Tag: New years resolutions

Thirtydays no social media

1/19/24

It’s been three weeks and how do I feel? Well, not seeing updates from friends and family is hard. Not that I am a super social person but I guess Facebook and Instagram are like social outings for me. A get together online with friends with no actual physical contact. You get to see what is going on with friends and family that live out of town/state. Which could be construed as lurking lol but it makes me feel somewhat connected.

I have replaced doom scrolling with reading my Kindle, some crocheting of potholders and a little bit of room organization. I’m not normally a big television fan but I did get sucked into a few series like Izombie and The 100.

When my thirtydays are up what will I do? Jump right back into the thick of social media or continue to take a step back? Maybe with a few ground rules?

I feel like I have been sleeping better. Probably due to the lack of blue light. Even though my iPad changed to night mode in the evening I don’t think my mind stopped when I would try to fall asleep.

Welp, only one more week to go🤞🏽

30 days no social media

1/07/24

Well, I made it a week without social media. Truly it hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be. The only time I seem to miss it is in the morning when I wake up or at night when I am going to bed. I wasn’t really seeing that many updates from friends. Mostly I saw a lot of ads which are annoying. You can delete them but that is time consuming. I did learn how to make plants grow and 100 uses for cottage cheese lol. Tiktok seems to be the biggest time waster for me. It’s way too easy to keep scrolling. Just one more video and three hours later I’m wondering where the time went.

I started receiving emails from Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. Updates on who was posting and what. I guess since I quit logging on they noticed. They need to feed those ads lol.

Have I been more productive? Ummmm, somewhat. I find myself reading more, organizing trips on paper and purging clothes from my closet.

We will see how this goes😁

No social media for 30 days

12/31/23 123123

30 days no social media.

No Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Reddit.

Social media definition

Interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the Internet.

I tell myself I go on there to see what my friends are up to but in reality I get sucked into a black hole of scrolling. Scrolling through videos I don’t need to watch. Information I don’t need to know. Fake news I can do without. Sure, I might learn how to make butter, see cute cat rescues, organize my house room by room or get Christmas party ideas but 99% of the videos I watched I don’t remember. So they are just time wasters, distractions from things that need to be done.

I understand that this blog is a form of social media but I will strictly be using it to post and receive feedback. Nothing more.

With that, wish me luck. 🤞🏽🤞🏽

Thirtydays 2021 recap

Well, and just like that. 2021 is one and done. I guess that should have been my new year’s resolution. Blog for a whole year. I’m actually kind of proud of myself for sticking to it. I think I’m going to print it out so I can read it beginning to end.

So, recap. I’m a little late with this. I quit the gym for a couple of months and I found that was when I blogged the most. So, back at the gym and back to the blog. How do I blog and workout at the same time? Well, my favorite machine is the ARC trainer. It’s just like an elliptical but no arms so that leaves my hands free to type on my phone. Lol helps with my balance too!

Twelve 30 day goals.

1. No online shopping

2. No candy/chocolate

3. Shop small

4. The Purge

5. Green drinks

6. No snooze

7. 64oz water

8. Trash less

9. Trash less 2.0

10. No social media

11. Anti-inflammatory diet

12. Bullet journal

Favorite thirtydays?

It would have to be trash less. I learned a lot about my garbage habits and how I look at packaging of the stuff I purchase. I am still using the un-paper towels and handkerchiefs. I rarely use paper plates and disposable silverware. I bring my reusable shopping and produce bags when shopping. I still use the composter for food garbage.

I cringe with every piece of garbage I put in the trashcan. I wrack my brain on how I can reuse it. I know, by keeping it kind of goes against my second favorite thirtydays.

The Purge. It was very freeing donating bags of stuff that I knew I would never use. I didn’t do the Marie Kondo method, holding it while asking myself if it brought me joy🙄. Nope, I held it up and asked myself how much would it cost me to replace it. Pretty much all of it was minimal dollars except the stuff that had sentimental value. I’m still going through the house now. Someday it will be cleaned out.

Hardest thirtydays?

