get me off my cellphone – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: filling time

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 was to delete one app from your phone. I deleted Feedly. I’m trying to figure out what value different apps bring me, and I thought Feedly was one that I could delete because it’s a bit of a time suck and also doesn’t have any essential functions in my life. Interestingly, though, my screen time actually went UP last week. I think the main reason is that I started rehearsal and have been doing a lot more messaging via Teams on my phone for work communications. I could just bring my laptop to rehearsal and communicate that way, but the phone takes up less space. Also, I don’t have notifications turned on on my phone, so I have to pick up my phone and look at it to see if there are any new messages. Maybe I should just turn my notifications on? But also, I’m very much feeling the point that was mentioned in the first Bored and Brilliant Challenge about how a phone is a distraction even just sitting on a table. I don’t want distractions during rehearsals or I’ll miss something. I think this goes back to thinking about how my phone can add value to my life.

Here’s another thing I noticed when I deleted Feedly – if I’m mindlessly scrolling, it doesn’t matter how many apps I delete, I will find a way to mindlessly scroll. I stopped checking Facebook about three years ago because I felt like it was becoming a toxic time suck for me. But you know what I realized? There will always be other sites that are a toxic time suck for me. Two big time sucks for me currently are askamanager.org, and corporette.com. They have very active comment sections and when I’m bored, I often find myself there. It’s not as bottomless as reddit, but it does have the same appeal, I think, of people posting questions or comments, and other anonymous internet strangers weighing in. Why am I so obsessed with other people’s problems or questions? This is actually one of the reasons I quit Facebook is that there was generally a lot of anxiety on the various groups I was in. I get it – life is huge and confusing and hard and people want/need support and to know they’re doing the right thing. I definitely have looked things up or posted questions when grappling with something and on the flip side, I think there is something in me that likes to solve problems, so when I read posts where people are looking for advice, I find myself wanting to help them solve their problems. And in various FB groups, I just started finding anonymous internet venting to be an overwhelming input for me. I think reading and responding to internet comments becomes toxic for me when I find myself reading about other people’s problems and thinking more about their problems than my own. And then it gets to a point other people’s problems just seem so overwhelming that I no longer have empathy for a commenter/poster and just get disgusted with humanity.

Which is all to say, I’m not sure what deleting Feedly has accomplished. Maybe I’m more thoughtful about my mindless scrolling – I have to choose to go to a website rather than it just popping up on my feed. Deleting Feedly was a good experiment in figuring out what kind of internet consumption I find enriching rather than deflating. I’m finding that I’m not missing the influencer type blogs that I mostly read in Feedly. Those blogs always made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job of wringing the full potential out of life. I think I’d much rather just use my internet browser and go visit blogs where I feel a sense of kinship – likely if you are reading this and have a blog, I’m talking about you. I do miss getting my daily dose of poetry show up in my Feedly. But I can just go to that website on my own every day. I might even set up a widget that just opens that website.

The other thing I’ve noticed this week about my phone usage is that I’ve been catching myself looking at my phone as I walk to/from the car this week. Breaking that habit was the whole point of Challenge #1! I think there have been some stressors at work, and I want the slight distraction of easy media consumption the minute I walk out the door in order to decompress a little. But checking the phone doesn’t make me feel less stressed, I’ve noticed. Checking my phone is just a way to distract myself from the discomfort of feeling unsettled and agitated at work and thinking about what is really bothering me. So I’ve been trying to think of things I can do to help clear my head and re-set while keeping my phone in my bag. Some ideas:
-hard copies of books. I’ve started putting a book in my lunchbox so that I read on my lunch break rather than scroll.
-write haikus in my head (or on paper)
-Listen to more music. I guess this technically is phone usage, although a couple of times while driving to work, I was feeling really stressed thinking about the day ahead, so I put on the classical music station and that helped calm me down a little. I think when I am feeling overwhelmed, I need to be in a wordless environment for a while. Chatter tends to interfere with my ability to think, even if it’s just the radio. I like classical music because I can think about the musical lines and instruments, in a more abstract way than if I were to listen to something with a lot of lyrics.
-walking meditations. I’ve never really gotten into meditation, but sometimes being ultra-mindful of each step I’m taking helps me feel more grounded.
-jigsaw puzzles. We have a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle going on in our office. I’ve never done a puzzle with so many pieces before, and it’s certainly a challenge. I used to be of the school that one doesn’t look at the box when doing a jigsaw puzzle, but then someone brought in the 1500 piece puzzle and I’ve changed my stance.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #4 is to take a faux-cation. Meaning dedicate a chunk o f time to be away from your phone. They even suggest setting an out of office message. That seems a little performative for me, so I don’t know if I’ll do that part. I’m not sure when I’ll take my faux-cation. I have friends visiting on my next free day and then I don’t have another day off for over a week. Maybe I can take a faux-cation morning before rehearsal? It’s a hard time in the work period to not be connected. Of course, it’s also the perfect time to be distraction free for a while since I have a lot of paperwork to get through. Maybe my faux-cation is just a couple hours to put my head down and plough through my paperwork?

