Gardens, Kitchens, and Social Media Detox

Summer is notoriously busy around here, what with kids and the activities and the tomatoes that look like we live near a nuclear power plant…

Ahem.

The rest of the gardens are coming along nicely, and I’ve either used, frozen or stored more herbs than ever this year.

We’ve got a kale forest in the back yard.

A wider shot…

So, there’s that. I’ve been grilling and barbecuing a bit instead of cooking indoors (because this summer in Seattle so far has been alternately pleasantly warm and oppressively hot), and doing a little bit of baking in the mornings. But mostly, I’ve been reading cookbooks. All kinds of them. Italian, Persian, gluten free, all gluten, paleo, decidedly not paleo, cooking with grains, cooking without grains, desserts, mains, salads…

Because I’ve been sitting a lot, and unable to do much walking, because my knees…well, they need to come out.

But in an effort to do everything possible to postpone another (stupid, dumb, no good) surgery, I’m having synthetic cartilage injected into both knees tomorrow.

I know. Gross. And also, ow.

The good news is that after the injections, I’ll probably be able to do a lot more cooking and baking and even MORE gardening…and soon, harvesting and “putting up” as my grandmother used to say.

And because I’ve been doing a lot of sitting around, I’ve been spending a lot of time on Facebook. Like…a lot.

I’m also on twitter and tumblr and instagram and…I don’t really use them that often.

But Facebook has made me it’s bitch. And I am not crazy about being anyone or anything’s bitch.

I wondered what I did before I was on FB all the time. What did I accomplish? How did I spend my time?

That was before (stupid, dumb, no good) inflammatory arthritis stole my voice and ability to play guitar. But I made a lot of records, and you should buy them on iTunes. They are pretty good. (Ringing self endorsement, I know.)

I found that I was thinking in status updates. I was moving through my day considering how to phrase something that had happened to me or something that one of my kids had done. Social media had completely changed the way that I experienced the world. Any time I was bored or lonely or tired or upset or _______, I’d flip through my news feed, and would inevitably find something to distract me from whatever unpleasant feeling I was having.

Ugh. I don’t really want to be that person.

I’m not saying that social media is evil, or has no practical or positive uses. I just used it as a drug that I need to detoxify from. So, that’s the plan.

And in the meantime, I’m gonna accomplish things in the real world. Things like this:

🙂