Make up your Mind Monday

[blessedw2]

I have to turn off the news when it starts affecting me. The grief is too much to me as well.
When I do a whole week without the news - I feel better but I am not ignorant to what is going on. I just can't watch if over and over again.

There is nothing I can do but try to be a good family person, try to be a good friend and try to be a citizen in my area, be a good steward. I can vote - I can speak up and write to my senators, help charities that help others when I can, etc: most of all I can pray.

The world has always had craziness, cruelty, awful war, people trying taking over other people, and sensationalized news or gossip! I can't stop it and if the news affects me so much that I can't put the good energy into myself and my family or my neighborhood, then I know it's time to quiet it from our lives. It' is not burying oneself in the sand but lifting one to be a positive change in the immediate world around me.

My grandfather, with all that happened to him, saw so much pain, felt physical pain and cruelty brought on by others, there is cruelty and death but he still felt there was so much good. He was one of the most positive people I knew; and if he could see or be the light to others; then so can I,. I can do what I can do and no more.

Part of the old billy Joel song.

"We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it"
billy Joel.

[blessedw2]

my body is feeling very stiff.

I still have to wash the kitchen floor.
I still have to exercise and stretch
I still have to make the bed with the clean sheets and blankets I have
I need to do a put away in the one bedroom
I need to do a put away in the front hall.
study.

Things that still need doing but will be worked on
clean the garden tools
work in the garage - January 30, 31
weekly and some monthly kitchen and laundry room chores Feb 1, 2 and 3rd:

My brother asked me to pick him up so he can get mom's car as his truck is being repaired. I love to help him where I can. Actually I am looking forward to driving that way as I haven't been there in a long long time. (it's about an hour to an hour and half drive). I love adventures even simple ones like this.

[LadyMaverick]

d if the news affects me so much that I can't put the good energy into myself and my family or my neighborhood, then I know it's time to quiet it from our lives. It' is not burying oneself in the sand but lifting one to be a positive change in the immediate world around me.

Well said! I agree

DD12 and I had a long discussion about school and her math grade plummeting. On the good side....DD12 isn't struggling with doing Math. On the not so good side.....DD12 is struggling with turning in her work. When I asked why she wasn't doing her homework, she pulled out a folder from her backpack that contained several completed homework papers that she hadn't turned in. She made the statement "I didn't want to turn them in because I might need to look at them in the future" I encouraged her to take a picture of the paper so she could keep the information and then turn the homework paper in to the teacher so she would get a grade. We are treating this as a learning experience and I am not giving her any repercussions or consequences. I explained if it keeps happening then we will need to make some changes and she agreed.

I got a message that DS15 logged into an unknown forum using his google account at 4:17pm. I thought it was strange because DS15 is at work. I contacted him and he verified that he didn't log into any forum. His online presence including email account are managed by me through parental controls. I have checked all the security settings and locked his account down even more.

I missed doing the last hour steps and I am behind on my hourly goals. Somedays are like that. The good thing is I can start again at this hour.

[blessedw2]

I understand how your dd was thinking - what a good idea that she can take a picture of her work!
so good that you have that for ds 15 - d lady!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I think I disagree with the opening quote.

While it might be true, absent any dopamine spiking addictions, once you introduce those, then your thoughts center around getting another 'hit'. Controlling emotions becomes difficult and failure to do so lead to self-recrimination because you aren't in control of your actions. And without full control of your actions the outcomes you hope for are not in your control.

And smart phones and social media are designed specifically to spike your dopamine. So they count as an addiction.

If I take my smart phone away and don't sit for hours playing solitaire, I have a better day. If I stay off social media entirely, I have a better day. BUT if I have to pick up my phone or go on my computer for anything, I get distracted and I find myself hitting refresh on social media or playing mindless games. And then my day falls apart.

Here's what happened last night:

9:30, I get up from the couch for the first time since dinner. I'd been scrolling or playing solitaire since our TV show ended at 7. I probably got up due to back pain and/or needing to pee. After taking my dishes to the kitchen and going to the bathroom, I walk into the bedroom and decide to fill the humidifier. Dh is watching a movie in there, on his tablet. So I can't go to bed right away. (In this apartment there are comfortable chairs in the living room and the bedroom and he was in the bedroom because he didn't want to disturb me in the living room because if he did that would mean I couldn't use the room and that is where my desk is.)

9:35, humidifier full, and unable to go to bed, I go back to the living room and, staying off the phone, which I recognize as addictive, I start filling in my bullet journal for this week and make up a to-do list for today. Today dh had a doctor's appointment at 6:00 p.m. and we live 40 minutes away so we were planning to eat dinner at a restaurant next door. I go to the computer to check to see if that restaurant is open on Mondays.

9:40, power up computer (had to move it back to work mode from watching Apple Plus TV mode which means taking out the cable for the TV set and plugging in my desk monitor cable.) Get distracted.

10:10, dh comes into the room. I'm listening to podcasts while doing an online jig saw puzzle. I say I'll come to bed when I finish. He goes to bed.

10:35, I turn off the computer, I go to finish updating the bullet journal. I realize why I went to the computer almost an hour before (to check the restaurant hours).

10:45, I check my phone for the hours, not daring to power up the computer again. Restaurant is closed on Mondays. Check the pub, it is closed on Monday. Check a restaurant in a nearby town, it is open. Good. Head to the bedroom. Dh is dozing but wakes up when I come in. I tell him we'll be eating in the town, not the village the doctor's office is in. He asks if I had been going to bed when I came in at 9:30 and then reprimands me for letting him "drive me out of the bedroom". We have words, and I explain what I've just written out here. It wasn't his fault I was still up at now 10:50, it was my ADD and inability to simply check the hours of the restaurant.

11:05, I finish getting ready for bed and turn the light out.

In total, between 7 and 11, I had no more than 40 minutes on-task. The rest was at the mercy of software that is designed to keep my attention by giving me dopamine hits.

I have to have the computer on for things. It's the trying to not get sucked into the things that are deliberately trying to keep me looking at them instead of the reason I went to the computer in the first place that causes the problems.

But it is why I'm not here very much any more.

Being here requires being on the computer, AND being online (so I can't just come here and turn off internet access.)

Mondays are usually a good day and this was not an exception. I got all the house blessing done, plus wrote a couple of long emails, did some scanning, did a round of physio stretches and the 3 hours away for dinner out and the doctor's appointment. What makes Mondays so successful for me is that the day doesn't require much computer work.

It is the same for days with dgs2.75. I don't get on my phone or computer because he hates that (no kidding, people ignore him when they are paying attention to screens) and so I focus on him, or the tiny chores I can do when he's playing well by himself.

Errand days are equally good days because so little time is spend on the computer.

But any day when I get 23 emails about a topic, my emotions get in the way. My phone tells me about all the incoming emails and I know I have to go to the computer to properly read and process them. And I know I won't be able to focus just on the email. To give myself a chance to think through the issues, I'll end up playing a solitaire game of some sort and then I'll spiral off in search of the easy hit of dopamine that gives me instead of the hard work to get a feeling of satisfaction from accomplishing a task.

[Nancy]

I turned on pc to post progress and put it on the wrong thread oh well.
Did up the dishes and spiffed the kit.

K in C I know what you mean I used to play a game farm - v.... you probably know one day I quit when I realized I"d wasted half of a day on it!