A very nice free Day.
I had a great free day last Thursday! I got so much done. After dropping the kids at the bus, I took my car in for an oil change. I was going to run home while they changed my oil, but they said the car would be done in an hour so I went for a run by the mechanics instead, which was actually better because the mechanic is about a 1/4 mile from a trail and the fall leaves and crisp air made for a lovely run. I had forgotten my earphones, so I had to run i silence, which I thought was going to boring, but it wasn’t at all.

After I got my car back, I went to a consignment sale at a local pre-school (it’s their big fund raiser). I went to get pants for the 7 year old, but I also found this super cute t-Shirt for the 5 year old too:

Then I had lunch with the Husband at a really nice Mexican place by his work. The place had just gotten a nice write up in the paper, though the Husband has been coming since they were open. At the end of our meal, the owner offered us some grasshoppers! They were crunchy and spicy- like chips!

Then I went to the library because I had a hold come in and I also picked up a few other books:

The library is in the same building as the Rec center where early voting was taking place, so I also went to vote. It was the first day of early voting! The room was busy, but not crowded. I was in and out within ten minutes.

Then I picked up the 5 year old for gymnastics. I drafted a blog post while waiting for her class, which always feels super productive to me. Then we went home.

Next, I took the 7 year old for his costume fitting. I’ve never actually been in a costume fitting before, despite all these years of working in a theatre. It was fascinating. Costume people are amazing! The way they could look at a garment and know what seams to add or remove or take apart and put back together to make a garment fit was mesmerizing. It’s kind of surgical, the way they talk about clothes. Like you would never guess that this shirt was made for someone twice the size of the 7 year old, and since it was a rental shirt, they couldn’t cut it. So they just tuck and make a false cuff.

He looks a little like Fievel from An American Tail.

After we got home, though it all went downhill from there. The Husband was out with a friend, so I was solo parenting. No one wanted to help pick up or set the table or do homework. I was annoyed that I was making tasty pasta that no one seemed to care about. People yelled at me. I yelled at people. Then I told them not to yell at me, and I shut myself in my room until bedtime. On the bright side… when I was shut into my room the 12 year old dished up the pasta and fed the 2 younger kids. In front of the tv. I can’t decide if that’s a win or not.

But in an effort not to let one horrible hour torpedo the rest of a lovely productive and restful day, I cling to all the nice things and productive things that happened that day. And I did end the day by making a plum torte, so that was nice. Baking always helps, and this recipe (from New York Timing Cooking) was super easy to whip up. Apparently the recipe is run every fall. It’s legendary and people got mad when the Times didn’t publish it one year. It’s not the best thing I ever made, but the taste to effort ratio is pretty high.

Grateful For:
-Getting two runs in this week, on my dinner break and on my free day. Perfect cool fall weather for running. I can still wear shorts, but the sun isn’t torturous.

– My work BFF who is so so so smart and I can bounce thoughts off her when I’m trying to navigate a thorny issue. (She’s also a great friend not just at work, and our kids hang out together all the time. I joked with her the other day that one day one of us should go work somewhere else because between the two of us we have so many work-branded tote bags that we’re always getting our stuff mixed up when we hang out.)

