The thing about me most people may not know (and my husband still denies) is that I am horribly undisciplined. It's true. I have a very hard time saying no to things--especially things that are bad for me.
I know, I know. I am a healthy eater (high raw, no sugar vegan). But you may not know why. I ended up very sick at a very young age (Eppstein Barr--an auto-immune disease--at age 15). Dropping to around 80lbs before my sixteenth birthday and not strong enough to hold a glass of water on my own, I was in bad shape. And while it may be hard to know exactly how or why I had it, I do know what beat it: diet. Cutting out sugar, wheat and dairy and taking a crazy amount of supplements (somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 vitamins 3x day), my immune system bulked up and made me healthier than I had probably ever been in my short life.
I know it can be a hard concept for a lot of people. I hear a lot of concern over extremism or depriving myself. But it's not difficult math--cut out the junk food and feel amazing or eat a balanced American diet and slowly lose energy, functionality and vitality. For me, it's not depravity or extremist. It's health.
Before my illness, I lived off of biscuits and jelly for breakfast, sandwiches and Taco Bell for lunch and would often skip dinner. I was a busy girl and took myself for granted. I am learning more and more to keep the basics of life central to my day. So now, making meals and shopping for food are easy priorities and eating well is something I make time for.
Which brings me to television. If you think I am disciplined, it's probably because you've never seen me in front of a tv. I can watch and watch and watch and watch and watch and....well, you get the idea. I am a true veg queen. I also knew that I can tune the world out with a few well-timed sitcoms, which is why Rory and I chose not to own a television.
What I didn't expect, however, were things like Facebook and Hulu. Before we knew it, our evenings (and weekends) of talking and spending time together were slowly eaten up with checking Facebook and scouring for our favs on Hulu. The very reasons we were committed to not owning a tv were completely lost on us.
Now to top it off (and this is where the crazy takes a sharp turn into straight-wacko-ville), laptops and cell phones give off more EMR/EMF radiation than is safe. I told you I was heading for wacko-ville... But it is something I am seriously concerned about.
So, as if I needed any more motivation anyway, I am just saying no to my laptop and keeping my cell in the car for emergencies. With the little body attached to my mama one, I am especially convicted over the amount of radiation I am exposing to her--daily.
I plan on using Rory's laptop as necessary and hopefully keeping an semi-updated blog to help keep in touch.
In the meantime, I have to brave the Christmas crowds in search of a hard-line telephone to plug into our new landline...Who woulda thought?!
5 comments:
I think it will be a very cool change, and if you go back to doing some and setting limits then ok for that as well. Tiff and I didn’t have TV for the first year of our marriage; we had one for DVD’s just not hooked up to any stations. We were both in school at the time but it was surprising how much more you get done when the temptation is completely removed. I bet you learn and do all kinds of productive things, you could give Rory a run for his money and learn how to knit. It sounds crazy going without a cell phone, but I guess 15 years ago it was about 1% of people who even had them.
I will be interested to hear how it goes and what skills you master with all the free time with Dia! If you guys need the Harding house is always open for movie night!
I think that makes a lot of sense. We're exposed to a lot of different types of radiation and anything we can do to minimize that is a plus.
Here's another option for you -- turn off the wifi and bluetooth devices on your laptop and hardwire it to your Internet connection.
Very cool thoughts! I totally can relate to the health concerns--mine when I was little was called ITP, again, an evil autoimmune disease when I was 5-years-old. But since it happened, I've always had a weakened immune system. Although we're not complete raw foodies, Joey and I are gluten-free and (mostly) sugar-free. We do eat as much raw food as we can, and, oh yes, all of these things drastically improve our immune system (and some key supplements help, too). So I totally know that whole battle--yucky, but so good!
People are emotional about their cell phones. Joey and I have foregone a cell phone since 2006 and have had to get back into the habit of telling each other where we're going and when we'll get back. But what about trips, you say? We have a pre-paid phone that we can pay $30 for 1000 minutes for a month, and then we don't use it otherwise. We got sick of being out and being interrupted while trying to be out on a "date night". Of course, I did practice real estate, so I "had" to answer it. But, with that said, I think you guys will do great with a land-line ... we've done great using that as our main line. Maybe we miss more calls from friends, but then again, we can call them back when we're home again--no big deal.
And the TV, yup, we've done the thing with having a TV but only using it for DVDs (it doesn't have an antenna to get TV reception). We did have reception once, and, after watching Joey practically drooling from watching 5-minutes of baseball, I said, "No way!"
For us, it's all about us being more relational with each other, so I'm so glad that you are doing all of this. And the added benefit of less radiation--hey, I'm all for that--cancer sucks!
http://www.welcometomybrain.net/2009/12/while-other-kids-are-watchin-tv-im.html
Another raw food blogger I follow :)
Wow guys! I am so blessed by your encouragement!!
And Mark, I don't know if I will ever have the same knitting soul as my hub! Lol. He just has the talent in the fam, you know? ;)
Post a Comment