Has to be the no social media. I don’t really consider myself a social person but social media makes it easy to be social while not in person. You can connect with people near or far with a post, message or a like on their page. Covid kind of cut off the in person meet ups so I think for some it was a needed interaction. I gravitated more towards Instagram because of no politics, just fun stuff. Reddit is my second favorite. Just a forum you can talk to others with similar interests. There is some political stuff but not as much as Facebook and Twitter. They have really gotten more about politics and advertisements which I find annoying but some of my friends only use those venues so I can’t dump them. Tiktok is probably the worst. Laying in bed, swiping through video after video while not realizing an hour or three has passed. I did learn some stuff about plants and iPhone tips but was it really worth it?

Easiest thirtydays?

Had to be the 64 Oz of water per day. I found I drink twice that a day. I love water. Room temperature, not cold or with ice. Just gulpable, sitting out on the counter, water lol.

Which thirtydays have I kicked to the curb?

No snooze. That one was impossible. I am not going to lie. I’m not a morning person. My alarm is set for 6am and most days I make it out of bed by 7am if I’m lucky. Maybe I need to go back east for a month so when I get back I’m used to getting up at 3am 😂

The bullet journal was tough. I live a pretty boring life so the daily bullets were hard to find something interesting to write about. I still keep a bullet journal but it’s just a recap of the month or if something exciting happens.

I am sad that this blog is over but I think a foxpartyofone trip may be in my future. Stay tuned😊

Thirtydays

Bullet journal

December is done and what I thought would bean easy thirtydays, was not. Unless something out of the ordinary happened it’s hard to write something every day. I have come to realize my life is pretty boring. During the week I go to work, work, come home and go to bed. Oh, I eat and play with the animals in between all that but it’s not that note worthy lol. The weekends are a little more interesting. I hang out with my partner. Maybe we go do something or maybe we just sit around the house and vegetate.

I do like the concept of bullet journaling. It kind of reminds me of a calendar. Small bits of information for the month. It also allows for a little time to reflect on the day. I do wish I had kept all of my calendars from the past. There was so much of my life written down in one small square. I think I will continue with a scaled back version and write bullets of things to remember just not every day.

Stay tuned for my recap. 😁

Thirtydays

Anti-inflammatory diet

Welp, I have to say that this thirtydays was mostly a bust. My list of foods not to eat was pretty much my entire diet. Why did I choose to do this one? I have had stomach issues because of gluten and some minor joint pain from overuse and abuse probably the last ten plus years and I felt like it was worth a try.

The list of foods to avoid was long and intimidating so I picked a few and went with it.

I cut out gluten and wheat. I’m no stranger to that diet so it was a noticeable improvement in my stomach health. I abstained from fast foods and cookies brought in to work by coworkers. I also quit eating processed meats. That was a tough one. Lunchmeat, meat sticks and Spam. I like to eat things that are easy lol. I added tuna, tilapia and salmon for dinners. For lunch I ate avocados, nuts and hard boiled eggs. I continued drinking a green drink in the morning. That’s probably the only way I get my veggies lol. This got old real fast. I am not a super chef so cooking for just myself is a chore. If someone could just invent a breakfast, lunch and dinner pill I would be fine with that.

Will I continue with this diet? Gluten and wheat free, yes. I will try and throw in some of the, “yes foods” intermittently but probably not everyday.

Now, onto my last thirtydays of the year. Seems crazy that it’s already December. I read an article about bullet journaling. Basically you just write a few words for each day. No big commitment to writing paragraphs but it could turn into one. It also helps focus on what happened with your day. Instead of always moving forward it gives you a chance to reflect. My plan is to write something every day in December.

Wish me luck🤞🏽

Thirtydays

Anti inflammatory diet

No social media- done. I woke up this morning and contemplated what apps to re-load.

1. Instagram yes. No politics.

2. Facebook yes. There are a couple of my friends not on Instagram and I like to see what they are up to plus I am an admin for my Lions Club page.

3. Reddit yes. I feel like that is more about discussion threads. You can choose to talk politics or not.

4. YouTube yes. The how to videos are needed lol.

5. Tiktok no. It was too easy to scroll through video after video and have two hours disappear.

6. Pinterest yes. More about getting ideas and info on things I am interested in.

It only took about 45 minutes to download the apps and catch up on what everybody was up to. I think I will limit myself to checking them once a day and max of an hour or maybe just weekends. I just don’t want to fall back into any old habits.

