good...BeTTeR...BEST!

Have you ever watched someone that you admire and wonder how in the world they seem to have it all together and how they get so much done? I know... I've heard the saying that if you think someone has it all together, you just need to go to their house on Sunday morning, and you would feel better. I am sure there is truth to that. In fact, I don't think I would invite anyone into my house on Sunday mornings - total destruction in every way! However, that isn't what this post is really about, it is really about the things in life that I am missing out on because I am just too busy. I realize that I have the exact same 24 hours in a day that you have. I believe that the difference between someone who seems to have "time" to do all the things on their list and someone like ME is that they only put the most important things on their list in the first place! I remember giving a lesson in Relief Society from Elder Dallin H. Oaks in General Conference, titled, "Good, better, best." Following is one of the things he said that I liked the most:



Some of our most important choices concern family activities. ...I have never known of a man who looked back on his working life and said, “I just didn’t spend enough time with my job.”
In choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best. A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply, and so did those he told of it. “The thing I liked best this summer,” the boy replied, “was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked.”



This article has really stuck with me. There are so many good things to chose to do with my time, but am I chosing the BEST? If I feel every day that I am sinking faster than I can swim, than obviously I'm not always chosing the "best" things to do with my time. In fact, as I am writing this, Kamden is sitting on my lap "talking" to me and smiling. So I am going to chose the higher road and chose the "best" and play with him, and stop blogging right now. I will continue this blog later...

I'm back. We played and laughed, and now I can do my thing - maybe for a second or two anyways. So back to the issue of time. I feel an urgency to do all the things that I know I should do, like read my scriptures every day, have consistant family home evenings, doing my church calling, supporting Ira in his ever-busy church calling, making sure we are having our family prayers, helping my neighbors, etc. etc. etc. (the list can go on for miles). Then there's the things that absolutely have to take priority, like listen to my husband and children (takes time), play with them (takes time), helping with homework, making sure they are all fed etc. etc. etc.... Then there are fairly important things like keeping a house of order, (that one went out my dirty windows months ago!). Then there are the ABSOLUTE MUSTS :), and that consists of MY time (that's when I blog and scrapbook). And there are the things that should probably be up to the top of the list, but unfortunantly are almost at the bottom, things like exercise and date nights. So do I have my priorities mixed up? Probably! I know from past experiences that when I re-prioritize these things, and put the things that Heavenly Father has asked me to do FIRST, then somehow, all the other things either fall into place, or don't seem quite as important as they once did. I know that Satan knows that he can't get me with things like drugs or alcohol or countless other tools he uses, they just aren't a temptation to me. But I know that he knows that he can get me with my time. He can, and has destroyed countless families by making us too busy for each other, and for the most important things in life. I am certainly not lecturing any of my blog readers with this post, I am just putting my own thoughts into words of what I need to fix in my own home. Following are two of my most favorite quotes that hit home to me.

"The adversary would keep us busily engaged in a multitude of trivial things in an effort to keep us distracted from the few vital things that make all the difference."-Ardeth G. Kapp

(Try to guess who wrote this next one... it fits how she lived her life.)

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenck's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." - Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Sometimes I find myself "wishing away" the time I have right now. I just feel so overwhelmed, that I think that when my kids are a bit older (like out of the house - on their own), THEN things will calm down and I can enjoy life more. How terrible is that? So many people tell me to enjoy them while they are young - time goes too fast., and in my mind I think "Ya, right - tell me how!" - everyday seems like an eternity until I can finally throw my tired body into bed just to be waken up again a couple short hours later." How sad is that? My babies are growing up, and I have enjoyed most of it, but have totally skipped over a bunch of it. We watched the Kung Fu Panda movie this weekend, and in it there was a very profound statement that I just might make into great big signs and hang in every room in my house. The "wise old turtle" said, "yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift - that is why it is called the present." How cool is that? That is going to be my new goal starting right now - to make today a gift, and enjoy the craziness in my life, and to simplify. If something I think I need to do doesn't make me or my family or neighbors better people, then is it really worth my time? (by the way, I'm justifying blogging as making myself a better person - it's giving me a place to express my thoughts and our family journal - pretty good justification, don't ya think?) I could keep going on this subject for a very long TIME, because it is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for quite some TIME. However, I think I have worked out in my mind what I needed to, and now I need to re-prioritize my TIME, and do something else useful with it. And with the Lords help, I will figure out how to do that! I just love my family way too much to wake up one day and realize that I have wished them away because I was just too busy, or that they have gone down some scary paths because I was too busy to take them by the hand and walk them down the right path.