Easy Shmeezy!

I was in the middle of kneading the dough for noodles yesterday when my mind drifted back to the time I was in the grocery store and I saw this box on the shelf that had noodles already made in it. I remembered thinking about how cheap and easy noodles are to make, plus I would be side stepping all those nasty preservatives and bleached flour. I set the box back on the shelf pretty smug with my thrifty self. I was not so smug yesterday as I tried to time my soup broth with noodle addition. It would have been much easier and quicker to rip open the box and poor it in. Not as healthy, or as tasty, but easy. I look at Papa Johns adds with longing, wouldn't it be great to have pizza, or take out more than once a month? Even when the kids make dinner I have to 'over see' (AKA remind, beg, order, plead, bribe...etc.) both the making and the cleaning up after. I am much stronger when I am in the stores looking at items and eshewing them because I can do it myself for a smidgen of the price.

Yes, believe it or not, I get tired. I get tired of making my own laundry detergent, even if I only have to do it once every 3 months. I get tired of grinding my wheat and do buy pre-ground once in awhile (shhhh! don't tell anyone). I get tired of juicing our juice and then cleaning out the machine. I get tired of making Enoch's baby food and look at jars on the store shelf with envy and craving of a simpler time - a time before I knew all that I know about health and nutrition. It would be so much easier to not care.

I am numb to the fruit flies that live on my counter next to the compost bucket. It would be easier if I didn't worry about it, I even feel guilty if I throw a banana peel in the trash now.

Family meal hour has not gone as smooth as I was hoping. Tawny and Aurora had to drop out of diving in order for me to accomplish something I thought was important to the togetherness of our family. It would be so much easier to forget it and hope for a nice Sunday afternoon once in awhile.

But I guess when I signed up for this life 'easy' wasn't in the plans. I have been very blessed because 'fulfilling', 'joyous' and 'rewarding' have taken the place of 'easy' more than 'frustrating', 'impossible', and 'miserable'.

Gordon B. Hinckley (former Prophet) said,

“It is not easy to give up our personal priorities and desires. . . . [But] ‘he who lives only unto himself withers and dies, while he who forgets himself in the service of others grows and blossoms in this life and in eternity’ "

So even though I may whine about my un-easy life from time to time - I prefer to blossom than to wither.