All or Nothing

Preface: I’ll be getting off this technology kick soon (promise!), but I wanted to share just a few more thoughts on the topic before I get back to writing about more interesting stuff - you know, like my kids' bowel movements. I bet you can't wait.

For nearly a year now, I’ve been asking the question - to blog or not to blog? - and wondering if blogging was the ball to drop since I have so many to juggle right now.

More than a month ago, in fact, I wrote this to a friend (who ironically is someone I “met” in the world of cyberspace):

“Recently, I have been considering reverting back to the ‘hidden’ life I led before I ventured into the blogosphere and online forums. I'm discerning this for various reasons. I've thought about it before and have always decided that the positive outweighs the negative - that we can give the Internet a soul as the Pope has urged new media users to do and that our words can encourage. Plus, I'm a writer. I will always write. It is my medicine. It is where I find hope. It's often how I pray in my private journals and sometimes in a public space as well. The online world yields goodness many times, but it also can evoke anger, guilt, and pull us away from our need for real human connection. I hate how impersonal using new media can become, how we can act like we're not talking to humans with a soul and we forget that just because we can't see someone, she is still a real person who can be easily wounded with our liberal, unfiltered use of a careless tone or hurtful words. I've unfortunately been exposed to some of the ugliness, including hateful comments after people’s posts or online columns, an occasional personal attack, and broken relationships that have fallen apart for some of people I know all within the realm of a social network. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if my life was better before I had a bigger presence online and before I was exposed to all of this ugliness.”

I also wrote this:

“Should I be simplifying my life and move away from ‘talking’ to women online? Should I be focusing all of my time and energies, which are both in scarce supply at this season in my life, to ministering only to my real-life friends while working on living a life of holiness without participating in online forums, Twittering, etc.? Yet, some friends I first encountered on a blog or some other social network have become my real friends. I may not know their physical embrace (though I've been lucky to meet some of them in-person), but I wonder about them and pray about them, too.

Although I've inadvertently made some enemies online, too. It often seems that no matter how hard I try to edify and encourage with my words, someone gets hurt or is offended or takes something completely out of context. This is never, ever my intention, but my failings perhaps as a writer and as a fallible human lead it to keep happening. Usually, I'm able to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and ask God to help me to do what He wants, but I've been having some trouble with detachment. Maybe it's my vanity, my desire for affirmation that allows others' words to have too much power over me. Maybe I just need to talk to God more and ask for His graces and the strength to do His will with my words and my life and to not take everything personally. I'm not 16 anymore for goodness' sake. Or maybe I do need to click away from it all, although the thought of that makes me sad, too.”

And lastly, this:

“Then again, perhaps I need to focus more on the positive. I can see one negative blog post somewhere or one pessimistic opinion and globalize it and forget about the dozens of encouraging words and kind emails that find their way to me or to others. One snappy email can land in my inbox and it's as if I forget all the hopeful words, the goodness, and the encouragement I have gleaned from this beautiful, albeit human, online community. So many of us are doing things that are counter cultural. It's comforting to find a group of women - even if we'll never meet them face-to-face - who share our values and are just trying to get to heaven by recognizing and doing God's will. During the times I'm tempted to go off the Internet grid I'll think of someone I’ve ‘met’ online who has offered me encouragement just when I needed it the most.

I'm clearly just dumping thoughts out here, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on finding balance in using the Internet to facilitate good relationships and spread the Good News with living a holy, hands-on life where you spend lots of time unplugged because I think that's what I truly seek: balance and more simplicity, not a complete absence from an online community that can, with a good dose of prudence, have a soul.”

After pondering things further, this is what I believe I still seek - balance and simplicity in the Blogosphere and with all technology. Going completely cold turkey on digital connectivity is just not an option even though that might be the easiest solution. My mom and older brother reminded me of this recently after I sought their advice on whether I should specifically keep blogging or not

"What do you think? Should I keep blogging?" I asked my mom.

Without any hesitation, my mom answered, "Yes."

Then she added, "But ultimately it is your decision."

She reminded me about the need for a marketing platform for my upcoming book. Writers are notoriously bad at promoting themselves or their work. But like it or not, it's a part of the game. I know this. When I decided to launch a freelance career nearly a decade ago, I sought the advice of a successful, veteran freelancer I knew. She told me getting published required an ounce of talent but tons of marketing. We artsy types don't like to think about the business side of writing. Fortunately, I've always had a marketing streak in me. I've worked as an event planner and did my share of PR work and found it thrilling to sell a charity, an idea, a service, or a product.

When I first started picking up freelance work, I was somewhat disillusioned because I didn't always get to write what I wanted (or what I felt was worth reading), but the paychecks were coming in and I eventually was able to quit my day job and support my husband through his last year of medical school. It's tempting now to believe there's no more need for marketing, especially since I'm no longer our family's sole bread winner and have shifted from a freelancer to an at-home mom who writes on the side and is pursuing her dream of writing a book. This would be a mistake. Either write or be written off.

So that was one very good reason to keep blogging, but I don't want it to be the only reason. I’m still too idealistic for that.

Mom came to the rescue again. "Plus, you enjoy it," she said. And I do, for the most part. What I don't enjoy is the temptation to compare myself to other mom bloggers/writers or to be exposed to some of the meanness and judgmental remarks that cut their way through online communities and social networks.

But I’ve thought about this a lot, too, and wonder why I expect to find “heaven on earth” in the online world? We can strive to give the Internet a soul, but we still are fallen people. Just as I am slowly learning to let go of the idea of perfect children with a perfect mother married to a perfect man all living in a picture-perfect home, perhaps I need to let go of the belief that I can find a utopia online where there are never any hurt feelings. I need to accept our brokenness and do my best to use my own words to patch myself and others up, but I can't expect to find perfect peace here. As a Catholic, the closest I’ll ever come to finding that is in the Eucharist.

As I continued to talk to my mom about my struggles - how it was tough for me to decide if blogging was a legitimate form of self-care, for example - I said something like, "I have so much trouble with temperance. I either want to pour my heart and soul into something or not do it at all."

This is when my older brother piped in. "Anyone with an addictive personality is going to have a hard time with that.”

My brother knows a lot about "all or nothing." He knows a lot about addiction, too. Jason has made it through his first round of interviews with the Archdiocese of Atlanta to become a priest (keep your prayers coming, please), but several years ago he was fighting a drug addiction. He hit rock bottom at one point because he’d decided he never could be all and that he would always be nothing, but God’s grace is stubborn. It finds you even when you don’t want to be saved. And so my brother, desperately alone and scared, entered a Christian-based drug rehab program. Slowly he rebuilt his heart, his life, and his faith. He’s been sober for almost seven years. Thanks be to God.

During his recovery and hours and hours spent in conversation with God, he's gained perspective on an “all or nothing” approach. It turns out you finally meet God when you come to the point that you accept that you will never do it all or be all. You need God for that; He blesses what is human. He fills your gaps with His abundant grace. And, yet, you are so much more than "nothing" even at your lowest points. The gravest sin is the sin of Judas - complete and utter despair.

Embracing this big picture idea, he explained, helps you to apply temperance in other aspects of life - like using technology, eating, exercising, etc. As I’m pondering all of this, I keep returning to food analogies because this is one area I have grown in virtue since my eating disorder days. When I was recovering, I had to "get right" with food. Let's say I wanted a brownie. I might have a small slab of ooey-gooey goodness, enjoy its taste, and be temporarily satisfied. But moments after I swallowed its deliciousness, the feelings of guilt would begin. Why did I eat that stupid brownie?

I'd take a deep breath, maybe pray, remind myself that eating a brownie is not a sign of moral depravity. Then a part of me would nag, "Well, you've already screwed up. Why not have another one?"

This line of thinking makes no sense, but years of deprivation had distorted my relationship with food. I was unable to eat mindfully. It took a lot of prayer and grace to make peace with food and my body, to eat that one brownie without guilt and without convincing myself to eat three more brownies because I’d already screwed up royally and was "nothing” but a weak, lousy person.

My former distorted view of eating and self-worth is unfortunately not all that uncommon. Many people struggle with food, allowing it to become the main event in life instead of just a delicious dessert.

A friend of mine in high school once confessed that it was easier to starve herself than to eat at all. This might sound crazy to you if you've never had a body image problem or eating disorder, but I understood what she meant completely.

All or nothing.

