distractions, distractions, distrations

Holy cow, just when you start to figure something really great out, all hell breaks loose to keep you from it. I have felt so much opposition and confusion about EVERYTHING right now, it is driving me crazy. I recently have started to develop some very good, important habits that will help me be a better mother, wife and person in general, things that are tiny little tweaks to what I normally do, but seem to make such a huge difference in my attitude throughout the day, and it just feels like Satan knows what an effect these things will have on me & my family and he is throwing everything in the book at me to get me distracted or off on another tangent! It's such a joke! I spent yesterday doing just fine, got up, worked out, did my studying and thankfulness time, had a lovely visit with Caroline, Matt's niece who had stayed over to babysit while Matt & I went to the dry pack on Wednesday night, and then we went to run some errands on the way to take Caroline home. I figured I'd go buy Becky, Matt's sister a birthday present, so we stopped at Barnes and Nobel to get Twilight, this vampire book that my friends cannot shut up about. Anyway, I was also looking for this book I heard about on the Morning Show about helping your daughter avoid body image issues and eating disorders, which they didn't have in stock, but I got distracted by a book called "Skinny Bi---" which at the time seemed to be a kind of smart diet book. Turns out it is a vegan bible riddled with all sorts of other foul language while it tells you of the evils of eating meat, non-organic produce and the FDA. I read over 100 pages of it while Sawyer was napping, it was absolutely riveting because it was so dramatically written, telling of the inhumane ways animals are slaughtered and the disgusting additives and preservatives that go into our foods, and what they do to our bodies. I do not know how much of it is true. It is very confusing and nauseating. By the time Matt came home I was worked into such a frenzy I had already ordered a vegetarian "starter kit" from PETA's website. If you know Matt you will be having a bit of a chuckle right now. He really, reallllly hates PETA, veganism and "all those hippie animal rights type people." I went to lds.org to see what the church had to say about it, and of course it just talked about moderation in all things, but I still really feel strongly about changing our diets to be much more focused on eating fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains and legumes and really, REALLY cutting back on meat. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I am having a hard time focusing on what is really important, and that was really solidified to me today while I was reading scriptures and praying, and that is having the Spirit in our home. And I believe it's my responsibility primarily. The things I say, do, listen to, read, watch, buy, put up with or tolerate will all either positively or negatively affect the ability of the Holy Ghost to dwell in our home & in our hearts. That's the bottom line. All this other crap will not make a difference in any one's eternal salvation. So yeah, tweak our families diet a bit, great, but going all extreme is not going to do anything but shift my focus from what is important. Anyway, after that great peace I felt today, not ten minutes later I hear someone on my front porch & Charlie starts barking, which is very annoying when Sawyer is sleeping, so I go out to look and, someone has put a pamphlet on our door knob. I don't want your crap! This is a trigger for me for some reason, I got really mad & threw it in our garbage can outside. Five minutes later I hear it again and storm out there and tell off the poor little 15 year old kid running around doing someones dirty work. There goes the Spirit. See ya later. I was seriously soooo mad, it was totally embarrassing, I keep looking outside to see if they pass by again so I can apologize. So I had a little breakdown and called Matt & vented which always helps, and then turned on the movie "Finding Faith in Christ" which really calmed me down. You know the part where the woman is taken in adultery and he says "Woman, where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" and she says "no man, Lord." Jesus says back to her "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." That 's the thing to remember: He isn't sitting there holding things over our heads, so why should we? Once we repent and make the commitment to do better, just go ahead and do better, don't waste your energy hating yourself for stuff that's in the past! Very good lesson for me today. Moving on.