The mornings are definitely cooler nowadays. Our walks include wearing a hooded sweatshirt. It’s brisk out there!
On today’s walk, we kept hearing (and seeing) acorns drop to the ground, black walnuts falling from trees, bird skirmishes up in the branches, and squirrels running up and down the trunks.
Speaking of noticing things, when I mowed the back forty last week, I stood for a moment on the edge of our property that borders our neighbor’s property and looked at the trees that abut that huge grassy field I showed you the other day. I noticed – for the first time – that we have two catalpas there. I guess I had to be standing in just the right place to identify them, as it’s on a slight hill. That makes at least 6 catalpa trees on the property. Since they’re one of my favorite trees, this discovery made me happy.
It’s 9:53 am and I haven’t turned my phone on. This is part of my new attempt to not have it on, and therefore, tempting me, for most of the day. I want to read more and look at the phone (and my laptop) less. I read a post by a young woman who I follow on my other Instagram account, which is for books and reading. She may be only 29, but she is very wise. She also felt that her attention was too often being diverted to her phone and iPad/laptop. It all came to a head when the Wi-Fi in her apartment kept failing. She didn’t have it for about 3 weeks. During that time, she read far more than she had been and she liked it. Eventually, she made the decision to have no Wi-Fi.
Now, I can’t do that, because I write this blog and do other things that necessitate having Wi-Fi. But, I can severely limit my time online. I’ve written about this before and it can be a struggle for me. But both Don and I are of the same mind on this one. I’m going to work hard to turn my computer off after I write this post and check back in later in the day. Likewise, I’ll do my usual Instagram check-in and then turn the phone off. If there’s a phone call/message, I’ll know soon enough. And we still have a landline, so there’s that.
We’ll see how it goes.
I’m reading John Connolly’s latest, The Book of Bones, which is 694 pages long. Interestingly, I had just ordered 3 books from the library when I picked up this book to read. Those books are going to come in this week and I will still be immersed in this almost 700 page long book. A quality problem, but a problem, nonetheless. I couldn’t help it, the Connolly is what I was in the mood for. I’m a bit less than a quarter of the way through it.
We’re off on our weekly visit to the grocery store.
Don had a good day at the Farmers Market. His photos are wonderful.
Happy Monday.
I’m with you and with your Instafriend. For most of the summer we had no wifi at the lake (and I still have a flip phone because I know I would get sucked in!) I read VOLUMES in comparison to previous years, usually in the mornings after breakfast and/or walks; during painting breaks; when the light was getting too dim to paint! And it felt so good!
Keep at it!
Thanks, Jeanie! I hope to do the same!
Good idea Claudia to spend more time reading. Completely off topic but I thought about you yesterday morning whilst reading the Sunday newspaper. In the gardening section someone had asked which plants will deer not eat. The answer was they’ll eat pretty much any but a way to discourage them is to place human hair in muslin bags and place them amongst your planting!
You may have heard of this already, I certainly haven’t but we are too built up for deer, they’re very rarely seen.
One tip that definitely works for keeping cats off your flower beds is to place slices of citrus fruit on the soil, they really don’t like the smell. The fruit composts into soil after a few weeks and is easy to replace. I love cats but they can be pesky!
Happy Monday
Yes, I’ve heard about the human hair thing – I just never have any muslin bags hanging around!
I’ll try the citrus fruit next year because the cats dug up some of my plants making their natural litter box.
I leave my phone on, but doing WI-Fi things on just doesn’t interest me. I don’t like the small screen. If I’m going online I want the big screen of my computer or at the very least of my Kindle. So, my phone is not a temptation. I do however, open up the lap top several times a day…just to check in. Check in with what or where or with who (or is it whom? I’m never sure.) I have no idea,
I have already pulled out the winter jammies and put on an extra blanket on the bed. The other night I was cold. Got up in the morning and saw it was 58 in the house. Heat wave today. It was 63 this morning. I am just not going to turn the heat on , not yet, not in September. I can’t.
Yes, I often wonder, do I think I’m that important? That people are constantly trying to message or get hold of me? Silly!
