Slippery

The internet is a slippery slope for me. Come, let's hearken back to a simpler time as I work this all out in my head. Yossie and I made a choice not to have television when we first moved in together eight years ago. At the time, it was because we were as poor as church mice and couldn't scrape together the extra money each month. Months later, after going home to Chicago and binging on television one weekend, we realized that our lives were so much richer without the option of turning on the television and zoning out for a couple of hours a day.

Enter the internet. Yes, I know it's been more than eight years since Al Gore invented the internet but doesn't it seem like it's really been in the past five years that the internet has reached its furious buzz of time sucking potential? Between the message boards, the blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, online television... there is maximum potential for wasting a whole lot of time online.

I've got justifications, don't get me wrong. I learn a lot online. Whether it's grabbing a quick recipe for hummus or an easy bootie knitting pattern, I love having so much at my fingertips. I am the hunterer/gatherer. I go, I forage, I discover what I was seeking. But do I then return home with my prize? No, no, not so much. First I have to check my e-mail, my mom's group message board, the other three message boards I frequent, Ravelry, my Facebook page, and what? What do you mean it's after midnight?!?

Full disclosure- I checked my e-mail four times while writing the last three paragraphs. It's like a sickness.

I do really like being able to follow a couple of television shows and I thank the internet for that opportunity. I can watch a couple of things regularly without losing myself in it too badly. The Daily Show isn't even a half hour without commercials. Heroes is getting increasingly less compelling so I'm sure I'll be leaving that one behind soon enough. Of course, in it's place is our new discovery, Pushing Daisies. That Emerson Cod is a funny guy. Oh and the Office! It makes me grateful every week that my office days are behind me.

I just checked my e-mail again. Sheesh!

I posted about this internet dependency in April and my wise friend Sara had some great advice that I will now share with all of you. The first time I read these words I nodded heartily and planned to take action. And here I am half a year later. I think it's finally soaked in sufficiently for me to take action. Here are Sara's ideas:

-Set a specific time each day that you will check/answer email. If you're trying to wean yourself from an addiction, be gentle on yourself and have "check in" times at 9am, naptime, and right before bed. Then cut back to 2 times, and then 1 time.

-Put a timer by the computer and set it for 15 minutes. Challenge yourself to answer all of the current emails and check any boards that you want to check. This will force you to be more picky when it comes to what you are reading. The problem with the internet is that time just "gets away" from you....so take back your time with a timer! :)

-Take yourself off of any message boards/mailing lists that are generating emails you don't really need to read.

-Know your triggers. Are there certain boards that you could spend hours on? Purposely limit yourself to 3 threads...and then pick your very favorite 3 and enjoy it!

-Re-discover the joy of writing a handwritten letter. Challenge yourself to fast from email for 1 week and instead, write 2 letters a day to encourage friends and family.

-Switch to dial up. There is nothing more annoying than waiting for something to load...and soon you will just give up and only do the most important things online!

-Treat it as an addiction...because it is! Google it and you will see that it's clearly recognized as one. You must have some other activity planned...so that when you get the urge to go online, you can engage in that other activity (i.e. reading a book (to kids or for yourself), going out for a walk, making a cup of tea).

-Fast from the internet COMPLETELY on the weekends and on one weekday. This deliberate self-control will help you realize that you don't need it as much and will help you put it all into perspective.

Here are my goals starting tomorrow and continuing until Thanksgiving:

1. Check e-mail three times a day and answer every e-mail as I read it. I can't put times on my e-mail checks because it is highly dependent on kiddo cooperation but it will be once in the morning, once at midday, once in the evening.

2. Check and post on our local mommy board, Facebook, and Ravelry once a day.

3. Check and post on other boards weekly with each of the three boards having their designated weekday.

4. Check on my favorite blogs and post on my own blog once weekly. Blogging will have its own designated day too.

5. Upload pictures to Flickr and Picasa once a week on the designated day.

5. One internet TV show a day at maximum. Preferably with Yossie and while knitting.

6. No internet at all on Sundays.

These may seem like relatively moderate goals but, um..., let's just say you have no idea how much internetting has been happening round these parts as of late. Let's just call it a lot times 100. And yet relatively few blog posts, hmm... The more quantity of time I spend online, the less time I spend making meaningful online contributions. Interesting.

Anyone else ready for some accountability in regards to internet time suckage? Feel free to jump right in.

