Do you ever have one of those days where you just have the blahs? Nothing is really going particularly wrong, but for some reason your mood is off somehow, and nothing seems to fix it. Well, I seem to have been having the blahs for the past two days. This happens every once in a while, and luckily I'm able to pull myself out of the moods pretty quickly, but it does tend to put a damper on a New Year's Eve celebration when Mama is feeling grumpy. Yesterday I was definitely feeling sorry for myself for no reason in particular. Thank goodness, as I've gotten older I have been a lot more introspective about these moods, and I know that I just need to give myself a bit of time, and I'll pull out of the doldrums. I wish that I could say that my mood was just influenced by end-of-the-year introspective thoughts where I was consumed with my memories of the past year and thoughts of the passage of time, but, alas, it was not that simple. It was just something completely irrational that needed to be cured through the passage of time -- with a healthy dose of dark chocolate and carbs as medicine. Herman was a total sweetheart during my blah mood -- I know that the experience of more than eighteen years of marriage has given him good knowledge of how to handle things when Miss Melissa gets grumpy. He noticed my sadness and came home with a bouquet of flowers and a twelve pack of diet caffeine-free Dr. Pepper. Then he gathered the kids for some fun games while giving me some time to veg-out in my room. It was a total blessing. My mood didn't totally go away, but I was able to get myself together enough to come join the family for the New Year's Eve celebration at the end of the night. Sadly, it wasn't as exciting as it could have been if I had been running at 100%, but it was still nice. Katie, Hyrum, and JoJo really went all out in planning something fun. Their highlight of the celebration? Cheese Puffs! I know. Don't get too jealous over our cheese puff celebration. But I'm no fan of cheese puffs, so I never, ever buy them, so for the kids this was something way awesome to show their excitement for a new year.
I hoped that a good night's sleep would help me to get over this funky mood, but circumstances again conspired against me. I had a horrible night's rest. I could not go to sleep, no matter what I tried. We do have some sleep medicine to use in emergencies, but by the time it hits 3:30 in the morning I feel like it is too late to depend on them. I tried to tough it out. I did not wake up feeling rested at all, so my mood wasn't helped by the sleep deprived headache I was suffering through. 2012 was not getting off to a great start.
But this isn't a story of a grumpy mom on New Year's Day. This is a story of me getting over the blahs today and regaining my excitement for a great new year. Things started when I headed to church with my family this afternoon. I was teaching my primary class, which I love. I really love to teach. I don't like being in charge of things much, but I do love to teach in different capacities, and this fun group of nine year-olds I work with are a lot of fun to work with. They have a lot of energy that can sometimes be a challenge to contain. There are days when I wonder if I am even making a lick of difference as I try to teach while they are bouncing off the walls. But today we began a new year of study, and this year we are studying the Book of Mormon. Love it! I decided to give my class a pretty big goal to read the entire book by the end of the year. I didn't know how it would go over. For kids who are still gaining their reading chops, this might not seem like a very appealing goal. As I gave them the goal I wasn't sure what their thoughts were. I wondered if anyone would try it at all. Well, I was super excited when I got home to see a facebook message from one of my student's mom. She told me that her son had already finished one entire book even though I only told them they needed to read two pages a day. This little boy is one that I would have never expected to take the challenge seriously because he is always cracking silly jokes in class, but apparently he came right home and started reading so that he could get ahead of the game. That made me happy. Maybe I am reaching these kids. Yea!
Then when I got home I got another "hurray!" moment for the day. I found an email in my inbox from one of my favorite authors, Courtney Cole, asking me if I could look over her latest book and give my thoughts before she sent it off to her editor before publishing it. Hurray! This is one of my favorite things to do, and her latest book is going to be awesome. I've already read the first two chapters and LOVE it! This is a spin-off series from her Bloodstone Saga books, which I loved as well. So I'm in the midst of reading. I'll add a review when I get the okay from Courtney, but for now I can say that so far I highly recommend it. You can find the goodreads.com link to the book here.So a few little neat experiences, the support and patience of my wonderful family, a load of chocolate, and a little time finally got me out of my rut. Thank goodness. Those moods are no fun for anyone. Luckily there are still a few hours left of this New Year's Day, so I'll close with twelve goals that I have for 2012.
- More patience with my children. That's a constant goal. I'm getting a lot more mellow with age, but I still could use an extra dose of patience each day so that I can truly enjoy the moments I have with them.
- More love for my husband. Is that even possible? I already think he is the bomb-diggiest man on the planet who can rock my socks daily. But it is always good to keep this as a constant goal as well so that things are never boring or ordinary. Every day is a day I can appreciate him more than the day before.
- Read (or re-read) more classic literature. When life gets hectic I like to load up on total fluff reading -- you know, the kind of books that are fun and fast but have little substance. But I like to take a bit of time to head back to the classics, especially Victorian lit, so that my brain keeps working.
- Declutter. Declutter. Declutter. Too much stuff leads to too much mess leads to grumpy mama.
- More days in the park. Maybe not in the dead of winter. I'm not a total martyr as a mom, but I would like to take a few more days to leave the house with the kids and enjoy the outdoors.
- Better filing. This is a boring one, but it has to be here, nonetheless. I have a kick-butt filing system -- when I choose to use it. But with the craziness of our last year I got to where I was just unloading things in huge piles in our office/junk room. That has got to change. I'm starting to take my office back by doing a half-hour room rescue every day until it is decluttered, filed, and cleaned.
- I'm back on FlyLady. It is the best cleaning system out there for me, and I am so much happier and more efficient when I do her program. I don't know why I keep falling off this wagon, but I'm jumping back on this week.
- Take some more time to enjoy having Laney at home during the day. Yes, she is doing her online classes, but she breezes through them pretty fast, so she has some extra time in her day. I only have about a year and a half of her home with us until she heads to college, so I need to make sure I take advantage of this time. It is my classic reaction when one of the kids heads to kindergarten that I spend some time regretting the wasted time that I did not enjoy with them before they leave home, and I don't want to feel the same way when Laney goes to college.
- More consistent scripture study. When I study my scriptures regularly things seem to roll much more smoothly for me. I'm not sure why this is. It isn't that I don't have problems, but maybe I'm just more confident in my ability to handle them.
- Monthly temple attendance. I need it, so I gotta do it if I want the blessings.
- Doing a better job of archiving our life with pictures and stories behind them. I have tons of publishing points with Heritage Makers, so I'm going to sit down and publish some of our stories so that they aren't just stuck on my computer for no one to see.
- Smile more. I like to smile. I do. But I have a natural scowl that sticks around if I don't think about it too much. I think I have a creepy looking smile, but I'm going to use it more, and then maybe I'll get used to it.
So there are my goals for the year. I imagine I won't end the year having reached all of them consistently, but if this year goes like all my other years, I'm sure that I'll end up better at this time next year than I am as the year began, and that's a good direction to be headed, I think.
So, have a wonderful new year. I'm planning on having one myself!
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| I had to add this picture of the New Year's display in the Hong Kong harbor since it reminded me of seeing the light show here while we were visiting Hong Kong in November. |
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