My blog friend Janae recently started doing this fun thing on Fridays where you post the good news about your week or your life and link it up to her blog, so I'm doing that today. It helped me to focus on the positive this week, which was good because there were a few days where it was hard to feel very positive because they were just those kinds of days!
Starting with last Saturday, these are some of the good things that happened in my week.
Saturday: I went to my fun ice-skating class, got a 90-minute Swedish massage, went out to lunch at a great Mexican restaurant, went out to dinner with my family at Red Lobster, and watched the final Harry Potter movie with my husband after the kids went to bed.
Sunday: I took a nice cozy nap in the afternoon (I love having church from 9:00-12:00 this year! It frees the rest of the day up so nicely!), we booked our Spring Break trip to a really fun-looking indoor water park resort in Wisconsin Dells, and I saw this on Facebook and it's still making me laugh:
Monday: There wasn't much good news on Monday, but the one bright spot was that I hired a house-cleaning company to come and do a whole-house deep-cleaning every month! As the owner of the company said to me, "You can delegate dirt." I am finally ready to do some delegating in this area, and I'm happy about it!
Tuesday: Another blah day, except that my 6-year-old was good for his doctor's appointment (an unusual but very welcome occurence), my husband wrote me a sweet note in my planner, and I took another good afternoon nap (this time out of necessity because I slept poorly the night before thanks to my 2-year-old Sam waking up three times!).
Wednesday: This day had more good news in it than the last two put together! A friend gave me a whole entire chocolate mousse cake from my favorite food store knowing that it's my favorite thing there. I fit in free book-reading time for myself during the day, which is something I rarely do. I watched the latest episode of Downton Abbey. I love that show! I read an article that said that my home state (Massachusetts), my birth state and the state I lived in for four years in elementary school (Utah), a state that I lived in for four years as a child and four years as an adult (New Jersey), and the state we lived in for four years before moving here (Connecticut) were recently ranked in the top five states to raise a family. AND my current state (Iowa) is ranked in the top ten. It's good to live in good places!
Thursday: I let Sam play outside in the snow for awhile, which made me feel like a good mom since outdoor play in the winter isn't one of my strong suits. My husband brought me home a pretty bouquet of pale pink roses, which are my favorite flower. I went to my book club meeting in the evening, which was fun! I never belonged to a book club until moving here and I really enjoy it.
Friday: After a busy week, today I'm staying home all day, which I like since I am by nature a homebody. And it might snow this afternoon, at least a little bit. And I'm going to watch one of my favorite guilty pleasures on TV tonight, Four Weddings. And Sam has slept through the night for the last three nights. Yeah!!
So even though it was an ordinary week, it was full of good news when I took the time to find and recognize that good. It was fun to do and I'm going to try to do it more often as a matter of habit. I know it sounds cliche, but it really is so beneficial to look for the good in each day and to try to focus on the positive that is in our lives. There's so much to be thankful for, from the smallest little things to the big things.
And coincidentally I read a really good article yesterday by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf that said inspiring things on this very topic, such as "Don't close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day's ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life" and "the happiest people I know...discover and treasure the beauty and sweetness of everyday moments" and don't forget about "the little things that make your lives joyful and sweet." I couldn't agree more!