It has been quite cool here the past few days, too. I went to bed last night with thick socks on my feet for the first time this season. Right now it is only 67 and rainy. However, Tues – Thurs are supposed to be in the high 80’s (with more storms). Crazy weather with the change of seasons.
I need to be a lot more disciplined in not looking at my phone or being on my laptop. My phone stays on 24/7, except that I turn off the sounds on my notifications when I go to bed. Just the ringer stays on. I figure if anyone has an emergency, I will get a phone call. Which I have before in the middle of the night. We don’t have a land line. I suppose I could turn my notifications off during the day for awhile, but sometimes Tim texts me and when he does so, it’s rather important. So I like to be available to him. I guess that’s a mom thing. Thus said, I have turned my phone off when I do yoga and meditation because that’s definitely a time I don’t want to be interrupted.
Tell you what, I am going to work on this challenge with you so I can get more reading done. Or even working in my art journal, doing yoga, etc. Not getting caught up in mindlessly looking through my FB and IG feeds. After checking my emails and looking through blogs, my laptop is going off. And I’m going to work on at least keeping my phone in my bedroom, not in my pocket or on the living room coffee table. That way I won’t be tempted to pick it up all the time, because I’m rarely in my bedroom during the day.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Glad to have a partner in this challenge, Melanie. It was hard for me to keep the phone turned off today. I kept wanting to check it. I might try your idea of placing it in another room, like the bedroom. Thanks, my friend!
count me in, too!
at work, i keep my phone where i can hear it and will check only if it rings for a call (all other notifications have long been turned off). when i get home, i look at maybe a dozen Instagram accounts/blogs if i didn’t see them at work (for inspiration and to mentally switch gears … i am tired of my job), then get to doing other things offline. i am aware of and enjoy some wonderful things thanks to the internet and people sharing their creativity and kindness (like you, claudia, and the community of people here), etc., but i keep a limit on it. i don’t want to look back and think i missed my life!
anyway, glad you have more time for reading, that you found two more catalpas and don had a good work day yesterday!
getting dark and stormy here (while i sit in line to get my hair cut) … glad about both those things and then going home!
hope you all have a great night.
kathy in iowa
meant to add that it’s not always easy for me to stay off the phone. i like looking at pretty photos, reading about all sorts of things, getting inspired …!… so i am going to use that idea of keeping the phone in different room as needed. thanks for the idea!
kathy in iowa
xo
oops! should have read my comment before posting. meant to say i sometimes look at instagrams/ blogs during my lunch break … not when i am to be working.
kathy in iowa
xo
Yes, it’s way too easy to let our phones and laptops, etc. control us. It should be the other way around.
Thanks, Kathy!
I am trying to cut down my time on the internet. It can take over your life. I have started to unsuscribe to many of my e-mails. They were just things I am not interested in. I have a lot more time to do my reading and other interests. Enjoy your latest book.
Marilyn
Good for you, Marilyn! It can become addictive and at the end of the day, I have nothing real to show for it!
We’ve kept our landline thru thick & thin, too. My husband, as a certified emergency response team member for our city, says there’s gonna be a world of hurt for people in a national or natural disaster with only their hand-held phones for communication (dependent upon a plug-in et al).
I’ve written before of my own former addiction to blogs, finding myself on the web all-day-long, on my ‘behind’ for too many hours in a day. Was getting to my legs, too. I was just getting too frustrated by the too-little time it left me to do the other things of my life. I was too dug in to cyber life, not my other/’real’ life. I had to curtail it. I was reading about a lot of other people’s lives instead of living my own. And sometimes it didn’t make me feel good, that I didn’t have the perfect clothes or their perfect house, etc. Even my husband will say of Facebook, “There’s a whole lot of people out there having a whole lot more fun than I am.” Of course they’re just showing you what they want you to see or know. Still.
