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Posts Tagged With: New Years Resolutions

Real Community Challenge: Week 1

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Anisa

We’re six days into the Real Community challenge.  How are you doing?  As a quick recap, the Real Community Challenge rules are:

  • Limit the social media sites that suck away time and energy.
  • Practice new, more constructive habits.
  • Do not allow media, TV or phones at the table.
  • Take a new step towards real community each week.

These first few days have been interesting.  I have done pretty well with what I set out to do.  I ate meals at the table with the kids, and we went for walks for all but three of the mornings.  One day was too rainy to go walking and the next day was too muddy.  This morning we didn’t walk because the maid came.  For some reason she usually comes on Mondays.  (We have no maid.  I am the maid.  But I was motivated to clean, so I didn’t want to interrupt the flow).

I’ve been able to somehow (miraculously!) get more done, now that I’m not checking Facebook.  I caught up on my emails.  I wrote a letter to a friend and mailed it.  I got more things unpacked.  I had dinner ready most of the nights by the time Rick was home.  I did an art project with the kids.

However, it has been tough for me.  I was really tempted to cheat and look at Facebook (through Rick’s account!) last night.  But I stayed strong and didn’t do it.  Rick is out of town, and the kids were in bed.  The house was quiet, I was caught up on emails, with nothing to do.

Instead, I decided to talk to a friend.  She texted me and then I asked her to call if she had time.  It was just enough distraction that the urge soon passed.

Over all, I’m enjoying it so far.  I am enjoying not wasting so much time and getting more done.  But I do feel still a bit disconnected.  SO here comes my next step to build real community. 

This week I will meet someone new.  I encourage you to do this too. 

Saturday I took the kids to the playground across the street from our house.  The playground is going to be renovated soon, and I accidentally showed up when a meeting about it was supposed to take place.  This might come as a surprise, but I’m not an overly social person.  I tend to avoid large crowds of people and it is my nature to go to the park when there is no one else there.

But I was there and suddenly lots of people were there.  I decided to pipe up and say that I hoped there would be benches in the shade for parents to watch their kids play.  As you can imagine, there were other moms there too.  I met two of them.  Coincidentally, one of the women was a friend of a reader of this blog who has just moved from Texas to Colorado… small world huh?

Meeting people is hard for me.  I tend to just spill my guts and show all my crazy within the first ten minutes of meeting someone.  I mean, I told both of these women that I was a blogger, that I moved from Colorado, I was a weird hippie and that I lived without a fridge for a year and a half.  Yeah.  They were both kind though, and they both emailed me within the day.  And I plan (hope) to get together with them.

So yay! I met someone new!  Two someones! But it was on Saturday, not this week.  Because I’m not asking you to do anything I’m not going to do, I’m still going to make sure I meet someone else this week too.

Why is meeting someone new important to real community?  Well, for me, the reasons are obvious, since I’m new in town.  But even if you have lived in your city your whole life, it’s important.  Others may have resources you never knew about.  For example, both of the women I met at the park invited me to be a part of various communities in the area (a real food yahoo group that does group buys, a home school group, a mom’s group, and resources for buying raw milk and fresh eggs).  Jackpot!

When I lived in Colorado, I was constantly finding new resources through new friends, even though I had lived there my whole life.  We need people to have community, and the more of them you know in real life, the stronger that community will be.

So that is the mini-challenge within the Real Community Challenge.  Meet someone new.

My goal now looks like this:

I will be blocking Facebook and limiting Pinterest.  Instead of checking them I will go for a walk in the mornings.  Media, TV and phones are not allowed at the table and will be shut off or silenced during meals.  I will continue eating meals at the table with my family. And this week, I will meet someone new.

A side note here… many people have expressed to me in private that they love the idea of this challenge and that they will be joining in one form or another.  Some of them don’t want to announce it.  That’s ok.  It’s also ok if you don’t want to get off of Facebook (or what have you) completely, but just want to manage the amount of time you spend on it better.  The point of this challenge is not to completely cut yourself off from social media (unless that’s what you want), but rather focus on REAL community, face-to-face relationships.  So go with what works for you. 

Tell me friends, how were the first few days?  And if you haven’t joined in yet, are you considering it?

