Two Peas Journaling prompts 01/05

*Name three people whose lives have been improved by knowing you, and explain why.

*Think of a loved one that you have lost. If you could ask this person one question, what would you ask, and what do you think they would say?

When did you first realize you would someday be old or someday die?

These prompts were found here

While it would be easy to pick the first one today and just say my three kids, I have picked the easy ones so far, so this one I thought I would pick one that is a little bit harder for me.

The person I would want to ask a question of would be my Grandma Hunt. At the time that grandma's health was fading there where a few family members who took the time to trade off a bit to help take care of grandma. Most of the care was taken care of by my uncle and aunt and their children. They are the family who lived in the same town as Grandma and they always took such good care of her, before she got sick and after. I am so thankful that they were there to take care of her.

My mom made quite a few trips up to Utah to spend a few weeks at a time taking care of grandma. I guess sometimes it was just for a few days or for as long as she could get away. Other times were longer. We lived in the same town as my parents and I could have arranged to have a few days off of work to go with my mom on at least one of the trips up to take care of Grandma. It would have been a bit of a hardship, but it could have been done.

My reasoning for not going was that I wanted to remember her the way she was before she started to get sick. She lost much of her memory and maybe I was a big wimp and very selfish. I told myself it was ok because I really thought that grandma would prefer that I remembered her they way she was before she got sick and not the grandma that couldn't remember things.

So my question would be, is that what she really would have preferred or would she rather have had me come to visit before she passed on. Unfortunately I don't know for sure what her answer would have been. I loved my grandma and I wish I knew which way she would have preferred it and if I made the right choice.

Two Peas Journaling prompts 01/04

*- Is there something you are reluctant to say to someone? Pretend that you are telling a third party and summarize what you would like to say. Continue the exercise by considering what would happen if you actually told the person involved. How would you feel afterward?

*- What can you do to nurture your important relationships?

*- Do you know your "hot buttons"? The ones that anyone can press and set you off? (If you're not sure, just ask your friends. They know.)

I got these ideas from journaling prompts

I think that in the case of all of my important relationships the thing that I can do to better nurture them is to share the feelings I have for them more often. I tend to get caught up in my every day things and don't take the time to shows those that I love just how much I love them.

Two Peas Journaling prompts 01/03

*Over the past week, I made someone smile when I...

*I deserve to be treated...

*The future of my country looks...

I got these ideas from Journaling Prompts

This one is a really easy one for me. I got huge smiles from our little guy a lot. He is such a happy kid for the most part and I love to see his smile. The girls call it his "colon capital D" smile. :D Yeah, that one. He is a bit of a mommy's boy right now, but then most babies are attached to their mommies when they are the source of the food. I get tons of smiles from him each day. I have not smiled this much in such a long time. His smiles are so contagious.

It is so fun to hear him make little noises from his chair to get our attention. When we acknowledge him and his little noises, he gets the biggest smile on his face. I love being a mom and I love our little guy. I haven't felt this much peace in such a long time. Just having him here with us feels so great.

I'm going to add a picture that was taken a couple of days ago of our sweetie. I can never get a picture of him smiling, and the red eye is horrible in this one, but it is such an adorable picture anyway.

Two Peas Journaling prompts 01/02

The one I picked to blog about is in bold.

*Within the next 3 months, I plan to...

*The thing I wish other people would get about me is...

*Describe yourself spiritually

I got these ideas from Journaling Prompts

This one is kind of easy after yesterday's post. Within the next 3 months, I plan to work really hard to keep my goals for the year with the main focus being on my word for the year. LEARN. I am thinking of a few ways that I can make learning the focus of each day. For one thing I want to make some sort of a wall hanging that I can put close to my computer. I think having something pretty to look at and just having the word be right there for me to see each day will help to remind me what I need to be working for.

Quite a few years ago I purchased Dr. Phil's book, "Self Matters". I also bought the workbook. I have read introduction at least four times since I bought the book and never went any further. This month I will be cracking the book open once again, but this time I will finish it. Whether this book will help or not, we will see. My reasoning for using it first is that I have both the book and the workbook already. It would be silly to spend more money when I haven't tried this one out yet. I don't know where I will go after this one, but it is a good place to start.