And it’s a significant problem between my husband and me right now. He bows to the phone in his hand; he stops in his tracks. He’ll stop in the middle of a conversation – – with ME. I have to sometimes raise my hand to get his attention. The phone in his hand is the third person in the room and I hate it, and he knows it. He claims when he’s REALLY and FINALLY done with work life, he’ll pitch the phone, but I’m doubting it now. Again, he’s SO smart; such a wonderful guy; I can’t believe he’s succumbed to the lure of this phone and its internet. And he’ll show me what he’s looking at and it’s just fluff-stuff of no consequence although he says laughter is good medicine.
But when does medicine become addictive? He’ll say, “There’s so much good information out there in the world.” But I feel he’s on info-overload, and that it’s part of why he doesn’t sleep well, because he’s looking at that phone right til he turns out the light to go to bed. You will never see me with one of these phones; he’s cured me forever of any desire for one. I have my old-fashioned flip phone for emergencies, for when I’m out in the car, etc. and it works just fine for what I need. His phone? Hate it. Hate for the divide it creates between us. (Hate’s a strong word.) Be thankful you and Don are appropriately on the same page.
If my husband was lost on a desert island with no phone, he’d go through serious withdrawal. When he’s heretofore misplaced the phone, I’ve despaired at how anxious he became; it’s when he’s not a guy I know. Fidgeting; edgy; distracted; frustrated. Almost frantic to find the phone. (And I don’t like people who disparage their spouses with others, yet I’m doing it right here.) I’m the spouse not knowing how to deal with it, seeing the addiction the other can’t control (and who’s not listening to me – – can’t see it himself, doesn’t think he needs help). Okay, so it’s just a phone, it’s not cocaine or alcohol or gambling; but I just feel I can see, what he isn’t seeing and how he’s letting this rule a lot of his life. Over time, isn’t he gonna get a hand-cramp, with the hands and fingers being in the same position for hours on end?
I had a period of time when I stayed alone in a house for eight months with no TV or radio or internet. It’s when I had amazing calm. I indeed read a lot of books. I listened – – really listened – – to good music on the portable CD player. I had quiet time to just ‘think’. I loved it. I would crave the time in that house; couldn’t wait to end my day and get back there.
I don’t believe we’re meant to have all this ‘media’ assaulting us; it’s not really who we are; it’s not what we need. I guess in a organic sense, we’re beings who are meant to do tasks, move around, be outside, work in the day, sleep in the night. Utilize ALL our senses. I love stuff I’ve found on the internet; all kinds of likemindedness and nostalgia out there; a lot is so very interesting. But that’s the point, there IS a lot; too much. If you don’t have good personal discipline, and I often haven’t, it’ll just consume you in a negative way.
As I continue to dig out of my house for remodeling, I found my grandmother’s hymnal yesterday. She’d carefully written her Social Security number in pencil on the back page. The front page had her notations of favorite Bible verses. She only had an 8th-grade education (had to quit school in 1913 to take care of her mother and younger siblings [the mother was injured in a home accident, fainting over a wood-burning cookstove]) but she could read, spell; handwrite (nice penmanship/cursive). I very well knew her neighborhood church (heard about it all my life from Mom; have photos; it was razed in the 1960s, sadly), which she attended from the time she arrived in Los Angeles til the day she left it, a span of time from when she was age 5 to age 57 (they lived in one of the city’s little communities within a community).
Grandma’s life was about homekeeping, gardening (veggies & fruit trees, too), cooking, family, music (playing the piano, self-taught; and singing so beautifully). She only worked outside the home when she had to, during the Great Depression and WWII, because my grandfather had a bad heart and couldn’t earn a paycheck any longer. But she was always jolly. And they had a bit of radio in the evenings after dinner. And they of course had Sundays. I was thinking today of her carrying the hymnal back and forth to the little church where my young mom as a kid would sometimes pull the ropes to the bells, signaling start of worship. The hymnal was published in 1935; it’s well-worn. It comforted me yesterday to smooth over its cover with my own hand, knowing her strong work hands had held the book for so many years. I miss her. I didn’t get to know my grandma for very long as she died when I was only age 8, but I do have a few precious memories. Indelible in my mind.
