Progress - the Catch 22

So I've been gone for several weeks again. I'm really back and forth with this blog. I started it as a way to journal the changes our family is going through, as a reminder to us and as an inspiration to anyone who might come across it sometime down the road. What I find is that the more I 'do' the less I 'write'. It reminds me of the old saying "Those who can-do; those who can't-teach". I'm so busy doing that I don't have time to sit and write about it. On the other hand. my mind sometimes gets so full of ideas that I can't slow down long enough to get it all out in writing, and sometimes, like this afternoon, I just have to write it down to get it out of my head.
The past several weeks have seen many small changes, much like the weeks before; changes so subtle that those who see us regularly won't notice them; but those who haven't seen us in a while notice quickly that 'somethings different' but they just can't put their finger on it.
I keep the TV and radio off most of the day now - I no longer feel the need to have constant noise coming into my life. There's very little of true value to be heard or seen these days over the public airwaves. Quite honestly I wonder now if there ever WAS anything of true value in these places. I love our local Christian radio station but when compared to the direct study of Gods word or singing a well loved hymn - there's no comparison. My senses are freed up to hear the birds singing or the children playing, my own music sweeps into my mind, favorite tunes that are ingrained in my mind.

One thought that people have is "what about the news? - How do you get the important news of the day" My answer is simply another question - "What constitutes important news of the day?" Swine flue? Wall Street? What the 'first dog' is doing? How many kids Brad and Angelina have? I'm more empathetic than most people so what I say next may sound harsh but it's true. It's unreasonable for me to beat myself up about starving orphans in Bangladesh or sex slaves on the other side of the globe when I don't even know my next door neighbors. Think about the hypocrisy of that. I care about people who I'll never meet but don't care about those I see every day?! That is the problem with this modern world. We try to tackle the huge issues rather than dealing with the mundane everyday problems. If we would each deal with the issues around us we wouldn't have global problems. It's a waste of time and resources for reporters from New York to fly to China to cover a natural disaster there - not to mention they are then in the way of the people who are actually trying to do something about it. It's not that I don't care about the plight of these people, but I can only affect so many lives and I can't spend my time wringing my hands over things I can't change - that takes my hands away from effecting change around me.

One aspect that has always frustrated me in my own life was hushing children to hear the TV or radio, etc. - it's what I was raised with though so it came as second nature to me, even though I distincly remember yelling at my dad for doing it to me - I do the same thing to my kids. I feel like I'm overcoming that... finally, now that half of my kids are nearly grown. It's not completely too late though and I see our relationships changing day by day in small ways. Each change is intertwined with another; less stress means less interest in 'relaxing' or 'escaping' into TV or computers or whatever, less time on those things means more time with the kids, more time with the kids means less stress because they aren't fighting for our attention. It just keeps going.

So I'll try to be better about updating here but I just can't do that at the expense of improving my families situation.