About Me

Who am I, and why am I here?

For the purposes of this page, I’ll stick with the simple answer to this one and leave the existential musings for the blog posts.

I am a 30-something woman. I am a wife. I am a so-called “stay-at-home” mom to two young children. I am a writer. I am an avid reader.

I blog under the pseudonym “CJ,”  a childhood nickname that could (but doesn’t) stand for Calamity Jane, Currant Jam, or Colossal Joke.

Didn’t you do a Happiness Project? Whatever happened to that?

During the summer of 2010, I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, in which Rubin does loads of research about happiness. She identifies 11 areas of her life in which she would like to experience greater joy and then determines several actions, or resolutions, she’d like to follow in the hopes of increasing her happiness in each area. Over the course of a year, she follows her resolutions, adding new ones each month, and at the end of the year, she has a book.

My personal Happiness Project ran from August 1, 2010, through July 31, 2011. It was awesome. Check out the month-by-month in the archives, or just look at everything in the category “Happiness Project.”

After a few months of blogging without a map, I’m embarking upon a fairly unstructured Simplicity Project. I’m not sure what shape it’s going to take, but I’m doing a lot of reading and soul-searching, and when I come up with a plan, I’m sure I’ll write about it here. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my ramblings about motherhood and homeschooling and books I’ve read and foods I’ve cooked and New England drivers.

Why “Imperfect” Happiness?

As I began thinking about my own Happiness Project, I realized I was using it as an excuse to yet again try to attain perfection. While I believe that aiming high is good, I don’t think that in the quest for happiness, having perfection as my goal is very helpful. So, I’m trying to focus on being Imperfect Me and being Happy at the same time. Simple.

(But I still secretly want to be perfect.)