Friday, December 13, 2013

Adios 2013

I haven't been able to decide what to write about in a long time so I decided the best course of action (of course) would be to write nothing. Sometimes (yeah, most of the time) it's easier to not make choices.

I've been feeling overwhelmed by life lately - and its taken me a while to figure out why.

I think it has to do with (drummmmmmmrolllll please) screens!

(Yawn)

What's new?

Well, not this.

T.V., computers, and my phone. At many moments of the day I'll be somehow using all three at the same time. I have a love/hate relationship with all of it mainly because I was apparently never taught impulse control.


ACT ONE

There are so many good t.v. shows now that I can watch ALL THE TIME. Whenever I'm caught up on one someone tells me about another.  JTS and I are currently wrapping up what has become a 2 week marathon of watching all 8 seasons of Weeds into the wee hours of the morning and then waking up a wee hour later to feed the baby and then waking up two wee hours after that for the next day.

We are tired and grumpy but cannot stop watching.
This is the definition of addiction.

This marathon came on the heels of wrapping up watching every episode of New Girl. That came directly after watching every episode of whatever  - you see where I'm going with this.

I have a love/hate relationship
with her too.

I always imagined my childhood as being fairly tv-free and wondered why I love television so much annnnnnd then my mom sent me a text of her babysitting Lil' D that looked that this:

Who knew a 16 week old liked HGTV so much!?

So yeah. I probably watched a fair amount of tv.

(To be fair this photo was taken several MONTHS before Fisher-Price created this fascinating item. So, obviously my mom missed out on making her millions by designing products for babies).

ACT TWO

Computers/Social Media Machines I've talked about ad nauseum. But being addicted to the internet is not really like other addictions. You just can't walk away from it. I was buoyed by an article I read recently about famous authors who have to employ babysitting software to control their internet time.

I'm not sure if those would work for me.

As for social media and the internet here is my brief pro/con list:

Social Media:
Pros: Even just liking a photo makes me feel more connected.

Cons: Sometimes you learn about too much something in one sitting. Too many cancers, too many deaths, too many accidents, too many engagements, too many weddings, too many babies or new jobs or - whatever it is that gets to you at that moment - things you would have learned about over the course of several days or weeks piled into one hour of Facebook. I'm not sure our human psyche can keep up.

Internet:
Pros: The vast amount of information just sitting there. I have possibly 20 tabs open of articles I want to read. You can learn how to knit cute baby hats, find recipes, find pictures of pretty living rooms, funny things dogs do, look up random facts, etc.

Cons: Reading is not the same as doing. Reading about knitting a baby hat doesn't make the baby hat appear. Seeing a pretty pillow does not increase the money in your bank account to buy the pretty pillow. Reading too many articles about serious cultural problems like this one and this one combined with a nice session of Pintering and you can just head directly to bed with a drink.

So anyway - long story short (er).

I'm hitting the pause button for January 2014.

Probably not from blogging (I haven't defined my terms yet) but somehow focusing more on family and home and thoughts of the future. The one thing I'm certain of is there will be limits on screen time and that I'm not accepting any new design work for the month of January.

I'm keeping my gaze solely focused on my life outside the screen.

Hope you all have wonderful holidays that are fully recorded on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter so I can come back in February and overload on all that something!

Although, let's be honest: Instagram I just can't quit you.

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