cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

My team at work has decided that we need to be happier. So we have the Happiness Initiative. It's based off of a TED talk that posits that if you do certain things every day, you'll improve your overall happiness. These things include meditation, exercise, listing out gratitudes, journaling, and performing small acts of kindness. I'm participating in this because I can always use more happy.

• I'm doing the meditation because meditation is awesome. I'm nearing the end of the Self-Esteem pack and I think it's helping.
• I'm doing the journaling because I found an app that gives simple prompts - what are you thankful for, what are 3 good things about today, what would make tomorrow better, etc.
• I'm doing the random acts of kindness by inflicting art on others. Every day at work I choose one of my zentangle art cards. I pick a person on our team and write them a note on the back of the card. I then either give them the card with no explanation or just leave it on their desk to find. This gets these cards out of my office and has made people smile.

I'm not doing the daily exercise. I know it'd be good for me, but I'm so out of energy it's not even funny anymore.

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Alex is sick. He got hit HARD by the head/chest cold that Emi brought home from school last week and shared with me. I still feel a little puny, but I've been mostly functional the whole time. Alex started running a fever Sunday night and started having trouble breathing. We went to the dr on Tuesday, who prescribed a nebulizer for albuterol instead of just his inhaler. Getting the damn machine was a bureaucratic NIGHTMARE that Downwood finally got figured out yesterday morning. Little dude gets to go back to the dr today. He's not getting better. He may get to have another vacation at the hospital. We'll see.

We're still waiting on the results of Downwood's EEG. He may or may not have a seizure disorder. We'll see.

Emi has Pokemon bribes to do better at school. If she does her homework without being asked, she and Daddy will play a game of Pokemon at the table. If she passes her reading checkout tests on the first try, she gets a special card. She loves math and science, but has trouble with reading and wanting to do well in it.

I'm tired. I went to bed really early last night, but still feel unrested. No me gusta.

I'm worried about my friends. I feel like I can't do anything other than offer stupid platitudes. Maybe we need to go out for coffee again. Maybe we should move our coffee date to Milwaukee to bring in more friends. Stupid winter making everything seem bad.

I got new glasses! Stylish, hip glasses and actual prescription sunglasses! All hail Zenni Optical!

I had lunch with Downwood and Alex! They brought me my old glasses, since my new ones are pretty tight.

I finished the Anxiety pack on Headspace! Onto learning more about Self-Esteem! But, seriously, I've learned some good things about my brain and how I think. I like this feeling.

I've started on our work Happiness Challenge! One of my coworkers wanted to start a 21-day Be Happier Challenge. I chose three of the five activities: meditate daily (yeah!), a random act of kindness, and write down three unique gratitudes. My random act of kindness today was to write a nice note on the back of one of my zentangles and give it to that coworker. She said it made her day.

My invisible Sith cloak continues to improve my posture and body language!

My writing project with Downwood is over 25k words! Whoa.

It is decided that:

• This year is starting out not so good for beloved pop culture icons. Knock it the hell off, 2016. Fuck cancer.
• I'm leaving work early today.
• I can be proud of my zentangle doodles. For they are pretty and kind of neat.
• I will not feel guilty about going in for a massage on Sunday. My shoulders are messed up.
• I will have fun putting together STAR WARS LEGO with my kids. I have the Maz minifig. You can be jealous.
• Meditation is probably the best thing I've started in a while. Yay for mental space.
• I can no longer say that I can't write. The thing I'm working on with Downwood is nearing 19k words. I have probably 2/3 or 3/4 of them. My character talks A LOT.
• Tea is the best.
• Chocolate is the best.
• Sleepy kiddos hugs are the best.
• Coffee is the best.
• Weekends are the best.