Distractions

I'm realizing that my life is full of distractions.  The biggest culprit in my life at this time is...

My phone.

Pretty.  Isn't it.

It is an amazing tool.  It has my calendar on it and it sends me reminders of events.  It has my kindle on it, which gives me the ability to read whatever I'm in the mood for when I have a minute to spare.  It has the scriptures on it.  It has the internet and gives me the capability to look things up immediately if I have a question about something.  It has a camera & video camera.  It has my e-mail, facebook, pinterest, and, of course, texting and calling capabilities.

The problem with all of that is that I spend way too much time looking at the phone when I should be looking at my children.  I spend way too much time thinking about whatever random e-mail or facebook post or book or whatever it may be when I should be thinking about my children, my husband, and my home.  As I've become more aware of this issue, I've noticed I'm not the only person with this problem... and it makes me sad.  It has made me determined to not be THAT mom... the one staring at her phone minute after minute, day after day, month after precious month only to look up one day and realize her little ones aren't little any more and all of the memories she could have been storing up in her brain were very craftily stolen away by the allurement of the smartphone.

So in this new effort to try to little by little become the woman that my Heavenly Father wants me to be,  I am starting with overcoming this addiction.  I'm not going to be carrying around this old "friend" day in and day out any more.  It will sit in my kitchen or purse instead of in my pocket.  I will use it in limited amounts at specific times.  I've felt for a while that I needed to put my phone down and although I should have done it weeks ago, I am not going to beat myself up.... I am just going to follow through with that prompting and start being more aware and more present in my own life.