Busy

I love autumn! Among other hallmarks of the season, the dog is looking sweetly shaggy because we keep the doggy haircuts to a minimum as the air gets more and more crisp. I can't pretend we're fully in the season here yet but the cool mornings are giving us hints of what's to come.

Pulling out the knitting bag is helping me to gently ease into the idea of the months of cold, wet, and damp that we are surely facing. It sounds like it's going to be a fierce winter. We are very lucky to have two awesome independent knitting shops in the area and I've been visiting both of them with increasing frequency. I'm working on a little cape for a small friend. I'll definitely post a picture when I have it completed. I just need to do the hood and the trim. I've also just joined Ravelry so let me know if you're on over there and I will 'friend' you. As though Crackbook isn't enough (needless to say, I'm on there too).

I'm about 50-60% raw right now and it's feeling just about perfect for me. I'm curious to see how this might all shift as the weather gets colder. My extremely loose routine is that I do the green smoothie first thing. Around 10 or so I eat a piece of fruit, usually an apple or a banana, and then another piece or two when I get hungry again. After I have both the kids down for their nap (1ish), I eat a HUGE salad, usually dressed with olive oil and either balsamic vinegar or lemon juice and sea salt. It has really helped my digestion so much to keep it pretty light during the early part of the day. I know there are people who warn against this approach because it can sometimes lead to making poor food choices in the later part of the day but I've found that doesn't happen as long as I don't let myself get too hungry. My secret weapon is almonds. I keep a jar of them in my studio so that I can grab a quick snack between lessons and another jar in the kitchen downstairs. The almonds are not raw and neither is the food that I generally eat for dinner (usually cooked vegan, sometimes with goat cheese) but that doesn't feel essential to me at this point in time, especially now that I feel I'm no longer in an acute healing phase.

I now have twenty five delightful students in my fiddle studio! Since I am limited in the amount of time I can spend teaching, I get to be really selective with the students who I take on and that makes my job so much more joyful. Years ago, I was trying to make teaching a full time plus situation and I had to take on a few students who were harassed and bullied into taking lessons and it really sucks the joy right out of it. Music time is always fun time at our house now.

We've been going to the library two or three times a week now that it's all shiny and refurbished. I like to sneak off there when I am 'off duty' to read and peruse the stacks. I have a friend who is the awesome children's librarian three days a week and she always has book selections for us that enthrall Liam. The library is a happy place. I have always been a library girl. I remember when I was little I would ride my bike to the library and stay there all day.

I'm still working on finding a rhythm to our days. I need to post more on exactly that soon but I have some stirring sleepers here right now...

Success

This hootenanny was a rousing success! It was a lot of fun. The spread of food was truly amazing and I am once again firmly devoted to the notion that potlucks are not meant to be organized. I only wish I have a photo of the food. Three long groaning tables of deliciousness. I was too nervous and fluttery at the beginning to sit down and properly enjoy a plate of food and oh how I regret it!!!

The music was wonderful as well. I was blessed with the presence of many of my musician friends who were very welcoming to the young musicians joining the circle. We played late into the night on the deck under the stars.

I have a few ideas on how I will structure things a little differently next year but I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Send me a little note at fiddlemama AT gmail DOT com (you know how to do it- trying to avoid the spamola) if you'd like to see some pictures.

Moon

Almost an entire moon has past me by since my last post and I really don't want to let that happen again. In the meantime, the yoga class I mentioned in my last post has ended and we joyfully signed up for the fall session which begins after Labor Day. We have been having a really wonderful and relaxed summer. This week especially has been nice. We had a lovely library and park play date with our dear friends who have been traveling (you know who you are) and we are all three so happy to see the three of them again. It has been really oppressively hot off and on and we've been coming up with inside activities. Liam got a mini pack of generic Play-Doh at a birthday party and we already had some great hand-me-down Play-Doh tools so that's been a particular favorite. One of these days I'll remember to google some easy, nontoxic, cheap homemade Play-Doh recipes but until then we'll be taking our chances with the free, disturbingly flourescent lumps of moldable fun.

We're hosting a hootenanny this weekend so I'm equal parts fussing and delighting at the thought. It will also be a potluck which should be easy but I've never hosted one for that many people so I am freaking out a little on the inside. I guess it's leaking a little to the outside also. I have the place booked and 10 gallon thermoses reserved for water, iced tea, and lemonade. I found compostable plates and forks and recyclable tumblers for people who don't have reusable picnicware. I have no idea what I'm making (eek!) but I had a very good tip to provide a couple of loaves of good bread, jam, butter, honey, and maybe a nut butter for picky eaters as well as ordering a couple of those big square cut cheese pizzas to fill in the gaps if we end up with 32 plates of chocolate chip cookies and a bowl of grapes.