I also am going to spend the next three months working on my picture a day. I tried to do it last year and it didn't take too long before I forgot to take the pictures. I'm going to do it this year. The first two days are accomplished so far. Two down. Many, many more fun memories to capture this year. I am thinking that it might be fun to post the pictures and stories once a week.

Other than those two things, I will make more time for crafting and try to manage my time better so I can get done what needs to be done around the house so that I don't feel guilty for working on my crafts. Working on meal plans, shopping, and managing money will also be looked into and researched.

I'm having fun already!

Journaling prompts

I love to spend time at Two Peas in a Bucket on the message boards. Most people wouldn't guess it, since I very rarely comment. One lady offered to post some journaling prompts every day for those who want to spend more time writing in their journals this year. I thought it would be fun to join in. She posts three and we can pick any of those three. I want to have them all on here so that sometimes I can go back and answer some of the others, but even just one a day will be a huge stretch and accomplishment for me.

The prompts for today are:

*I plan to accomplish the following three things this year...

*Five years from now I plan to be....

*Ten memories from the past year are....

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These journaling ideas were taken from the following website Journaling Prompts.

I feel like I already answered the first one in my previous post, so I will call it good for today. I really like the other two questions though, so I hope I find the time to come back and do those.

I am really looking forward to this coming year. I see a lot of learning and changing. I also see a lot more fun!

Happy 2011!

A new year has arrived. So much has happened to our family since I last posted. I can't believe that I never even really posted about being pregnant and now we have our little Matthias in our family. I certainly need to do better.

I decided that I am not going to set any "resolutions" for this year. I have a few things that I would like to work on but I'm not going to make it a pass or fail kind of thing. I know that I am going to have times when I just don't keep up with what I want to do. We have an infant in the house. I would be silly to expect perfection from myself this year. I don't want perfection but I do want some changes and growing in my life. That is what I will be striving for.

First off will be my "One Little Word". My word for 2011 is going to be Learn. I was having a tough time picking between learn, change, and fearless. All three of those words are things that I really need to work on. What finally helped me make the final decision was looking back at my word from last year.

Last year I picked Dance. My idea behind picking that word was that I really needed to focus on what I thought of me and not what others thought of me. If I could find a way to "dance" and not care what others thought, then I would be on the right path. If I could just be happy being me. My other inspiration for picking the word dance was this quote:

"Life's not about waiting for the storms to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain."
~Vivian Greene

I didn't do a good job of focusing on Dance. I found that it is really hard to just be myself when I don't really know who I am. I have no idea. I know it sounds pretty sad and maybe hard to believe, but I just don't. For so many years, maybe most of my life, I have worried too much about what other people think of me. I have made my life choices based on what I think others would like me to do. I have totally lost sight of myself, if I ever even knew myself. I know for sure that I let people's opinions of me matter way too much all the way back in high school.

So how can I dance and be me when I don't even know who me is. Thus this years' word. Learn!!! I need to learn who I am. I need to find me. I need to know who I am. What makes me tick and what makes me happy. This is really scary for me. There are a few people who I will always care about what they think. My family. My husband and kids and my parents and siblings. I do care what my friends think and how my changes might effect them, but I can't let that stop me from doing what I need to do. My big fear is that I will figure out who I am and that the people I love more than anything will not like me. What if so much changes that they are not able to love me anymore? I can just hope that they will love me anyway, and maybe more so because they are actually loving the real me.

The time has come to Learn who I am.

Also going along with the word Learn, I will also be focusing on learning a few other things.

I want to Learn how to knit better. A wonderful friend gave me some knitting lessons. I had fun but learned crochet at the same time. Crochet came easier to me and I had so much fun with it that I didn't really practice the knitting.

I want to Learn how to budget our money so that we are not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. It is way past time that I spent some time focusing on this.

I want to Learn how to be a better mom to my kids. It is so interesting to be starting over with a tiny little one. I see so many difference from the way I was when the girls were young. I do like the "new" mom that I am this time around much better than the one I was with them. Mostly just because I have relaxed a lot and I realize just how quickly the time goes.

