The Happiness Project

I’m in a philosophical mood this morning – which is good cos I’ve managed to bamboozle my boss into seeing things my way through use of big words and long sentences already. I’ve also got to get my thinking hat on to persuade the admin ladies to change what they do…….that’s going to be difficult. Some of them are very stuck in their ways – even the young ones!

Anyway, I’m going to be working with them for a few weeks to catch up on backlog and allow me to gather some meaningful data in a time when it might be useful! Currently we’re running about six weeks behind and the boss has just received some KPIs he needs to produce that mean we need to be running in front.

In other news – I’m reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (her website) . It’s sort of self-help/memoir in that she basically takes a year and works on making herself more happy. Some of the insights she’s coming up with are extremely interesting and I can see how they’d work.. For example, not scoring points with Al – thinking of all the things he does for me on their own rather than then comparing it to what I do for him. He does a lot – brings me a cup of coffee in the morning when I get up at the same time as him, He always compliments me on how I look. He takes care of the grass so I don’t have to suffer through hayfever. He is pretty good at managing his own laundry.

Last night I felt hard done by since I cooked dinner, tidied the kitchen, cleaned up the living room, put away the dry clothes and he came home and did……well nothing. But that’s ok. He was teaching special educational needs people yesterday and that takes a lot out of anyone. So it’s ok. After all, he spent most of the weekend entertaining his parents and most of the week before looking after me…….

So I’m trying to take some ideas from Gretchen Rubin.

The last few days (well ok, two!) I’ve not turned on the telly as soon as I came in and it makes a difference to the evening. It feels like I’m doing things, even if that ‘doing things’ is only putting away a few clothes or tidying the kitchen, or burning a smelly candle. It makes the house feel warmer, tidier, happier somehow…..Of course it doesn’t change the fact that we have one shed packed full of stuff that needs to be sorted, but it’s a start.

Tonight, I’m going to try and sort out the bathroom – it really needs a deep clean, so Cilit-Bang and elbow grease it is. We’ve got hard water around here and the scale soon builds up on the taps and things, but it’s such a hassle to clean off.

I also need to think about our bedroom. We seem to have a ‘dumping ground’ for things that’s very annoying. Maybe putting the chair from the spare room there will help – but I will need to move furniture to fit it all in. Still, the place also needs a good clear out so maybe it’s time.  I did a good first go-through of my clothes a few weeks ago and it feels good to be able to get into my wardrobe now, but there’s more dross to be emptied out I think. Plus Al’s got some T-shirts that could go as well.

It’s going to be a cathartic Friday night for me this week – I can tell!!!