Making Me Happy This Week–2/4/2018

One thing that I’ve been doing for a couple of years in my paper notebook is making a sort-of-weekly list of things that are “Making Me Happy This Week”.  I thought I would start sharing them here on the blog, because we could all use some reminder of what makes us happy.  Maybe it will inspire you to make your own list regularly. 

Here’s what’s been making me happy this week.

• Packing up more stuff and donating them to charity.
• Super warm weather and lots of sunshine and blue skies.  (See first photo – my view walking in to work.)  I’ve been wearing spring and summer clothes!
• Trying out a new Thai restaurant nearby.  It’s spicy but flavorful and good!
• My new 90’s retro stretchy platform sandals.  Remember these???  The 90’s called, and it wants its stretchy platform slides back! Got these on clearance at Target.
• Dressing slightly up for work.  I felt great and confident!
• Inadvertent good hair days.
• Losing weight without calorie-counting.  Since 2014 I’ve tried to lose weight by doing Weight Watchers or tracking food/calories in My Fitness Pal.  None of it really worked.  If I had to guess why it didn’t work for me is that tracking food felt like a diet and unsustainable for me.  If this is a topic that you would like me to elaborate/discuss further in a separate blog post, let me know in the comments.  (No, I am most definitely not selling anything to you.  Just if you would like to hear my thoughts on this.)
• Todd volunteering at Ronald McDonald House.  He cooked and served breakfast there, along with his Toastmasters teammates.  (He was on egg duty and he HATES the smell of eggs!)
• Todd making his famous brown sugar cookies for the Scala programming class that he taught at work.  I didn’t get a photo of the cookies, but they are delicious, and everyone loved them.  If you know Todd well, then you know that one of the things that gives him the biggest satisfaction is to coin him an "expert" in an area. In January he launched a Scala programming class at his work, doing it for free at lunch time. It was at the request of the other programmers at work. He had "tutoring sessions" at lunch, where people could ask for help. I'm not there, but I imagine him as a professor doing "office hours" to help students. It's SO him. And I'm so proud of him, and I know he loves it too.
• Training Noodle to walk outside on a leash.  He only lasted a minute and wanted to dart back inside, but it was a first step, ha ha.
• Me kicking a$$ at work this week.  On Thursday morning I was asked to present/review the 2018 budget ($66M) in detail on Friday morning to the Senior Vice President (officer of the company) of our division and his leadership team.  Not only that, but my finance VP wanted to meet with me Thursday in short notice to go over everything before I presented it on Friday morning.  I nailed it in both meetings.  The “old me” prior to my leave of absence last year would have been so nervous and stressed out to do this on such short notice.  The “new me” didn’t even get stressed.  I knew that I know the numbers like the back of my hand, and that I was the expert in the room despite being the only woman and being the least senior person.  I was not scared and I simply kicked a$$.  It was a defining moment in my career. 
• Relatedly… my new work mindset is making me so happy and satisfied.  My 10 week leave of absence from work was the BEST thing I’ve ever done for my career.  I got so much clarity from it.  I also formed a new mindset and framework about the role of work in my life.  It really prepared me for the changes to come at work that I didn’t even know about at the time.  I’m so grateful that I was able to take the time off.
• Still not buying things (unless replacing broken things) until we’ve purged and organized and can get a good handle on all that we already have.
• Following organization accounts on Instagram for inspiration.
• This article:  Defining Yourself by What You Love, not what you dislike.  Absolutely resonated with me.