-Leftovers. So glad to have leftovers for quick easy lunch and dinner packing last week.

-On that same note – grateful for past me for making a double batch of soup and freezing it for easy dinners last week.

-Wifi at activities. I’m really grateful that there is wifi in the waiting room at gymnastics so I can get some work or blogging done while I wait for them to get done activities. Maybe I should be watching them bounce on trampolines, but… the gym isn’t really set up to always be watching the kids.

Looking Forward To:
-A visit from a mentor, now friend.

-Hallowe’en. I think everyone’s costume is set. I actually have most of the day off, so I think I’ll get to go trick or treating from the beginning. I had originally been scheduled to work until 6:00pm or so, but now I’m going to try to get home by 5:00pm. I’ve been squeezing some costume sewing in when I can.

-Listening to this audio book – I wanted a cozy audiobook to get me through the next few weeks. The combination of an Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt for 10 Things that Never Happened was the epitome of cozy romance for me (still disagree with you, Engie!), so I chose another Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt, and it’s been the perfect, swoony and sweet audiobook for me right now:

What We Ate:

Monday: Turkey white bean soup from freezer

Tuesday: Fried perch and tater tots. The Husband cooked while I was at work. I ight have eaten the whole bowl of leftover Tater Tots when I got home at 11pm. It was just an excuse to use Trader Joe’s Dill Pickle seasoning.

Wednesday: Skillet pasta and sausage. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Cheesy pumpkin pasta bake with kale. From NY Times Cooking. This was really tasty. I wanted leftovers, but the kids took them all for lunch. I actually froze half of it before baking because it only requires 15 mins at 500 degrees to bake so it will make an easy dinner. I added a can of cannellini beans for more protein, and made it with silken tofu instead of cream, so it would not be as rich.

Friday: leftover soup and pizza

Saturday: Dumplings and the Pokemon movie (for those at home), kale salad (for me at work)

Sunday: leftovers

How is your week going? Is there one app you would like to delete? What is your favorite way – your most bucket filling way – to spend time on your phone?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Haikus not photos

We started rehearsals last Thursday. Starting mid week is always a little tough because you get the momentum of the first day excitement and then bam, you have a day off and it feels a little like letting the air out of your own tires. Oh well, it’s the schedule and I’ll take any days off that I can get.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #2– No Photo Day. The point of this challenge was to force you to really look at the things you might be tempted to take a picture of, rather than taking your phone out to snap a picture. Studies show that taking a picture of something actually could lead you to remember it less. This challenge kind of hit home when I remembered how a few weeks ago, I wrote about the bright purple flowers in our front walk on a gloomy day. When I was writing that post, I looked for a picture to post of those flowers, but I couldn’t find one. “Surely, I took a photo of that moment,” I thought. “I remember that flower so vividly!” But I hadn’t taken a photo – I had just seen the purple aster popping out on a grey grey day and that memory had embedded itself in my brain. Would I have had such a vivid memory of that flower if I had taken a photo? I don’t know.

Last week, I took exactly three pictures:

I sent this to the Husband as proof I was logging off my comouter and coming home.

Took this one for last week’s post on books I was reading- I’m enjoying both.

The seven year old doing his homework in rehearsal. I sent this to the Husband as proof that he does do his homework sometimes.

And truth to tell, I had to look back at my camera roll to remember what pictures I had taken. on reflection, I think I took pictures to communicate something to someone else. These were not photos of things I wanted to remember for myself. I don’t know if this “No Photo” thing will stick. I do take a lot of pictures for practical reasons – to remember parking spots and grocery lists, to use at work when it is easier to take a picture than try to find the words to explain what I mean when I’m trying to give a note about a prop of some such. And I do like having photos of my family with me, capturing moments we have together. But I think because it is so easy to take photos, I have a higher expectation of these images I capture- I want them to be perfect, I want moments to be perfect. And some are. Sunsets, laughter, getting to the end of a hike. But also – I don’t need a million pictures of these things. I don’t need to take picture after picture, holding the camera between me and the things I want to capture. I can just take one, and maybe it’s imperfect, maybe not everyone is looking at the camera. But that’s the moment too. (Actually, the 7 year old is notorious for turning his back to the camera when I want to take a group picture – at least it’s honest of where we are.) Of course, when it comes to a family picture for the Christmas card, I reserve the right to try to get a nice one.

