On the Internet to Tell You It's More Fun Off the Internet (But Read My Post First)

• Sat, 09:11: #BeforeiDieiWanna live. Which is just one of the reasons I refuse to "catch up" on all the Twitter I missed in the past two days.
• Sat, 09:12: So if you didn't comment @ me and said something you think I ought to hear or know or like, let me know! By @ commenting me, just in case.

What you see above is the entirety of the automatic "My Tweets" post I just deleted (rather than friends-locked,* because it's not worth saving if I'm just going to recopy it all over here, no?). I've pasted it here because it sums up my feelings about the Internet this week. Too much time-suck. Not enough time. I've got other things to do.

I promised I'd write you a new post every Saturday at least, and here I am, fulfilling that promise, even with so many other things distracting me. And for once, those things are NOT "zoning out on the Internet." I feel a creeping dread when I think of my long-neglected blog-reader-- part of me WANTS to read what I've missed, part of me sighs and thinks "WHY? Why so much to read? I have too much to do! Give up, blogs. I won't let you take me alive." And as addictive as I've found Twitter in the past, lately I'm almost afraid to go there. I don't want to get sucked into the endless MUCH-CATCH-UP-ON-THINGS-THAT-ARE-ONLY-OF-PASSING-INTEREST-TO-ME vortex. And I find I don't PARTICULARLY miss it. I miss particular people when I think about it. But like I said, there's just TOO MUCH ELSE TO DO.

Today I did my first draft of taxes, for example-- first draft as we're still waiting on a couple of forms but I need to turn in my daughter's preschool registration/financial aid application next week, so I have to have SOMETHING. I did bills. I attempted to get my son to work on his homework while I was doing "MY homework," as I called this, but it only worked for a little while (WHY ARE KINDERGARTENERS GETTING HOMEWORK OF THIS SORT, ANYWAY? HOMEWORK FOR KINDERGARTENERS SHOULD BE FAMILY READ-ALOUDS AND OCCASIONAL EXPERIMENTS/OTHER ACTIVITIES. NOT WORKSHEET AFTER WORKSHEET. This will probably turn into a future blog post, if I get the time).

Okay, that's not a particularly exciting excuse. (Although I do kind of like doing taxes. The first time. If I have to go back and fix something and it changes whatever worksheets or schedules I used before, THEN it gets on my nerves). Neither is the laundry, which had to be done since son was out of underwear this morning. Then I have to get to the grocery-- well, that it turns out can wait until tomorrow, since my parents picked up the worst necessities yesterday while they were babysitting. Why am I using up YOUR valuable time to tell you this? Because I figured I'd have to mention all the chores before I got to all the FUN things I could be doing.

Let's talk library programming. I've been spending WAY less time just hanging out online at work lately mostly because I've got SO much more planning to work on, now (on top of everything I USED to do). On Monday afternoons I'm doing a "Library Explorers" program, a sort of non-fiction STEAM focus-on-a-topic activities day, and Thursday evenings I have a Family Night story-and-activities time. And I have fun. More fun than I really need to. More EFFORT than I really need to, too.

For example, so far I've done two Family Nights, and both times only two families came... one of them mine. But the first one (a valentine theme) involved decorating cookies, which my kids and I baked ourselves beforehand. This week was a cowboy/girl theme, and when I decided we'd need to have hobby horse races but I had no hobby-horses, I remembered an old kids'-craft book I'd had for years that had how to make a hobby horse out of an old pair of pants, and my sewing machine was out because I'd just fixed my daughter's blankie, and I said "I'M GOING TO MAKE THEM! TWO HOBBY HORSES!" And that REALLY wasn't necessary for the program, particularly a program barely anyone comes to, but I JUST FELT CRAFTY.

And I did wear the most cowgirly outfit I could find-- which isn't very: khaki overalls, collared shirt, red fabric scrap that served as a bandanna, brown snow boots, pigtails, and a leather (not cowboy) hat of J's. Maddie has tried to replicate that outfit today (to some extent. Instead of a collared shirt, she picked a Steelers sweatshirt. And her hair is chin-length, no pigtails. I decided she looks like Scout Finch more than anyone). See, the few of us who were there DID have fun....

Next week is just before Read Across America day, so we're celebrating that, which is easy to prep for since I've done it before, and since this time it's less of a one-time event I'm going MUCH less overboard. We're just having simple cupcakes instead of, you know, Cheese Trees. (I just read the beginning of that linked entry and noticed I said I was going to start Family Nights as soon as we moved to the new building. So okay, apparently not for another almost-two years instead, but oh well).

So far our Monday Library Explorers times have focused on Mardi Gras (where we ate King Cake, threw beads at each other, and listened to zydeco music while making masks), and a Lego party (which required much less planning but was still awesome). We're so doing these Squishy Circuits in a few weeks and I'm abnormally excited about it. And this Monday we're doing Movie Making in honor of the Oscars, a program which I am, honestly, mostly going to be winging (I've got SOME stuff prepared). But in prep for that, I ended up getting pulled into a book on Digital Filmmaking, which I then brought home for myself. It pairs nicely with the online class on Screenwriting I'm supposedly taking. (I apparently didn't mention that here. Our library got access to this Universal Class collection of free online continuing ed classes and we all were supposed to log in and try one so we'd know what to do, and I'm three lessons in to the Screenwriting one but haven't gotten around to going back there in awhile). What with those and my video blog outings, I could be making myself a new hobby.

Assuming I even have time to read that book (let alone do those things). I've actually become excited about reading fiction again. But I'm still only halfway through the awesome Code Name Verity, and when I took the kids to the Big Library in the next town earlier this week, I couldn't help myself, and got Hope Larson's graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time and Libba Bray's Diviners, even though I haven't even finished my other book in the past, what's it been, two or three weeks. Let alone doing more lessons in the Screenwriting class. And fitting in the typical household family obligations in with all this stuff, too. Oh, and though I never fit drum lessons into our schedule as of yet, I did CALL that music store the other way to see if they'd let me trade in my guitar for a smaller one that I'd be able to play better, theoretically, or maybe I'd just be more likely to try. I haven't heard back from them about that yet. And maybe I'm just being manic and that won't really happen, but...

...I'm getting into things. I'm DOING. I'm being active in my life, and it's really quite lovely. So it's not like I will NEVER READ ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET AGAIN, but I'm managing to drag myself away from it. I'm finding actual things to DO, and those things actually excite me. I can live with that.

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*If you were concerned: I try to friends-lock those automatic "My Tweets" posts ASAP NOT because I don't want you, lovely-person-I-just-haven't-LiveJournal-friended, to READ My Tweets, but because it cleans up the blog for people passing through, gets more CONTENT on the front page. I suppose I could also set them to "private" when all I want is to save them for the records, too. But I don't. I'm not sure why. Because they're more things for a few people to occasionally comment on, at least? I like comments. GO AHEAD AND COMMENT BELOW! Even if you're a total stranger who doesn't have anything exciting to add! I'm okay with that!