who always manages to make me laugh, even from miles away.

Trading Screen Time for a Healthier Family

Lent is upon us, and I thought long and hard about this before I decided to commit to it... I am giving up the use of my Smartphone while in the company of my husband and son.

There are too many times in recent memory when I half-listened to a story or missed an adorable moment because I was scanning through Facebook, Pinterest, Buzzfeed, Instagram or Twitter.

A few months ago my husband and I were sitting side by side, each of us scrolling through our IPhones, and I paused.

"Why don't we pay attention to each other?" I suggested.

He half-jokingly replied, "Why? We have IPhones."

Joking aside, it's true. Sometimes while we're having an interesting conversation one of us asks a question. Soon enough the other is googling the answer and by the time we find it, neither of us cares anymore and the conversation came to a halt.

Christmas Eve 2013:
My family, showing Christmas cheer by interacting with anyone but each other.

Last Saturday as we all sat in the playroom I was scanning through my phone. My husband and son were playing and I was vaguely aware of Johnny's squawks while I browsed away. Finally I turned and saw him gazing up at me, arms outstretched, begging for my attention. He wasn't grasping for my phone, which he sometimes does - he was grasping for me. It is that memory that made me decide:

The precious few hours a week I have with my boys are more important than anything a stranger or acquaintance has to say on social media.

If it's important, I will see it later.

Smartphones are great, and they have practical purposes. I'm not saying I won't search Google Maps if we're driving somewhere, or that I won't check the weather when we're discussing plans to fly a kite. If an emergency phone call comes through, I'll pick it up.

But for the next 40 days, my phone will stay away (maybe in my pocket - baby steps) while I think about the little things we sacrifice this season in order to honor the greatest sacrifice of all.


Are you giving up anything for Lent? Have you ever made a commitment to ignore social media for your family? Please share your thoughts and stories!


P.S. I've made commitments before, and it's important to know what you're getting yourself into (but so worth it if you do). Read about the #100happydays project here, and join in the fun!

Local Review: Blue Willow Restaurant

This weekend I got a rare treat: since I had to go into work on Saturday morning my husband told me to meet up with my mom and sister while he watched the baby so I could have some "me time." As an avid extrovert, I generally think "me time" is an overrated concept, but add the company of my two favorite ladies and it immediately sounds like a great idea!

(Source: http://www.bluewillowtucson.com/)

We went to lunch at the Blue Willow, which has been around forever (since 1978, to be precise). My mom and I love the restaurant, but it was my sister's first experience there. We were trying to think of a place with an outdoor patio that doesn't border one of Tucson's busy streets, so I suggested this restaurant. It has a beautiful enclosed patio in the back of the building filled with lattice, blooming plants, a fountain, and strings of lights.

My mom and I ordered the grilled chicken breast sandwich, made with basil pesto, tomato, mozarella cheese and served on brioche ($8.95).* My sister ordered the Eggs Benedict Blue Willow (also $8.95), even though it was 3pm. (I never judge anyone for eating breakfast at all hours - breakfast foods are often the best foods.) Everything we ordered was delicious.

My Grilled Chicken Breast Sandwich

If you care, they have Vegan and gluten-free menus. In fact, this restaurant is so healthy my sandwich came with a fruit garnishment instead of fries. Personally, I would prefer the fries, but if you're more health-conscious than I am you will enjoy the variety of healthy options they offer.

This restaurant was the perfect patio experience we were seeking, and it's classy enough for my mom but not too expensive - or so hoity toity my sister couldn't wear her workout pants.

Bonus: It also has a pretty cute gift shop! My coworker bought this magnet there:

*I realize this review would be more helpful had my mom and I ordered different meals, but it just sounded really good; sorry.

Thankful Thursday: Our Happy Jar

Everyone knows, or has read, or has heard it preached to them, that counting your blessings makes you feel happier. ("White Christmas," anyone?) And we all say Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I should count my blessings… whatever. Go away.

Well, thanks to Pinterest (of course) I found a fun and easy way to count our blessings. Get a decent-looking glass jar (my mom found this one for us at Garden Ridge in Phoenix*), then every time something makes you happy write it down on a little piece of paper and drop it in the jar, all year long.

My vision is that my husband, son and I spend Christmas Eve by the fire unfolding every piece of paper and smiling at each other, feeling blessed. A more realistic vision is probably one or both of us chasing Johnny around trying to keep him from doing a Kamikaze dive off a table or picking up Cheerios off the floor and eating them while the other attempts to read the notes aloud.

At first my husband made fun of it (of course – he has to poo-poo my nonstop attempts at positivity), so he wrote “Beer” on a piece of paper and dropped it in the jar. Later I caught him writing something he wouldn’t show me, and that’s really the whole point.

I don’t want to know what he writes, and I don’t want him to know what I write. But just like my Hundred Happy Days, this makes us conscious of the little things that make us feel good during the day-to-day grind. Life is hard. Work is hard; commuting is hard; parenting is hard; finding time to appreciate your significant other is hard. The list goes on and on. Finding idle moments to write on a piece of paper and put it in my silly jar is hard! But if we can do it every once in a while, hopefully our jar is filled to the brim by Christmas.

