May Happiness Project Recap

What I’ve learned from this months happiness project….

That my family is not a “sunday breakfast” family. Most Sunday’s I forgot to even suggest it or my husband slept in and Jack and I ate or it was Mother’s Day and I slept in. There was even one Sunday when I offered to make breakfast and John turned down strawberry scones. So yeah we just aren’t those people.

But we might be ice cream in the afternoon people…we went out for ice cream on Memorial Day and it was really nice. And I remember us doing this last summer and how nice it was.

Biting my tongue and letting go of things that annoy me is really a lot better than aknowledging them. I avoided a lot of unnecessary arguments this month. Like not criticizing when John worked late or when he forgot to take the trash out. And what I noticed was I wasn’t as annoyed by these things if I decided in advance that I wouldn’t be. And I’m proud of myself for not mentioning it especially that Sunday when he went to work on his one day off.

People know what you are going to nag them about but they don’t notice when you don’t. Like after a long day with Jack, I had sat down for the first time all day to watch the Nashville finale and Bailey started whining to go outside. I said to John do you mind taking the dog out? And he said he would but 5 minutes later the dog was still whining. I got up and took Bailey out and I said nothing. When I came back in John was mad, “I was going to do it, you have no patience, why couldn’t you just wait, now you are going to be mad”. When I explained that I didn’t want to listen to the dog bark, I decided to take him out and wasn’t mad, John was totally confused.

We need plans. I know I said I was going to plan small but I found that when we didn’t have much of a plan we spent the day at home and by the end of the day none of us were happy. Jack and I particularly need a break from the house and when John is home it’s way more fun to do things as a family.

Don’t fall 3 years behind on your photo albums, just don’t. I am having the hardest time catching up and organizing all of my pictures and there are seriously thousands of them. The funny thing is I always swore I would keep organized albums for my kids.

But with the exception of John we love taking pictures and having our pictures taken.

We are a family of shouters. We all shout across the house and there seems to be no changing that.

That it’s much easier to accept the family you have than to try and change them. Maybe we aren’t morning breakfast makers and maybe we are shouters but that is us. Life is much easier when I let things go and don’t nag or try to force my idea of “fun” on others.