So last week, as part of the No Photo challenge, I challenged myself to write a haiku every time (well not every time) that I wanted to take a photo, as a way to think about why I’m struck by something. Here are some of the haikus I came up with:

This one is about those purple flowers on our front walk:
On a gloomy day
Purple asters line the walk.
Such bright drops of joy.

Inspired by the first signs of fall foliage that I saw:
Orange dappled leaves
Flaming amidst still green trees.
The first to welcome Fall.

Another one for fall:
Dropping temperatures
bring sartorial changes –
Cozy clothes season!

They play, chattering
Sharing imaginations.
Worlds only they see.

Full moon shines. The clouds
drift lie widow’s weeds across
transcendent beauty.

I will say, last week my phone pick ups did go down 21% from the week previous. (from 98 average pick ups per day to 78). And my daily screentime average was down 25% from the week before (2 h 42 m m vs. 3h 37 mins). I don’t think lower numbers is the ultimate goal in and of itself, but rather what I do with the time, that additional 55 minutes.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 is to delete one app. I’m not sure which one that would be. I no longer check social media and I don’t play any phone games. My most used apps are text/messages, Feedly, and Safari. Safari is probably mostly reading blogs. So I guess that would mean deleting Feedly. Will report back.

Other goings ons–
-Speaking of phones. We got the 12 year old her first phone this week. It has been a huge decision and it’s actually a little earlier than I had wanted to give her a phone. Let’s be honest, if I could have waited until college, I would have. I’m kind of late to technology adoption and late to change. But with activities ramping up and with her being in a show this fall, I felt like for safety and communication, it was best to give her a phone so she could move around more independently. We got her a Bark Phone – the Husband did the research – and it seems like a low commitment way to get her a phone that had lots of parental controls on it. I had briefly contemplated a smart watch, but I wanted her to have something that she could leave in her locker and that wouldn’t be attached to her wrist and constantly monitoring her or sending her physical notifications. Before we got the phone, we all agreed to each come up with three rules about phone usage. If anyone else has guidelines or thoughts on phones and kids, I’d love to hear it. Right now we’re trying to figure out how we decide which apps she can download. I’m not opposed to her having some fun things to do on her phone, but I don’t want her to have so many apps that she is constantly switching between apps looking for that dopamine hit one gets when exposed to new and fresh things. Like you know when you constantly re-fresh apps looking for something new? Anyhow… lots to think about here.

-Soup Party at Work. This was a lot of fun. I make Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup. We also had Baked Potato Soup, Lasagna Soup, Sausage Kale Soup, Chicken and White Bean Soup, chicken orzo soup. Lots of bread and carbs too. It was a nice cozy way to gather. I want to have a soup party in the new year, maybe February? It seems like February would be a nice month to have a gathering.

-Family time on a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon. My days off are all over the place this month. I had last Sunday off. I took the 12 year old to buy fabric for her Hallowe’en costume then we were home. We had lunch together outside on our back patio and then later we went together to the park where we played basketball together. The 7 year old and the 5 year old are comically unskilled at basketball, and it made for a lopsided game with people changing sides on a whim. But it was a lot of fun for all five of us to be doing something together, and the weather was perfect.

-I’ve been thinking about NaBloWriMo. (Thanks, San, for organizing!). November is legit bonkers busy for me, but I love the idea of a collective flooding of the internet of good old fashioned blogging. Maybe I’ll write shorter posts? My weekly posts have four parts – life update, gratitude, anticipation, what we ate – maybe I can concentrate on writing/posting one part per day?

