Some of the reasons why I am Happy

Most days are average.  Obviously.
A sad number of days are, well, sad.
A good number of days are great.

Today was excellent.

Why?  No special reason, I guess.  At least, no external reasons.

But I think I've discovered four things I can do to help my mood:

1. Have a clean house.
2. Be active in life, not passive.
3. Exercise.
4. Increase spirituality.

If you hate long posts, you can stop here.  If you care about the intricate details of my life and how I reached those conclusions and how they're affecting me, please, take a seat, grab a snack, and read on.

1. Have a clean house.

No, seriously.  It's only been the past few months or so, but I'm starting to realize that the state of my house drastically impacts my mood.  The days I wake up and piles of laundry are the first things I see, then I get up and the bathroom is dirty and toys are everywhere and dishes aren't done (though that's more rare because BJ usually does dishes before bed) and the floor needs to be vacuumed and the kitchen is sticky, etc., etc., are the days that I'm in a bad mood.  When I'm gloomy all day.  When I'm close to tears.  When any little whine from Kessa drives me from the room because it grates on my very raw nerves.

Lately I've recognized the correlation and have started to experiment upon it.  Not that I sometimes leave my house messy so that I can see if my mood darkens.  Rather, I try to keep my house cleaner, hoping that I'll stay happy.  Then when I start to slip because I'm not naturally a clean and organized person, I notice that my mood is slipping and look around to see what the state of my house is.

Yesterday, for example, I was in a good mood in the morning, then for no apparent reason, I started to become more sullen.  Kessa had been happy.  No bad things had happened.  And yet I found myself becoming melancholy.  Kessa read into that mood and became more clingy and needy.  That's when I looked around and noticed that my house was rather untidy.  But by that point Kessa wouldn't let me put her down so I could clean.  I bemoaned this fact to BJ.  I recognized that my mood was darkening, and that it was probably due largely to my dirty house, but Kessa wouldn't let me do anything about it.

Just then my dear friend Tiffany mentioned that she was going home to an empty house and wasn't looking forward to it.  I begged her to come to my house instead.  Maybe she could distract Kessa long enough for me to at least straighten it up.  She agreed.  Hooray!  Miraculously, Kessa started playing happily by herself long enough for me to get most of the house tidied so when Tiffany got here we were able to just chat.  By the time she left I was in a much, much happier mood.

Today I worked on keeping the house tidy.  I vacuumed.  I tidied up after play times.  I made my bed.  I cleaned off counters.  I took out garbage.  BJ did dishes.

2.  Be active in life, not passive.

This is harder to define, and thus has been a much longer time in coming for me to recognize.  The idea started forming one day when Kessa was napping and I was dinking around on the Internet, reading all of my regular sites.  Everything was up to date.  I had nothing left to read.

And I was bored.

I kept checking all of them to see if, per chance, anything had updated.  I played mindless games.  I knew that there were other things I could do, even on the computer.  Like blog.  Or work on my budget.  Or write in my journal.  But I didn't want to do any of that.  I wanted to be entertained.  I didn't want to do anything.

That's when I started to realize that I was addicted to the Internet.

I forced myself to get off the computer.  To do something.  Anything.  For the next several days I started limiting my computer time.  I left the computer on so I could have music playing, but I turned on the screensaver and pushed the chair in.  I made lists of things I needed to do in my house.  I focused on playing with Kessa.  And I was still drawn to the computer.  I found myself unconsciously walking toward it several times per day.

I found that when I sat at the computer and did mindless stuff, it sucked my emotions, too.  It made me not want to do anything.  It made me passive in general.  I didn't want to do things.  I got bugged if Kessa wanted my attention when I wanted to be dinking on the Internet.