In the past, Jason has gently pointed out that my eating disorder past is related to addiction and that we have more in common than I'd like to admit. I’ve never used drugs. I’ve never thought of myself as an addict; yet, I sought the "high" of thinness and control of the scale. The challenge for me, my brother said, is that unlike a drug addict or an alcoholic, I can't give up food just because in the past it had the power to control me. Instead I have to learn to not allow food or my weight to have any power over me or to consume every waking thought in my life. While I still have occasional tough days when I struggle with my body image (and, in fact, I've struggled with it more during my depressive episode), for the most part I've found a happy place where I'm healthy without falling prey to vanity or becoming obsessed with the scale or being at a certain (and often unrealistic) weight. It's not all or nothing for me anymore. Eating, my body, each of these are something, though. Something good, something satisfying, something to glorify God with.

The good news is I don't have nearly as warped of a relationship with technology (thank God) as I did with food and my body. I really am just trying to be a better steward of my time and to not let technology distract me from my vocation as well as stress me out rather than make my life easier and richer. This is where prudence comes in. Prudence, the mother of all virtues, is what prompts me to act in a way that is in line with goodness and truth. Prudence helps me prioritize and recognize what needs to be done now, what can be done later, and what ought to be avoided.

Most of us can't approach technology with an "all or nothing" mindset. As moms, we rarely, if ever, can give our all to any one task - even those that are a part of our duty to manage a household like laundry - without expecting to never be interrupted. I need to work on embracing these interruptions with grace and patience not just most of the time, but all of the time.

One of my frustrations lately is the fact that I have very little time without my children because of my husband's work hours (which are getting much better now!) and because my children wake up early if I wake up early. I get irked that I’m unable to wake up before my kids and savor the silence. Not only because it’s terribly difficult - even as a morning person - to drag yourself out of bed before sunrise when you’ve been up with a baby twice and a preschooler having night terrors once and have had to resist the urge to smother your snoring husband with a pillow during the night - but also the Night-of-the-Living-Dead-preschooler has an amazingly accurate “Momdar” and gives you about eight minutes before she pops out of bed and finds you - no matter where you are hidden. So mornings, for right now, are out, and I'm trying to be in bed by 10 p.m., but that leaves very little time for me to do much of anything else since it's lights out for my oldest by 8 p.m. Argh. (This is really why I need a blog. For therapeutic rants.)

As I've been discerning this blog’s future, my husband reminded me to consider why I started this blog to begin with, which was simply because I love to write and I love my family. Three years ago when I started, I had virtually no audience; yet, I showed up and wrote into a black hole a few times a week just for the satisfaction of it. I did not read other blogs much at all. Despite my hidden life as a blogger, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. It was cathartic to write about tough days, and it was important to write about the good days, too, the ordinary moments where my children and I found joy just being together.

As I thought about this, I considered that maybe I should just stick to my personal journals.

Maybe (after the book is said and done and sold a handful of copies). But my personal journals can easily turn into a whine fest whereas when I write here, I look for the glimpses of goodness even in the most difficult day. Blogging keeps me focused on portraying a life of happiness, Godliness, a life that may come off as too Pollyanna-ish or Chicken Soup for the Soulish to some readers. But it's a life worth living - and worth loving.

So what does all of this rambling mess mean for my blog, for me, and for you, my faithful readers? My brother, my husband, my mom as well as some of you guys (thank you for your support and for putting up with these stream of consciousness posts!) have all helped me to see that "To blog or not to blog?" isn't the right question at all. It's not an "all or nothing" kind of thing. As I concluded in my first post, detachment may be the best solution. How I blog (using prudence) and when I blog (using temperance) are far more important than whether I blog or not. I have to continue to ask tough questions like: How do I learn to detach myself from it all - to not allow the words of others, the comments on my blog or others’ blogs (good or bad), the hurt that sometimes happens in online forums, etc. to have power over me or to rob me of my happiness? How do I know when I’m following God's will and not allowing my own pride or vanity to call the shots in the online world? These are not easy questions to answer, but I’m willing to keep asking them as I plod along here.

My husband recently said, "You won't be blogging forever." Probably not. But, for now, I'm here. Pray with me, won’t you? Pray we can all learn to use technology prudently, moderately, and to bring goodness into others’ lives.

So, in-a-should-have-been-cracked-with-far-less-words-than-above-nutshell, I'm here to stay for the time being, although posts may be more sporadic and I ask you in advance to forgive the typos that snake their way into my writing. I'm not going to get too obsessive-compulsive about them.

Four Reasons It's Tough for Moms to Find Balance When It Comes to Technology

After I fessed up about my tortured relationship with technology, several emails landed in my inbox from other moms out there who find it difficult, at times, to put email, Internet, texting, blogging, etc. in their proper place.

Why, I began to wonder, do we struggle with temperance and prudence when applied to technology?

I've come up with a few theories as I've sorted through my own feelings.

Technology allows moms to multitask like never before.

Moms are multitasking mavens, so it's no wonder we turn to technology to make our life easier and to allow us to do more at once. The problem is, a lot of us assume we can do more than we're really capable of without becoming overwhelmed or stressed.

An email from a reader explained it this way: "You have observed in yourself and other moms what many of the cognitive psychology people are observing and trying to inform people of - that multi-tasking is incredibly inefficient and no one realizes it because people have a natural tendency to overestimate their cognitive capacities (think texting and driving) and think that they can handle it all. It's hard not to do and we have to do it as moms, but there's only so much attention to go around, so something's gotta give."

She's on to something here. Somehow I have it my head that I can cook dinner and sweep the floor and talk on the phone and check my email on my Smartphone and keep my kids happy and maintain serenity in my own heart. When I write that, I realize just how ridiculous that is. And even if you can juggle a million things at once, that doesn't mean you should. This is a prescription for burnout.

You'd think I'd have learned this lesson by now. My first major burnout episode occurred during my senior year of high school when I was training and preparing to join the cross country team, taking a load of AP classes, student council secretary, in a play, dating my first real boyfriend, and trying to keep my weight below a certain number.

One evening I came home feeling awful. I ended up being diagnosed with a serious case of mono that led to severe swelling of my spleen and liver. To tell you how warped I am, my parents actually caught me trying to exercise - even though I was at risk of rupturing my spleen - when I was supposed to be resting in my bedroom. Some teens sneak pot into their rooms. My contraband? Dumbbells. (Weirdo!) I was out of school for three months, and my doctor said I was lucky that it wasn't longer. Good news is I'm not nearly as psycho as I was then. Really. I promise. :-) But, clearly, I struggle with trying to do too much, and technology can be a danger to Type Aers like me and can contribute to a major multitasking meltdown.

Technology, with its promises of speed and efficiency, leads us believe we can be everywhere and do virtually everything at once. But what it really does is turns our brains to mush, makes us feel overwhelmed, and keeps us from living a present. Whenever I've caught myself moving at a frantic clip and attempting to accomplish too much, everything becomes a blur, including good times.

Technology is necessary, ubiquitous, and offers limitless information.

In this day and age, it's difficult to live without the Internet, email, etc. Even my mom who suffers from complete computerphobia recognizes the need to have email and has just recently entered the texting world. (For the past week, she's actually been sending me an encouraging text each morning like: "You are doing the most important and most difficult job in God's eyes. Give yourself a break.") In fact, many of the volunteer committees my mom belongs to at her parish rely on email as the main form of communication. She accepts that she has to log on from time to time to be an effective volunteer, but you'd never find her reading anyone's blog (other than mine, of course. Thanks, Mom!).

The same holds true for moms who are household organizers and in control of their kids' schedules; we rely on technology to stay informed and keep organized (I love my iCal and I actually need to return to really using my daily schedule, which allots certain blocks for screen time.) Last fall Madeline played soccer, and I never received a phone call from any of her coaches. Instead, they communicated everything via email.

As a homeschooling mom, I'm extremely grateful for the vast resources available to me on the Web. However, the fact that technology is necessary, everywhere, and provides access to infinite information makes it more challenging to strike the right balance.

The same reader who shared her thoughts on the problem with multitasking said she and her husband have discussed buying Smartphones and have decided against getting them, partly because it would only increase the temptation to constantly be connected and to miss out on the realness of life.

So many of us carry our Smartphones with us. We have a computer (or even computers!) in our homes. We log on to the Internet just to research the Palaeozaic Era for our budding paleontologist, but then we fall down the rabbit hole of information. Our curiosity gets the best of us just because there's so much tantalizing information sucking us in. What could have taken 15 minutes ends up being 45 minutes and you've somehow ended up on a site with the inside scoop on the latest summer fashion trends, which obviously has nothing to do with Dimetrodons roaming the land.

One of the reasons food addictions are so difficult to master is because food is essential to living and also an integral part of gathering and celebrating together with our family and community. Technology is becoming like food. We need it to be successful and to raise our children in this digital age, but we should be the ones controlling it, not the other way around. This becomes tough - especially when we carry around a Smartphone at all times. Consider a glutton recovering from a food addiction carrying around a chocolate bar in her pocket everywhere she went. This would demand more self-denial than if she could close her fridge or toss out the chocolate bar after she left the restaurant.