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Categories: Community, Simple Living | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Real Community Challenge

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Anisa

Last week I shared with you my recent angst over social media, and the idea of taking a break from it for the month of May.  Despite all the reasons I shared, taking a break from Facebook and other social media outlets is going to be a tough challenge for me.

Before I get too far into this, I want to tell you that I realize the irony of presenting this idea on my blog, since blogging is a form of social media.  But for me, the blog is neither a huge time sink, an addiction, or a source of fear or anxiety.  I can’t say the same for Facebook.

Today, I’m going to lay out the rules of the challenge.  Throughout the month I plan to share mini-challenges to help us all stay on track, as well as address the positives of social media, and how we can keep the good things without getting sucked into the negatives of social media. This is a work-in-progress for me, so I will probably be making the rules up as I go.

Also, it’s worth mentioning here that my personal social media addiction is with Facebook.  Yours might be too, or maybe it is Twitter, Reddit, You Tube, a certain news website, your RSS feed/Reader or certain blogs.  For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to say FB.  Just apply what I’m saying to the social media outlet of your choice.  Also, please note that the blog automatically posts to Facebook (if you are not participating in the challenge, I don’t want  you to think I’m cheating. ;) ).

I mentioned last week that I thought social media was a lazy community replacement.  So I’ve decided to call  this the Real Community Challenge.

Real Community Challenge 2013

First of all, we need to break the habit.  We need to stop visiting the websites that cause us to waste time or distract us from real life.  Even if it’s this one.  This can be tough.

For me I have a habit of sitting down with my morning coffee, checking my email and then checking FB.  I can waste a whole morning clicking through to different stories.  I plan to install some blocking software on my browser that will keep me from clicking through to FB for the entire month of May.  Since I use Firefox, I will be using LeechBlock.

Here is a really useful link that talks about blocking sites for different browsers, as well as more permanent ways of blocking sites.  Also, if you don’t know which sites are wasting the majority of your time, you can use a tracker (also linked in the page above) to discover what they are.

I’m also going to use LeechBlock to block Pinterest at certain times of the day.  Pinterest is an interesting form of social media.  I’m including it here because I tend to spend a lot of time on it, however I feel differently about Pinterest than other forms of social media.  I will talk more about this later this month.

Next, we’re going to make new habits.

Instead of checking my FB page first thing in the morning while my kids are eating breakfast, I am going to sit at the table with them to eat.  And then clean up breakfast together, get the kids dressed and go for a walk.  I want this to be the new habit.  I’m going to replace my old habit with my new habit.  I don’t care how long or short the walk is.  I need to get outside and see the sun and I am resolving to do this instead of waste time on the computer.

The first rule of the challenge is no phones or media devices at the table and no TV during meal times.

No checking email during dinner, no texting, and if your phone rings during a meal, let it go to voice mail.  You can call them back after dinner is over.  Shut off the TV while you eat.  Silence your phone.

This is my way of telling my family and others that I’m with, they are more important to me than whatever is happening online or in the outside world.  There is no reason to have your phone at the table, a date or dinner party unless you are a doctor or midwife on call, a first responder whose job requires your availability or something similar.  Stress at the office or a micro-managing boss doesn’t count.  This is a good boundary for everyone.

Finally, we are going to take steps to build real community.

Each week I’m going to add a new challenge to build community.  The first place I want to build real community is in my home at meal times.

Every night our family has dinner together, at the table.  We sit down together, eat, and then clear the table together.  If your family doesn’t do this, I urge you to start and to make it a habit.  Since we already do dinner, my first steps are going to be to have every meal together as a family.  At the table.

Instead of making the kids lunch and then doing my own thing while they eat, I’m going to sit down to eat with them, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you are not home all day with your kids, I encourage you to eat your meals at a table, not in your car, at a desk or on the couch, and to eat them with someone else.

If you are in an office, eat at a table in the lunch room instead of your desk.  Perhaps a coworker will join you (hey, look, community!).  If you go to a restaurant, go inside and sit down to eat, and try not to go alone.  If you are on the couch, chances are you are watching TV, disengaged from others around you and very likely to overeat.  I find that if I am sitting at a table, especially with someone else, I am much less apt to try to check my FB and more likely to talk to them.