Today I made a point to get off the computer and live life a little bit.  Kessa and I went to lap time at the library.  We didn't stay the whole time because Kessa didn't care about the songs and stories; she just wanted to pull books off the shelves and not put them back on or read them.  She was having fun, but it was really distracting for the other kids.  So we left.  I taught her how to color (maybe she should have learned this ages ago?  We didn't have crayons!).  We took the yellow crayon and ran around the house excitedly (well, I was being bubbly anyway.  She was just watching.) pointing out everything that was yellow.  Yellow is one of those words that sound funny when you say it too many times.  We went walking.  I'm giving Kessa more practice with walking.  (Not that I'm anxious for her to walk or anything.  I'm actually perfectly content with her crawling.  But I wanted to get out and get some exercise and fresh air.)  She crawled up all of our stairs.  Twice.  She walked up and down the hill to our playground.  She figured out that she had to turn around and crawl backwards down the steep part of the hill.  We sat in the sand and dug it up and made the hard sand soft.  I put her in the stroller and walked to the pharmacy to fill a prescription.

And while she napped I did productive things.  I cleaned.  I let myself have some computer time.  I read my scriptures.  I even just laid down and relaxed.  I had dinner almost ready when BJ got home.  (Though, that was while she drank a bottle and ate fruit leather, not while napping.)

3. Exercise.

I hate to admit to this.  I mean, I know that exercise is good for you and yadda, yadda.  But I hate to exercise.  Even my loathing of not being able to lose weight and fit into my clothes again isn't motivation enough for me to actually exercise regularly.  I hate being sweaty and out of breath.  I hate feeling out of shape.  And it's boring.

Just before Conference BJ and I went to the temple.  I passed out while kneeling.  Turns out I have bad circulation.  I asked BJ what I could do to improve my circulation.  He told me aerobic exercise to strengthen my heart.  Ugh.  Curse him.  But that was a much bigger motivation for me.  Not being able to fully serve in the temple because of my health was a huge wake up call.  It motivated me to actually start riding my exercise bike every morning.  I actually get out of bed in the morning and ride.  BJ is awesome and takes care of Kessa in the morning while I ride my bike and shower.  (Which also motivates me to get up, because if I start late, BJ gets to work late.)  And know what?  After almost 2 weeks of riding my bike, it's getting a lot easier.  I don't have to lay down for 10-15 mins afterward before I'll trust my legs to support me in the shower.  (Don't judge my out of shapeness. :P )  I don't feel like I want to die anymore.  In the far recesses of my brain I'm toying with the idea of upping my 20-minute ride to 30 minutes.  Y'know, if I can convince myself to get up right on time.  And today I started reading a book while I ride.  It made the ride go so much faster!  Good idea, Tianna.

And (surprise, surprise, I know) today I weighed in at the lowest weight I've been for over a year.  It was very exciting.*  But I keep telling myself that I'm not exercising to lose weight.  That's a great bonus, but I'm exercising for my health.  Jalin presented this idea to me months ago, and I liked the idea of it, but I had never gotten around to convince myself that I wanted to do it for my health, either.  Guess God took the reins on that one.  :)

4. Increase spirituality


This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.  Increasing spirituality does wonders for your mood.  At least, it does for me.  BJ and I have made a point to increase the Spirit in our home.  And actually, we consciously made that decision because we were trying to figure out how to better my moods.  I was having a really hard time dealing with Kessa when she was whiny and I was scared to death at the prospect of multiple kids.  I didn't want to push away my kids.  I didn't want to resent my kids.  I wanted to happily be an active part in their lives, not handing them off to someone else every chance I got because I had had enough and needed to get away.  I knew there was no way I'd ever be a single-child parent, which meant that it was my attitude that needed to change.  But I didn't know how!  BJ and I talked at length about it and the conclusion we kept coming back to was that I needed to feel the Spirit more.  I needed more access to the Spirit when my mood started to drop.  I needed him right there to pull me back up.

