I've turned into one of those people

I used to think they were snobs, or held themselves to an impossibly high standard. Maybe you've felt the same way, upon hearing that new couple announce they "don't watch television."

Well, I can't say I don't watch it at all. I spend half an hour a day with Alex Trebek. Because I'm old like that. And because my husband likes Jeopardy, so it's 30 minutes of quality time he and I spend together.

My husband also likes cable news. Me? Not so much. I've also turned into one of those people who gets her news, skewed as it is, from Facebook.

I started watching Beasts of the Southern Wild last night, but 10 minutes into it I couldn't see where it was going and wasn't interested enough to find out. I am, perhaps, a good candidate for Short Attention Span Theatre.


It's not that I don't get plenty of screen time. I'm at the computer or on my phone or tablet several hours daily. PRODUCTIVE hours, lemme tell ya. I log my daily food in LoseIt, use the MapMyRun app to track my daily workout, get my creativity on with Instagram and read your blogs on Feedly.

And then there's Pinterest.

I'm also an Imperial Mahjong whiz, and I'M CERTAIN I'm doing my brain a lot of good finding matches and tapping tiles. (My dad's wife got me hooked on mahjong. I've uninstalled it from every device I own, many times, but it's very cracklike for me. And as long as the laundry gets done and dinner is served, I'm not hurting anyone. Heh.)

I've lost so many paper lists halfway through a grocery run that I've started using an app (currently trying out ZipList) for shopping trips. Because while I might misplace a scrap of paper, my phone is permanently attached to my body.

Just ask my husband. Heh.

There are downsides to all this technology, of course. I haven't memorized a phone number in years. If I needed to reach my daughter, for instance, using your phone, I couldn't manage it AT ALL. She moved to a new house almost two years ago and I still don't know her address. It's in the palm of my hand (or on my laptop), and I've recently started saying you only need to know where to find information. Why waste brain cells memorizing something you can look up? Brain cells are a limited commodity, after all.

I'll get back to television soon. Pre-season pro football starts less than a month from now. (I know, pretty soon we're going to have year-round a year-round NFL schedule.) And college football begins August 29. Football is my reality TV, and I'll watch it all day long.

I could also watch the hummingbirds all day long. I took my first picture of one yesterday with the DSLR, and have been trying to catch one with the camera on my phone, a nearly impossible (for me) exercise. The feeder is hanging right outside the sliding glass door next to our dining table, and I can tell you that while last night's curried pork was delicious, I certainly wasn't paying as much attention to savoring my food as I was to watching the birds.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But it's an entertaining thing. And probably a better use of my time than playing mahjong.

I hope you don't think I'm a snob because I don't watch CNN. Or Dancing With the Stars. How about you? What are your go-to apps? And, more importantly, how do you get your news?

Sleepin' 9 to 5

Well, I didn't go to the movie after all. Even working a half day did me in. But I will get used to this, I will, I will, I WILL!

Instead, I stayed home and played Scrabble with my husband after we watched Jeopardy. We are SO old.  Thank goodness we don't feel old on the inside, even though we do old-people things. Like, we used to eat dinner at 6, but have gradually backed that up to 5 on most nights. We might as well live in Florida.

So bedtime was delayed until 9-ish. It was probably 9:30 before I fell asleep. And I didn't wake up until 5:05 this morning. If I can add one or two hours of awake time at the end of the day, I think I can overcome the early wakefulness at the beginning of the next.

Gingerzingi mentioned recent reports of "blue screen time" interfering with sleep cycles. Interestingly, when I work I'm not spending any time in front of a screen. When I'm home, I'm checking e-mail or cruising the web A LOT. And I watch very little television. (I guess I've turned into one of those people who gets most of my news from Facebook. That's not how old people get their news! Heh.)

One of the bloggers I've recently started reading has chosen to [mostly] unplug for the month of April. I'm so guilty of spending too many of my remaining hours on earth following links and repinning things on Pinterest. But I'm not ready to back off yet. Everything I do lately feels like a job: losing weight, working out, volunteer activities. I like my part-time job, that feels like fun. As does my computer time, whether it's at the laptop or on the new phone. Giving it up at this time would just be mean.

Screen time is automatically being reduced because of the hours I spend at Groundworks. And once my own garden gets going I'll be spending a lot of time weeding and, eventually, reaping. We'll certainly have more cold snaps this spring, but I think hope we're done with freeze and frost warnings.

Today I get to be a good Democrat and attend our county convention. We will be choosing delegates for our state convention in June, at which time we'll select the national delegates who will be going to Charlotte in September. Despite registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans 2-to-1 in West Virginia, we are a red state. (Riddle me this, Batman: Why do these Democrats vote against their own interests?)

I'd love to go to Charlotte, but there are an awful lot of West Virginia Democrats who've served their party a lot longer than I have who will get to go. I'm pretty sure I'll be going to the state event, though, and that will be fun and interesting and something I've never done before. (And no screen time!)

When you're as old as I am, virgin experiences are hard to come by.