Last weekend, I met with two of my MomFriends for our first book club meeting. These two moms also homeschool their three kids, and we’ve spent several years alternating between playdates and co-ops and beach days and potlucks and every other kind of family get together you can think of. But rarely have the three of us moms ever gotten together without the moppets or hubbies.
It was heavenly.
You may have met my friend, P-Diddles, already. She’s the funniest one of the three of us.
And this is Jay-Bee. (I love giving people pseudonyms. It makes me feel powerful.) Jay-Bee is the most organized of the three of us. I’m fairly certain her house never looks like mine.
And then, of course, there was me. The annoying one with the camera who brought her own Kleenex box because she couldn’t stop blowing her nose that day. (I promised I wasn’t going to post about my cold anymore, but mentioning it in passing doesn’t count.)
The book we read was “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin. (I don’t know Gretchen Rubin, but I’m going to call her “Gretch” like we’re BFFs. I’m chummy that way.) Gretch spent a year trying raise her level of happiness. She wasn’t unhappy to begin with – she has a good husband, two healthy kids, a job she likes, etc. But, like most of us moms who are trying to “do it all,” she felt like she wasn’t finding as much happiness in her life as she could be.
So she researched the crud out of what it means to be happy, and then came up with a plan. She focused on one area of her life, such as energy, marriage, parenting, work, eternity, etc. each month for a year.
It was a nice read. And a lovely idea. I’m still finishing the book (see my Book Club Slacker post from a few days ago) but Gretch inspired me to start a similar project of my own. I won’t follow her exact footsteps (Gretch recommends against that anyway) but I like the idea of focusing on one area a month, with specific, written goals for each one. And since the Baha’i New Year is March 21, now’s a good time for me to do a little resoluting. (I don’t think that’s really a word. Resolving? I like resoluting better.)
Gretch has a website if you want to read a bit more about her book and get ideas for your own project: www.happiness-project.com.
I’ll keep you posted on mine.
🙂 Annie
 If you enjoyed this post, please pass it along. You can follow Motherhood and More on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.