Grateful for:
-Hand me down winter coats. I have a friends who gives us all her kids’ outgrown winter coats. She has three kids and each kid always has two or three coats, so it’s a lot of coats. I think between the two little kids, I’ve only ever had to buy one or two winter coats since they were born. (The oldest always gets a new (or thrifted) winter coat.) One day last week it was quite chilly and I needed winter coats for the kids, and I was really grateful that I had a whole closet of winter coats to pull from. The first onset of cold weather is always a scramble for appropriate winter gear, and it’s nice to know that I’m covered on the coat front for a few more years at least.

-Fall apple season. I think apples might be my favorite part of fall. There are so many kinds of apples at the farmer’s market and every apple is a kind of adventure of discovery. Is there anything more satisfying than biting into a perfectly crisp, tart-sweet apple.

-Cookbooks on Libby. For the Soup Party, I wanted to make a recipe from a book I had borrowed from the library, but I didn’t have time to get it from the library, so I checked Libby, and there it was! I find that cookbooks on Libby aren’t always formatted to easy to browse and read, but when I’m just looking for a recipe, it’s a good way to find cookbooks.

Looking forward to:
I have to be honest the next few weeks look like kind of a grind of work and activities, so I don’t have anything fun planned. This all hit home when I tried to schedule dentist appointments for the kids and there was literally no weekday until mid December where I could take all three kids at once to the dentist. It was hard enough getting two kids to back to back appointments.
– Fall walks. I’m going to try to go on a walk every day at lunch. On days when I’m working an evening rehearsal, I’m going to try to fit in a run since I have 90 minutes between rehearsals. I’ve packed my running clothes and shoes and they are at my office right now, so hopefully it will prompt me to go run.

-2025 calendar. Our 2025 wall calendar arrived! Can I tell you how much I LOVE this wall calendar? It’s the At a Glance Move A Page Three Month Calendar. It’s designed so you move each month up as you go so that you can always see the next two months as well as the current one. A lot of 3 month calendars that I looked at were just four pages of three months each, so you’d have to flip back and forth to see adjacent months if you were on, say, March. Or they were all three months on one page, so you’d have to re-write future months as they became present months. There is no re-writing necessary with this calendar. Also – this calendar has lines in the date blocks so it makes writing in it neater. I bought several different 4 colour pens, so everyone in the family gets their own colour on the calendar.

-Free Day to run errands. I have a free say mid week, so I’m hoping to get some errands done. I’ve scheduled an oil change, want to return library books, run, lunch with the Husband, and visit a local consignment sale- the 7 year old is in dire need of pants.

-oh the most important thing I’m hoping to do on my free day is VOTE! Early voting starts this upcoming week. I have a little trepidation and a little hope about the elections. I don’t trust the polling so I feel like anything could happen. I feel like we’ve been here before- is it just me, or has every election seemed nail bitingly unpredictable?

What We Ate: it was soup week here! Partly because of fall weather, partly because it’s an easy thing to make ahead of time when things get busy.

Monday: Chicken rice soup. Made in the Instant Pot. I’m trying to use up things in the freezer, and we had a bunch of chicken breasts, so I put them in the Instant Pot with celery, onions, butternut squash, turnips, brown rice, and chicken broth. It was really tasty and there were leftovers for all week.

Tuesday: Corn and egg drop soup and dumplings. I made a double batch of the corn and egg drop soup so that I could bring to the Soup Party at work. I used the recipe from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food by Hsiao-Ching Chou. It’s actually just a corn soup in the recipe, and I added the egg drop part to up the protein. The dumplings were pulled from the freezer – we had bought from the Farmer’s market last month.

Wednesday: Soup Party at work! I brought the Corn and Egg Drop Soup. It was even more ginger-y because I had added ginger slices and let them sit overnight.

Thursday: Chili- the Husband made this on Sunday night. It was super tasty.

Friday: Pizza (takeout) and IF. I had to work this night and had leftovers.

Saturday: I had to work, so I had leftovers. Not sure what the rest of the family ate.

Sunday: Toast and leftovers. Sunday is usually simple supper/ clean out the fridge night.

How is fall in your area? If you are in the States – are you voting in person or by mail? Early or on Election day? What’s the last photo you took? What’s the last photo you sent someone?