detachment

I can't remember what life was like before the internet. I mean, did I really use the library as my go-to resource for information? What if I needed to know what the most widely used vegetable was on a Sunday afternoon? (The onion, by the way). Would I actually have to wait until Monday morning to find out?

Not to mention all of chock-full-of inspiration blogs that are out there and the very talented people behind them. My geography has even improved with all of this globalization. I mean, I knew somebody lived in Provo, Utah...but who and what do they do?

But sometimes, the internet can be all too consuming...and after an unplanned but well-worth-it break from cyber-sucking, I'm here to say that detachment is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Don't get me wrong. I clung dearly to email and couldn't help myself from Google-ing "toddlers with temperatures" and other random inquiries, but I didn't read one single blog, didn't even update my own. And really, it was liberating.

Here's why, from where I sit.

I think that healthy access to healthy information can turn addictive, which makes it, well, not healthy. I think that it is productive when it pushes, when it prods, when it inspires, and enhances a life.

But it's unproductive when it turns into a stick that we measure our own life by.

Take me, for instance. Generally, I blog about the funny, every-day, sometimes boring things in life; rarely about the nothing-went-right days with extra mistakes on the side. In general, blogs are a digest of what's working in life--where we're excelling, learning, and experiencing some degree of success.

And that is great. I love to learn from others. I NEED to learn from others. I know I'm not alone in that.

But sometimes, I think it is easy to read others' digests of success and feel like an entire volume of loser. When that becomes the lens ("let's see what someone else is doing that I am not") then it's time to change our lens. I can't speak for men, but I think women, generally, suffer from the big comparison-sucking disorder. Maybe it's our bodies, our marriages, our success, our finances, our jobs, our children, our parenting, you name it--we do it and we pay for it.

So, what did I do with the time I didn't spend blogging or reading blogs?

• I rested. I actually put my feet up on several occasions and closed my eyes. It felt great.
• I prayed. I sat quietly and just prayed. I received lots of guidance that I might not have from a blog.
• I organized. Mostly activities to do with my daughter so that when she woke, we could get down to business and laugh.
• I cooked for my family. I even made my first pot-roast ever and it turned out really really good.

This detachment period was really good for me. I don't tend to fall into comparison traps (I've worked hard over the years to avoid them) but when I'm tired and overwhelmed with work, they're easy to fall into.

So, I'll try to be more regular on the site now that I'm "back"--that's assuming that you're not going to do a detachment period of your own. If you do, enjoy it! And hope you'll visit again when it's over.

Splurgin Sweet!

My mother in-law got me this cookbook. Little one and I have been trying to stick to an every-other-week or at minimum an every-month sampling of its recipes. The hard part is selecting which recipe to try (and staying out of the dough). We haven't been disappointed yet.