Technology makes us feel less isolated.

Motherhood is often a solitary job, especially when you're in the season of motherhood I'm in and are often at home alone with little ones. In times past, moms sought a sense of community beyond the walls of their homes. I remember talking to an older woman in her seventies who remembers having afternoon tea time with ladies in her neighborhood while their children played together. This was an opportunity for moms to connect. The speed of life, suburbia, the death of a true sense of community make it more difficult for these informal, in-the-flesh gatherings.

Nowadays we're just a click away from meeting new "friends." The computer - from online discussion boards to emailing friends - can provide a wide social outlet. I know one veteran mom who's very involved in online communities who says she wishes she had this when she was the mom of young children because she often felt lonely. I agree that technology and the Internet in particular can facilitate friendships and offer encouragement for moms, but there's a temptation to peg ourselves as social butterflies just because we're "chatting" with lots of e-friends - even if we don't make one single real human connection on a given day (or worse, week!).

As I prepare to leave my current community and the real life friends I've grown to love over the past several years, there's a part of me that is anxious about moving to a new town and having to start all over to build new friendships. Thankfully, I quickly discovered a homeschooling message board and then a conscious parenting Yahoo group all with local ties to our new home. It's been very helpful and has made me aware of resources in the area and also made me feel like I already have some new friends. And, yet, I've never met any of these women. I'm sure I will once we move, but I'll have to make the effort and not get lazy or think I'm connected just because I have a few new email buddies. We can't fool ourselves into thinking we have a sense of community just because we have 233 friends on Facebook or "talk" to people on Twitter or message boards.

Technology makes us feel productive even when, in reality, we're wrestling with sloth.

Sally Thomas had an excellent post related to this. She wrote, "I wonder about time spent staring at a screen for any reason. Obviously I do it, and I'm really not gearing myself to stop (relax, O faithful remnant). But it seems to me that it becomes a kind of pseudo-routine which supplants real routines, which of course are the bane of the acedic. I get up in the morning and check my email, for example -- before and often instead of saying the Morning Office. A problem? I think so. I spend half an hour writing away at my novel, and then half an hour glancing for a second at Facebook. A problem? Well, it's not like I have half-hours to throw away."

I've never thought of myself as someone who had to worry about sloth. I'm a worker bee. I get things done. But a few months ago as I was dredging myself from the mires of depression, I remember thinking, "Oh, this is all too much. I just can't do it all, so why even try?" So there were days when I didn't bother to take a shower. Now I'm not judging any mom of little ones who doesn't bathe regularly. There are days when it really is tough to find time to groom. However, there were some days when I avoided showering or some other task that seemed pointless or boring and, yet, somehow I still managed to find time to read a favorite blog.

As I've been praying about the future of my online presence, I've realized that idleness is not found only in doing nothing but also in doing things other than what is demanded of us in the office of our life. The trouble is if we've posted several witty entries on our blog or sent messages to our favorite Facebook friends or launched an engaging conversation in our favorite social network, we might convince ourselves that we're being productive. Look at all these words I've put out there, all these people I've connected with today. But if I'm putting other necessary, albeit boring duties on the backburner, then I'm still guilty of sloth. We often can't measure what we do as wives and mothers; there's no software to gauge your success as a parent. But our work - even the most tedious tasks like removing crud from the high chair - is so very important.

Consider the good wife of Proverbs 31. She's one industrious lady. "She obtains wool and flax and makes cloth with skillful hands. Like merchant ships, she secures her provisions from afar. She rises while it is still night, and distributes food to her household." Those are just few of the duties she embraces without complaint. Never does she bemoan the frustrations and the inconveniences of working so hard. Never does she say, "Well, I'll make those coverlets just as soon as I throw away 30 minutes on Twitter."

Technology can have a healthy, helpful role in our lives. I really believe that, but we can't use technology like blogging, social networking, emailing, etc. or for that matter, any pastime we pursue - no matter how busy it makes us feel - to merely be an escape from the ennui of motherhood.

What about you? Why do you think a lot of people and moms in particular struggle with putting technology in its place?

*And for those of you who don't blog, don't care about technology but just happen to occasionally like to see only the most flattering photos of my kids, I promise to return to my regularly scheduled content soon. :-)

Yet Another "Technology is the Source of Angst" Post

I had a lot of free time today, thanks to playtime with Pop. My husband's father is retired and had been coming weekly to play with the girls while I crept upstairs to write. Then he got sick and landed himself in the hospital for a few days. He's getting better, but his recovery has left him feeling weak and tired. Since running after three kiddos five and under makes anyone feel weak and tired, I recommend starting out strong and full vigor. But he wanted to come; he missed spending time with the girls. So today he arrived with a khaki knapsack brimming with books and a few tasty treats.

I hadn't realized how much his visits meant to me until I no longer had them. Neither had the girls. My oldest begged for Pop to stay. And even though the baby needed mama every now and then and Rae sneaked up to my room a few times and sat beside me while I typed, they all had so much fun having an indoor picnic, a pretend tea party, and hearing stories about giants in magical lands.

While they enjoyed each other's company, I was able to catch up on some book writing. I'm working on the toughest two chapters. The rest of the book has come out fairly easily, but these chapters have been more difficult. There have been many starts and stops as well as blog and Facebook breaks, I'm afraid.

Actually, today I found myself squandering time by engaging in a conversation after my most recent feature at Faith & Family LIVE! I responded to someone who had commented, closed the screen, pulled up my book again, and went back to the work I'd set out to accomplish while I had helping hands around. But then I had another idea pop into my head about the comment, so I went back to the combox and noticed I'd accidentally made a gross grammatical error - the kind that makes me cringe when I read it. So I left another comment correcting it, and I forgot about why I'd revisited the site in the first place. (Yes, my 14-month-old is still nursing throughout the night leading to brain sludge.) Then I went back to my book, wrote a few more sentences, read what I'd written, thought it was about as interesting as watching NASCAR (my apologies to any NASCAR fans out there), and decided to check out my Google Reader. There I discovered post after post questioning whether technology is a blessing or a burden. I read Does My Blackberry Make Me a Bad Parent? (HT: Elizabeth Foss) and this passage screamed out at me:

It was a Saturday, and he and I were walking down the street, ostensibly together. I was answering a text.

My son sighed loudly with an “Uch." I looked up, innocently.

“What?” I said.

He just shook his head. “You look at that thing more than you look at my face," he said sadly.

I wondered how many of us technology-tethered moms have made our children feel this way even if they haven't said so much. My kids haven't ever said anything like that, but my daughter did recently declare, "You and Daddy sure do love your iPhones."

At the time, I chuckled and told her we appreciated them because they made our life easier, but I didn't love my iPhone like I loved her or her Daddy or even a good piece of dark chocolate. But after I read the blackberry article as well as another thought-provoking post from Betty Duffy, I wondered what kind of messages we send our kids by constantly being connected.

I also began to sift through my memory to determine if my daughter had ever out of the blue said anything remotely close to, "You sure do love God."

I'm not sure she has.

That makes me sad. It also forces me to take a look at what I'm doing to show my kids what my priorities in life are. I can give my family and my faith all the lip-service I want, but if I'm glued to my iPhone when my child is grasping for my attention or if I'm reading "religious" blogs instead of spending more time in prayer, something isn't right. Actually, nothing is right.

I'm sorry if this post is redundant. I keep coming back to the topic of being a present mom and how technology might interfere with that. And, yes, my love-hate relationship with technology is a recurring theme.

Aside from the ability to be connected all day, thanks to my iPhone, I now write almost strictly for online media. This didn't used to be the case. I can't give up writing. I have a compulsion to write, to piece together words and phrases; yet, sometimes I wonder if the Internet is the best medium for me to do this. After writing a few more sentences for my book today, I started perusing my old fiction folder and discovered short stories I'd written that had never made it to the Internet. My writing was honest. I wasn't writing for an interactive audience that could instantly reject or celebrate my words. I was writing fiction. I miss fiction. I'd probably have time to write more fiction if I didn't spend so much time interacting with readers in the combox or correcting my stupid typos.

