Life After Internet

So, I quit the internet.  At least at home.  And I've been intending to write more blog posts and save them and post them when I have access, but one little thing has been paralyzing my creative flow.  At the end of my last blog post I think I said something about following up with how the "double event" went.  But I'm no longer inspired to write about the double event.  So I am now going to let it go and move on.

As I said, I quit the internet, or rather, we quit as a family.  My husband and I independently, and yet nearly simultaneously, came to the conclusion that internet and television were hindering us from being who we want to be as a family.  Actually, that's a cop out.  We lack the fortitude and self control to responsibly use the internet and television.

I was thinking about taking on the role of the fanatical convert...you know, declaring home-internet and cable TV to be the root of all evil and the primary source of the break down of the American family, etc.  But I can't pull it off.  Life would be much simpler if we could have the internet on hand to responsibly use as a resource and even intermittent entertainment.  Honestly, the TV wasn't a  HUGE problem, but since we were cancelling the internet, we figured we might as well cancel the whole package and save the money.

The first few days were the hardest.  The withdrawals were almost painful.  I was confused, disoriented and bored out of my freaking mind.   I may have actually twitched or spasmed just a tiny bit every time I would normally have been hitting "refresh" or "stumble" (have you tried StumbleUpon??  So fun! (I can't figure out the the proper way to punctuate a parenthetical statement (she alliterated))).  I simply didn't know what to do with myself.  It turns out that there is actually a LOT of time in a day and an hour is actually a significant period of time during which several things can be accomplished.  I had no idea.

So, you ask, what am I doing with all of this new found time?  Are you prepared to be dazzled?  Don't be.  I'm not one to suffer from delusions of adequacy.  My "accomplishments" are likely still far less than what most normal mothers with full access to the internet and television manage to achieve on a daily basis.

1. I shrunk my laundry pile - even though my dryer broke and I was without a dryer for a week!  Lets look at how this compares with before our drastic changes.

BEFORE: Laundry piles up faster than I wash it.  Company is coming and I realize that if they want to use the bathroom (which they wouldn't if they had any idea of the potential disasters they might discover upon entry) they would have to climb over a mountain of smelly dirty laundry.  I shove the laundry out the garage door where it is truly "out of sight, out of mind".  We spend the next several weeks wondering what ever happened to "that one shirt" or the other half of a cute outfit, and "WHERE THE HECK DID ALL THE DANG TOWELS GO???", etc...

AFTER: I do several loads a day.  When the dryer breaks, no problem!  I string lines in the sun room and hang dry everything.  All the laundry from the garage makes it back into the house, hooray!

2. I plan meals in advance and make freezer meals.

BEFORE: Buy a bunch of random stuff at the store. Forget to pull anything out of the freezer to thaw in a reasonable amount of time for dinner.  Realize it's after 5 pm and I have no idea what we are having for dinner.  Either:
A)  Thaw some kind of meat in the microwave, add random seasonings, cook it and let the kids dip whatever it is in ketchup.

B) Order a pizza or Chinese.

C) Declare it breakfast for dinner day and make scrambled eggs or oatmeal.

AFTER: Plan every single meal for a week.  Buy exactly what I need for each meal.  Pull out the meat I need every morning.  Start making dinner every day at 4.  Make a bunch of breakfast casseroles to freeze.   Etc. etc.  Save money!

3. Reading and listening to books on CD.

BEFORE:  Read the occasional cheap thriller over a period of several days.  Primary entertainment in the evening while doing my mind-numbingly boring work-at-home-job consists of watching the murder shows that I have saved on the DVR.

AFTER:  I probably read no less than FOUR cheap thrillers a week now!  Since I have nothing to watch on TV while I work, I've started checking out books on CD.  I thought it would be great to get some morally, philosophically and culturally edifying books that I might not otherwise take the time to read, so I started by getting Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.  It ended up making my head hurt from thinking too hard, so I traded it in for some cheap thrillers and I have now gotten hours of work done while streaming this mindlessness directly into my poor addled easily distracted brain via ear buds.  I'm getting Twilight next.

4. I have been teaching the children to use reference books.

BEFORE: Google it.

AFTER: Get out the dictionary or encyclopedia and work on alphabetizing skills and garnering information from BOOKS!


Then of course, there is the increase in quality time and conversation as a family, better planned school lessons, a more organized day, etc.

We all miss the internet greatly, but much to our surprise and delight, life actually can go on (quite well in fact) without it.

...and if you want to be a good mother, you'll throw out the internet too so you can be awesome like me....HA!  Kidding.