Impressions from My Ten-day Social Media Fast Part IV

I felt quite sick this morning which is not unusual for Sunday morning. I was only able to sleep with my C-pap machine for four hours last night, which means the rest of the time I was not getting enough oxygen. I set my alarm so I would be able to get up for 9:00 am church. I was awakened by my husband, so I tried my best to look good, but it wasn’t working. I went anyway.

It was fast and testimony meeting. I struggled to keep my eyes open. There were a baby blessing and the confirming of a new convert in our ward, Helen. I enjoyed hearing about her story of conversion. Then Isi taught Sunday School. It was about the teachings of Isaiah having to do with pride. Then I went to Relief Society. I usually go home before this meeting but decided to stay. The Relief Society President always makes a “big deal” about the fact that I "show up" in front of everyone. It makes me very uncomfortable. Then I went to the English class (We are in the Tongan Ward). My throat was hurting quite bad and my voice was hoarse. I tried hard to read a part of the lesson that I was given. Again, the Relief Society president came in and as they were discussing forgiveness and repentance, she said of me, “Ruth has nothing to repent of” out loud. I replied “you have no idea"1, which is true. She assumes that the former wife of a Mission President must be perfect. Again, I felt very uncomfortable. Will I return again? I guess we shall see...

When I got home, I hit my bed and took a nap for a couple of hours. We were supposed to take dinner to my Dad because my brother, Kirk was on a little trip down in Moab. Thank goodness Isi loves to cook. He prepared a roast that I had purchased, with potatoes, onions, and carrots from our garden, along with cabbage in a crock pot. Then we took some beetroot that I knew my Dad craved that we also had grown in our garden. He seemed to enjoy the dinner and we left enough for another meal or two

Shauna, Dale, and Geoffrey also came to visit, so we enjoyed that. Then home to rest. I turned the TV on for a minute and one of my favorite shows was on (Poldark). I had planned to go to bed early but stayed up to watch it, and the next show was A Death in Pemberley. I missed watching because it kept my mind off of my misgivings of the day and negative thoughts that seem to creep in. I self-loath quite a bit, and the distractions are welcome.

When I went to lie down for the night, I started reading Helaman. I was excited about a new chapter, but it seemed like a continuation of the former - more wars and rarely a mention of God. I marked it and went to sleep.

Monday - I love Mondays! A new start! I woke up today, did my stretches, colored my hair, watered the plants, cleaned up the house, and now I am ready to do my writing for smarterparenting.com.

I am so lucky that my children are so wonderful! They bring so much joy to me. The grandkids are the icing on the cake. Each is very unique and brings different shades of happiness to my life.

I really think staying off social media has been a good challenge for me. It has taken quite a bit of restraint and control. I was used to going on Facebook and Instagram a few times a day just to keep up with what my family and friends were doing. We can do that in other ways, like calling, and Marco Polo. I seem to get much more done and feel more peace.

Only two more days. Then it will be hard not to binge to find out what I have missed!

Ninth Day of Social Media Fast

Oh no! I came down with a very bad cold. It started with a sore throat and continued to get worse. I could not sleep Tuesday night with my c-pap because my nose kept filling up with mucus. It was gross. So I spent most of the day drinking hot Emergen-C and hot soup. I stayed in bed. I had to cancel my tutoring because it would be difficult to teach in that condition. I had also made an appointment to have a foot zoning but had to cancel that too.

I was too sick to look at social media, so this day was difficult in other ways.

Felt a bit better, but still mostly “under the weather”. The social media has gone well. I have learned a few things about myself:

• I can live without social media several times a day.
• I have more time to get things done - cleaning, painting, making jewelry, etc.
• I contemplate my many blessings more often and have a prayer in my heart.
• I can actually call people and talk to them if I need to instead of just checking them out on social media.
• I can do hard things.

I thought I would be back on social media nonstop after the fast, but I don’t really feel the need to. That is a very good thing. I hope I can keep it to a minimum and only glance at it a few minutes a day rather than for hours.

My daughter set an iphone limit on my Facebook time, so that will help. It tells me when I have been close to two hours on the app. I think I should change it to one hour only.