I also would love to go back to school. I don't know if this will be attainable this year, but I really need to learn new things. I feel so much like I am losing my "brains". I have never been good at certain subjects but I can't even remember stuff about the subjects that I loved anymore. They say that if you don't use it, you lose it. I have lost it. I want to learn new things.

I am sure there are many other things I can think of that I want to learn. I'm going to start with those things and see where this word takes me this year. I'm so excited and also a lot scared.

Some of my other things that I would like to do this year are:

Spend more time creating things. This includes scrapbooking, crochet, knitting, cooking. I love creating things! I need to spend more time doing it.

Send more greeting cards. I have really been slacking off in this area for way too long. I love it when people recognize my special day. I need to make sure that I am doing what I can to recognize and celebrate the people in my life. They need to know how much I treasure them.

Read more. I have always loved reading. Some times I read a lot more than others but lately the reading time has been pretty nonexistent. Since I had Matthias I have not read much at all. I know that things are busy with an infant in the house, but seriously, I have to feed him quite a few times a day. I need to spend at least a good portion of that time reading instead of watching TV.

Menu plan and shop accordingly.

I am sure that I will come across more things that I want to work on. I always do. This is a good start and probably a little ambitious. I realize that I probably won't be able to do everything, thus the reason this is not a pass/fail type of thing. I just want to work harder to accomplish the things that I think will make me happy. Maybe as I learn more about who I am, the things I want to change will change, but the biggest, most important thing is to find me.

Happiness Project

With some help, I have set three goals for myself. Things that both of us think will help to improve me and my relationships. The goals are to work on my communication skills, organize my house, and read some books that might help me to find out who I am and who I want to be.

Not to long ago I found the blog of Gretchen Rubin about her Happiness Project. Since then I have been interested to read her book and see what I think about it. I bought the book for my Kindle shortly after, but didn't really take the time to look at it. It was a book I wanted to get to, but it was never top on my list. It needed to be moved there though. And now it is.

Her main reason for starting her happiness project was not that she wasn't happy to begin with. She says, "I had everything I could possible want--yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. I didn't want to keep taking these days for granted. The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: 'What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.' I didn't want to look back, at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and thing, "How happy I used to be then, if only I'd realized it."

This really struck me. I have a really good life. I have friends and family who love me. Instead of being thankful for them and being thankful that they are in my life, I question and wonder why they love me. What I really have to offer them and when am I going to do something that will make them stop. It isn't all happiness and roses here. We do have our struggles, some relationships more than others, but I love my friends and family. Sometimes the struggles make the learning, growing, and loving happen even more.

Gretchen says, "I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change."

Exactly!! I get stuck in my little ruts and my little bouts of self-pity and don't allow myself to recognize all of the things that I have to be thankful for. That is not fair to those that I love.

Gretchen did a lot of reading, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. She did a lot of research on what she could do to improve her level of happiness or at least her recognition of her happiness. Heaven knows I have not done nearly that amount of research, but I can benefit at least a little bit from her research. Her reading showed her that she had to answer two crucial questions.

1. Do I believe it is possible to make myself happier?
2. What it happiness?

Happiness is different things to different people. Yeah, we could go to a dictionary and get the actual definition, but what makes one person happy doesn't necessarily make the next person happy.

Gretchen also made sure that it was clear that to opposite of happiness is unhappiness, not depression. Depression is serious and its causes and remedies were far beyond the scope of her happiness project.

To complete the happiness project, Gretchen set twelve resolutions, one to focus on each month of the year. Within these resolutions she set definable and trackable goals to accomplish them. She also set her twelve commandments and her Secrets of Adulthood that would help her to accomplish her resolutions.

It sounds like a very interesting project. Something that I could most likely benefit from. I am going to do some thinking and some working on things and see if I can come up with resolutions, commandments, and secrets that I can use to complete my own happiness project. We will see how it goes.

What I can say at this point is that I wish I had not purchased this on the Kindle, but in an actual book format. There aren't many books that I would want to mark up or put notes in, but I think this one would be one of those.