A few weeks ago, inspired by Beth Moore in her book Believing God, I tied a blue piece of string around my wrist as a reminder that I am trying to give up swearing. The string never comes off, I wear it in the shower, doing dishes, everything. (She suggests giving the reminder string six weeks to work its magic & help you change your habit.)
Well as time has passed, the string has been slowly rinsed of its color. It's now nearly white. I was noticing how light it is this morning and it struck me as ironic that as I try to cleanse my mouth of foul, unnecessary words, the bracelet I wear as a reminder of this promise, is also getting cleansed.
Last week I was the most proud of myself on this journey thus far. Logan had broken his glasses in anger and they were the FOURTH pair he has broken since June. (That's a pair of glasses every two months!!!) I will admit I did yell... "Logan!!! That's the fourth pair you've broken since June!!! And you have TESTING next week! Now what are you going to do? Go.to.your.room." Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
But! But I didn't swear! I didn't even want to.
Sometimes (since giving up bad words) my yelling sounds like its been censored. I'll be saying that I'm upset about something and then there will be a blank space where normally the curse word would have been. But this time, I spoke my heart (that I was frustrated) and sent him to his room without uttering a single bad word (or pausing to omit one)!!!
It feels good to be setting an example for the boys (and Carly!) that I would be proud for them to follow.
Funny enough, just as I'm starting to feel real good about the example I'm setting, Logan challenged me to go the whole day Monday without my phone. At first I laughed at him, but then he upped the ante and said that if I used my phone, then he and his brothers should get screens cause it's not really fair that they don't get screens all week, but I do. (They only get screen times on the weekends. No TV, no computer, no tablets Monday through Friday... except on Snow Days because #momrules and #survival. #nojudgment! Ha!)
So I rolled that little thought around in my head and eventually agreed to it. I told him I would go the whole day Monday without TV or my phone (no Facebook, no Instagram) and would only answer phone calls or texts, not start any myself.
And so it was that Monday was the most productive day of 2017. Ha!!! But for real, I got so much done. The best part was that Wyatt (the kid is a genius) had the idea of putting Logan's lenses in Jack's frames (they have one pair that is the same glasses just in different colors) so I took the pairs in Monday morning to see if it could be done and voila! Logan has a pair of glasses to wear for testing and our "no glasses for our kid who needs them most" dilemma is solved. Hooray! Shout out to Super Wy for being so brilliant!
What habits are you working on creating or eliminating in 2017? How do you keep yourself on track? I've been wanting to do bullet journaling and keep track of my new years resolutions that way, but so far the only thing I've done is make a bookshelf drawing to add "Books I've Read" to. Maybe with the upcoming addition of February Goals, I will get something figured out in my journal!
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Yay I love it!! You are doing awesome. I am way more productive on the days I put my phone up for sure. I love all your goals. I am so not a goal setter, but I actually have been doing little goals lately and actually meeting them. It feels good!
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