Back to the grind.

Today in the young women lesson I taught, we learned about avoiding degrading media. I learned a lot from this lesson and from the girls and their comments.
I realized that I have a tendency to rationalize the books I read that have inappropriateness in them. I say to myself that "it'll get better" or "it's a really good author" or a million other ways to ease the guilt I feel.
NO MORE, I say!
It's not just movies and TV shows that are trashy. Literature has that same problem. I personally believe that books should have ratings just like movies. There's nothing worse than getting to page 100 only to stumble upon some dirty, nasty words/images. And I'm always wondering if I should keep reading or not (unfortunately, I usually keep reading).
And so I have decided to clean up my mind by avoiding books, websites and music that are degrading to me in some way or another. Like people.com. Is it really worthwhile to me? Does it impose me to have unrealistic body image goals (YES!)? Is OMG on yahoo really "news"? Nope, it's not and it wastes my time and does not in any way uplift my spirits.
In order to keep these goals of cleaning up my media choices, each time I read a book, I will come back here to my blog and give a review of it. I will "rate" the book on how well it abides by my new standards.   I'm not a writer or a book reviewer but that's not the point of me doing this. And maybe for those who read my blog and are looking for a book to read, it'll be useful. Right now, I'm reading Rose's Garden. Give me a week, and hopefully I'll be done with it. I can never find enough time to read anymore but maybe this new "project" will help with that also.

Tonight, we again enjoyed our time outside.

My foot that I strained over two weeks ago is finally healing. I haven't been able to exercise like normal at all. I've done yoga which is great but doesn't usually get me drenched from sweat. I've bought 2 different pairs of running shoes since then, returned both and finally found the perfect pair of running shoes. Candice will be happy since they're her favorite kind...


Tonight while outside the boys played catch while the girls and I listened to music (Mariah Carey...old school. Remember "Without You"? so awesome...)
And we listened to Anna beg and plead to be able to wear dangly earrings.
Not until you're 12 years old darlin'...