This first meal-time step is simply a suggestion.  If you already eat all your meals at a table with other people, please feel free to make your first step something else.

So that’s the start of it, pretty simple I think.  Starting Wednesday, for the month of May:

  • I’m blocking the social media sites that suck away my time and energy.
  • I’m going to practice a new, more constructive habit.
  • I will not allow media, TV or phones at the table.
  • Each week I will take a new step towards real community.

So, will you join me?

If you are up for this challenge, please post what site(s) you will be blocking, what your new habit will be, your promise not to allow phones or media at the table, and what your first step towards real community will be.

I will be blocking Facebook and Pinterest.  Instead of checking them I will go for a walk in the mornings.  Media, TV and phones are not allowed at the table and will be shut off or silenced during meals.  This week I will start eating all meals at the table with my family.

Categories: Community, Simple Living | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

Social Media Fast?

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Anisa

Facebook.  We love it and we hate it.  We kind of even love to hate it.  It lets us share our lives with friends all over the world, yet… we can get into arguments that can make us dislike people who we would have considered a friend.  It gives us a sense of community and belonging, but somehow we still feel disconnected.

Last November I started mulling over the idea of a social media fast.  There are a number of reasons. At that time, one main reason was that I felt it was taking time away from my kids.  Other times I’ve considered it because some post somewhere upset me.  I’ve taken breaks from it, but somehow I always manage to get drawn back into Zuckerberg’s clutches.  Even for a month when I had no computer, I still managed to check my Facebook.

And that’s the problem.

Social media is addicting.  You post something and a friend somewhere “Likes” it.  And that’s fun.  Your friend posts funny updates or ecards, and you just have to see if there’s something new.  And before you know it, an hour has gone by and you’re wondering where it went.  It makes us feel like we are really interacting with people.  We are laughing at the same things, “liking” the same things.  We feel so validated.  We belong!

Oh, did I mention that this is virtually instant?

Social media takes very little investment on our parts and the return is huge.  Every time someone likes our post, or up votes or comments, we get a little dopamine rush.  We instantly feel validated.  There’s always something new, or interesting.  That News Feed goes on and on; there’s always more to read.  It’s not just jokes either!  We’re socially aware!  We track the news and follow politics and current event.  We share stories that matter to us.  This is real.  We tell ourselves it matters.

All of these things add up to something that it very difficult to tear ourselves away from.  It’s fun and we like it.  Our brains like it.  We just keep coming back for more.

Social media makes you dislike your friends.  Ever find yourself totally incensed at something your “friend” just posted?  I mean, how could anyone be so ignorant!  You have to tell them.  They are your friend, after all.  You had no idea anyone thought this way, especially not your friend!

I heard a story about a brave Connecticut newspaper that removed the feeling of anonymity that a screen name provides.  They published the tweets along with the profile photos and names of underage bullies.  To quote the Connecticut Newsroom linked above,

Vaguely summarizing this kind of bullying, identities protected, would have allowed the school district to continue to ignore the problem and the community to assume that it was “someone else’s kid.”

But the fact is that “good kids,” from “good homes,” honor roll students, athletes, male, female, participated in this stuff, and showed a fundamental and staggeringly dangerous misunderstanding about rape, consent and how to treat other people.

If we hadn’t identified the bullies, this would have been dismissed by the school district and the community as “just a few bad apples.”

I applaud this newspaper.  With the feeling of being anonymous, we allow ourselves to say and do things we would never otherwise do.

There IS a false sense of anonymity with social media.  We all feel a little more freedom to say things to others that we would never say to their faces.

When was the last time you walked into a room filled with 50 of your friends and acquaintances, and announced to them all, “I’m voting republican (or democrat or libertarian or fill-in-the-blank) and I think anyone who votes otherwise is a stupid, fear-mongering communist!”  I’m willing to bet for the vast majority of us, the answer is never.

However, under the guise of “sharing” we essentially do that.  We air all our opinions, be they religious, political or philosophical.  We share our parenting beliefs and choices.  We gather supporters around us and attack our friends for thinking differently.

We’re shielded by screen names and profiles and the feeling of being alone in front of the screen.  It is something akin to picking your nose in the car.

Social media spreads negative emotion.  Moods are contagious. Lots of complaining on Facebook?  Suddenly I’m complaining.  Friends getting up in arms? I’m up in arms too.  I’d believe it was just me, except it isn’t.  It’s obvious that it isn’t. It seems to me that moods seem to go viral on Facebook.

Often people get into arguments with people they don’t even know because of social media.  Some forms of social media, for example Reddit, seem to do nothing more than provide a forum to complain and criticize others.  While you can find some cool and interesting content on Reddit, there is this… vibe.  One that trolls love.  It is my experience that people will pick you apart on Reddit.  They will discount entire articles because of the author’s profile picture.

As a blogger, there is a feeling there like being thrown into a shark tank.  I get great traffic to the blog from Reddit, but if something of mine is posted there, I have to make up my mind to have double thick skin, and sometimes not read or respond to the comments left there.  It feels as if it is a haven for negativity and nasty comments.

Social media spreads news.  This could be considered a positive, right?  We all like to be informed and keep up with current events.  But take an honest look at what is in your News Feed.  Is it good news that is spreading around?  Or is it mainly bad news? Stressful news?

Bombings, shootings, rape, beatings, missing children, gun control, equality debates, corrupt politicians, eat this, don’t eat that, and on and on and on.

Some issues may be relevant to our lives, but most of them aren’t.  Do the stories we read affect the day-to-day decisions we make?  Outside of politics (and who can trust what they read in that arena), how does the news impact our lives?

A recent article shared on Facebook (the irony!) talked about news being bad for you.  Here is the link, and I encourage you to read it.

News, especially bad news, contributes to us feeling anxious, depressed, fearful, angry, sick, and possibly worst of all, indifferent.  News normalizes the abnormal.  We start to feel as if violence is commonplace.  We start to fear the next terrorist attack, or worse, we just count on it, waiting to hear the details of when and where and who.

On a personal level, I have struggled a lot over the last couple of months with my own fears.  Some of them are rational, but most of them are completely irrational.  I notice a marked increase in my fear and anxiety when I read even the headlines of bad news.

If I’m honest, I get nearly all the news I read from my Facebook News Feed.  It makes sense, I’m interested in what my friends are interested in.  But there are no filters for bad news on Facebook.  I can’t see the updates of “Jill’s” personal life, but block all the horrific news stories she seems fascinated with.  And it’s not just “Jill” so blocking her or unfriending her won’t help.  The bad news seems to come from every side.  We all feel stressed.  We all feel anxious.  We are all transfixed.

Social media promotes a false sense of community.  By December last year, I had made up my mind to do a social media fast on the blog.  I hinted at it in my resolutions post under the community header.  I had planned the date for February, but then we got the news about our move, so I decided to put the media fast on hold.  After getting settled in our new house, I was even considering not doing the fast all together.  I mean, all my friends live in other states now.  I don’t know anyone here.  I need to have a little social interaction, right?  And there’s the rub… social media promotes a false sense of community.

Over the last two weeks, although I had taken a decent break from Facebook due to the move, I find myself spending more time on it than ever.  While I’m “interacting” with people on the computer, I’m spending all my time in front of a screen, not seeing anyone’s face.  Let me repeat what I said above.  We’ve been here a month, and I don’t know anyone.   Facebook is a lazy community replacement.  I need to get out from behind my desk and off of my phone.  I need to have genuine interaction with real people.  And my kids need it too.

Maybe you didn’t move across the country and you know plenty of people in your city, neighborhood and workplaces.  But do you ever see them?  Have you heard their voice on the phone in a while?  When was the last time you had dinner together or just talked over the fence?

So… the big question.  Are you feeling any of the above?  Are you feeling at all like I do?  Are you willing to do a social media fast with me? 

Here is my idea.  For the month of May, we take a break from social media.  Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or some other form (perhaps all of the above), we just Log Out.  Maybe we go so far as to stop reading the news, or watching TV.  And we take a month to focus on real community, on real life.  I have some ideas and suggestions for building that community we really want.  I think we can kick the habit of status updates.  What do you think?

Categories: Community | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

2012 Resolutions Revisited

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Anisa

It’s the winter solstice.  The days are going to get longer and spring is on the way.  2012, you have gone by so quickly.

