Musings

Cayden said a funny thing yesterday.  He told us that he wanted to be baptized in the bathtub.

I enjoy Facebook.  It can be a colossal waste of time but it is fun to find friends from long ago and keep in touch.  It also is sort of sad to me to see that some of my Facebook friends and some long lost family members who have taken different roads.  I feel bad to see how far removed some of them are from the church and from a life that I know that they were a part of or were atleast familiar with.  I'm sure that they are all very happy with their lives but I sometimes I wonder.

I've decided that I need to find things that make me happy and seriously focus on the happy aspect. My usual way of thinking is that I need to be "grateful" which is good but to often grateful can connote just getting through something or it becomes a mantra that I chant to force myself to be grateful.  Being happy is different because you SHOULD be grateful but you have to choose to be happy.  Sometimes it is hard to be happy when things are hard or I don't feel that I am getting or doing or being exactly what I need to be.  It is hard to be happy when my expectations are clearly not being met by myself or my kids or others or my locality. So in an effort to do better I want to focus on happy.  So today I am happy because...
1.  My house is clean.
2.  We have shipped 8 boxes of school supplies to India.
3.  I can walk.
4.  I can and love to read.
5.  Today was a relatively easy day.
6.  I know that I am not the only one with struggles.  Not that I am happy others have struggles but just to know that I am not the only one.
7.  There are teachers who actually care about their students and want to see them succeed.
8.  I have acted like an adult today and have tried to love others when they are being unlovable.
9.  It is Taco Salad Wednesday.
10. I have helped someone else today.
11.  Oreos

I am reading the book Jacob Have I Loved.  I have been reading some of the Newberry Award winning books.  I always wonder how some of these books get chosen as awards winners.  Not that they aren't good books but it is just interesting to see how different they all are.  Case in point-Island of the Blue Dolphins.  It was an ok book but what was the award winning part of it?  I know I am not a literary genius but I do read alot of books so it's just a thought.

This new year I really don't want to set resolutions per se because it just is a cause for disappointment in myself when I don't attain or complete the things that I need to.  The resolutions just become to broad and for a person that seeks perfection in most things, attaining perfection in these goals is not possible.  The only goal from last year that I can totally say that I did and accomplished was that I read the conference issues of the Ensign before the next conference.  I think that I just need to do better a little at a time and say that I want to better tomorrow or I will do better next time. To make a page long list of things that I think that I need to finish or be perfect at does not seem productive.