Media Fasting

I've been a big fan of Money Saving Mom for a while now. She's got lots of great ideas, offers great giveaways, posts awesome deals, and has an inspiring attitude about saving! I read her blog daily, and have gotten tons of free samples from links she's posted. In addition, I've downloaded tons of free stuff, and someday I'm sure to win one of her giveaways too, if I just keep entering them!

One thing that I respect completely about Money Saving Mom is her commitment to God and family. She doesn't pepper her blog with lots of religious chatter, but it's clear that she's a Christian and takes that seriously. She's also clearly committed to her husband and kids and views being a wife and mother as her more-than-fulltime job. She's so serious about these things, as a matter of fact, that she takes a media fast one day a week, and for her, it's on Sunday.

Regardless of your beliefs and thoughts on God and religion, the idea of media fasting is quite thought-provoking. Both P-daddy and I spend a LOT of time online, and Pooh is clearly growing up as a digital native. There are lots of days when we all sit in the room together, each focused on their own connection: Pooh watches WonderPets or Dinosaur Train on streaming Netflix (oh my goodness, can we get streaming Netflix in El Salvador??!!), P-daddy watches the ups and downs of the market, and I work on papers/research, blog, or do any number of other things. And dare I admit to the number of computers we have in this house? [Hint: you'd need more than one hand to count them all and there are only 3 people in this house, one of which is only TWO!] We are quite media-driven, and media-focused on an ongoing basis.

While our media focus for work and pleasure is unlikely to change anytime soon, we definitely see that we need to take the time to focus on each other more, rather than always on our computer screens. We've tried scheduling some chunks of media-free time, and when we both focus on that, it works well, even though it's not a full day. However, I really want to make efforts to focus on other things at least one day a week rather than spending the day in front of the computer - it might not always be the same day, but we as a family agree that we need to get out and experience life and events around us. Once we move, this will be even more important, as we really want to live life as part of a community, and not just an online one!

Why am I saying all this, you ask? Well, while I want to make sure to post on this blog regularly, I also realize that I need to make sure that our family time doesn't suffer, and that our excitement over planning for a move in the future doesn't take our focus off of enjoying where we are and what we are doing now. So there may be days (probably once a week, and likely on the weekend), when I simply remind myself that media fasting helps provide me with a measure of enjoyment that even blogging can't come close to reaching!