One particular piece of old fiction my eyes stumbled upon was never read by anyone else. Yet, even if I did decide to submit it to some literary journal, I wouldn't have to worry about multiple rejections as I do when I write for the Web. In my print journalism days, I'd write a query and then either it would be accepted or rejected. If my idea was accepted, I'd write the piece, it would be published, and that was it. I might receive some feedback, but it was nothing like it is now that I write for the Internet. It took more of an effort for someone to write me a letter or even find my email address, and shoot me an email. It wasn't interactive. I also couldn't self-edit what I'd written. There were a few columns that ended up in print that made me wince. I'd see ways I could have tightened up the piece. New images or words might surface that perhaps would have been more powerful. But what was written was written. There was no point in second guessing myself.

The interactivity of online writing sets you up for second guessing yourself. It sets others up for second guessing you, too. An editor can accept your work, but others might not, and it's terribly easy for them to let you know just what they think. Click on the hyperlinked email address, and you can point out all of the author's erroneous beliefs. Type in that cryptic security code, and you can praise the writing or critique it. It's all very impulsive. There's often no filter. It's open-ended. There's always more to say, edits you can make, clarifications. You can write sloppy because you know in the back of your mind you can go back and correct yourself. You can put solipsistic, whiny posts out there and then delete them once you've recovered from your state of ridiculous introspection. (Perhaps this post will - poof! - disappear.) The instant feedback, the instant gratification as well as the instant degradation, all those free flowing ideas - it can just be too much.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe other moms are able to strike the perfect balance, but I find it interesting that I discovered so many posts about the downside of technology. We're spending time using technology to ponder whether technology is helpful or hurtful.

Meanwhile, our kids are growing up.

Like so much in life, the Internet, blogging, discussion boards, participation in a combox are not inherently bad. Technology is not a blessing or a burden. It just is. Many technological moms have mastered the the virtue of temperance. I'm not sure I have. And, honestly, I'm not sure if I should keep trying or put the kibosh on this whole blog.

There. I said it. It's been weighing on my heart for months now. To blog or not to blog? Should I just limit myself to one post a week? But what if one of my kids says something really funny? I want to document these precious years. But I also want to live them. Should I just promise not to respond in any combox after any article I write even if I could provide additional information to a reader or even if I'm burning to defend my worldview? How do I find that balance? If you're a blogging and/or iPhone/Blackberry equipped and/or journalist with an online presence and/or Facebooking and/or Twitter mom, how do you find that balance? (Look at me: Making a demand for your sacred time.)

The last time I was seriously considering ditching the blog, I randomly received the most gracious note from a reader asking me to never stop blogging because my words offered her encouragement as a wife and mother. And the kudos wasn't from my mom either, but a stranger who had taken the time to thank me for using my time to encourage her. That was enough to keep me (and my ego) writing on this online forum. Maybe I can make a difference and use technology and blogging to give God the glory.

But today I read this passage over at Betty Duffy:

...one of our camping companions, a liberal arts professor, who spends his summers attempting publication in academic journals, expressed a serious amount of distaste for all the women spinning their wheels trying to keep up a blog—something so transient, so inconsequential, so self-oriented. “What are your fans doing while you’re gone this weekend?” he asked, “Did you leave a note so no one would freak out?”

And I wondered if I was putting too much stock in my handful of fans rather than considering God's call for my family or even what my husband wants. He doesn't get the whole blog thing. He enjoys my features and columns, but blogging is different. It is all too voyeuristic to him. He also sees me trying to juggle a million things at once and points out that blogging is an easy ball to drop. But I enjoy it (most of the time). Many times it's reading others' blogs that's the source of my consternation. My husband also was the one who pointed out once that all these uber blogging moms who write about being full-time moms aren't really full-time moms. They're working moms. Maybe part-time working moms, but they're devoting a big chunk of their time to doing something other than raising their kids. He wasn't suggesting this was bad. Nor was he intending to make me feel guilty for blogging. My writing (not my blogging, mind you, but my freelance work) made it possible for me to stay home during his medical training. My husband understands my need to write and is happy I'm able to have Pop come over and play with our girls on occasion. He knows I'm not depriving my kids and am an attentive mom who takes her job of nurturing her children very seriously. He just doesn't want me to put unnecessary pressure on myself or to wonder why I can't be more like so-and-so mom who always has pithy Tweets on Twitter, writes witty posts that never have typos, and engages in thoughtful combox discussions. I'm not an uber blogger, and I probably never will be. Partly because I'm obviously not very good at finding balance. So many women have to struggle to find a balance between motherhood and work. But blogging - whether I'm reading a blog or writing on my own blog - is not mandatory work. I don't have trouble putting a novel down when I'm sleepy. I shouldn't have trouble walking away from the glowing screen of my computer or iPhone either. Once a week I do fast from technology and I don't miss it. Sometimes I want more time away from it all. If I don't write for a few days, I miss writing. But I don't miss the computer. I miss the act of writing.

Awhile back, my spiritual director had encouraged me to keep writing/blogging when pockets of time became available. If it was God's will for me to write, I would be gifted with time.

Sometimes, though, I make my own time at the expense of my family. I might stay up too late leaving me more sluggish in the morning. I might forgo a sweat session that would leave me feeling healthy and refreshed just because something "bloggable" happened to me today. I might squander time that was given to me.

I recently had a mom I was interviewing for a future article drop me a quick line about something she needed to provide me with before I could wrap up the assignment. The mom mentioned her kids' ages and expressed concern about finding the time to write something up. Her three kids were around my kids' ages. She mentioned how she could not synchronize nap times and that quiet time was hit or miss. (The same holds true for me.) Then she said she was always very, very tired in the evenings. (The same holds true for me.) She stated all of this as fact. There were no apologies. She seemed to have accepted the phase of life she was in as well as her own limitations. She said she didn't have all that much time for email or online things. She obviously used technology since we were emailing, but she put it in its place, and she recognized that no amount of technology was going to change her into a Super Woman. Sometimes that's what I want from my email inbox, my online writing, and my iPhone. I want to be able to do more, and at times, be more.

God wants me to be happy with less. I want to be happy with less. Just how I make that happen, I'm not sure.

---

UPDATE: There's an interesting discussion following Betty Duffy's Disembodied by Technology post that has me thinking. Betty poses the question: "Is blogging self-care?" For me, I'm not sure. Writing is self-care, but publishing my words and ramblings online? The jury's still out.

She also writes in the combox: "Other internet dependence factors: the onslaught of a low-grade depression over the past few months, whereby other labors like gardening and house-cleaning seem futile and pointless, and the internet, though also futile and pointless to some extant, provides just the tiniest bit of a buzz."

My regular readers know I've been grappling with postpartum depression. Ironically, it started last summer - the same time some of my posts and thoughts questioning the worth of blogging started to surface. Coincidence? I'm thinking not. The instant feedback and gratification I mentioned above offered me, at times, the "tiniest bit of buzz" when I was submerged in my postpartum darkness. But that buzz was fleeting (like any buzz), so I sought more buzzes. Then I felt guilty for seeking the wrong kind of buzz.

I'm wondering if detachment - not complete obliteration - is the solution. When we learn to detach ourselves from food, we can't give up eating completely. We have to learn to eat to live instead of living to eat. As an e-friend suggested, it might be easier to just quit blogging altogether rather than cultivate the virtue of temperance and find balance. But maybe I need to take the more challenging route and learn to use technology wisely, prudently. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing because I selfishly don't want to stop blogging.

Lessons from an Internet Fast

As some of my regular readers might recall, I kicked off Lent this year with an Internet fast. It lasted a little over one week, although it wasn’t a true fast since I did permit myself a daily email check.

For several days, however, I went completely unplugged (no email, no fidgeting with iPhone apps, no computer-ish technology at all). These were good days. They were days that were marked more by what was left undone, unopened, and unsaid than by how many emails I'd responded to, how many blogs I'd read, or how much information I'd gleaned from the World Wide Web. They were days when the only hive of activity I paid any attention to was the happy buzz of my children.

During these days, I read more books than blogs. I talked to God, my children, and my husband more than I talked with my fingers flying across a keyboard.

There were no slow downloads to frustrate me (or my children who didn’t have to wait for Mommy’s slow downloads).

There was plenty of fresh air and giggles and sweet whispers I might have missed had the “noise” of technology drowned them out.

Yes, these were indeed good days, but they couldn’t last forever. To be a modern mom demands that I don’t completely sever myself from technology. Email and the Internet are a part of my life, my children’s life, and my husband’s life.

But what this weeklong fast and the subsequent limits on screen time during Lent did teach me is that I can and must keep technology (namely email and the limitless information on the Internet) from having too much control over me. I can and must find a way to marble it into my life without it becoming the focus of my life.

As Lent progressed, I realized I may have been too unrealistic and strict about my online time. Checking my email once a day, for instance, started adding more stress instead of less. Each time I checked my inbox, I panicked at the sheer number of emails. I also stressed out when I discovered an email from an "in real life" (what bloggers refer to as IRL) friend who needed something. While there was always a heap of junk mail, there were always a number of messages from friends who needed something yesterday. There were prayer requests and Evite invitations and notes from my homeschooling co-op.