BJ and I started reading scriptures together nightly.  At first it was super hard to do it every night.  But now it's just part of our bedtime routine.  We always did it sporadically, but it had been tough to do it regularly.  But given that motivation, we just started immediately and haven't looked back.  I started saying my morning prayers more regularly.  I started reading my Book of Mormon more regularly.  I started looking for the Spirit in my life.  I've started acting on promptings I get that before I may have ignored.  BJ and I have had many discussions lately about things we could do that may or may not be popular, but would have a positive impact on the Spirit in our home and family.

I've also started listening to Conference talks on my iPod when I go on walks, make dinner, clean, etc.  Any time I'm doing something mindless.  After awhile I'll switch to books on tape, but I try to make Conference the first thing I listen to, then if I still have time later, then I can listen to other stuff.

This one I don't have tangible evidence to say X caused Y.  But I do know that I've been much happier consistently since I've started making a concerted effort to invite the Spirit into my life.  And really, any good LDS person has to know that this is the first and best step to take.

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Now, please don't think I was a grumpy, moody, mean person a few weeks ago.  No, I still had great days.  I was still happy most of the time.  But I was prone to unexpected and very-hard-to-change bad moods.  And I'm sure I'll struggle with that for the rest of my life.  But I'm glad that I'm learning triggers and preventative measures so that I can limit those moods.

*BJ is a punk and suggested today that maybe our scale is broken.  Because he's also losing weight, but he's not exercising.  So maybe it's just our scale going down, not my weight.  I stuck my tongue out at him.  You should, too.  Because, y'know, that's the Christ-like thing to do and will invite the Spirit into your life.  Errr… [sigh]  I love you, BJ!

Kessa, Kessa, Kessa

Here we have a bunch of random Kessa pictures.  (Just for you, Ryan.  Hahaha.)

Kessa is her momma's girl, to be sure.  

She loves putting her feet up on the table.

Or just to play with her toes in the car.

She's also her daddy's girl.  Playing the piano with a game cube controller?  Check.

She also loves books.  Especially when Daddy reads them to her.

Or as a distraction when getting her diaper changed.

(Shhh.  Don't tell her it's upside down!)

She's also a silly goof.  Wrong way, dearie.  Wrong way.

(I blame the fact that she hasn't used a binkie in months and months.

She found one under her crib (oops?) and apparently forgot how to use it.)

Kessa's Room Stage 1

We've made Kessa's room a project.  We wanted to turn it into a kids' room.  And actually decorate it.  

The first stage was to do something with the walls.  As I was looking at wall decals and such, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I had the brilliant idea to have my friend, Nick, design something in either paint or vinyl.  Y'know, if he wanted to do nursery stuff.  He took up the challenge.  We decided to do vinyl because  a) it would be faster for him which means b) it would be cheaper and c) it would come down easily in case whoever moves in next doesn't want it.

Here are her bare walls beforehand:

And here is the vinyl on the walls!  In parts.  Because I can't get it all very well in one.

(Travis, you wanna bring your wide-angle lens over?)

Also, it appears that I only took pictures of the left wall.  But the right wall has the same thing on it, just mirror-image.  So both walls have the butterflies near the window and the birds near the closet (which isn't pictured, so it won't help you anyway unless you've been to my house.)

Isn't it for pretty?  I love it!  It makes me so happy!  I told him I wanted something floral/nature/animal-esque and this is what he came up with.  There are flowers, butterflies, birds, bees and honeycomb.  I think he did a superb job!

Kessa loves to wake up and point at them and jabber.  When we pick her up out of her crib, she'll whine and point until we take her over to the wall where she'll point at each of the circles (easily seen to the right of the dresser in the picture above).  Sometimes she'll pick a bee or a flower, but man, she loves those circles.  Often I'll name whatever she's pointing at to help her vocabulary.  I'm getting really sick of the word "circle."  :D

Stage 2 will be a light-blocking shade.  I took it down for the picture so I could get better lighting (even though it's still pretty bad), but we typically have a dark blue fleece blanket with brown teddy bears hanging up over her window to block the light.  It's a wee bit tacky.  :)  So our next project is to buy some cream-colored light-blocking shades to replace the current blinds and blanket.

