What a weekend!  The French Market, good times spent with friends, and two solid nights of quality family time (including an excellent storm...my favorite!)  I forgot how much I like weekends.  I forgot what I was missing by working all of them.  This one may have included more wine than I care to admit, but the good news is that I have recovered in record time and have, in the meantime, decided on a change of attitude.

I think I laughed more this weekend than I have in a month.  (The majority of this was yesterday, but Adam has made me vow silence).  Suddenly, I am very conscious of the fact that something at my very core has changed over the last year.  Perhaps it is visible outwardly, but perhaps it is not.  I am aware of its presence and it sometimes burns.  Sometimes, it's at the surface and sometimes it's buried, but it is still there.  It's something jaded and annoyed, pressed for time, or pessimistic; looking for the faults in others and painfully aware of my own (maybe that last part, I will keep.)  It's something new because it's not who I am.  So I'm dropping it.  It's done. 

Today, I started a new job (yay!), and with it comes a new attitude.  Today, I vow to take my time, to watch my words (I watched a really touching video on this this morning...it's what started this whole thing), to be encouraging and hopeful, to look for the good in others and to cherish, cherish, cherish this new time that I have with my friends and my family, and to let go of the things that have nothing to do with me or that I cannot change.  As of today, I am giving myself that opportunity again. 

Today, I will care less about what I have and more about who I have.  I will focus on the prayers with my kids at night and not rush through them.  I will try to live by example and not expect my kids to be better behaved than I am. 

Today, I vow to be a better person.  Because happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. 

The Serenity Prayer
God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathways to peace;

Taking, as He did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen