- I thought this happened to everyone.
- LEGO is cool.
- I learned it from watching you.
- Truth.
- Stop with the work/life balance.
- I agree. But I don’t agree agree. Tech and trades are a viable alternative.
- Rewire your brain with good habits.
- This made me smile.
- Do you drink rosé? I haven’t tried any despite it being all the rage the last few years but I might just use this guide for some summer time libations.
- I’m a fan of Ravelry. I’m not a fan of Trump. I still don’t know if I agree with this decision.
- I’ve jumped on the crush on Keanu bandwagon.
- Invest in your relationships.
- Sunset from space.
- Time to start bingeing this now.
- Why the Chernoybl disaster didn’t kill all the plants. (Found this fascinating.)
Happy weekend, everyone! Hope it’s great!
Oh so much to talk about…!
I sent the LEGO link to my son, because yes, LEGO is so cool. 🙂
“. . . we should all be carrying wallet-size portraits of our iPhones in our bags, because they are clearly the most important thing in our lives.” THIS!
The “times I think people are upset with me” illustration is painfully spot on for me. Argh.
Yes, to the work/life balance article. This has become a huge issue in our house over the past year with me working through my editing courses, editing a memoir, and starting a new volunteer stint. I think we all just need to do LESS, to embrace SIMPLE wherever and whenever we can, and to abandon perfectionism. (The planet would be better off too.)
Love the “cue, routine, reward” in the habits article.
I’m not sure about the Ravelry decision either. I don’t condone hate speech, but I think it’s dangerous to limit free speech and I fear it will end up making matters worse.
I, too, think Keanu’s decency is wonderful. More of it is sorely needed.
The relationships article is spot on as well. Those incidental relationships matter SO much! I recently began volunteering with a local group that’s working on climate action in our city and it’s been such a relief to be working alongside like-minded people. Even introverts need those small bits of human connection.
Marian – you hit the nail on the head with how I feel about Ravelry’s decision. Hate speech is inexcusable and should not be tolerated. I don’t agree with Trump and I think he’s dangerous, but I think it can create more division to silence those who support him instead of just taking a stand against hate speech. I’m conflicted.
Your comments on abandoning perfectionism are SPOT ON for me as is the “times I think people are upset with me” illustration.
And finally, the tech issue here has been a HUGE problem this summer and I know I’m guilty of setting a poor example. The quote you picked out was one of my favorites.
Good luck with all the class work and editing! I know that finding time – even for things we love – can be difficult. I wish you lots of room for that in your life right now. ?
Hi Kate–
I am so late to seeing this because I’ve been working on that whole balance thing. I’ve had my kids mostly home for the past nearly-three weeks, so my usual things have taken a back seat. It’s been a nice opportunity to see things through a different lens. I have to say, I am glad that my children were half-grown before the advent of smart phones. They were teens before the phones became ubiquitous, and I felt as if I constantly battled them. I wish I’d set really firm limits as soon as they became part of our lives. I didn’t because I didn’t anticipate what they would become. But, I know it’s not a simple dilemma. They are such a different part of their culture/life than they are in mine. Sometimes, when I am feeling nostalgic for earlier times, it is really about a time without all this “connectivity”–which can make me feel really disconnected at times. I know it’s a human problem more than a tech problem.
I appreciate all these links. I understand your thoughts about the Ravelry decision, but I think I’m more of a yay than a nay on it. I think owners of platforms have a right to say what they will and won’t allow on it. There are plenty of others that folks can use to espouse their beliefs about Trump or anything else. And things are getting more and more troubling. If I thought that online forums were any kind of agent for change, I might have a different stance, but I don’t know that they are. In fact, they’ve been used to turn all of us against each other. I sure don’t know what the answers are, but I think everything happening is an opportunity for us to reconsider what free speech means. There’s never been absolutely free speech (yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, etc.).
And as for work-life balance, well: I have a child seriously contemplating living her life in Sweden. Work-life balance is a national value and embedded in their culture. The idea of my child building a life so far from mine makes me hyper-ventilate (almost literally), but I don’t blame her and I honestly don’t know what to wish for. She was the happiest and healthiest I’ve seen her since childhood (when I was able to create that kind of balance for her), after living there for nearly 6 months. Her host mother is a member of national Parliament, but they ate dinner together as a family nearly every night and after dinner spent the evening drinking coffee and hanging out together. This idea that we can’t have balance hinges on not questioning our value of a capitalistic society. I am furious and sad that our country is what it is right now, in so many ways. We have so much less health and quality of life than other countries, but we’re so threatened by the idea that we’re not exceptional and “winning” everything that we can’t take a serious, critical look at what we really are/have now, today, in 2019. And I fear it will be our undoing. (is?)
Sorry to go so dark. I appreciate, though, having this place to think about things and share thoughts with those who are kindred. Thank you for that. (It’s on my summer punch list to get my blog straightened out, so I can once again host a place like that, too.)
Hi Rita!! As always I appreciate your thoughtful comments whenever you have a chance to leave them!!
I feel your anger/sadness at where our country is right now. I am grateful for the substantive debates and conversations I’m seeing and hearing and those conversations give me great hope.
Your comment about all this connectivity creating a feeling of disconnect resonated with me. We spent a few days at our family cabin and I found myself checking my phone briefly in the morning and again in the evening but leaving it alone for the whole day and it felt so good to be able to just BE with my people. (And honestly, I think the creation of these devices also lend themselves to work/life imbalance – especially for business builders – but that’s a whole discussion in and of itself.)
As for Rav, I appreciate your comments, and I agree they have the right to make that decision. I just don’t know if I would make the same one. I sympathize with their reasoning and can even understand it, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t feel like we make the crafting community more inclusive by being less inclusive. Hate speech and bigoted speech should absolutely be banned and Trump being Trump, many of the things he says would fall under that category, but I just can’t make the leap that banning pro-Trump patterns is the same thing as banning hate speech. I understand why others can. At the end of the day, I love Ravelry and will continue to use it, but this decision gave me pause.
Finally, I can imagine that it would be so hard to hear that your daughter wants to move so far away, but am so glad that she’s thriving after her time there. I’ve been stalking your family adventures on Facebook (I have a new account where I’m only friends with family now but I am following you so I get to see what you post publicly) and it’s looked wonderful. I’m so glad you are getting to enjoy time with your children. I hope that when mine eventually leave the nest, we will enjoy each other’s company when they return as much as it appears you enjoy each other.
I sure do appreciate the irony of both of us feeling antipathy toward our devices and what they do to us (or we allow them to do to us) and knowing that they are what creates connection between us–a connection for which I am always grateful. Living is full of contradictions, isn’t it? That’s the constant I see running through this conversation. Hope you have a good week. Soak up those children while you can. It was harder for me to do that in my children’s teen years, but now I find myself even missing those. I think it must be like childbirth: You only remember the golden parts, and the pain is more of an abstraction than anything you can still feel.
I do love what (and especially WHO) technology has brought to my life.
And I appreciate the gentle reminder.