25 emails

At the end of the day I come into the house covered in dirt and grime. ?I sit down on the couch with a glass of wine, have a little dinner and basically pass out. ?You know something… I couldn’t be happier.

I sat down at my computer for the first time in about 3 days and had 25 emails. ?Mostly junk. ?However, in the past I would have compulsively checked my email for something that probably wasn’t there. ?What was I looking for? ?I don’t know. ?My soul maybe. ?Perhaps I thought the Russians were going to email it back.

In 2004, when we started researching adoption, I didn’t work. ?I sat in front of the computer all day every day. ?It was an obsession. ?I felt that if I were away from the computer I would miss something. ?When we actually started the process it got worse. ?I shirked friendships all in the name of “getting my son home.” ?During that time there was nothing I could do to make the process go faster, but I sat there, waiting. ?Sure I made some amazing friends in the process, but I wasted 2 years of my life in front of my computer.

In the near 4 years since the boy has come home do you think that I’ve given up my terrible computer habit… no. ?I’m still here. ?5 years later I’m still blogging, still participating in an online life. ?The thing that has changed is that at this moment I don’t feel compelled to walk in the door and go straight for the computer.

What has changed?

A few things. ?The first thing is that I got a job outside of the home. ?It made me realized that there is something out there that I love to do and that it is more important that my computer. ?I get to interact with real people in a real world and I make a little bit of real money. ?The other thing is that I went out and got a smart phone. ?Now that may seem a little silly since I’m trying to drop the computer monkey, but to be honest… it is a life saver. ?I can look at my phone anywhere and see that the emails that have been sent are junk and that I can go about my day doing other things. ?It is a social media smart phone so I can readily see tweets and facebook stuff, but if I look at my phone there are probably 40+ status updates or tweets I haven’t looked at. ?That is only because I went through them all about 2 hours ago (there were close to 150+ prior to that). ?The point is I’m not as concerned about what is going on in the virtual world as I once was. ?I bought the social media phone because of the Twitter/Facebook stuff, but I don’t use it that much.

I spend my days either working or working in the garden. ?I don’t go outside and see a mass of stuff I cannot accomplish. ?I go out and see small spaces that have been finished. ?Large spaces that are amazing. ?Things I can do.

In the past 2 weeks I (a lot of it is due to the trusty husband) have built 2 more raised beds, filled them in. ?Finished the Tagro in the beds and finished covering the grass (gravel is left), built support systems for the peas, built a compost bin out of pallets, planted the window boxes, planted the boy’s garden, weeded and replanted the garden area out by the mail box, weeded around the rockery, weeded under the plum trees and fertilized the vegetable garden. ?I fit that all in around working and the trusty husband being in Alaska for 3 days.

I have not been to the acupuncturist in a very long time. ?I’m only taking a vitamin B supplement (down from a mass of other supplements and herbs). ?I feel good and I think I might be losing a little weight. ?In a nutshell life is good. ?Very, very good.