what’s the secret to this?
I’m not sure what my deal is, but I can’t seem to focus on positivity. It’s like a chronic problem for me. Yesterday while driving home from spending Christmas at my brother’s, I spent a good hour or so complaining about my family until I stopped to take a breath and realized I had literally made myself ill. I feel like it’s a sickness with me, this need to constantly bitch about everything and everyone, and I hate myself for it. But sometimes if I try really hard not to be Negative Nancy, I wind up just sitting there searching for something to say. I do think it has a lot to do with my upbringing, because my family in general is incredibly negative and snarky, and no one can resist the urge to get their digs in here and there about every little thing. So I find myself saying things like, “It was good” and then immediately following it up with, “but…”.
So what sort of positive thoughts and statements can I replace this with? How does one go about not being a miserable bitch all the time? Because lord knows it’s not helping my life being this way. But honestly, sometimes I just cannot come up with something nice to say. It’s like I’m having this battle with my nasty id all the time and for the most part my id wins out.
Maybe I’m being a little hard on myself. The holidays are stressful. Even though I always think that I adore Christmas, ultimately it means more dealings with everyone in my family, under high stress situations, and more dealings with people who are Scrooges, which gets me down even more.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
That having been said, I will say one positive thing:
Christmas Eve with Greg’s family was really enjoyable. It’s become a little tradition for them to come over on Christmas eve, and generally they are much more positive than my own family, which is conducive to merrimaking. They come over ready for cider and egg nog and holiday music and gift-giving and general holiday cheer, so it’s easy to have a lot of fun with them.
Monthly Goals: January
My mini goals for January are:
1. open my Etsy shop
2. keep to my weekday evening schedule
3. post holiday detox – no fried foods, alcohol only once (okay, maybe twice) per week
4. open myself up to inspiration
5. officially start The Artist’s Way program
2010: The Year of the Kate
2010 is where it’s at. Yes, I say that at the end of every year about the upcoming year. But for realz, I want to get some shit done before I decide to have a baby and can’t get any shit done ever. Of course, as soon as I start to make resolutions, I immediately get depressed over those resolutions, because every year I make resolutions that I don’t ever keep, so it all just becomes this meaningless hackneyed process that doesn’t actually improve my life.
BUT THIS YEAR IS DIFFERENT!!!!!#$@#$^@#*$&^ (maybe, I hope, probably not)
As it stands, here is my list of goals on 43things:
1. do at least one thing each day to help reach my 43 goals
2. get my shit together
3. re-gain my self-confidence
4. reach my goal weight
5. be more creative
6. learn to ride a bicycle
7. learn to drive a manual
8. take more photographs
9. Dress better
10. be a tourist in my own town
11. go to New York
12. Try new restaurants
13. go to more farmer’s markets
14. Go to flea markets
15. stop procrastinating
16. have more friends
17. finish fixing up my house
18. have my parents visit more
19. Host a game night
20. decide what the hell I would like to do with the rest of my life
21. sell something on etsy
22. stop worrying about what other people think of me
23. learn about my family history
24. train my dog
25. learn to speak french
26. live somewhere outside the Philadelphia area
27. learn to screenprint
28. actually do what’s on my to-do list
29. wake up when my alarm clock goes off
30. have everything ready early for Christmas next year
31. toughen myself against the cold
32. send more cards
33. take better care of my body
34. be more positive
35. go camping
36. make bread from scratch
37. have a garage sale
38. have sunday dinner every week
39. Complement others
40. keep my house tidy
41. be a buff in something
LET’S DO IT!!!
ready or not, here I sew
I might be a bit naive, but I just ordered this pattern from Betsy Ross. Am I ready to make an actual, wearable dress? Probably not, but it will be an adventure, anyway.
you’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
After a partial meltdown yesterday and a long discussion with Greg, I realize that I have absolutely got to let go of my negativity. I know I’m going through some tough times with my family and my job at the moment, but I can’t let it spread to every area of my life, and I can’t let it come between my husband and I.
The worst part about this whole thing is that Greg used to be a very positive person, and I feel like I’ve dragged him down to my level. Together we’ve become this force of negativity, and it’s a good possibility that this is what could be hurting our social life. Who wants to hang out with a couple who does nothing but bitch about everything and always looks at the bad side of every situation? Nothing ever becomes more legitimate to me than when Greg says it, and when he said last night that he thinks we’ve become incredibly negative and no one wants to be around us, I was like, “Oh my God, you’re right!” I hadn’t put two and two together until that point, but it suddenly made so much sense and scared me straight.
