My Happiness Project: Week One

For the first week of my project (last week, July 1-7), I picked two things I wanted to create good habits with, then to continue them throughout the rest of my weeks. And forever, obviously.

I felt I kind of HAD to pick "Home," since I'd be moving, unpacking and settling into a new home. 

Naturally, I picked "Marriage" as my second area, because my marriage is my most valued possession. It's so easy to take it for granted, but I don't want to.

So here was my game plan/results:

Home

- Get COMPLETELY unpacked and settled (last time we moved I was still waiting to hang stuff and unpack some things when we moved out. Yikes.)
----> I don't have everything hung, and I'm still moving things around in my pantry and from cabinet to cabinet based on my mood, but I did pretty good!

- It's the little things: close cabinets & drawers, keep closet & pantry doors shut, keep clutter off the coffee table
----> Still working on this through the clutter, but I'm making a conscious effort to scan a room when I leave it and just tidy up a tiny bit - close the doors, turn off the lights, put things back. It makes a difference.

- Don't put anything off that takes less than a minute to do. I unabashedly stole this one from The Happiness Project because it just stuck with me so easily. It just makes sense and it's simple.
----> I actually wrapped up and put my curling iron away you guys. I'm serious.

Marriage

- Pray together before bed. I know. Pathetic that we didn't already do this. We had such different schedules for most of our marriage so far, that we didn't always go to bed at the same time. Now we do, and I wanted to make this a habit.
----> This has made the single biggest difference of anything I've ever tried to do to improve my marriage. Wow. We take turns praying aloud each night and it really is amazing. It means I'm not making to-do lists in my head mid-silent prayer, not falling asleep, not forgetting things I wanted to pray for/about. And it's really made me feel like we're on the same team after a crazy freaking 2 months of chaos.

- Stop criticizing. I'm the worst. Even just little things like "You never take out the trash" said in passing. Where is that getting either of us? No where. So why do I do it? Because I'm the worst. If it helps, I'm also super mean-critical of myself pretty much every second of the day. Doesn't help? Ok.
----> I'm working on making requests, not criticisms or demands. Like "Hey could you please take the trash out after this inning? You are my favorite. Thank you."

- Learn our Love Languages. I'm a big believer in love languages, so I re-read the book this week. It was really interesting to see how different it was from when I read it 2 years ago when we were newly engaged.
----> The Beard is a big quality time language guy. He loves it when I make time to just watch a baseball game or a movie with him, no Pinterest, no books, just cuddles. As a chronic multi-tasker, it doesn't always come naturally. But I'm working on it!
----> I'm an Acts of Service girl. It really means the most to me when he does things that I know he doesn't want to do. He thinks this means what I really love is torturing him. So we're working on that. (GOING TO MOVIES ISN'T TORTURE, RYAN)

- Family Counsel. We sit down, talk about where we're at, how we're doing, what we're worried about, what we need to work on and make a plan. We used to do it a lot when we were first married, and it kind of trickled off, I guess. Welcome back, marriage DTR!!!!
----> We did it! We even took notes and made lists and goals with due dates! We also decided on a family motto - "Do More." Good, right?! We recognized that laziness is so tempting to us, we need to fight it actively.

Overall, I'm pretty pumped after week one. It was a good, doable week and I feel refreshed and happy. The tough part will be continuing with these resolutions as I add new ones each week.

Puppy Time!

It's finally happening! After all of these years! I'm going to have a little shih-tzu of my own. Don't worry. No one could ever replace my Blade. I'll love him forever and ever. He was my first, as they say. Still, I've wanted one that's all mine. Well, and The Beard's.

I've been looking more seriously in the past week or so and called on a few KSL ads, but nothing really came up. I just had the feeling that it would just HAPPEN. Like a stork dropping one off on my doorstep.

On Friday, The Beard and I were pulling into the mall when we saw a lady on the corner with a "Puppy for Sale!" sign and a cute little puppy guy running around with her kids. We whipped around to talk to her, and as we were stuck at the light we watched some JERK in an Isuzu pull up and buy the puppy. The lady pries the puppy out of her emotionally compromised 5 year old's arms, and hands him through the window of the Isuzu, and SHIZ HIT THE FAN.

The little girl became completely hysterical. We're talking gnashing and wailing, sackcloth and ashes, drama. She's punching her mom, screaming and thrashing while her mom tries to calm her down. It was traumatizing and hilarious.

Later we had a few hours to kill before meeting up with the Porter's for date night. We pulled into PetSmart because I was getting puppy hungry, but it just made me sad to not have my own. We took a random back road to Target because, well, it's Target. As we're driving down this random back road, we see a sign that says "4 Small Dogs 4 Sale." We pulled over. Obvs.

The house looked less than perfect suburbian material. Still, we navigated the debris in the front yard to the door. When we asked about the sign, the wife looked surprised.

"Wow! Yeah we have some puppies. They're only 4 weeks and we usually don't put the sign out until they are ready, but my husband said 'Hey, let's put the sign out early!' so it's funny that you came by."

Prayer WORKS you guys. 

They had 5 little shih-tzus, 4 that we got to play with. I melted completely at the sight of baby shih-tzus (see crazy blonde in the photo below), but the big surprise was The Beard. He instantly went for "Tank," the chubby little black puppy (the puppy Ryan is holding on the left, two below). I really liked the brown little girl puppy but he crushed on Tank hard and fast. And you can't say no to true love, people. He is the cutest little (fat) puppy and we did want a boy. Perfect match.

We're total goners for this little guy. Now, we can't go get him until he's eating on his own, in about 2 weeks (fingers crossed for less!). Did we go straight to Target and buy puppy stuff including but not limited to a dish, bed, leash and collar?

We're not CRAZY. (We are.)