Happy Thanksgiving!

To be honest, I have not been feeling it this year... The no media thing is going well for the most part with the ones that I've given up. I apologized to my Words With Friends friends about the lack of games. It's pretty nice to not have to worry about posting my life on Snapchat and Instagram, although sometimes I miss sharing the fun / beautiful / delicious things that I'm doing, making or eating but that's okay, the world doesn't need to know.  (something I would have  shared though is this public service announcement- rutabagas need to be peeled before you eat them!) Although I do miss the approval I get sometimes from Instagram world... I've gotten so much of my house and yard under control and moving in the direction I want them to be headed.

One fun thing that happened as a result is my discovery of this podcast by Annie F. Downs (http://www.anniefdowns.com/category/that-sounds-fun-podcast/). I love it! It makes it hard because I want to follow all the people she interviews on Instagram but I'm not on Instagram currently. We are both very similar in personality and I love listening to it because I feel like it's a conversation that I would want to have with all of these fun people that she knows and I wish I knew! It's like she's living my dream life... But she has helped get me super pumped for my upcoming Nashville trip next month!

Despite my cranky attitude about Thanksgiving, I did take the morning to reflect sometimes the things I have to be thankful for so that's been a good thing. I'm excited for what this next year holds! And I've also decided that I'm going to start celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving as my own little tradition, it's in early October! How perfect is that... Then I don't need to feel guilty about putting my Christmas decorations up!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I'm getting so much done!

At least it feels that way... Without the things I distract myself with there is alot of time to get done the things I want to but run out of time for... Guys, I wrapped some Christmas presents today! How crazy right?!

I've put some thought into gift making and gift coordinating with all this time. It's peaceful to feel ordered. I made chili for the week and conquered a breakfast recipe I'd been wanting to try. I've been better at research and planning- things I usually get overwhelmed by and distract myself with media instead. Yet I've realized I kind of like this planning thing without my distractions!

I crossed new restaurants off my bucket list. It's been good! I miss radio...

Cake Walk

Literally and figuratively. I am pigging out on missed candy and foods, which makes media month seem like a piece of cake in comparison. I can drown any bit of sorrow with delicious food.

I have caught myself wanting to scroll through Instagram many a time, which has led me to different avenues for mental breaks at work. It's made me actually be able to get the stuff done I should be getting done! Cleaning rooms... Reading... Laundry... Crafts... Planning! Crazy.... My sister and I are at a cliff hanger waiting to see the last episode of Sherlock until December, but we have some plans to learn a dance or something so that will be fun.

That said, I did have an internal panic when my phone just died all this evening. I mean...  I only have a few things, you can't take them all away! But thankfully it came back. Phew!

No-media November

This is no media month...after fail-tober I don't want November to be so bad I just quit, but I also don't want it to be so easy no ground is gained. I don't want to be super legalistic about everything either so I am trusting the challenges these will bring even if I'm not living on some media island bubble this month.... And I have a friend coming alongside to do a media fast month too so it is nice having someone to talk to and lament/celebrate with!! That will certainly help!

That said, Instagram, Snapchat, words with Friends/phone games all shut down. My aol like thing at work, shut down. No Netflix/Hulu/library rental TV shows... The radio is dead to me... As is Google Hangouts. I am not sure how to deal with podcasts and such as I plan to read and get books on CD and they are similar... But I'm going to be focusing on "is this taking me away from God being the focus right now?", as a means of deciding...

Here we go. Day one was hard realizing how often I like to look at pretty pics on Instagram and get wonderlust from all the travel pics.

No-media November

This is no media month...after fail-tober I don't want November to be so bad I just quit, but I also don't want it to be so easy no ground is gained. I don't want to be super legalistic about everything either so I am trusting the challenges these will bring even if I'm not living on some media island bubble this month.... And I have a friend coming alongside to do a media fast month too so it is nice having someone to talk to and lament/celebrate with!! That will certainly help!

That said, Instagram, Snapchat, words with Friends/phone games all shut down. My aol like thing at work, shut down. No Netflix/Hulu/library rental TV shows... The radio is dead to me... As is Google Hangouts. I am not sure how to deal with podcasts and such as I plan to read and get books on CD and they are similar... But I'm going to be focusing on "is this taking me away from God being the focus right now?", as a means of deciding...

Here we go. Day one was hard realizing how often I like to look at pretty pics on Instagram and get wonderlust from all the travel pics.

Fail-tober

Well, that was hard.

In short, I learned I like food and I like variety. It was hard having to have the same things over and over again even if I modified them to different cooking styles and flavors. It would suck to have super restrictive allergies or to live in a super restricted food area. I get that it's good to have any food in those situations, but my heart was not in a place of gratitude that it needed to be for food. Today, I had ice cream for lunch and it was great! I'm planning all the foods I want to get this month that I couldn't this month. I really want sushi...

It also gives me an appreciation for food poverty zones, when you only have so many things and making them in unhealthy ways tastes so much better! So I can see you I maybe they are the healthiest of situations...

Oddly, the more difficult situation this month was the sickness I had the last week or so. That brought out a lot of personal issues, mainly not being able to talk and having to wear my glasses for a week. Growing up with glasses I love having contacts now and I usually don't wear them out, so having to do that it was a real image struggle but I had no other choice. And what oddly seemed to better was my having no voice. Pink eye, ear stuff, laryngitis... Real winner.

It made me consider what I wanted to spend my few words per day on a lot more than I ever have because my throat would swell up and hurt every time I talked. I definitely say a lot of things that I don't need to say and take something as simple as talking and expressing my thoughts for granted. Although it did help with the food situation because I had a lot of chicken soup...

It was really cool driving back from a long way away when I normally would sing my songs, to instead silently pray through some of the lyrics. I had never done that and it was really cool!

So in short, I did learn a lot this month but it did not feel like a success :/ even though it was in it's own way. A heart of gratitude makes things go way better.