It's not you, it's me. No, really.

Tonight was the womens broadcast at church. As I was on my way there, I was thinking about 2 friendships I have of friends that are very dear to me, and how I was wishing that our friendships were as close now as they had been in the past. I began to think of things that those friends were doing that I felt were hampering our friendship, and then the thought crossed my mind "perhaps, just maybe, it's not them that's the problem..." And I immediately felt guilty that I had even put the blame on them to begin with.

Then, somewhat interestingly, President Monson's talk tonight was not judging others. He told a story of a woman who moved to a neighborhood, and every time her neighbor hung her laundry out to dry she would complain to her husband how poorly the neighbor washed her clothes, and how dirty they always looked. One morning over breakfast as the neighbor hung up her clothes she said "Oh my!! Look, she finally learned to get her clothes really clean!! I wonder how she finally figured it out?". Her husband said "Well, I think I can tell you, I woke up early and washed our windows this morning".

So President Monson was saying we need to avoid judging others, because to some extent or another we are always looking out dirty windows. We can never fully see their circumstances, or know what all is going on in their life. It was a reminder I needed.

Some other things that stood out to me tonight:
RS Motto is Charity Never Faileth. Charity is the opposite of judgment, it is tolerant, patient, sympathetic, compassionate and merciful. It gives attention to those that are unnoticed, and is patient with someone who has let us down, and refuses to be offended easily.
We study history because it helps us learn what we are to do, and it changes us. It can give us definition in this world
We must be careful not to spend our labor for that which can not satisfy

Those are just a couple things, the meeting tonight was fabulous, and I feel like I have been spiritually lifted. I hope I can become more charitable and loving in all my interactions.

Preparation = No Fear

Recently I've been worrying about things a lot. With my new fall schedule, where I'm teaching 4 days a week, I just get anxious about being ready for my classes and students, and having food to feed my family when I'm done with said teaching. This morning as I was reading my scriptures I read the verse "When you are prepared you shall not fear". Which made me think I obviously lack some preparation in my life.

I feel like I talk about this all the time, but I still struggle figuring it out. How do I prioritize the many things that clamor to fill up my days? How do I stop wasting time? I feel like there are so many things that I NEED to be doing, but I don't get them all done, so how do I choose which ones are more needed? How do I stop doing things I feel like need to be done today to prepare for things tomorrow so I feel less stress?

One problem I face daily is I have such a hard time motivating myself when I am tired, which I usually am for at least an hour or two a day. Waking up early is great as far as getting a few things done before the boys wake up, but I'm really dragging through my late morning/early afternoon a lot of days. Maybe if I were eating more healthfully I would feel better?

I guess I should also be trying to be more open to the spirit as I plan my days. I believe God really does care that we are using our time wisely, and he'll help us to do that. I just need to be better at thinking about that.

Thoughts?

This is me writing something

I keep sitting down to write on here, and I type out a couple of sentences, and then everything I've written just seems to be... dumb, and so I delete it all determined to come back later in the day when I have better ideas. And as you can see by how long it's been since I've posted anything... I haven't actually been doing that.

So my idea is if I post SOMETHING, anything really, perhaps it will help pull me out of my writing rut. Here's to nothin'.

Yesterday I was cleaning Jefferson's room with him, and it was a pretty big disaster when we started. We cleaned for about 20 minutes, and got it looking fine, and I was ready to call it a day. As I looked around the room, I thought "Grant would finish the job, he wouldn't leave it like this." So I found homes for the little odds and ends that don't seem to fit quite anywhere, lined up the toys that live around the edge of the room, and vacuumed the floor. And the room went from fine to great in 5 minutes.

I think I tend to call it good at "fine" too often, when a little bit more effort would make it "great". So that's my mantra for the day. Make it great.