Around this time last year I set out a few resolutions for 2012.  Here’s a recap of what those were:

  1. Grow a giant pumpkin. 
  2. Grow enough in our own neighborhood gardens to feed ourselves for the summer.
  3. Process chickens.  
  4. Harvest Honey. 
  5. Start a monthly potluck circle.

So how did we do with those?  Well, we tried to grow the pumpkin.  We planted it, we watered it, we fed it compost tea.  But it only got to about the size of a volley ball.  So next year, we will have to try again.

Number two, well… not quite yet.  We’ll keep on that road.  We did process chickens this year, as well as harvest our own honey, though.

HHarvest10

The potluck.  We started the monthly potluck in February.  We have hosted one every month since then except in June (kids were all sick) and November (we were out of town, hunting).  And this is one resolution we are definitely keeping up with.

I’m still thinking over what my resolutions for the new year will be.  Do you have any resolutions for yourself yet?  How about ideas for me?  Something you want to see me try?

Categories: 101 in 1001, Community, Garden, Sustainability, Top 5, Urban Homesteading, what not | Tags: , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Homestead Resolutions for 2012

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Anisa

I hope you all have enjoyed the holidays so far.  Our family has agreed that this was ones of the best Christmases we’ve had in a long time.  Health-wise, we are in a holding pattern and I’ll keep the blog updated if anything changes on that front.  In the mean time…

The other night, my Hard-Working Hubster looked at me and said, we need to set some goals for the new year.  Yeeah… I’m not so into New Years resolutions, and I sort of figured he was hinting at setting financial goals, which are my least favorite, so I was not really excited about what I figured he was about to say.  But, it turns out that’s not what he meant at all.  He was referring a bit to my 101 in 1001 list and some other personal goals, as well as to some things we’d like to do together.

Something that I’ve been working on in 2011 and really want to continue to work on in 2012 is building community.  I loved that last year our next-door neighbor enlisted our help to put in a garden and then shared his harvest with us.  He’s up for round two this year and I want to keep the momentum going on things like that.  I’d really like to strengthen the community between our neighbors on our block.  I also want to increase community between other friends that live nearby but are further out than our immediate neighborhood.

One thing I really want is to increase our self-sufficiency on the homestead.  I want to grow more food and process our own chickens for meat.  But by “self-sufficiency” I don’t mean by ourselves.  I mean, “not relying on the grocery store.”  And, I really want to make a fun special place for the kids in the garden… something they can look forward to, play in or around, and take care of.

So with those things in mind, here are my top five goals for the Schell Urban Homestead for 2012.

  1. Grow a giant pumpkin.  The neighbor has already volunteered a spot in his yard for this.  We’re scouring seed catalogs for the biggest one we can find.  It’ll be a pet project, but out in his front yard for the whole neighborhood to see and monitor.  And the kids can really get in on this one (I’m hoping).  Maybe in the fall, when it’s time to harvest we can do something cool with the results!  
  2. Grow enough in our own neighborhood gardens to feed ourselves for the summer.  I’d like it to be our own garden in our own yard, but I’ve realized this just isn’t realistic.  We eat a lot of veggies and have a lot of people to feed and not much garden space.  So instead of setting our sights on the impossible, I’m hoping to make it possible between our place, the next-door neighbors and the neighbors across the street.  I think they are all open to this.
  3. Process chickens.  We wanted to do this last year – order meat birds or a straight run of chicks and then process them for the table.  It didn’t work out in 2011, but I’m hoping we can work it out for 2012.  This will include culling any hens that are eating eggs and getting egg production numbers to where they should be.  Yay homegrown protein!
  4. Harvest Honey.  Our bees are still here, doing well, and we’re hoping to get a good harvest this coming year.  We even have a neighborhood contact to help us with the first go-round. 
  5. Start a monthly potluck circle involving neighbors and homegrown or locally raised foods.  I really, really want to do this.  I’ve mentioned it to a few friends here and there, but gotten no real commitments.  I might just have to jump in for it to take off.  ??

What about you?  Any gardening goals for the new year?  Is community a part of the goals you are making?  How do you plan to get others involved?

Categories: 101 in 1001, Beekeeping, Chickens, Community, Food, Garden, Top 5, Urban Homesteading | Tags: , , , , , | 11 Comments

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