Email has become the standard way of communicating. Whether I like this or not (and sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t), I can’t ignore this fact. Still, I knew I didn’t want my email account to control me or devour too much of my precious time. So I decided that maybe I should plan for two email checks a day - one to clear, archive, organize, etc. the messages and one session to answer to the emails that needed a more timely response. I hated to be too rigid, but I realized I needed to set a specific time frame to accomplish these tasks to keep me from getting too carried away in Email Land and from squandering the hours in my day as well as the time I should be devoting to serving my family. Unfinished sentences and email drafts were completely acceptable and even necessary if I was to fully embrace my primary vocation of being a wife and mother.

Now that Lent is over I’ve decided to continue to try to embrace a relaxed version of this “rule” for my everyday life. I’ll make plans to check my email in the morning, the midday, and possibly the evening but not much else during the day when I’m supposed to be fully present in my children’s lives. After all, what’s the point of being an at-home mom if I’m always “working” on the computer? Whatever I can’t get accomplished in a certain set of time will just have to wait (and wait and wait and wait, if necessary).

Likewise, I will not allow single emails to spiral into inordinate amounts of time spent online. Early on in Lent I received an email about something I’d written that started to cause me to worry (obsess?). It spurred me to break my “no commenting on blogs” fast (which was supposed to last for the duration of Lent, not just a week). I commented on a blog, and then felt like I had to send out just one more email to address the comment further. (Too often I fall into the trap of “just one more email.”)

Then I started talking to my husband about it.

As I rambled on about the comment, my subsequent comment, and then my email addressing my subsequent comment, I realized just how difficult detachment is, especially with something that you can’t completely live without but something that certainly shouldn’t have any control over you or keep you in shackles and from living a life of peace.

My mind was racing. My words were flying out of my mouth, and then my husband said it: “Let it go.”

Let. It. Go.

Easier said than done, but so, so worth the effort.

So I worked on letting it go, although it took a whole lot of willpower. I went completely unplugged for another day. It wasn't easy. And, of course, I started to wonder what else I’d be missing.

But when I caught something silly one of my daughters said, I thought for the first time that maybe I should have been thinking about what all I had been missing in life, not in my email inbox, by being tethered to the computer.

In fact, my moments of weakness were what helped the most to unblind me to just how dependent on technology I’d become. Computers, email, etc. are supposed to make my life easier. They’re supposed to make me better able to do necessary work more quickly, but I don’t work or do less. Instead, I too often use my boosted productivity as a reason to do more. My expectations of what I ought to accomplish in one day have been raised. I’m speeding ahead, clicking away, and I fear, missing out on so much.

We don’t like to be time killers, but the Internet can do just that - kill our time so that we have very little leftover to make real connections with the people whom we love to most.

With the dawn of the information age, we can “go” endless places. With just a few key strokes and the click of a mouse, we can arrive at social and intellectual destinations. We can find new friends on Facebook and carry on a “conversation” on Twitter. We can read about philosophy, cooking, art, or whatever is on our mind just by Googling it. Instant gratification has become the status quo. We no longer have to wait for much of anything.

Once upon a time, for example, I was forced to stay tuned to a radio station in hopes the DJ would play my favorite song. The alternative was waiting until I’d saved up enough money to buy the CD. Now I can just click over to iTunes and listen to my favorite songs whenever I want. I can even create my own radio station on Pandora. We used to have to look up stock market prices and sports scores in the morning paper. Now I can check box scores, stocks, the weather, virtually anything just on my iPhone. Dewey Decimal? Who’s (what’s?) that? Just Google it. Don’t waste your time at that primitive place called a library. We don’t even have to wait for nature to unfold its beauty. Instead, time lapsed photography shows us the bud swelling and bursting with colorful petals in a matter of seconds.

We can go anywhere, see virtually anything, meet new “friends,” engage in political discourse, find answers to so many of life’s questions.... But at what cost?

When the whole health care legislation went down during Lent, I found myself breaking my screen time rules left and right (pun sort of intended). I told myself it was because I needed to be informed.

Yet, there’s such a thing as TMI. I have a tech-savvy friend who is always connected who would disagree. She believes knowledge is power and the more you harvest off the Internet, the better. But to me there comes a point when there’s an inverse relationship between information and understanding. We’re now able to gather so much information that there just doesn’t seem to be enough room in our brains to process it. (Or maybe I'm the only mom out there who sometimes feels scattered and pulled in a million directions???)

The whole ethos of our culture is that if the technology exists, we should use it. And sometimes, a lot of times even, we should. During our house-hunting adventure, the Internet has been invaluable in helping us. Google Maps is great, and Zillow is chock full of useful information.

But it can swallow you whole, too. It can be so overwhelming. My husband and I were once looking at listings in our new town when we decided to check out houses in an old town where we used to live. We started looking at our old neighborhood and going on virtual tours of homes that were now on sale near our old street when I suddenly asked, "Why are we wasting time doing this?"

"I have no idea," my husband responded.

It's easy to hit the computer to look up a phone number or to find directions and then end up wasting inordinate amounts of time on other links that catch your eye. I walk away with all this new information, but I never had a chance to digest any of it. It's like trying to gulp down your Thanksgiving turkey and side dishes all at once. You end up full, but you missed all the different flavors. Besides, I don't want to gain only information; I want wisdom, and I don't think that Google can help us find much wisdom that easily.

Since my Lenten Internet fasting, I’m working on balance. I don’t want to miss out on some of the enriching, encouraging content to be found on blogs and elsewhere. I love how the Internet can faciliate relationships and reveal the Good News. Just recently I’ve been discovered several new e-friends who are kindred spirit as well as found an encouraging space where I’m free to be myself without the fear of being judged.

Yes, I love that the Internet allows me to meet incredible people I probably otherwise never would have encountered and to wander off to encouraging places; yet, when I really, really think about it, the only place I really want to find myself is nowhere a click of a mouse can take me. The people who matter to me the most are right in front of me. Where do I really like to find myself? In my home with my family. Outside in the sunshine. Lost in the pages of a good book. In the cloistered silence of the Adoration Chapel.

Sometimes I fantasize about my family making a home far away from it all and going completely off the grid. Then I start to think about how much I’d miss Target. :-) Seriously, I’m a realist. I know my leave-it-all-behind-forever fantasy is not practical. My family’s future is not in jam-making on some desolate plot of land. My husband has patients to serve. He's tied to his pager. I’m a mom and a writer. Both of which are solitary pursuits and demand I connect with others. The Internet makes that easy, and I truly do see it as a gift to me. But like most gifts, it can be abused.

So I’ve come up with a new set of guidelines to help me to ensure that I’m spending more time connecting with my real life and not only that one on the Web. Aside from scheduled email checks, I share some guidelines that evolved from my Lenten Internet fast:

Get outside every day.

When you’re stuck inside, especially if you live in a cozy (read: small) townhouse like we do, the computer can seem like the only vehicle to get you anywhere remotely exciting. When we stay within our walls too long, my kids get antsy and ask about TV. I, in turn, start reaching out to my e-friends or visiting “places” on the Web. If I’m really restless, I’m tempted to Google really random things like “how to build a canoe.” (Please tell me I'm not the only weirdo who does this.) But when we venture outside, we forget about technology. We pay attention to the way the wind is blowing or the color of the sky. We notice shapes in the clouds and ants crawling on the sidewalk. As a mom to three little ones, I can’t always travel to fun places like the zoo, but we can take a little time every day to explore our world - the real world not the one that is two-dimensional on the computer screen.


Don't feel like you have to respond to every email or comment you receive.

Read and be thankful of all of your blog comments and emails, but don’t feel like you have to respond to each one. I turned off my comments during Lent (except for one post on postpartum depression where I wanted readers to support one another). While I missed the chatter, the encouragement, and the sense of community the combox can build, I didn’t miss the guilt that sometimes comes along with the fact that I can’t respond to every person who comments on my blog or emails me. I want to live the life I preach. My blog slogan is “will work for children.” I’d better be spending more of my time working for them than responding to emails and comments.

When we only used the phone or written letters to correspond to people, there was no way we could keep in touch with the big circle of friends we can do now, thanks to the Internet. I love meeting new people, but I can’t invest so much time cultivating new e-relationships that I let my relationship with the people (and God!) whom I love the most suffer.

Pick up the phone.

