Unplugged

I know I can't be the only one that has groggily peered out from between sleep encrusted eyelids with the thought somehow floating through the mental cobwebs that it's a Thursday ~ not even really thinking it, just kind of aware of it, and then because you're a stay at home mom who has decided to unplug from the world outside, you don't realize that it's not Thursday but Wednesday when you go to finally turn on Gray's Anatomy only to see Lost...

OK, maybe that last bit about unplugging from the world was just me, but you know I'm not the only one to think it's one day of the week when it's another. Even when I was working full time with a child, managing both of our schedules and integrating it with my ex-husband's schedule, I still did this from time to time, despite being a slave to the calendar and the clock.

So it is, that today is THURSDAY and I'm posting because I didn't post yesterday, my usual Wednesday post usurped by my own inability to keep daily time. I also decided that since I didn't have to post, (being that it was Thursday in my head) I was going to unplug... completely... from the outside world.

No regular TV, even the type of news I can stand, whereby I guzzle down my first cup of coffee watching Matt & Meredith & Ann & Al give me the worst news of the world's happenings in the most tolerable manner, because if my coffee hasn't kicked in yet, maybe I won't process all the bad stuff, my brain glossing it over like it's the parents talking on a Peanuts special. Luckily for me though, I am, even pre-coffee, able to process when something good has happened and they're talking about it. Which is why I get my news from M&M&A&A, because they actually discuss the good stuff happening during the show, not just as a 47-second-time-filler before going off air.

Also, no computer. My homepage will have headlines on it and I'd have to see those to get to my email... So, no computer even to check my email. Because the casual email checking leads to... reading emails, which inevitably lead to going to this site to improve your rankings, or that site to cure your life, which no longer exists because you spend all day every day on the computer... and to answer a piece of flair that I read recently; No, you cannot buy a life... not even on eBay. Amazon doesn't keep 'em in stock either. So then you wind up on eBay, and Amazon, and then twitter and then on your Entrecard Dashboard and then before you know it, 4 hours have passed on your unplug day because you decided to just check your email. So NO computer. I was willing to unplug my surge protector from the wall outlet if need be.

So my OhMyGodAreYouSeriousIt'sReallyWednesday?!? "Thursday" was spent playing Nerf-ball with my munchkin and watching only things that involved CGI horrors instead of real life horrors. I prefer to get my disgust and heartbreak from the magic of computer graphics. And I meditated and I slept and I ate chocolate. It was a wonderful fake Thursday.

I also figured something out. I'm a lot happier when I unplug. When I'm not incessantly bombarded with news or even PBS Kids. Or overloading the circuitry of my brain trying to read every single tip and trick in my inbox and list my blog in every directory on the web and comment on all of the other blogs I follow. Eventually, it just gets to be too much. You wind up burnt up, stressed out, with a fuse shorter than a toddler's attention span.

Despite being a wife and full-time mother and an upwardly-mobile blogger ~ I don't have to do something, think something, pay attention to everything and every detail All The Time.

Sometimes, I can just be. I can tell my brain to shut up and bask in silence. I can turn off the computer and the TV and not feel starved for something to work my eyes and fill my ears. Sometimes sitting on the floor while a two year old runs circles around you is a good thing. Thinking for yourself instead of continually pumping someone else's thoughts, opinions and viewpoints into your skull is quite liberating. Figuring out what you like to do that doesn't require electricity is pretty fulfilling. And paying full attention to the living breathing people around you is both entertaining and educational ~ even when that live person is much, much younger than yourself. I'd turn off my cell phone too, except that I don't have one...

So I encourage all of you to unplug once in a while. Honestly. That includes cell phones... they have an "Off" button for a reason. Use it sometime, the phone will thank you. So will the TV and the computer. So will you... eventually... when you re-plug.