Feelin' Groovy

Today's title comes from the title of one of my favorite Simon & Garfunkle songs. When I was about my son's age, we learned that song in music class and its hung with me my whole life. Its Sunday, and I am feeling happy today. Had an awesome day with my family yesterday. Cleaned the house, had our pictures taken for the church directory, and hung out. Today I don't have much of an agenda either-church, stop by the grocery store & pick up a few things (milk, tp, paper towels, laundry detergent, coffee creamer, fruit, potatoes, cereal, lunch stuff, coffee, feed the freezer stuff for next week, cheddar cheese soup) come home-make a pizza bingo poster or two for tomorrow night and generally relax with my boys. The laundry is basically caught up I have 3 more loads to do (and two of them are sheets and towels), and then I'm completely caught up. That doesn't happen very often for me!
Actually, this is a great feeling because I am not feeling overly stressd out and I feel like I can actually accomplish something. Add to it the fact that I am working out on a regular basis again (hello treadmill in a little bit)and taking care of me more (sticking to a skin care routine, etc) and I am basically unstoppable. Its interesting because when I work out, I eat better and drink more water and get more sleep. Its like everything comes together for me. And its good. In the past, if things went well I'd be afraid that something would go wrong. Then it was like I was willing negativity into my life. Unfortunately, I grew up in a family of Debbie Downers and it has carried with me most of my life. I can still hear my grandmother's voice reminding me that there's always something bad lurking around the corner, and that if something good happens there will be something equally bad.
This mentality has affected me on so many levels. But for my son's sake I need to break this generational curse. I am tired of the thought process that happiness is something to be earned, not freely accepted. Its exhausting to go through life always looking at the bad. It just sucks the life out of you to be perfectly honest. People who always have a frown go through life spreading doom and gloom-nothing is ever good enough for them. It could be a beautiful sunny day out and they would still find something wrong with the weather.
I will be 40 in a few months, and while I am ok with the whole middle age thing, there are a few things that I want to improve in my life. I've always been a raging type A personality which has both good and bad points (especially when I am married to someone who is definately not a type A-which is probably good for me) and that serves me well with juggling things. I am able to juggle my home life with volunteer work and a job too. I can be very organized and highly disciplined when I want to be-someone told me the title for this is the Alpha Wife-but there are times when these traits go dormant as well.
I went through a period a few months back of not feeling confident and just feeling like I wasn't able to accomplish anything. The most important things I did to turn this around was a recommitment to my faith and exercising as well as going back to a paper calendar. I tried so hard to use the calendar on my Black Berry but I need that paper visual to keep me on track. I read morning prayer every morning, and during Lent I am trying very hard to read Compline every night before bed. I am trying to remember to wear my pedometer every day and keep track of how many steps I take. I do my yoga daily dozen in the morning and I try to do relaxation yoga before bed every night. Its amazing that tweaking a few things would bring about so many benefis.
Ask my son about what its like having Mom 2.0 around vs. the one that was around during the holidays. I think he likes this version a lot better, especially since I seem to be able to focus on him more. Instead of dealing with me moping around all the time, we play together and do things together. Add to it the fact that I've been keeping up with the housework every day (its amazing what a little work twice a day can do!) things seem to run smoothly. It makes life sweeter.