I’m not a big phone person. I never have been, not even as a social teenager. I can always carry on lengthy chats with my mom, but I tend to get nervous on the phone and ramble. Therefore, I much prefer email. I like being able to think about my words before putting them out there (yes, I've been known to suffer from foot-in-mouth-disease on more than one occasion).

Sometimes it seems my kids prefer email, too. When I’m talking on the phone, they see and hear that they’re not being included in a conversation. However, when I “talk” with the keyboard, they’re often more tolerant. Maybe they don't feel as left out. Whatever the case, I relied on the phone a bit more during Lent and even though things got a little crazy and kids started losing it, I have to say it was so nice to hear some of my good friends’ voices. It was wonderful to hear their laughs instead of just seeing LOL on my computer screen. The phone allows for a true conversation. It’s interactive, and there’s no character limit like on Twitter! (Great for a woman of clearly too many words like me!). So I’m going to make more of an effort to call friends occasionally rather than only relying on the keyboard to do my talking. And good friends completely understand if you have to cut them off to avert a kid disaster.

Pay close attention to your kids’ cues.

Sometimes I’ll decide I have the time to squeeze in some writing on the computer or some blog reading when my girls are engaged in play. I’ll pull out my laptop and start writing or reading. Then one of my kids will stop what she's doing hover close by. Sometimes she’ll even poke at my computer. It’s infuriating and so easy to get frustrated and to think, “Wait a minute. You were just playing. This is my time. Let me at least finish this thought.”

However, in my experience, this line of thinking or pushing aside of a little stalker usually leads to a more clingy child and/or a frustrated mom. So instead I click “save” or I star an email or article or blog post I’d like to read later, and I give my children my full attention. They deserve it. This rule applies to phone conversations as well.

Realize you will miss things.

This isn’t so much something I can do but something I just have to learn to accept. There are tons of news articles that would make me a more informed citizen. There are so many blogs I’d like to read every single day because I know they would encourage me and offer me wisdom that I need to grow as a wife, mother, and Christian. There are great craft sites and recipes I'd love to explore. There’s breathtaking photography, helpful homeschooling forums, and support for attachment parenting. There’s so much I’d like to consume. But I can’t. I have to accept that I'm going to miss great words, helpful advice, beautiful images, and important headlines. The sooner I accept this the sooner I can get on with the important stuff - like being an attentive mom, a prayerful woman, and a loving spouse.

I have to also realize that other moms are in the same boat. Just because someone doesn’t visit my blog or include it on their blogroll doesn’t mean my words have never spoken to them. It just means they have to work with a finite number of hours in their day. Similarly, when I don’t visit a blog or a site or comment on it, it doesn’t mean it’s because I don’t enjoy the words I read over there. It may mean a sick child needs my arms to hold her. It may mean there are veggies to be chopped for a dinner salad. It may mean I haven’t had a single moment for myself and when I do, I need to use it to pray so I can have the strength and patience to keep at this 24/7 mothering gig.

When I shoot off an email to a blogging mom I admire or appreciate, I always love hearing back from her. However, I don’t take it personally if I never receive a personal response. Please don’t take it personally if I don’t respond to you either. Know that I LOVE hearing from you, but my family needs me active in their lives probably more than you do. :-)

Simplify/streamline your technology outlets.

Every day it seems like another great social networking site or online community pops up. I’m tempted to join them all, but, again, I can’t. So I’ve picked a few and I’m sticking to them without a twinge of guilt or regret.

I’ve also started becoming a copycat over at my Google Reader. As I've mentioned, I cannot possibly keep up with all the quality blogs out there, so I often rely on a select few friends and their shared items to keep me in the loop. Sometimes I feel like a copycat sharing their items, but it really helps cut down on the time I spend sifting through piles of posts. I do still try to share a few diverse items, but I’m very grateful for all my friends’ pared down selections.

Schedule regular breaks from the Internet and email.

This is very, very important. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the online world that you forget what you’re missing in real life. Even if you just make Sunday or one other day of the week an unplugged day, you’ll gain so much perspective. It really is freeing to carve out time where you don’t have to be online. Personally, it helps me if I put out an automated response on my email when I'm unplugged. Although I don't really like to leave people with an impersonal message, I know that if someone who is close to me really needs to get some information to me, they'll know to call.

Turn off the computer an hour before your scheduled bedtime.

I occasionally have to break this rule because of a freelance deadline or something else, but I’m really trying to stick to it. My husband’s evenings are often filled with studying or work-related stuff, so I had gotten in to the habit of whittling away the nighttime hours online. This not only kept me up too late, but it also affected my quality of sleep. This is unfair to myself and to my children. I'm frequently up with my little nursling, so I have to sleep soundly when I can. Now I aim to spend at least an hour reading or practicing gentle stretches or praying or journaling (the old-fashioned way with a pen and notebook) rather than staring at the glaring screen of a computer.

I had a few other tips, but my baby is up from her nap (older girls are with their Pop*; thank you, Pop for all of your help!), so I'm taking my own advice and letting this go unfinished. These are the important ones anyway. I would love to hear how you - whether you're a blogger or just someone who emails, etc. - strike a balance with technology.


*This post has been in the works for a long time, but I'm just getting around to posting it, which is a good thing since it means I've been sticking to some of my new rules. :-)

Join the Kind Conversation

Visit Kind Conversation

Elizabeth Foss has created a space to encourage and to be encouraged.

Won't you join the conversation?

About Kind Conversation (from Elizabeth Foss):

The journey to this post was a long one, a prayerful one, and a surprisingly fruitful one. I have heard you and I have listened. I truly, truly hope I've listened well. Even more, I have heard Him and I have listened. And gosh, I do hope I got that message right:-)!

We've created something for you.

If you want a quiet place to share a vision of rhythm and beauty, holiness and joy,

If you want to talk about the ideas you read here and on Serendipity and in my books,

If you are a woman in search of companions on a journey to God,

come walk with us.

Come if you want to encourage and to be encouraged. Come if you love the Lord and want to dedicate your life to living His vision for you.come if you want to bring His Presence alive in your home.

Come if you have a heart for kind conversation.

Come!

I look forward to seeing you there!

{Registrations will be approved as quickly as possible. Kind Conversation is a private community only visible to registered, approved members.}

Be sure to also read these heartfelt guidelines for Kind Conversation. Even if you don't end up joining the network, Elizabeth's wisdom is good food for thought. Our words are powerful. They can bless, encourage, and teach. But they also can hurt, disparage, and wound - even when our intentions are to do just the opposite. I personally have to be careful with the words I wield. I'm eager to use gentle, hopeful words over at Kind Conversation.

While you're there, consider joining a group I created called Made In God's Image that I hope will help us all to embrace our femininity, motherhood (stretch marks and all) as well as the real beauty traits of a worthy, kind, and spirited Christian woman. Let us help one another pursue emotional, spiritual, and physical health by cherishing and taking care of our bodies rather than chastising them.

You are so much more than the size of your hips.

About the Made In God's Image Group:

During the 2008 celebration of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Pope Benedict XVI reminded women all over the world that the feast was a chance to "contemplate the reflection of the Beauty who saves the world: the beauty of God that shines on the face of Christ." Mary reflects this Beauty, and we should never stop contemplating how we can become more like her in all that we do and say.

This is what I hope we can all encourage one another to do with this group and with our lives - to embrace what God, not society, finds beautiful and worthy.

I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback, comments, inspiration, etc. The topics for this group are endless.

Here are just a few ideas that come to mind:

• Making peace with our bodies
• Raising children with healthy body images
• Feeding our bodies with healthy food and feeding our souls with the Bread of Life
• Pursuing real beauty (the kind of beauty Our Blessed Mother, saints, and other people of goodness and kindness possess)
• Incorporating fitness and healthy eating into our lives as a means of taking care of our bodies - true temples of the Holy Spirit - not just to look a certain way or to squeeze in to our skinny jeans
• Embracing motherhood and the sacrificial and physical signs being a mother leaves on our bodies
• Remembering the adage "age before beauty"
• Overcoming the barrage of unhealthy media messages that tell us we're better if we look a certain (unrealistic!) way
• Sharing chic yet modest and feminine fashion ideas

This is just a start. Thank you for your interest in the Made In God's Image Group, and thank you for joining in on this conversation. I owe many thanks to an e-friend of mine named Cathy Adamkiewicz for encouraging me to put myself out there and starting to talk about this important topic. And, of course, many thanks to Elizabeth Foss for inviting us to engage in kind, uplifting conversations.

God bless you all, and remember you are made in the image of God and that alone makes you beautiful!

Join the kind conversation today, and be sure to spread the word to your friends, family members, and fellow sisters in Christ.

UPDATE: Oh, goody. For those of your who are interested, someone has started an attachment parenting group as well. Blessings!

