Does your cell phone have a home?

Ahhh…the dreaded cell phone, you need the thing, but you really don’t need the thing often.  We gave up our landline years ago for the ever present, never can get far away, constantly downloading, time waster smart phone.  I mean, I was addicted to my smart phone, there are still times when I catch myself wanting to check it, for what, I’m not sure?   A simple, let me check this, which should take 30 seconds, ends up taking an hour of time.  Time which is precious to me…it really is…it has taken me a few comments from my children to see how much time I was actually spending scrolling.

This makes me sad.  Makes me feel guilty.  My kids and my family are really important to me, but were they getting the best of me and my time?  No.

While re-evaluating the things I find important in my life, the cell phone needed to have boundaries.  I don’t want to teach my kids that what people are posting on Facebook or Snapchat is more important than them, because it just ISN’T, never will be.

I have started to treat my cell phone like the old school landline we used to have, which had to stay in one place and you had to get up from where ever you were to answer it.  When I get home, the cell phone goes on the counter with the ringer on just like a landline.  I only answer it when someone calls or texts, which if I’m being honest, isn’t all that often.  After the hubs and I put the kids to bed, then I might scroll through and see what has happened in the last 24 hours since I put it down, but I find myself not even really caring what has happened more and more each day.

I’m enjoying spending quality time with my kids, doing and playing things we love as a family.  They seem to be much more content and I know I am a lot happier giving my cell phone a home on the counter.  I’m being present and focusing on what is happening right in front of me, instead of what is happening on social media.

Give it a try, let me know how it goes.

 

Stuff…

I walk in through the doors of my home each day, a place that should be a sanctuary to come home to, a place to relax, laugh, spend time with my family, and unwind.  But instead, I find myself stressed, uptight, and slapped right in the face with stuff.  I mean, seriously, I can’t even keep my house clean because there is no place for the stuff we have acquired over the last decade.  It is ridiculous and it makes me unhappy about the values I am passing on to my kids.  I am forever lost in the Diamond Rio video, Stuff.

Stuff does not make me happy.

Let’s talk about this for a minute…is this what life is about?  Grow up, go to college, get a job, buy a home to fill it full of things that make us happy for a mire few seconds.

I think NOT.

I have had a lot of change in my life in the past few years and I have moved from a place of toxicity to really finding and working towards my true passion.  I have grown.  This is an area I am growing towards…a passion-driven, relationship-focused, connected life.

I recently sat down and wrote a list of things that bring me happiness and joy in my life.  And what do you know, not a ONE, not one single item on the list was stuff.

Over the next several months I have decided to really simplify my life and purge a lot of the “stuff” that is not creating joy in my life.

I’ll share the list soon…as well as my s to simplify my life.