Below is an account of my attempt to unplug completely from email and the internet for 10 days while on a stay-cation. For those of you who haven’t heard the term, a stay-cation is a local vacation.
Day 2 – Saturday, April 23
My boyfriend John is having a gathering of family and friends on Friday and being the event producer that I am, I am helping him with the menu and other details. I had hoped to have these details taken care of before my unplugging, but we couldn’t’ find the time to have the discussion until now.
I try to convince him to go with Sticky Fingers Sweet & Eats, an amazing vegan bakery/restaurant [see, we ARE still talking green on this blog!] that also caters, but he wants to go with No Name Vegetarian Caterer since he has used them before. I’m okay with this since I’m curious to see how they’ll do. I get on the Internet to see what their menu options are. While I don’t mind getting online (no heart palpitations whatsoever) to handle this task, I will admit that I’m a bit disappointed that once again, I’ve failed at my plan to unplug. But this gathering is much more important than my silly experiment, so I “man up” and get online.
John and I look at the menu for No Name Vegetarian Caterer from our respective laptops. He is one efficient, no-nonsense kind of guy, so we quickly figure out a menu. I send an email inquiry and specifically request No Name Vegetarian Caterer to call me on my mobile phone since I am NOT checking email! So goes it for unplugging from phone calls… I realize that will be impossible. I stay away from my laptop for the duration of the day.
I didn’t plan anything for the rest of the day. As a planner, I like to plan out my day – even on the weekends, but today, I wanted to let whatever happen, happen. John, his 2 young sons and I went to an egg hunt in his neighborhood. This one family has been hosting it for nearly 20 years. The night before, parents drop off 1 dozen candy-filled plastic (eek!) eggs per kid. The next day, families show up at the same house for a shot gun start to the egg hunt. The little ones go first, followed shortly thereafter by older age categories. They have a limit of 12 eggs per kid. The adults hang out and enjoy a pot luck brunch and chat while the kids hunt for eggs. I help out a few neighborhood kids I know who haven’t accumulated their 12 eggs by standing in an area where I see eggs and let them know if they are getting warmer and colder. It was great, simple fun.
Total time on the internet today: 15 to 20 minutes.
Next post: See how I did on Day 4 and read about the interesting experiment my college-aged nephew engaged in that involved removing mass media from his life for 24 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment