still week 1: day 4...I think! :)

Okay so this is where my hopefully "simple" method at documenting with pay off - so that I actually keeping documenting my way through this. Actually a lot of my motivation to write a quick post about today is because of Michelle Pace! So thank you, Michelle Pace, for your suggestions and for asking me a question!

Answer: The book that I am basing this whole thing on is Faithful, Fit, and Fabulous by Connie Sokol. She is LDS and takes a very spiritual approach to accomplishing both spiritual and temporal goals! I first discovered her while listening to the a program called Everything Creative on the Mormon Channel. (listen to this amazingly inspirational woman HERE by scrolling down and clicking play by "Episode 54!)

My goal for this week: To do something extra special for my husband to show a little extra love.

(Before I begin, Michelle Pace mentioned a wonderful suggestion!! This is Thursday of week 1 (I have SEVEN more weeks to go), and although I'm still really excited about my progress and my potential progress, I can tell that it's going to be more than impossible to stay as motivated as I need to to complete this. But even when I'm not doing her 8 week program (like....last week), it's not like I'm unproductive. My natural tendency is to do what Michelle Pace suggested - do a different goal a day. I like this because it's so much more my personality anyway (I guess I can get so excited that I easily burn out after 4 days!), but I love the idea that it could more easily become a habit instead of just a week I plow through! Brilliant. Brilliant. Considering that fact that I'm almost done with this first week, I'm going to continue with my same method for now. But coming week 2, things are going to change and get even MORE doable and successful than they are now! Again, thank you Michelle for pointing out the brilliant, the obvious (more natural), and the more doable approach!

What worked?

This morning before Trav headed into work, I (very) quickly snuck into our garage with a cool Jazz bumper sticker and put it on our (his) Camry. I gave him a (an even cooler) Jazz bumper sticker in his stocking 2 years ago and he thought it was the coolest present ever! He put it on a car that we ended up selling this summer. So when I was cleaning out his drawer two days ago and I found this other bumper sticker, I knew he would think it was pretty cool to randomly find it on his car! Luckily it literally took me 45 seconds to pill off the sticker, stick it on, and rip the stop sticker off, because that's all the time I had! He noticed it tonight actually and was surprised. Not as overjoyed as he was with the first sticker, but he still thought it was cool!
Then, when he was at work, I did some Christmas shopping for him. I got him some wonderful things he's been wanting for a while! It's so fun to shop for other people, especially my kind and awesome Trav!!

What didn't work?

I always find myself sneaking around and trying to surprise him. It's so nerve racking for me because I try (and am pretty successful) at not getting caught in the act. But I stress so much about not getting caught that it's exhausting. On top of that, Travis doesn't love surprises!! ha ha!! But my natural man says that showing him the sticker and asking him "do you want me to put this on your bumper and what part of the bumper should I put it?" doesn't sound nearly as thoughtful or neat! But I honestly think that Trav would think it's just as neat (because surprises aren't too neat to him...they're a little stressful or something...who knows ;)) So I should just spare myself the nerving-racking trouble and let him be involved in my service to him! ....so not me. But I really should think about applying my own advice. :)

What would I do differently?

Maybe taking my own advice and let him give his two cents about what I'm going to do for him. (ugh, just typing that doesn't sound as special). He'd probably beg me to not to buy the gifts (for example) and buy something for myself! So this advice seems like it works for some service opportunities with Trav but not all of them!

Good night!

Love, me

PS I love this picture of Brynlie! An oldie, but a goodie! (March '12) It seems like she's saying "what would I do differently if I built this tricycle myself?" LOL

PPS Does anyone else hate to shop for themselves but find it fun and exciting to shop for others? Not to sound all selfless, I just literally hate all the personal guilt involved in buying stuff for me. I always find myself saying, "I don't REALLY need this, I can get by without it. But I really want it and I should just get it, but I really don't absolutely NEED this."