Parent-Birthday week

Once upon a time I started taking a family foundations class in which much advice is given on how you should have a fantastic family and get married to a fantastic person and have fantastic children which you raise in the best way possible. All this learning has actually just made me realize that I've had a wonderful example right in front of me my entire life. They seriously did a good job/are still doing a great job.

So pretty soon I finally get to hang out with them for more than a few hours and it's in the time between their two birthdays. This also happens to be the time of the greatest holiday ever- Thanksgiving. Anyways...Shout out to both of them...here is a list of (a few of) their combined qualities that I admire as parents and as people. 

I don't think I've ever head either of them yell at each other or any of their kids...or anyone. 

Passion for traveling and learning everything you can about the world.

Saturday chores when I was little- a combination of doing all the yardwork and practically spring cleaning the entire house. Every. Week. The reason...six kids.

The way they wake us up in the morning: mom=coming in and dancing the Ketchup Dance dad=consistent annoying bell ringing or blasting music

Lots of memories of eating dinner together...some of those dinners not so good. Like the yams that got spit all over dad's t-shirt when zoie told him she didn't want them, and mom thinking ox tail soup was a good idea. But mostly good food. 

The value of music. So many family home evenings when all we did was sit around the piano and sing hymns until we couldn't anymore. And then of course there's the 'you must pick an instrument and play it until you're 16' which only ever resulted in good things.
Watching movies as a  family when everyone would eventually falls asleep except me and dad. But mom's not asleep...she's just 'reading her book'...with her eyes closed.
The way they raised their kids and let them develop into whoever they wanted to be (with guidance to be a good one) and to not chose everything for us.


To name a few. 

Refocusing: minimize distractions

Occasionally in life frustration will set in for a reason that may not be apparent for quite sometime. For me I had this building frustration for a couple days in a row and I wasn't sure why. This morning I figured it out Thanks to a random conference talk that I found where Uchtdorf told me what's what.

If life and its rushed pace and many stresses have made it difficult for you to feel like rejoicing, then perhaps now is a good time to refocus on what matters most.

So I began to question what I was doing and what mattered most. We all have goals of what we hope our lives to be like. I guess what happened is the activities I was giving time to were not those that were contributing to the goal of what I want life to be like. Not that any activity in and of itself was bad, just that it was distracting me from doing something better with my time.
In one of my classes we were talking a lot about how certain things in the media are distractions from what is really important. I think that's what was making me so frustrated- spending lots of time doing things that were not important to me. So as part of refocusing myself I am setting weekly goals for myself. This week I am starting with controlling how much media I spend my time on.
I found this program called 'stay focused'- you type in all the sites that you constantly find yourself wasting time on (some blogs, facebook, pinterest) and once it knows those sites it times how long you are on them. You only get 10 minutes a day to spend on time wasting sites. Once your ten minutes are up it says ...

Other inspiration was gotten from an article I was shown once by a friend called 'Focus' by Leo Babauta.

It contains some serious good stuff if you ever want to read it...click here. It's free, it's somewhat long, it's inspirational. 

Some great quotes pulled out...

There are days when I wake up and refuse to turn on the Internet, and sit still with my cup of coffee in the hush that fills the hours just before dawn. I’ll listen to the quiet. I’ll reflect on life. I’ll lose myself in a novel. Some days I’ll sit down and write, just my thoughts and the quiet and the gentle tapping of the keyboard. And it’s beautiful.

It’s not technology we should be afraid of. It’s a life where we’re always connected, always interrupted, always distracted, always bombarded with information and requests. It’s a life where we have no time to create, or connect with real people.

I also realized that so many turn into movie nights and nothing else. Why the need for so many movies? So another of my week goals is to not watch any movies. Not even this weekend. Think of something more creative to do, or if you can't and everyone around your wont, go to something productive instead. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up movies entirely- just taking a break for a week.
 There is no need to be pulled into media constantly. Not that it's a bad thing, there are just better things I could be doing.

So as part of what I hope to be many weeks of goal setting- this week is dedicated to minimizing distractions in the media. We'll see how it goes.