It wasn’t an easy life, hard to make ends meet, my grandma’s son was deep into the war in Europe (Battle of the Bulge, D-Day), her husband was sick, but Grandma had a rhythm to her weeks in a comfortably-contained life; she wasn’t bombarded with news & excess info 24 hrs a day via TV and internet. In all the world’s insanity, she had sanity. She didn’t need to have intermittent, hourly information at the press of a fingertip. There was enough already for one person. She had BALANCE.
I am also cutting back on the computer. It takes a lot of time, especially because I play two games on AARP. I keep my phone on for the kids and I have a friend with medical problems at the moment, so I keep it on for her if she needs my help. The games don’t need my help. LOL! It makes me so mad when I see an hour spent on games. So I am now only doing one game each in the morning and before bed. Not more than five minutes each time. Makes me happy.
My husband does enjoy the online games like Bridge; good for the brain. He once regularly played bridge at a table with face-to-face PEOPLE, every Wednesday. (I think it would be good if he still had that opportunity but just try to find a bridge club in a lot of communities these days.) I’m new to AARP; I didn’t know they had games!
I understand about leaving the phone accessible for calls from loved ones who could be in need; I had mine, at night by my head in the sleep hours, for years when my parents were in their ending years; it was our lifeline for ALL hours before I hired caregivers to be at the home, but even then as well, in case I needed to be notified about ANYthing happening with Mom, 24/7.
I agree with you about making the small, healthier changes and feeling happier. (Claudia’s being really wise about it, too!) It’s okay to take a pause and ask if we’re happy or not; what we could do, or do differently. It’s just an ongoing endeavor. One thing I’ve done for myself is to set a timer. I go online in the morning for a specified period of time … and that’s IT. I’m a little weak; I’ll waffle; sometimes get on late in the day, then get mad (as you say!) about the time I’ve taken away from a proper good night’s rest. We’re just human; we err! (I’ve learned with myself that going online is like a good fill-in when I don’t want to do something else; subverts me, though. And I’ll say I’m just getting on the computer for a few minutes in between things but then, yes, all of a sudden an hour has gone by. Ggrrrrrr!)
And balance is what we all need. xo
Like anything, it can be helpful and useful but it can also be abused. Your husband is addicted. We all are, to some degree. But your husband seems to be seriously addicted. I wish I knew what to tell you, advise you. He’s a sensible man, eventually he will see it for what it is.
I know he’s addicted. But he’s in denial. And I nag, when nagging never does any good on any subject ever with anybody. I don’t like being second to the phone. The phone should never take precedence over me. He doesn’t need two wives. I shouldn’t have to feel that I’m interrupting him. Too often, he’s making time for the phone above all else; what a frick’in waste of time! Just never, ever thought I’d see this happen; I’ve been with him 30 years. When my life simmers down with this moving/decluttering/purging of the house, I’m going to look into it more. See if there’s anything I can find to help him wake up. He’s better than this! SO productive in many ways (he’s still working for a living, part-time, like you and Don) and he’s been nicknamed The Energizer Bunny by others. One thing for sure: He has SO much work to do on our house in the next year, and some of it is quite pressing, that he’ll have less time for the phone. It’s when an intervention could be good, but with whom, when everybody I seem to know or be around also has a phone in their hand constantly. It’ll probably come to a head; like anything of glut, we generally pull out of it. I hope.
I just had something come to mind. I was in the hospital six years ago, recovering from cancer surgery. My cousin came to see me. And I was happy to see her. But she was so busy looking down at her phone the entire visit, and texting, that she was more engaged in that than me, so why even come in the first place? And when Mom was needing caregivers, I was using an agency who sent me one young girl who kept looking down at her phone while I was trying to instruct her on routine and medications; I couldn’t believe it. I called that day and told the agency’s main social worker to send someone else. And THAT was more like 9 years ago, so this phone addiction with people has been going on for a LONG time now.
Thanks for your thoughts and weighing in. It’s troubling. You are SO wise to nip it in the bud before it gets to the point of which I’m speaking…best of luck with your challenge!
I’m determined, Vicki! Thanks.