Unplugged

One of my wishes for 2013 is to have unplugged days - days without the distractions of a computer. I have realized that the computer consumes way too much of my days, especially my Etsy store and Facebook. I don't really surf very much, but I sure like my social media. Whereas it is nice to connect online I also find it distracting to what I really want to do and achieve. I am very determined to reduce my daily online time, and I decided to have one completely computer-free day a week.

The best day for this is Saturday.

And so I unplugged yesterday for the first time in this year, and I hope to stay with this "resolution" throughout of 2013. I had such an enjoyable day. I spent many hours in my studio, making little Valentine cards for kids that they can take to their classroom parties, and when all that was done I finally started painting again. A vision has been going through my mind for a week and now I finally sat down and started to put this vision on wood. As soon as I can see where it is going to I will blog about it in this space. At the moment I just got the base down, using quite a lot of molding paste.

In the middle of the day, Kaefer and I went to Jamba Juice and had some wonderful juice creations that tasted like summer. I like to spend time with her away from home, just her and I, when she gets funny and very talkative. For several days she has been fighting a cold, especially a rather nasty cough. She has a concert in two weeks and wants to be on top of her voice by then. A little juice and a lot of vitamin C will help her with that.

I also had time to read without feeling guilty. Currently I'm reading "Grow Your Handmade Business" by Kari Chapin which of course serves my word of the year perfectly. She has some exercises included, and I always read that book with my journal close by in order to do those exercises (and not saying "I do that later" which is more to my procrastinating nature). It is quite helpful I have to say, and I was rather surprised what was just flowing out of me while I was writing. I have to be careful not to fall into a whining tone here!

There was time to cook as well. At the end of the year I really had lost my cooking muse and just felt it was a chore I didn't particularly like. I didn't even look into cook books any more, I was not interested in finding and trying new recipes - something I usually like to do. I just got "easy and quick" things to cook at Costco and Trader Joe's which made incredibly dull and boring dinners. But most times I just couldn't find the energy to stand in the kitchen and cook. I am the only one who cooks in this family, the Geek hates cooking and Kaefer has way too many other things to do. So I am the one who cooks day in day out, and honestly, it gets old and boring, especially when no one in the family answers when I ask them what they would like to eat. Sometimes I'm out of my wits to think about what to cook. See, I'm whining again. Anyway, since winter break, when I got more sleep (and a rather bad cold that gave me lots of excuse to lie on the couch and rest), my cooking muse is on her way back, and I rather enjoy this. So I cooked up a storm yesterday evening, had a little wine while cooking (something I thoroughly enjoy) and we had a wonderful dinner, one of our most favorite dishes of all time. I think I need to blog about that one sometime.

In short, this unplugged day was a blessing! There will be way more unplugged Saturdays this year. It just feels good to be away from the computer and not to be seduced by all its distractions.

Do you have unplugged days?? And how do you spend them?