Giving Up the Computer For Lent!?

Ok, well as you can see, I have not entirely given it up.  I think at this point in our lives, it would be impossible.  There are things I have to do on line, most pressing of all is logging onto our bank accounts to pay our bills.  I also am still swapping books and will be sending out invitations to my book club.  I am still participating in book challenges, and fully intend to blog about the books I read for the challenges. 

But in other areas, the computer had completely taken over my home life and was starting to detract from family time.  I am obsessed with Facebook; I think I could literally post new status updates every 5 minutes.  And I am hooked on gaming.  Not shooting trolls or riding unicorns or anything, but more like playing Restaurant Empire, Civilization, and other such games.  I can play for hours and it’s been a challenge not to when I have a baby here—I was playing games with her on my lap, and you know she didn’t give a damn about them.

So I decided to take a step back.  I haven’t been on Facebook or played a game in 2 days, with the sole exception of Words With Friends on my iPod.  I will continue to play through those games as people want to play against me.  Otherwise, I’ve been unplugged for two days.

It’s been harder and easier than expected.  I’ve plowed through over 200 pages of a book that it took me 2 weeks to read the first 25 pages of.  I love the book, but just decided I’d rather be on line than read.  The house is even cleaner than it has been—I’ve had lots of time to evaluate the “stuff” and have done a lot of 27 fling boogies.  I’ve gone from cluttered to downright sparse.  Seriously, there is not one thing atop my fridge and the only thing atop our freezer is a box with Leah’s bibs, which is probably going to disappear—the bibs could fit in a bag somewhere in a cupboard and the box could be used for toys up in her room.  The yard sale is going to have a TON of stuff in it.  I have a mountain of items already.

Microblogging a la Facebook is something I kind of miss, so I might tuck a journal in my pocket and when I think of something I’d have written as a status, I could jot it in the notebook.  It’ll be a more lasting record and at the same time let me get that stuff out of my head.

I’ve also been catching up on sleep!!  I took 2 naps!!!  I felt like a million dollars both times.  With Leah’s new “wake up at 5AM no matter what time you bastards put me to bed” routine, getting in a nap has been essential for me to keep patient and be a good mom and still get things done.  Hopefully she will snap out of whatever little phase this is that is causing us both to go crazy and she’ll start sleeping again.  The “through the night” training is going well—she really doesn’t wake up mid-sleep any more.  Now I just have to get her to sleep past 5:30AM.

So you’ll see me around here when/if I have something blog-worthy to post—I should have a book review soon, if not tonight then definitely tomorrow.  Feel free to email me, or you can even PM me on Facebook if you need to—those are generally delivered directly to my email.  Otherwise, I’m enjoying my semi-unplugged time!