My Happiness Project

So I finished The Happiness Project yesterday and overall I loved it. The thing that jumped out at me the most as far as happiness resolutions go was.......Be Gretchen, or to phrase it for me....... Be Emily.

I tried to not buy books for a week, but is that any way to make me happy? Hell no. It's who I am. I buy arm loads of books. Do I need to cut back? Definitely, but there is no way I can go cold turkey. Me not buying books is like me not drinking chocolate milk. It's in my DNA. I have to be me and that includes buying books and drinking chocolate milk.

It is an interesting idea to think about who I really am and just try and be that person. It's harder than you might think. There are so many ways that we all try to be things that we are not. In retrospect, I was trying to convince myself that I didn't need help with my anxiety, but I have a problem and it's much easier to admit that that is who I am then to try and deny it and suffer in silence.

I might want to be a real estate agent or a veternarian, but deep down that is not who I am. Try it. Think about who you want to be and try to be versus who you really are. It's challenging, but then it all seems much clearer and you can let some things go.

Anyway, I'm doing pretty well on my whole no sugar diet. It has morphed into not much sugar. I did take the kids out for ice cream yesterday and I got a cone too. I tried to stave off my Oreo craving by having some Cookies-n-Cream. It's not the same.  So I'm going to have sugar, but not like I used to. I still drink my chocolate milk, but I'm trying not to do it every day. I'm still eating cookies, but only once every few days. It seems to be working.
I realized after about a week of no sugar and not much white flour that I was going to starve if I continued to eat that way. So I am eating better, but still having normal food. Heck I've already lost 4 pounds just majorly cutting back on the sugar snacks.

And I decided as far as my books go, that I will try and just buy 2 books a week. That seems pretty reasonable. Technically 2 a week, or 104 a year is about all I can actually read in that time frame. We'll see how that goes. Today I bought 6 books, yesterday 2, and the day before 10, not including the 4 that were delivered from Amazon. It really is too much. I've run out of shelf space, again.