Does anyone have any tips on how to go about making vast quantities of lemonade and iced tea? Or maybe I'm overthinking it a little- multiply regular recipe by awholelotmore and that's all it takes?

And then there's other tiny but nevertheless panic-inducing things like- do I rent serving spoons? Tablecloths? I'm just not going to begin to think about decorating. That is so not my area and I don't have the budget for it anyway. Am I wrong or is piles of food plus hours of awesome music a sufficient recipe for fun or does there in fact need to be crepe paper involved? We'll call it minimalist environmentally friendly decor, how's that? The place we rented is really cool.

Remember those books? Those books I've been promising to review? Well, my friends. It turns out that I'm not really much of a book reviewing kind of gal. I will give you the briefest of synopses though, since I know I've just kept you hanging, clicking and reclicking my blog address for weeks on end.

Okay, here we go.

1. Frugal Raw! by Mattye Lee Thompson. Awesome book. If you have any interest at all in raw foods, this is a great resource. She is very down to earth about the reality of financing a healthy diet and is a very creative cook. It turns out that I'm not too crazy about the e-book method of reading things because, although it has its considerable environmental benefits, it's kind of annoying for a girl who likes to splatter her cookbooks or at the very least, not have to remember to charge their batteries in order to bring them into the kitchen. I can't emphasize enough, though, what a really wonderful book this is.

2. Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano. I checked this out from the library and, while I thought there were some really good tips and resources among the pages, I kept cringing at the overall attitude that I picked up from the book. The bottom line as I read it seemed to be that you can go green and also be hip and shiny and perfect looking and scoff at the hippies with their dirty canvas bags. Lots of good information though and I definitely get the feeling that the author is a kind and caring individual but that perhaps the publishing bigwigs encouraged this "scorn and belittle the hippies" attitude.

3. Heaven on Earth; A Handbook for Parents of Young Children by Sharifa Oppenheimer. Happy sigh. This was a lovely book. I checked it out from the library and I'll definitely be buying it as soon as I can scrape the pennies together. It comes from the Waldorf tradition and is rich in suggestions, routines, and ideas. I love this book and plan to buy it as a gift for my 'new mama' friends along with Amanda Blake Soule's gorgeous book The Creative Family.

4. Mommy Teach Me by Barbara Curtis Okay, internet. I'm ready to say it out loud. I'm not planning to send my kids to preschool. *Gasp* Whaaat? FiddleMama- wasn't one of your most beloved occupations that of preschool teacher? Yes, yes, it was indeed. But here's the facts. There are very few preschool programs in our area that aren't merely daycare. I am not belittling daycare. My oldest went to daycare because I believed it to be my only option at the time. But I have the luxury of having my children home with me so I'm not in need of a daycare program. The programs here that are true preschools are either too expensive, too far away (gas? gulp!), or too inflexible in their schedule. What was I talking about? Right, the book. I am definitely buying this book too because Ms. Curtis is a mother of 12 and former Montessori teacher with loads of practical and gentle ideas for providing learning experiences for young children. But what about socialization? That's what extracurricular classes, play dates, and siblings are for!

Hey- the next time I see you here, remind me to tell you about this wacky thing we're doing for the month of August that involves not spending any money other than for bills and groceries. 6 days down!

Yoga

No, I haven't rustled up those book reviews yet, but I have a few minutes while they're both sleeping and I don't want to forget what happened this morning because it was pure joy. Liam and Atticus and I attended our first day of yoga together. Well, it wasn't my first yoga class (although it has been a while...too long, in fact!) and it wasn't really theirs either since we went to the introductory free class when it was being offered a few weeks ago but that time we had Yossie with us so I wasn't at all sure how it was going to go today with one mama and two squirrelly boys.

It was delightful! They both did their fair share of wiggling off in opposite directions and extremely loud stage whispering (or in Atticus' case, loud babbling) while the teacher was talking but all things considered, I think it went really really well and I can see us continuing indefinitely. Liam calls it you-ga. "Remember you-ga, Mama? I stretched with the kids!"

"Inhale, exhale, life is grand!"