Step Away from the Glowing Rectangle

From Faith & Family's Daily Lenten Meditation for Thursday, March 25th:

"After you complete any essential morning tasks at the computer for the first time today, turn it off. Do not return to the computer today unless/until it is essential for the running of your household or care of your children."

As much as I'm glad you're here, reading this blog is not essential. Click away. Turn off the computer. Clean out your closets instead of your inbox. Read the Word instead of others' words. Be fully present in your children's lives. Look into their eyes instead of at the computer screen. Don't schedule or plan. Just live.

Honey, I Shrunk the Blog Header

Yes, I realize my blog header looks ridiculous, but I can't figure out how to fix it. I don't even really know how I goofed it up in Photobucket. (NOTE TO SELF: You are a writer, not a designer.)

Bear with me and my goofy-looking blog until I get help from my designer.

And, yes, I'm sort of sending out an SOS to others who might be more well-versed in the area of blog design.

The Black Hole of Cyberspace

I'm thinking really deep thoughts today.

For instance, where do all the lost emails go? Are they hanging out with all my baby's missing socks? Is there a cyber purgatory where herds of emails are cleansed of any potential SPAM-ish language before ending up in my inbox (probably not, considering how full my SPAM folder is these days)? Who knows? What I do know is it is absolutely maddening when my own mom's emails don't always come through to me. They haven't even been ending up in SPAM. They are nowhere to be found, and they don't bounce back to her. This leads obsessive me to start wondering what other emails are floating out there - lost and abandoned - in the black hole of Cyberspace? (Can you tell my husband is working this weekend? I'm obviously trying to make the time pass by more quickly with ridiculous ruminating.)

Well, if I owe you an email from more than two weeks ago (the time by which I generally *try* to respond to *most* emails), you may want to shoot me another line (there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why I sometimes receive my mom's emails and why I sometimes don't). Or you can always connect with me on Twitter or Facebook.

As an aside, anyone else experiencing troubles with their Gmail account, or is it just my past coming back to haunt me? Once upon a time in an old place of employment tech support actually informed me there was something wrong with me (instead of with my blasted computer that was constantly freezing up on me). I laughed when they said this; they didn't. They were tired of having to come fix my computer. They complained that I was a jinx. This time I laughed a bit nervously. Then some super serious tech guy went on to tell me this was not a laughing matter and that there are actually people who give off a powerful electromagnetic force that may scramble computer data. Huh? Apparently I'm not the only one with this condition. Perhaps I should audition for Heroes.

Yesterday my land line went out, too, for no apparent reason. I was waiting for a call from someone who didn't have my cell number. It was rather annoying, but I took a deep breath and somehow made it through the day. I refuse to let temperamental technology - or the fact that I have a terrible track record with computers going haywire in my presence - to rob me (completely) of my joy. (I do confess that technology - or its pathetic collapse - did get the best of me once. In college, a big chunk of my honors thesis vanished after my hard drive flipped out on me. I was not the picture of calm. I think I screamed. I know I cried. Then a patient techie friend retrieved it. So much wasted angst.)

After rambling on about my technology woes while trying to not let them get me down, I'm thinking my word for 2010 might need to be detachment. :)

Let Sleeping Moms Lie

The Christmas season has been great but busy. I'm craving order and a restored rhthym to our days. And more hours spent in REM would be nice, too, because I'm feeling a lot like this right about now (not like the blurry-in-motion toddler but like the passed out babe):

 

I had to chuckle when I read this post on co-sleeping. Just because you embrace what's known as a family bed doesn't mean you're all dreamy and cozy. Sometimes I find a pinkie toe precariously close to snaking its way up my nose. Or I hear the gnashing of teeth (anyone else have a teeth grinder out there?).

Just recently, my toddler has been waking up in the middle of the night, crying because she can't find her elephant lovey in the sea of covers on our bed.

"Mommy's right here," I remind her.

"I want elephant," she sobs.

It's nice to feel so needed, especially when the clock says it's 2 a.m.

Maybe I should have considered asking for a sound-proof mom cave to crawl into when the bed gets really crowded and noisy. Forget the MacBook Air, Honey. Just give me a silent night.

Due to my pathetically low energy levels and caring for a congested, sniffling baby and an elephant-seeking toddler all nightlong, I'm going to focus on catching up on sleep this week in lieu of writing pensive posts about making resolutions and/or reflecting on lessons learned in 2009. Besides there is plenty of really good stuff out there from other folks whose brains amount to more than gray sludge.

To name a few standout New Year-ish posts:

Five Steps to Real Change in the New Year

Greeting the New Year: Same Old Story

Love is My Only Resolution

Now

Predictions for 2010

resolved.reneged. resigned?

Thoughts on a New Year

What's the Word?

2009 Was Fine

Seven Life-Changing Lessons I Learned in 2009

10 Questions to Encourage Engaged Parenting in 2010

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Blog

A friend of mine once confessed that she felt guilty when she read some of my blog posts.

“Guilty about what?” I asked, shocked that this mom whom I admire so much would feel guilty about anything.

“Guilty that I’m not doing enough. All I do is be a mom and you homeschool and blog and…”

…and apparently make amazing moms feel inadequate.

First, I told my friend she does more than enough. She's the mom of little ones. She manages a home. She's a good, caring friend. And she's witty and never fails to make me laugh. Then I told her she ought to ask my husband what I’m really like if she thinks I’m the picture of rosy mom perfection.

My friend and all my blog readers don’t find me crying at night, wondering why I can’t pull myself together (or why I can’t sleep when my babies are sleeping). My audience only reads the words I choose to put out there. They only see the pictures of my kids I like – the ones without the glaring red eyes or the fingers up the nose. Strangers in Cyberspace and even some of my good friends are not privy to the secret supplications of my heart. Nor do they get a chance to read the pages of my personal journal where I express my worries and fears (burn before reading!). You won't hear the sins I confess to a priest. You have not seen the clutter on my carpets or the mind clutter that keeps me from a more meaningful prayer life. (Trust me, it’s there.)

Sometimes it’s vanity keeping me from revealing my struggles. Yes, I admit I want others to think I’ve got it all together. People have often described me as “bubbly,” and I feel like I have to live up to this perky image people have of me. To be truthful, I don’t like that adjective so much; bubbly makes me think I’m like an airy glass of champagne – fizzy and sweet but with little substance. But I do like to think others view me as someone who chooses to see the beauty in life, the goodness.

Writing helps me to do just this. It helps me gain perspective when I’m tempted to throw a big pity party. It helps me count my blessings instead of my burdens. Reflecting on my mothering journey and spiritual self helps me wade through the mire of feelings I experience on any given day. Writing – this blog – shows me walking or often stumbling toward the Light. But my real life – while very much blessed – is sometimes spotted with shadows. There’s darkness just like there’s dust on some of my bookshelves.

Although I know that the same is true for every other mom out there who shares slices of her life in the Blogosphere, I’ve fallen into the same trap as my friend and have found that blogging and more specifically, blog reading sometimes leaves me feeling wanting or sometimes even envious instead of encouraged.

This is the downside of blogging. This is the reason I sometimes stay away from reading some blogs – even those that I know are meant to build moms up not break them down. This is the reason I pray nearly every week whether I should continue blogging or not.

Even if I didn’t blog, I know I’d occasionally find myself comparing myself to some other super mom. However, blogging makes lots of moms I probably never would have encountered much more accessible.

And, of course, so many of these moms seem to have the perfect life with the perfect husband, perfect kids, and a Pottery Barn perfect home. You know the moms I mean. The ones with 2-year-olds who never throw tantrums, 4-year-olds who skipped the phonics lessons and went straight to Tolstoy, teens who would never think of rebelling, moms with kitchens that are always filled with the aromas of homemade food who are married to husbands who have flexible work hours and sometimes sneak home during lunch, and of course, these women always have an amazing talent. Maybe they sew. Perhaps they do community theatre with all their free time. Or they're devoted humanitarians fighting social injustice.

So I'm playing with hyperbole here, but it’s easy to start feeling twinges of inadequacy when so many admirable women are just a mouse click away. And an inferiority complex isn’t the worst of it. Those twinges of inadequacy can quickly become jabs of jealousy. It’s far too easy to start feeling like other blogging women out there are living on a hillside where the grass is unquestionably greener. Before blogging, the only grass we could look at (or envy) was our neighbor's or a girlfriend or two whom we visited frequently, but the World Wide Web has created a vast virtual neighborhood where others' "grass" is just a click away.

