"Don't Sweat the Toothpaste..."

"Toothpaste on the Mirror"

While eating lunch today I grabbed the new September "Ensign" magazine that just arrived in the mail. It has several great articles in it, but one especially was blog-worthy and gave me some added pause for contemplation.

In "Toothpaste on the Mirror" the woman writes about how her mother had been irritated with her father in the later years of their marriage for many "little things" and how one of her common complaints was how he splattered toothpaste on the mirror and never cleaned it up. When he passed away she missed him more than she'd anticipated and eventually admitted that those toothpaste splatters, although less, were still there. She was a splatter-er too but had been adamant it was him. It was him, but it was her too and the author concludes saying, " I learned from this experience the need for forgiveness and tolerance in our relationships.... It seems such a waste of time to fret about the small offenses. There are more important things to worry about than toothpaste on the mirror."

The author said she would say to her mom, "in the grand scheme of life, toothpaste on the mirror wasn't a very big thing" but the mom insisted on justified animosity. I know we all have this tendency but I am grateful for those family members, friends and neighbors in my life who are able to exemplify the attitude of "Whatever. Seriously, it's really not a big deal." I've been trying to teach this phrase to Dylan so that he can learn to calm himself when he gets so overly frustrating by situations he doesn't like. I need to model this more I am sure. But I wanted to say thank you to those of you who've shared your new view of life. Your experiences have helped me gain a glimpse of your perspective and a bit more patience.

I hope we can all do better at not "sweating the small stuff."
(The article doesn't have a link on www.lds.org yet but when it does I will add it.)

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Just so no one thinks "She thinks she's got this all figured out"... as I was concluding the blog post above, Madi was napping and I heard a happy pounding sound on the front door, which was my brother, Uncle Steve. The kids were happy to see him but as you might have guessed it woke up Madi. My mistake for not putting up the "Baby Sleeping" note on the door but I had to laugh as I was irritated for a second and then saw my blog with all this wisdom cr-p about "not sweating the small stuff." Ha! It got me to "get off it" immediately though so I may still "get on it" about the small stuff but at least I can "get off it" sooner than later, right?