Appreciating it before it's gone

It's so easy to become bogged down with life's little constant irritations and miss all the wonderful things in your life.  I know I am not the first to have this important realization but when life kinds sucks I need to remind myself every day.

A while ago I read a book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor.  I have always been into self help and improvement books but the very cool thing about this one is he is a scientist and all his work is based on scientific study.  He graduated and taught at Harvard so this isn't just talk this is real.  I have always been a bit embarrassed because so many of the people around me just don't get why I am into this so having a book with credentials kinda gives me a "in your face" type of attitude to the unbelievers :).

Of course I need to read this book at least three times more and then take notes to remember all the wonderful suggestions to make me a happier person but the one thing that stuck in my head was to practice being grateful every day.  The instructions where to put a reminder in your schedule to write 3 things you were grateful for every day.  This started training your brain to look for positive things in your life instead of negatives.  I know myself I can am very good at spotting errors.  In my work I am a dog trainer I am always looking at what is wrong so I can fix it.  At first finding things to be grateful for every day (you can't repeat) was hard but lately I find I am seeing things during every day life and thinking yes I can add that to the list, so I guess it is working.

My grateful things for today are
1.  Logan was extremely well behaved today.  You never know how a 3 year old is going to act and we had a busy day with a dentist appointment (him), stopped at two pet stores to drop off flyers, a doctors appointment (me) and waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy.
2.  The doctor (who is just the nicest friendliest person) gave me some steroids for my cough that has been with me for 2.5 weeks.  I hate taking steroids but I hate being sick more :).
3.  Started rewarding Logan for getting dressed quicker and wow he has been great instead of the fighting.

I love photographing sunsets, I am always grateful for them.

Today was the day I decided to start a blog.  Life is full of todo lists and grateful lists and being good and being happy, bla, bla, bla.  Today to make myself a better person a happier more satisfied better person I decided to start a blog.

I almost quit before I started but that really doesn't give you a sense of accomplishment, just failure and discontent.  So I persevered and did it :).

The big stumbling block, I can't believe this, was finding a name.  It seems everyone has put starting a blog on their todo list and all the great names I could think of, I don't consider myself a very creative person so this was not easy, where all taken.  I tried to come up with something that had stuck in my head and this was it.  Anyone who was a Cheers fan will remember this quote I think said by Kirstie Allen who I always have loved as an actress because she makes the best crazy people.

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Paola (yes that's the spelling but I pronounce it the regular way because otherwise leaving messages is a pain in the butt) I am 41 years old, married for 16 years and have a 3 year old son.  I make my living as a dog trainer and currently own three dogs.  I fought weight my entire life and currently tip the scales at 277lbs.  Losing weight has been a lifelong goal and the good bad and ugly side of it will come up often as I write.  I started a new diet on January 14, 2012 and have currently lost 36 lbs, which is very satisfying.

My goal is to ramble and hopefully find other people who answer back.   I will write something I am grateful for in every post.  I will write something I have accomplished in every post.  Other than that let's just see where I end up.