Top Ten Things That Happened Whilst I Fasted From Social Media for Ten Days

1.  A roadrunner chilled on my porch for a morning.  Only 5 other people knew about it.  I took a picture.

2.  I was five days late... but not six.  😳🙏

3.  My son decided to be a cat named "Meowy" who's a thief but also a knight who's also a professor for Halloween.

4.  Velociraptors visited my library.  I have the selfie to prove it.

5.  I bought tickets to see Wicked next April with my daughter.  We're most excited.

6.  My phone was painlessly upgraded.  (Hello, Moto...)

7.  I added more Halloween earrings to my collection.  Well, I only had one pair before, so now it's officially a collection.

8.  My family came to the conclusion that we are very decidedly a one-dog-only family.

9.  I wandered into "Jane the Virgin" territory on Netflix.  I'm probably going to be here for a while.

10.  I realized how many times during the day something will happen in my life and my first thought is to share it with the internet.


Bonus:  I didn't miss it.  I realized I don't need to check every notification or thing my friends are selling.  I wasted a lot of my life checking up on the lives of others.  I think I'm going to vastly decrease my usage from here on out.

By Small and Simple Things...

Recently, a promise was made by our stake president to a congregation of people at a fireside that if we accepted the invitation to submerge ourselves in the scriptures and follow the same reading schedule the youth were invited to follow in preparation for a very special event coming next year, we would see miracles happen in our lives.

My soul was touched.  The Spirit in that meeting was so strong it could be physically felt.

Yet, I was hesitant.  My family has been doing scripture reading almost every night for many moons but it's been puny at best.  This would require us to read more each night and answer discussion questions following.

Did we want to start over? Again? Were my kids going to sit for longer and actually tolerate a discussion afterward?

I had my doubts.

In fact, for a couple weeks, we didn't even do it.  I figured what we were doing was good enough and hey, at least we were doing it, right?

Apparently, it wasn't good enough.  One day I got the very strong prompting that we needed to join the masses that were on the reading schedule and just start where everyone else was.  I told my husband about it and met my first opposition.  I won't go into details but we'll say he wasn't on board.  He thought what we were doing was good enough, too.

The next day, though, he announced to the family during our family council (it was a Sunday) that we were going to be doing the scripture reading we were invited to participate in, starting that evening.

And we did.  We all had our scriptures and followed along.  We took turns reading a number of verses to cover the nightly reading assignment.  We then read the corresponding study question to get a discussion started.

The discussions haven't been scholarly by any means.  Sometimes it's all we can do to get a single syllable answer out of even one person.  But we're doing it.

And today, I saw my first miracle.

My kids are all home on Fall break this week.  I always come up with a "If you want to kill your brain cells with electronics, you're going to exercise your mind and body, first" list.

Part of my list, this time, was taking the dog for a walk around the block.

The miracle is my oldest son went.  Even though one of his shoes was still wet from having to be cleaned off due to a doggie doo incident.  Even though he's fought me on this in the past.  He went with a smile on his face and returned with a smile on his face.

All of my kids did all the things on the list without me nagging them to do it.  They did it with smiles on their faces.  They did it without fighting me.

I don't know if tomorrow will be the same but I'll take today.  I'll take this miracle.

p.s.  I've started a 10 day social media fast, today.  For the record, I did not need to go on any other site to share this post.  Just so we're clear.  ;)

Mid-life panic

I've started this post three times, now.  My thoughts ramble.

It comes to this, though - I'm 40.  I'm beginning to feel a desperate sort of panic about my life.

Like, what have I accomplished? I've done everything I ever wanted to do... which isn't saying much, really.

I've gotten married in the temple and started a family.  Those were my life goals.

And that's all.

I actually had this plan to go to school for medical assisting and move to Boulder, Colorado.  I mean, go big or go home, amIright? Ha.  I did do the school part.

By use of the handy encyclopedias we had growing up, I was able to make a list of the things I thought would be ideal in a place of residence and narrowed it down to Oregon or Washington.  I lived in Washington for two years, so that's something.

For real, though - now what? Is this as good as it gets?

I can see how people sort of flip about this time in their life.  I'm not about starting an affair or buying a two-seater car because of some "crisis".

I do want more, though.  If I died today, I can't say that I'm satisfied.  I want no regrets.

I just have to decide what that looks like for me.

I need to define the answer to my question and take action because I feel like I'm running out of time.  I feel like it's 3am and I have a major project due the next day and I'm not going to be able to do my best because I procrastinated till the last minute so now I have to settle for probably a D.

I don't want that.  I don't want a D kinda life.

I sorta feel paralyzed by the panic... like what do I do? How do I do it? Where do I start? What even do I want out of my life? What do I want to see when I look back from my last days on this earth?

Now is where my thoughts start to ramble.

To be continued...