Happiness.

Forever 21 maxi dress re-made as skirt, necklace, hat; American Eagle top

It's about to get serious up in here...

This weekend I finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Initially I picked the book up because of it's pretty cover - yes, I judge books by covers. First impressions matter, kay? Then I read the summary and I was intrigued. Since I finished school in December, my life has gone through some pretty big changes. Over the past few months, I've been thinking about happiness and whether or not I was appreciating enough in my life.  Then I found this book, written by a woman who asked herself the very same questions and actually did something about it. She started a "Happiness Project".

The book was an inspiring read. Not everything applied to me - I'm not married and I don't have children - but I feel like I've learned a lot from her experiences. I've become much more aware of my negativity and criticisms. There are certain things I definitely take for granted and I'm trying to do more to appreciate them. Also, I tend to get easily annoyed and I'm realizing that it isn't good for me, or the people around me. I've also found a few pretty great quotes from the book:

• "Enjoy the fun of failure" 
• "One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself"
• "The days are long, but the years are short" 

I'm sure this will be one of those books that I keep on my shelf and revisit when times are tough or I feel stuck in a rut. It's made me re-evaluate a number of areas of my life and I'm inspired to make some changes for myself.

What did you do this weekend?