Of course, blogging is not all negative (otherwise, I wouldn't be approaching my three-year blogiversary). Like so many things in life, we have to take the good with the bad, and I do see plenty of virtues in blogging. Blogs and the Internet in general allow moms who might otherwise feel isolated to connect with other like-minded women. It also broadens our horizons and puts us into contact with women who may share different views than us. The Blogosphere, at times, can even allow us to be an extension of Christ and can transform into a ministry where we encourage one another and offer spiritual and emotional support. When I was on bed rest, I had virtual friends send me care packages as well as their prayers. This is when blogging is a gift.

But it’s no longer a gift when it incites envy or makes us feel unworthy. Or, on the flip side, if when seeing another mom’s blog and her perhaps less than perfect life, we begin to feel superior. Maybe you pat yourself on the back “meeting” the mom who admits to plying her kids with processed foods or after discovering the mom who yells more than she would like (um, not that I’ve ever done any of those things) who makes you feel like you’re a superstar. Well, at least I don’t do this or that. Or at least I do this.

Maybe you’ve struggled with blog envy, inferiority, or superiority. Personally, I lean more toward self-flagellation and have to be on guard against the “I-wish-my-grass-was-as-green-as-hers” mindset. I’d love to hear about how you keep these negative feelings in check and how you remain focused on the virtues to be found in the Blogosphere. In the meantime, here are some points to ponder that help me avoid potential blogging pitfalls:

Remember that uber mom’s grass probably isn’t as green as you think. None of us has a picture perfect life no matter how lovely our blog is. We all have hidden crosses to bear. Blogging makes our lives more public, but it doesn’t make them transparent. It’s extremely easy to assume the homeschooling mom of six healthy, talented children who also sews and lives in the rolling foothills of Vermont doesn’t have a worry in the world. But do we really know her? I don’t share everything even with my closest friends; I certainly don’t divulge all to strangers in Cyberspace. What’s more, the very mom you’re longing to be more like may take a look at your life and wish she was more like you. Most of us don’t have any desire to expose the skeletons (or disheveled clothing and clutter) in our closets, but that doesn’t mean the bad stuff's not there. I’d bet that a lot of women out there have gotten pretty good at putting on their best poker face even when they’ve actually been dealt a pretty lousy hand.

Then again, maybe her grass is greener. And if it is, instead of feeling discontented with your own lot, why not rejoice in her blessed life? When the green-eyed monster starts creeping into your thought patterns, acknowledge your jealous feelings and then remind yourself you’re being childish. Next, ask God to help you praise this mom’s talents and gifts. Remind yourself that everything that is good comes from Him, and we should celebrate others’ blessings and strengths.

I’m not saying this is easy. It takes a lot of prayer to turn envy into praise and admiration for a person, but it’s worth the effort.

Examine why you think her grass is greener. Ideally, we’d never find ourselves feeling jealous and instead would simply admire others whose lives are beautiful and good, but sometimes the beginnings of envy can prompt us to make positive changes in our lives. Let’s say there’s a mom whose homeschooling days always seem to go smoothly. Maybe you should ask yourself why. Is it because her children are perfect, studious prodigies? I doubt it. Maybe her seamless routine is the fruit of hard work and organization.

When I feel myself growing envious of someone, I try to immediately change the language in my head from “I’m jealous of her” to “I really respect her” or, “I really appreciate how she does this (like sews; yes, I have a hangup about not being able to sew. More on that in a minute).”

Then I think about how I might model my life after hers. I’m not suggesting I do everything this mom does. But I do try to shift my energy from seething at Miss Polly Perfect to considering how I might be able to make productive, healthy changes that might help to bring out the qualities of her life I admire in my own home.

Celebrate your own gifts. Not to stretch this whole “grass is greener” analogy too far, but when you’re tempted to feel envious of someone else – whether in Blogville or in the real world – take a look at your own grass. Sure, it may not be a bed of roses like Uber Mama's (remember though her roses do have thorns), but there’s beauty there all the same.

When we are envious of others, what we’re really saying is we are not content with what we have. God distributes gifts and blessings in different ways. I know every time I meet a mom who can sew I get all fired up that I, too, am going to learn to be a skilled seamstress. I imagine myself cranking out smocked dresses for my girls. My mom, who sews well, always chuckles when I tell her I’m going to learn how to sew. She’s tried to teach me several times, but I have no patience for it. Hand me a needle and thread, and you won’t get anything pretty. Put me in front of a sewing machine and watch out. Even loose buttons intimidate me. But you know what? That’s okay because there are plenty of other things I can do well.

One of the reasons I admire the friend I mentioned above so much is because she’s never needed kudos or popular acclaim to see her worth. My friend is a lot like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; she’s content being a little flower hidden in a field of more flashy blooms. But she’s just the kind of flower I’d want my daughters to handpick for me: Simple and pretty without being ostentatious. Her beauty is found in her humility.

My friend admitted she didn’t have time to do much else other than be focused on living a Godward life and being a good mom. I’d say she was a good steward of her time, wouldn’t you?

It’s much easier to create the life we’d like to live in the blogging world, but it’s a whole different story to live it. My friend lives it. Her goal is to be a good wife, mom, and Christian. That should always be my number one goal, too. If blogging helps me to achieve this, then I’ll keep at it. But when it starts to bring me down, it’s time to reevaluate why I seek out reading others’ blogs and hosting my own site in the first place.

Which brings me to a very, very important point:

If a blog makes you feel badly about yourself, stop reading it. You know what I told my friend who felt guilty when she read my blog? If my blog or anyone else’s blog did not encourage her or entertain her, then she should not read another word of it. Not one more word.

This goes for you, too. If you have read my blog before or some other mom’s blog and have found yourself lacking or have started second-guessing yourself, then I suggest you do the same.

Click. Away. From. The. Blog.

Besides, there are so many encouraging books (remember, those old-fashioned things with a binder and pages you turn?) out there to help us in our journey as moms, wives, etc. All the time you save not beating yourself up in Blogville will allow you to find other ways to be encouraged as a mom, wife, homemaker, writer, etc. And when it comes to being a better Christian, there’s nothing quite like going straight to the Source. There are a lot of talented, inspiring bloggers out there, but to be truly transformed, we must spend time with God’s Word and get to know Christ on a more personal level. Secondhand knowledge – no matter how profound – is a poor proxy for firsthand faith.

Recently, I’ve been spending less time in Blogville. I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop reading as many blogs or to cut down on my own number of posts, but it became a necessity because our busy life has gotten even busier.

Yet, it's proved to be a blessing because the time I’ve spent away from the blogging world has given me some perspective. I was trying to do too much, and part of the reason behind my constant striving was that I kept stumbling across other blogging moms who appeared to be balancing blogging with very, very busy lives. Too often I’d find myself thinking, “Well if this mom of [insert number larger than the three kids I have] can find time to blog, then I certainly should be able to.” So I’d push myself and what was supposed to be a source of enjoyment and encouragement as well as a means of growing spiritually quickly started to feel like a burden.

One night I was visibly exasperated because I realized I’d never finished a blog post I’d wanted to publish.

“Why do you keep blogging?” my husband asked.

“Because it’s a hobby.”

“Hobbies aren’t supposed to be stressful,” my husband reminded me.

If blogging or surfing the ‘Net for others’ pearls of wisdom becomes a source of stress, it’s time to reevaluate the time you spend on the Internet and why you blog and/or read other blogs. For me, I discovered that writing itself is not a source of stress, but worrying about writing for an audience, thinking I was disappointing my followers with a lack of posts, and/or spending too much time reading other blogs can become a source of anxiety and angst.

I plan on maintaining my more laid-back approach to blogging even after our life slows down. I also am scheduling regular Internet fasts – usually on Sundays as well as longer fasts throughout the year.

Don’t allow your blog to define you. Blogging puts me in the public eye, so there’s always the temptation to start to thinking of this blog as an external measure of my value as a blogger, writer, evangelizer, and even as a human being, especially since moms don’t get performance reviews or instant feedback. If you find yourself checking your blog stats too frequently or counting your number of followers like children count their playthings, maybe it’s time to shut off comments or get rid of Sitemeter.

My blog and what I write on it should never be the cornerstone of my identity. If I say I'm homeschooling, I shouldn't feel like I have to keep homeschooling because now I'm suddenly a homeschooling blogger. My decisions must be based on prayer, discernment, discussions with my family, etc. Learn to separate your blogging life from your real life, and always make sure you're spending more time in the latter. This can take discipline. Real discipline involves saying no to things that distract us from what God is calling us to do and learning and conforming to the ways of God. St. Teresa of Avila said, “We only need to focus on God with our will. That’s all. It’s our choice, and because God loves us, we can do this.” Will yourself to love God first. That will give your life meaning more than any blog could ever do.