Sweet Reminders of Good...

I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there, like me who gleans their "news" from nearly everywhere besides actually watching "The News?"  Confession time:  Chris and I had our cable tv shut off many months ago and I have to tell you... it is not often that I miss it, if ever!  I truly enjoy our quiet moments in our home and I absolutely, without question do NOT miss the bad, shocking, terrifying, alarming, misrepresented, opinionated and otherwise twisted streams of "news" that used to stream through that big screen on our wall!

Yes, I hear and read and am aware of what's going on in the world today.  I don't live in the woods.  I live in America.  I have a computer.  I have Facebook (lol)...  I hear it!  However, I don't want to meditate on it, ruminate over it or allow it to become my obsession.  I have an opinion that much of what is pumped through those streaming 24 hour news stations is nothing more than a calculated method of keeping people in a state of chaos, whereby their lives are controlled by whatever happens to be the current headline and forgive me if I just want to enjoy my moments and live in my present without ignorance, but without an unhealthy obsession with things out of my hands.  Anyone else with me?

Anyhow, one of the side benefits of our exodus from mass media has been a renewed focus on the important things in our lives that I am too often distracted from.  I'm beginning to notice things like bees and butterflies sitting on my late Summer blooms.  I'm feeling the crispness of the air as it streams through my open windows and I'm hearing the familiar sounds that the trees make this time of year... I hear crickets, the rhythmic crescendo and decrescendo of the cicadas or whatever bug that is making it's steady calls.  I hear mowers cutting grass... I hear life.  And, I like it.  

I want to reacquaint myself with these familiar sights and sounds and smells and reengage with what seems to have become a distant memory since my world turned digital. I want to introduce my children to them.  I've found myself turning off the videos lately and pulling out the art easel, for Asher.  Yesterday, we went outside in the beautiful weather and pulled weeds, which surprisingly was like a Christmas gift to my newly turned four year old boy!  He was a dream all day after that experience.  Who knew?  Pulling Weeds?

And even more importantly, I want to establish new habits and patterns as Asher is getting older and I feel the increasing responsibility to nurture his learning and establish a more concrete routine to foster that. Especially considering our Winter promise. No, not just snow, or Christmas, or skiing... but this wonderful Winter we will be welcoming a tiny new Morrison into our world and I want it to be a warm welcome, rather than a swarm of chaos where he or she would have to struggle to find a place.  I want more for me.  More for Chris and I.  More for Asher and more for our new Blessing.  I want to live in such a way that I am always discovering new and sweet reminders of good... 

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."  
James 1:17 (NKJV)