This will NOT become a wedding blog

Many of you readers connect to this blog through Facebook, which is awesome sauce, so you probably know that I got engaged over Christmas. I couldn't think of a better time to work on improving my personal relationships, because as it turns out, weddings have a lot to do with people. In some of the communication books I have been reading, they discuss the importance of listening, appreciating, and accepting. I have always struggled with listening. I once read a therapists analysis of me as a child, and basically they said I spent the entire class period staring out the window and sighing to myself. I like that I developed a general sense of ennui early in life. That usually takes people years to achieve. I do, however, remember devising ways to squeeze out the bathroom window and into the ditch by the school so I could catch tadpoles. What was I saying? Oh yeah, bad at listening. So, let's start with appreciation. Here is a one-word(ish) list of things I appreciate about people.

I appreciate:

My mother's loyalty.
My father's even-temper.
My fiance's empathy.
My sister's knowledge.
My brother's work ethic.
My sister-in-laws self-confidence.
My best friend's street-smarts.
My other best friend's maturity.
My grandmothers' dignity
My grandfather's smile
My other grandmother's wit.

That's just a short list, but it's a good start towards not taking people for granted.

I've also been thinking about what this blog is. Is it an advice column? Lord, no. Is it a happiness project? Not really? Is it the infrequent musings of a total spaz? Most definitely. There is a theme developing, and that is Self-Help Books.

I'm a total sucker for self-help, and here's why. I have a strong belief that everyone wants to be reassured that they are not nuts. Self-help books show you not only that your are not alone in your crazy ways, but that there are people out there who are crazier than you! I don't want this to become a blog book report, where I discuss the underlying themes in A Wrinkle in Time (that author was on shrooms, I am sure) or A Bridge to Terabithia (which taught me at a young age that life is going to be really sad), but an experiment and review. I'll read different books, try some of their suggestions, and report back to you on if it worked, or if it got me fired for turning my fourth-floor accounting office into a yoga studio or something.

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."~Voltaire

Pic by:
http://synaptoman.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/self-help-for-dummies-chapter-3/