Like all my other attempts to bring positivity into our lives, this will take a little bit of work. But when I think about it, really, how hard is it for me to jot something down while Johnny munches food in his highchair? Sure, he yells at me for not paying attention to him, but when I (theoretically) put all these lovely memories into a scrapbook, he just might be glad that I did.**

If you have any tips for focusing on the positive things in life, please share them with me!

*See, again, how my mom makes my pipe dreams come to fruition and basically helps me function in life.

*Or perhaps my vision of teenage Johnny sitting on the sofa beside me looking through scrapbooks is also a little off. He will probably be calling me lame and making me call him John by then. He might laugh at his dad's "Beer" entry.

Monday Money Madness: Suddenly Living on One Income

I'm sure there are a lot of us who worry about money. I think about it all the time, especially since I had my son. I've been on both sides of the money situation. I have been so responsible I had enough to go out and buy a brand-new bed when I was five months pregnant and could no longer stand ours, and I've been so down-and-out that I couldn't run the heat in my car because I didn't have enough gas to get me through the work week.

After my son was born my husband decided to go back to school. He had reached the ceiling at his job and wanted to move forward, so he started taking classes Monday through Thursday from 5:30-10:30 at night. For awhile things were just busy and stressful; then, he lost his job. Things went from busy and stressful to terrifying. We realized that unless he could find a job that paid at least what he made before, it didn't make sense for him to go back to work. He became something he never thought he would be: a stay-at-home dad.

We also were down to one income. Instead of putting 20% of our earnings into savings the way we did before, we suddenly found ourselves living paycheck to paycheck. Afraid of running out of things like milk. Afraid to check the mail only to find bills we couldn't pay. Afraid we wouldn't have enough gas to get to work and school.

For most of my life I've believed that you don't talk about things like money, whether you have it or you don't. I kept our financial stress to myself because I was embarrassed. I didn't want my coworkers, or even my close friends, to know that my always successful husband was out of work and that we were barely scraping by.

Then one day, he told me that he shared our troubles with my coworker and good friend. I was mortified at first, not just because I didn't want anyone to know, but because I was afraid she would think I was deceptive for not telling her. Her reaction surprised and touched me.

This particular friend always seems to have it together. She and her husband are successful - as in, This weekend we bought a 70-inch TV or We pay $500 a month for our daughter's private school successful. The type of successful I've never been, and I always assumed it was because they were smarter or better or more responsible than we are.

She told me that she understood why I didn't say anything, and that she'd "been there." When I balked she looked me in the eye and said, "No, I mean I've been there. My husband lost his job when our daughter was a baby. I went back to work but we had to give up one of our cars. When he finally got a job one of us had to drop the other off. I know what it's like to have $13 that has to last two weeks until payday. And it's only in the past three years that we've stabilized."

I was shocked. Because I never say anything and she never brought it up, I had no idea that she really knew what I was going through. It gave me hope, because I know that when my husband graduates (in six weeks, by the way - hurray!) we will begin to "stabilize" too. I was also unburdened: I no longer had to tell her "I just don't have the time" to get my hair done. I could admit that I can't afford it. And she said she was praying about our situation, so now, simply because she knows, I have extra prayers shooting up to heaven for us.

I am also grateful because since I opened up to her, our friendship opened up too. She started to tell me about her own burdens - and maybe she would have anyway - but there is a trust that exists now because we started talking about things we never did before.

There are all kinds of stresses we keep secret, either because we want the rest of the world to think we have it all together or because we just don't want to talk about it. But I've found that opening up to someone creates a new reality: you don't have to hide your troubles all the time. Certainly my boss doesn't want us to start having therapy sessions on the clock, and we're both too busy with our own families to get together outside of work. But just the fact that we know what's going on in one another's lives means that someone else understands what we're going through. And all of us could use some extra prayers on our side.

My husband and I celebrated Valentine's Day the way we've spent many happy nights: home, talking, cooking and eating. Some things have changed: we're down to one income and there was a one year-old asleep upstairs, but we are still laughing. I'm proud of his accomplishments and we love each other, so we're "successful" as far as I'm concerned.

If any of you have "secret stresses," or stories of sharing them, please tell me about it! I hope things get easier, and if everything's going smoothly, I hope it continues that way.

100 Happy Days

I am always looking for ways to stay positive and feel better, so when I saw this project I decided I had to try it. (Don't get me wrong: I spent a whole Sunday debating about it because honestly, it's kind of a big commitment when your free time usually = brushing your teeth before bed.)*

http://100happydays.com/

I'm enjoying this project for several reasons. One: I know I will be able to look back on a bunch of happy memories because I committed to posting them on Facebook. Two: I notice things in a different way when I have to document them. (Ordinarily I might not pay much attention when my husband does some small, nice thing, but if I stop, take a picture, and post it, I will.) Three: I am constantly looking for reasons to be happy, because I know I have to produce a picture by the day's end! And looking for reasons to be happy kind of makes me feel happier in general!

Click on the picture to see Day 22:

Check out my ongoing efforts here: #100happydays


*When I make comments about being busy or having very little free time, I am rarely complaining. Everyone is busy. Talking about my busy schedule is just context, unless I admit I am complaining... which I promise I will always do.

The Work Week Should Have to Go By as Fast as the Weekend!

From http://thefunnyplace.net/sayings/page/3/