Final day! I’m grateful there’s a grocery store close to us. We had to pop out this morning to grab sundry things (foil! of all the times to run out of foil!!); it was nice that it didn’t have to be a big excursion. Plus, the folks at our store are pleasant–it’s a nice store to be in.
There’s a million other things I’m deeply grateful for (my husband and cat are just two!) but, you know, sometimes I like to remember the less glamorous things in life and appreciate that they’re there.
Happy Thanksgiving!
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
Day 6: It’s always a great day to be thankful for indoor plumbing and running water. In some places, all somebody does all day is haul water back and forth from the well to their house–can’t get an education or anything else–all for want of plumbing. So I try not to take it for granted.
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
(Wow, day 5 already!) Today I’m grateful my cat Pixel enjoys my piano playing. Seriously. I sat down today and within a song or two he sauntered in from sunbathing and began relaxing on his cardboard. I looked over my shoulder at him at one point and found he was watching me. I felt like he was saying, “Nice job, Beta Monkey. Keep it up.”
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
Day 3: I am thankful for naps. Because I haven’t been sleeping well at night lately. I took a nap Sunday afternoon.
At one point I drooled, so you know it was a good nap.
Day 4: Today I’m grateful for fitness YouTubers. Doing workouts with JessicaSmithTV or The Yoga Ranger Studio or Jenny Ford helps sedentary writer-artist indoor person me feel social(!), get stronger, and stretch out some awful crampy shoulders and hips. I could never be a gym person, but thanks to the content these folks (and others) put out, my fitness is enhanced enough that I can continue eating cheese (which is the whole point of exercise…right?).
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
Today I’m grateful for unexpected friendships. Earlier this year, a former coworker of my husband got back in touch with him. Since then, hubby and I have been doing activities with her and her husband every few weekends, and it’s been a lot of fun! I’m very glad she reached out.
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
Today I’m grateful for the phlebotomist who stuck me today. I’m Rather Smoll and finding veins can be very tricky on me, but the folks at the lab where I regularly go always get ‘er done with minimal fuss and discomfort to me (who is all too often anxious about the whole procedure).
~Per a recent invitation given by the president of my church, I’ll be posting once a day for the next seven days regarding something I’m feeling grateful for. Feel free to join in and feel more peace in your life! #GiveThanks
First, I watched this great video about quitting the internet for a month.
Two ideas hit me hard from this video: 1) you never run out of content on the internet. Compare this to reading a newspaper. That activity has a definite endpoint. The internet…just keeps going. There is always something there to consume. 2) A lot of what we consume as “news” isn’t news but peoples’ opinions of the news.
Some of the sites I was on were like that–it’d take me 3 minutes to read the article, then 20 minutes to read the comments for that article. And I’d want to read a dozen articles from a site.
That added up.
But one day, just being sick and tired of feeling sore and stiff after too much tablet reading, I decided to get an app blocker for my Android tablet.
WOW it opened my eyes. Even though I didn’t have a lot of apps (like Facebook, Instagram, etc.) on some days, I spent hours on one or two of my little games. And many, MANY hours were spent just reading sites on my browser. Pointless! And here I am wondering why I can’t get my art and scanning done!
So I used the app to restrict the amount of time I spend on certain apps on certain days. And like the Firefox/PaleMoon add-on Leechblock, it can also ban an app during certain hours of the day. Pretty flexible!
The free version of StayFocused only lets you block 4 or 5 apps, but since only 4 or 5 apps plague me, it works just perfect for me.
PS using an app like Habitica or TaskHero can help you start building systems that will help you use your time doing things YOU value. Leechblock is great for desktop to block time-sucker sites during certain hours, and Neil Cicierega’s WORK! program keeps you accountable in the programs you need to be working in!
And here are two highly relevant Mormonads to use for your lock screen:
Author Dean Wesley Smith was talking about Heinlein’s Rules on his blog last year. I can’t recall the exact post, but the more I read this quote, the more I realize it’s not just great creativity advice, but great LIFE advice:
“You won’t be able to stay on [Heinlein’s Rules] for too long, but just keep climbing back on when you realize you have fallen off and you will make it.”
Of course, you can substitute “Heinlein’s Rules” with any practice you’re trying to grow in. The Gospel of Christ, healthy eating, exercise…the list is endless! I love this quote.
![A clock with different silhouetted items - like a girl kneeling in prayer, a man running, a globe, a temple, a book - is featured against a bright yellow background. Black text reads: Spend Time Wisely. "Choose to do many good things of your own free will" (For the Strengh of Youth [2011], 3)](https://i0.wp.com/pixelvaniastudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mormonad-spend-time-wisely-1118462-mobile.jpg?ssl=1)
