february: selflessness

February is upon us! Which means I will switch my focal point to a new resolution: selflessness

It's a good thing I'm done with January's resolution of vitality... I was getting tired of trying to have more energy. (ha! :)  -- because falling asleep on the couch at like 7pm is not the first sign of a person full of vitality! No seriously... it was 7:30 when I crashed out the other night. jake was poking me like a bear to wake up -- talk about a way for a person you love SO much to annoy the heck out of you.... :)

Anywho... January went pretty well. But about mid-month I lost a tad bit of interest. I think it's because I'm a list-checker. And that's why I created my charts, so I could physically check off if I did a certain task that night. And for some reason, I stopped checking things about half way through. So for me to see my overall progress, and the weird joy I get from a completed list, means I will have to be better about checking off when I do something each day. However, something that I know I completed, which makes me feel great, was my craft/project I choose for the month. Late last night, on 1/31, I completed and ordered my 2012 photo book from Shutterfly! This 56 page sucker was quite time consuming. And I typically don't finish the year's prior until about mid next year. So to be done with this by the end of january was awesome. And I ordered that nice canvas print of our wedding! So those 2 projects are done and I'm super happy about that!

So here is February's focus:

my happiness project - February's resolutions by

volunteer: I'm looking forward to volunteering for the animal organization that took in Mr. Squirrel! Project Wildlife takes in over 10,000 sick and injured animals a year. I've attended orientation and had my interview in January so hopefully I can begin volunteering for them asap!

one random act of kindness: "no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted" - Aesop
I'm most excited about this one. I'm going to only talk about this part on this blog if it's something interesting or funny. Other than that, I don't like the idea of doing nice things so I can write about them... seems a little selfish to me! Just know that I'm doing them, as we all should be! Wouldn't the world be a more pleasant place?

be on time: this is something I knew I needed to work on, and I thought "where can i file this into my categories?" and selflessness made the most sense because when you're late, you're being inconsiderate of other people's time, and that is very selfish. So I will work on this one quite a bit.... starting tomorrow!!  ;)  I was 5 minutes late to work. Ooops!

donate to a new charity every month: I already made Project Wildlife the non-profit of the month since I will be volunteering there. But I'm looking forward to getting into a consistent groove of picking a new non-profit to donate to each month. Since this isn't something I will do daily (or I will run us dry!) I won't have a lot of check marks on my little sheet... and that's okay. It's more for the future.

build a neighborhood library: This is a story within itself and I will explain it better in a few days, for the sake of keeping this entry from becoming too long.

just be nice. period: I wanted this to be a part of my project, but I didn't know where to squeeze it in. I'm thinking of this in the sense of when someone is being rude to me, or just cut me off, or is unpleasant at work, or whatever the case may be, i need to just be nice. period. It made more sense in this month's focus because 1) I wanted to work on this part of me ASAP and didn't want to wait until September's mindfulness and 2) I could see the connection in my mind... being selfless means "giving" and being a better person, and to me, that's exactly what just being nice to others is all about.

adopt paddy doyle: more to come on who exactly Paddy Doyle is in the near future... I'm thrilled about this one!  :)

craft/project: plant a tree in our yard: We've been wanting to do this for a while, so this will be a nice push to get us to do it. We're thinking a peach tree possibly.

And that's February in a nut shell! And we're off.....!