Valentine's Day, Change is hard, Attitude is everything

It seems to me that most people love, or hate Valentine's Day. It also seems to me that a person's stance on this holiday is directly related to his or her relationship status. Makes sense, doesn't it? I am currently in the "love" column. I spent way too much money on some fun things for my husband (and myself), but you know what? You can't spend it when you're dead! I will admit that the commercialization of every holiday under the sun is pretty disgusting, though. There isn't a single moment during the year where we are free of holiday junk. Think about it. Right after New Year's, stores start filling up with hearts and flowers and candy and teddy bears. Now, there will be a sea of green. Shamrocks, leprechauns, and "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons. Then, we'll be swamped with Easter Bunnies and eggs, followed closely by May Day baskets and then a barrage of Red, White & Blue. Once we make it through the summer, there's hardly time to breathe before retailers start putting out pumpkins, skeletons and bats and before you know it's time to make a turkey and go Christmas shopping!!!
Collecting all of this stuff is one of many things I'm trying to change in my life. My closets are overflowing, every drawer in my house is difficult to close, and the basement is if full of holiday junk. The problem is, I've never been very good at throwing things away. I have clothing that is probably older than some of the people I work with, pots and pans that my mom gave me more than a decade ago, and holiday decorations that haven't seen the light of day in years. It's sentimentality and a "what if I need this someday?" attitude that makes it hard for me to part with things. Silly, I know. Change is hard, but I have managed to clear two huge garbage bags of stuff out of our basement and to the dumpster, and both my husband and I have taken big loads of clothing to St. Vincent de Paul. The house is becoming much less cluttered and we've been cleaning like crazy. For whatever reason I find this incredibly therapeutic. It's helping me keep plugging away on the effort that Murph is so proud of. I'm still not ready to tell you what it is. But soon, I promise.
I mentioned last week that I've been in a real funk. I really do think it's partially weather-related, but I also believe that sometimes you have to just kick yourself in the butt and adjust your attitude. The bottom line is that there are all sorts of things in life that stink, and most of the time there are things that make us crabby that we have absolutely no control over whatsoever. So, I've decided to change the way I've been dealing with lots of things. I'm much happier, and I'm pretty sure the people around me are happier, too. For instance, last week my Jeep exploded. That's a slight exaggeration, but it was leaking fluid, hissing and had black smoke rolling out of it. Needless to say, no one was driving it anywhere. My neighbors witnessed this breakdown in our driveway, and said to me, "Jeez . . . you're handling this well!" My response was, "It's not worth getting upset about . . . ". And most of the time, that's true of most incidents. You can spend a lot of time and energy being ticked off about all sorts of things, but why? It really just makes you (and people around you) miserable. So instead SMILE, and have a fantastic Friday!
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