When I first got on the Internet at home, it was through a dial-up connection. I think my modem was a whopping 28.8, which at the time was screaming fast. How barbaric. I lived in a condo that didn’t have cable or DSL availability so a lot of my Internet work was done, well, at work.
Then, whooooooosh! I became a parent, got married and moved to a place with cable Internet. Before I became a parent I had oodles of free time and spent a good deal of it reading. I became a mom 5 months before I got married, so I was dealing with a lot of change at once. Dealing with new parenthood and new wifedom was not easy, though I acclimated much faster to the parenting than the wifing. Hence the reason I am single now. Anyway! When Krystal was little I had absolutely no free time when she was awake and the only time I was online was during working hours (when she was not around). When she was sleeping I was on wife duty, which primarily meant watching TV with the wusband.
Now Krystal is 8 and doesn’t rely on me as much for entertainment. Even Belle is older than Krystal was when I became single again, and has always been pretty good at entertaining herself. Generally speaking, if we are home and they are watching TV or playing, I am either on the computer (which is in the same room as the TV), or making dinner.
When we get home from an outing, one of the first things I do is hop on the computer.
After putting the girls to bed, even if I am going to watch TV for the evening, I get on the computer first (and sometimes during).
I think I might be a little addicted to the Internet.
I am going to set a date, soon, to be Internet Free for Me. Instead of going online for that day, I will do all the things around the house that I don’t have time to do because every free moment is spent on the Internet. Some of those things are:
- Gather and organize outgrown kids’ clothes for sale or donation
- Write Belle’s Lifebook
- Work on training Tessie (“come” and “stay” are big ones)
- Utilize some of the principles in “It’s All Too Much” to cull out the extraneous crap in our house
The list goes on and on. But I must admit to you, my Internet friends, that going a day without being online sounds a little scary. It shouldn’t. But it does. The sooner, the better, right? Maybe this Sunday.
I’ll let you know on Monday how it went. If it went.
Niceties and Nasties from New England 
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Heehee, yeah, I set my timer for about 10 minutes when I’m at home alone to make sure I only spend that long reading what I want to read, then I go play with H, or do some chores. I try not to spend a long time online, but sometimes it can’t be helped.
I don’t usually blog on the weekends, but we ALWAYS have the computer on for email. Occasionally I’ll be forced into internet free days when we go visit grandparents, and then there was the no electricity at all day about a month ago . . .
But never voluntarily. Sounds like a good idea.