Stage 3 will be making curtains, or rather, a valance with curtains that just go down the sides.  I'm not entirely sure of the colors or style yet, but I have an idea.  But that'll be a few months down the road, since we're only setting a little money aside every month for her room.

So stay tuned for more installments!

Paper Bags

BJ's Grandma Goddard (who, unfortunately, I did not get a picture of) had a birthday party this summer at her house.  One of the games was the classic game, "Pick Up a Paper Bag on the Ground With your Teeth, Without Letting Your Knees or Arms (or Hands) Touch the Ground, Then Tear the Spot your Mouth Touched Off, Making it a Smaller Target For the Next Person."  Admittedly, the name could use some help.  But the game itself was quite fun and entertaining to watch.

Here's BJ about halfway through the game.

Teresa trying to do the splits to reach the bag. 

Jessa using the splits technique as well.

Aunt Kathy was surprisingly limber.

Uncle Richard was not.  He required help.

See?

BJ decided that leverage was a great idea, so he used Kessa.  

For what it's worth, he failed.

Intermission!  Teresa wrapped Kessa up in a shawl to keep her warm while drinking her bottle.  Awww… what a cute auntie.

Shawn discovered that the rules said nothing about his head not being able to touch the ground.  So he tried that strategy.  It was good until he tried to stand back up.

This was the only picture taken of me.  I am also surprisingly good at this game, though I wouldn't say I was limber by any stretch.  I just have good tactics, I think.  I ended up in a three-way tie for the win.

Missionary blog

My parents have a blog for their mission.  So if you're interested in keeping up with them, you can read it yourself here: http://jimnlinda.blogspot.com/ 

Aww… my parents are all grown up and blogging!  [sniff]  I'm so proud!

My big sister!

Back in August (wow.  I really am far behind, huh?) I had some visitors.  Who?

Turns out, I didn't get any pictures of Jalin that week.  So for those of you who are dying to see what my dearest sister looks like…

And here's Aimee!  Despite looking like she's ready to stand, she was still trying to grasp the concept of crawling.  (Which she's now a master at.)

Here she is sharing Kessa's toys (instead of keeping them to herself like she is above).  (Those cheeks almost make me wish that Kessa had chubby baby fat, too.  Don't you just want to pinch them?)

Uncle James came to visit.

Aimee is pretty talented with her feet.  She could hold that frisbee with her feet and still suck her thumb! 

This one just cracked me up.  She would bite the frisbee then flip it up over her face so she could see the world in green.  (Also a shout out for Mozy!) This time she got her shirt, too, and made a pig out of her nose.  And she'd do it over and over again.

Ignore my ugly mug here, but aren't these two girls just adorable?  They had so much fun together.

And here they are all matchy-matchy.  I think Aimee is trying to use Kessa to pull herself to a stand. 

They did great in car seats side by side.  (That's Kessa's new car seat!  She got it that week.)

We had tons of fun.  Jalin got a chance to just relax, Kessa got to play with one of her cousins (which doesn't happen all that often, sadly), and I got some much-needed time with my sister.  Come again, please!

Catching up

Ok, so I'm ridiculously far behind on blogging.  Like a month or more.  Goal this week: do at least one blog post per day.  Maybe more.  I apologize if I do them all in one day.

So to start, I have a super cute husband.  He made me a deal—if I cook, he'll do dishes.  I'm so down with that.  Well, sometimes life gets in the way and I go to bed and BJ's left with all of the dishes late at night.  And often I'll wake up to them done.  (Which actually works for him. He's a night owl.)  Which is super awesome in and of itself.  Then to make it even better, one morning I woke up to the dishes done and this on the fridge:

Isn't he just fer cute?  :)