Unplugged success

Last Friday I decided I needed to take a break from the digital world. I'd been feeling crabby and out of sorts and generally not happy. The long weekend presented itself as an opportunity to step back, unplug and take a time out from blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

After writing the post explaining my intended mini-absence, I closed the laptop and put it away in my bag. That itself was pretty monumental. My laptop is a standard fixture in the FR2 (family room 2).  I went to bed at about 9:30pm Friday night -- no trolling Facebook to keep me awake late.

When I woke on Saturday morning, I gave a relieved exhale that I wasn't reaching for the laptop to see what I'd missed on the interwebs overnight. I went downstairs, started cleaning the kitchen and grabbed a zucchini muffin that Annie had made. It was so yummy, that my first instinct was to tag her in a post on Facebook thanking her for baking them.

Not so fast. I was on a break.And I was beginning to get the shakes from internet withdrawal.

More kitchen cleaning. Laundry cycling. Lunch cooking. Plenty of witty remarks went through my head, only there were no Facebook friends there to appreciate them.

After lunch, I sat down to read a book -- a real book with pages and everything. (The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Two thumbs up.) I prepped dinner before we left for church. We got back home, I made dinner (caramel pork stir fry) and sat back down with the book. It was enjoyable and as a bonus, my fingers were no longer twitching as if they needed to make contact with a keyboard.

Sunday presented a special challenge to my resolve to stay unplugged. Mike helped Robbie clean out his bedroom. He came downstairs with two bags of stuff to be given to the Goodwill. I peeked in one of the bags and saw one of Robbie's Imaginext dinosaurs tossed in there.

"Mike! You can't give this away!" I shrieked.

"Why not, he doesn't play with them anymore."

"Because I'm saving them for the grandchildren! He LOVED those dinosaurs."

I decided I'd better go out to the car and see what other precious memories Mike thought were expendable. I found about 6 more dinosaurs and Eddie, the doll Robbie used to sleep with when he was a baby. I couldn't believe Mike would even considering giving Eddie away! I actually got teary over that one and thought, "I'm so going to blog about this."  Then I remembered I couldn't because of my self-imposed internet moratorium.

Having safely rescued Eddie and the dinosaurs (sounds like the name of a band), I turned my idle hands and brain back to the book and had it finished by Sunday evening. On Monday, we went to my parents' house to meet my new nephew (welcome Baby Benjamin!) and celebrate the 4th with all my siblings and their families.

I do confess to a few internet indiscretions -- peeking at Facebook when Annie had it up to see pictures my brother posted and playing several games of Words with Friends on my cell phone on the way to Ohio. But mostly, I was unplugged. And it felt good.

I won't say it cured everything that ails me; I still have things to work on. What it did, though, was give me a fresh perspective. And I think I'm better all around for it.