So here’s the thing, how do we become more positive? I feel like my entire life has been focused on negativity, because my entire family is really negative. It’s not really normal for me to act like everything is great and be accepting of everyone because I’ve never been brought up with that mindset. But the point is, I’m 30 now and I need to be my own person. I’m not trying to blame it on my family, I’m more just trying to recognize where this impulse comes from so I can deal with it.
I think the most important thing for us to become healthier, more positive people is to get out and do things, and stop just sitting in the house and stewing in our own bitterness. Right now we have nothing good to talk about or focus on, because we don’t do much. So I need to get over my anger towards Old Man Winter and do something besides just laying on the couch under a blanket, waiting for the weather to warm up.
Our time on earth is incredibly short, and at this point I’ve spent entirely too much of it focusing on the worst parts. So here goes nothing!
that thing that carries my brain from place to place
I feel like in the past year, I’ve completely lost track of my body. Not just my weight, but the whole thing. It’s amazing how you would think that your body would be at the forefront of your mind, considering you’re with it so much. Like, always. But somehow it’s very easy to ignore it, to just look straight ahead and get lost in your mind and the outside world, forgetting that big thing that’s chauffeuring your little brain around.
So aside from the whole “reach my goal weight” goal, which is somewhat different, here is what it would mean for me to take better care of my body:
- eat healthier, with way more fruits and veggies
- take vitamin supplements
- deal with my gross feet
- stretch and/or do yoga to get my body more flexible
- exercise and tone up
- drink more water
- exfoliate and moisturize
- get a facial
- stop letting my legs get like wooly mammoths
- get manicures
I’d just really like to get to know my body again and stop pretending that it doesn’t exist.
head of the class
Porter had his first training class last night, and so far we’re very proud of him. All the other dogs spent the entire time wrestling around and barking their heads off, but Porter was the best guy, and just sat there watching everyone. He even did his best to ignore the gigantic great dane puppy next to us, who couldn’t sit still and just flopped around in his awkward great-dane-puppy way the whole time, interspersed with periodically reaching over and licking Porter’s face and privates, not necessarily in that order. Now if he could ignore being serviced by the dog next to him, that’s focus.
ingrate
I am the absolute WORST at sending birthday cards and thank you cards. It’s really embarrassing, it makes me feel like a terrible friend/relative, especially when everyone is so good at sending me cards. This year I’m going to really try to be on top of crap like that. I’m going to have everyone’s birthday card ready to go weeks before their birthday, so all I need to do is drop it in the mailbox a few days before. Maybe then they won’t think I’m such a self-involved jerk.
personal ads are not just for losers, i swear
I was browsing through Craigslist at the “strictly platonic” personals, just to see what was there. I think no one seems to understand what the word “platonic” means because most of them have something to do with some sort of sexual activity. I’m also suspicious of m4w platonic ads, because if you’re a man, why are you specifically looking for a woman to do platonic things with? Shouldn’t it not matter? Like why does a man need a swimming buddy who is a woman if sex is not part of the deal?
Anyway, a girl posted something about finding other girlfriends, and she seemed pretty like-minded, so I replied to see if she wants to try to get together. We’ll see what happens. Every time I’ve been “set up” with someone as a potential friend, it never seems to work out. On the other hand, I don’t seem to be having any success with developing friendships organically, so I might as well give this another try. There’s got to be some halfway cool girl out there whose roster of friends isn’t completely full already.
to-do: buy a to-do notebook
I’ve developed a good method at work for keeping a to-do list, so I’ve started doing it for my personal life also. In the past I’ve bought Moleskine daily planners that go untouched from February through December. I think it’s overly complicated, with a to-do list for each week that I never wind up getting to and then I have to feel guilty that I didn’t get it done, and move it to the next week, and it just gets overwhelming. Instead I just bought a stupid little Mead memo pad, the 3×5 spiral-bound kind. I write each item on a separate line, no due dates, no nothing. When I complete something, I just cross it out, no big fanfare or checkmarks. It’s just an open-ended list of things that I need to get to.
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