There was a time, about a decade and a half ago, when homes didn't have the Internet. At least, mine didn't. I had a flash-back to that time this past week. My darling children pulled the router and modem off the shelf where they are stored, and the router refused to work. We're expecting a bonus paycheck this month, so we'll buy our new router when my husband gets paid. (I'm currently accessing the web via a borrowed signal that Hubby found.)
For the past week, I have been able to check neither Facebook nor Pinterest. When planning my meals, I had to use my cookbooks, because I couldn't access the loads of recipes I've pinned. I couldn't check with my playgroups about playdate locations and times. I couldn't check the weather and news at will. I had to *gasp* wait for the 6 o'clock news. (Kind of annoying since Tropical Storm Andrea was heading our way.) I didn't get to listen to Pandora or my favorite podcasts.
And you know what? I survived.
I cooked old favorites from cookbooks long forgotten. I just showed up at the park. Sometimes there were other moms, but sometimes there weren't. And I survived. I pushed my kids on the swings, and collected leaves. Instead of Pinning things to do with the boys, I did them. We drew with sidewalk chalk and blew bubbles and made forts out of couch cushions. We had dance parties. I got to play these really old things called CDs on my kitchen radio. My boys loved it! When I got "bored", I read a book, or I played some Solitaire and Plants vs. Zombies.
I'm not canceling my internet access any time soon, but this little adventure showed me how much time I was taking from life and giving to the web. It's time to take most of that back.
