Positive Attitudes and Living for Joy, Week 3

Welcome to Living for Joy, week 3!

I’ll be honest.  I’m struggling.  The past couple days I haven’t had a very good attitude and I know it.  I’ve felt very frustrated by a number of things and I can’t seem to stop discussing them and ranting about them.  I know I need to move on, walk away….  And yet I don’t take my own advice!  I’m at least happy that I haven’t said anything that I regret!

Hard Times

What do you do when you are having a hard time?  Something that helped me when I was frustrated was to try to figure out what was causing my frustration, the “real reason” that I felt the way I did.  If I could understand it, then perhaps I could do something productive about it and move past it.

Another way to blow through the rough times is to take a time out.  Just walk away from whatever is causing the problem and do something else.  I’m writing on Thursday night, and in a little bit, Ben is going to come down to help me make ice cream, and then I am going to either watch a movie or play a game with him.  I don’t need to sit here all night and keep checking everything to see if there are any updates, which might frustrate me more!

Another little hint?  Avoid Facebook.  All the arguing and politics on there lately don’t do much to help my frame of mind.  How about a little non-controversial “cute things my kid did today” sharing?!

Tell us how you beat back the frustration and poor attitude when you’re not feeling it!

Reasons to Be Happy and Blessings

Why I’m Happy:

• My parents visited last Saturday and we had a nice meal together.
• We picked up our 1/2 cow and got lots of beautiful raw honey!  The honey is opaque and thick and butterscotch-colored.  Nothing like that clear, thin storebought stuff!  It makes me happy every time I look at it.
• I got to get a hair cut!  All by myself.  An hour of “me” time!  Plus now even if I don’t try I don’t look too bad.
• I had a nice evening at AWANA, talking to the other ladies.  It’s also a good couple hours I can mostly sit and hold Jacob (unless another kid needs me; I’m in the nursery) without bigger kids interrupting.
• Daniel, who’s been waking up very early and not napping well for a couple weeks (he’s made HUGE leaps forward in talking, though, which I suspect was the reason), snuggled with me Thursday morning at 5:45 and slept in until 8.  I haven’t co-slept with him in months.
• Wednesday at AWANA gave me some insight into Bekah…which is awesome.  See my other post for more on that.
• I have despaired that I will never get probiotics into Bekah, who refuses the vast majority of probiotic foods.  But we tried an experiment with pineapple kombucha and she loves it!  I’m excited, I think it will really help her.

How I Blessed Others:

• I made everyone some jerky that everyone loved.
• I served in the nursery ministry at AWANA at church.
• I helped Ben prepare a speech for his Toastmasters’ club at work.

Share yours below!

How do you handle the tough days?  And why are you happy this week?