On to my anti inflammatory diet. For those of you who don’t know me and what I typically eat during the day. Here is the short list.

Breakfast :

Green drink. Power greens, orange juice, flax, chia, hemp hearts and blueberries.

That’s good but it’s all downhill from there.

Lunch:

I am the queen of easy. If I just have to open a package of anything, I’m good. So, pepperoni, cheese, lunch meat, hard salami, crackers, peanut butter and bananas. Those are all my fast foods lol. The peanut butter and bananas are the only healthy items.

Dinner:

Precooked hamburgers and a can of green beans. A bowl of cereal/granola. A cup of instant mashed potatoes. Mac n cheese. Chips and cheese.

Baby steps. There is no way I can change everything. The list is way too long. I will start with a few things at a time.

Stay tuned for the list and me luck 🤞🏽

Thirtydays

No social media

This has definitely been one of the longest and most difficult thirtydays of 2021. You don’t realize how much you look at social media until you can’t. I did replace some of that time wasted with the television lol but not a lot.

In addition to no social media I also quit my smart watch. It may have been all in my head but every time I wore it my wrist hurt. The last straw was when I got back from a week of camping and not wearing it. I put it on for work Monday and by ten o’clock my wrist was throbbing and it had worn off three small round dots of my suntan where the watch sensors were sitting. When you think about it, is it really good to have the equivalent of a cell phone sitting on your arm? I did miss the voice to text feature and the find cell phone beeper but I’m sure there is a work around for that lol.

The after effects of no social media. Call me crazy but I feel like my mind is a little sharper. I am always misplacing something and last night I lost my phone somewhere in the house and I actually remembered where I set it down! That never happens lol.

So, the next thirtydays? I will be following an anti-inflammatory diet. That entails more vegetables and less processed foods. I. May. Die. Lol. Wish me luck 🤞🏽

Thirtydays

no social media

I seem to be finding a lot to do without social media. Cleaning, organizing, getting hooked on “Survivor” again, driving 75 miles to drop off my dog for a sleepover with my grandson lol.

Coincidently, Facebook was down. One of my coworker was silently going insane not knowing if she forgot her password or something was wrong with her phone. She later found out about the outage.

I’m finding there are times that social media is useful. YouTube. I was looking up how to reseat a toilet on the internet and most of the videos direct you to YouTube. I finally found one that was just on a website.

I watched my grandson get his next belt in karate. I took pictures but since this thirtydays is still going on I couldn’t post anything. Same with the Aftershock trip. I think that’s what social media is for me. A timeline of what has gone on in my life. Before, there was film cameras or my memory. Both of those lacking lol. Film, you took a picture and then when you remembered you take it in to get developed. Fingers crossed that the photos came out in focus and it wasn’t a roll from two years ago. My memory, lol, most things are written down on calendars but unless I keep them forever they are gone.

Only seven more days lol. At this point I don’t know what I will re-install. 🤞🏽

Thirtydays

No social media

Day one. I woke up and reached for my phone. Usually I lay in bed, thumbing through social media pages, watching videos and seeing everyone’s updates. I will admit an hour will go by after the alarm goes off but not this morning. I go through my phone and my tablet and delete all the social apps. Hmm. Well I might as well get out of bed lol. So right off the bat I am way more productive than yesterday 😁

It’s interesting how many times I reached for my phone today only to put it back down. Social media is like a drug. I’m not really feeling any withdrawal symptoms at this point. I just have noticed how much I am connected to it.

Day two. Same morning as yesterday. I got out of bed. Ate breakfast while reading…..wait for it…a magazine lol. Consumer reports has an article about how to quit plastic. It makes me cringe even more thinking how much plastic I have thrown out in the past. Oh well got to start somewhere.

Day three. I got several emails from Facebook. Telling me that one of my friends posted a picture or a video. Weird coincidence, big brother or? And this didn’t happen just one time either. Four so far. I had deleted all of the apps so I don’t know how or why I am being tracked but it just started doing it this month. Creepy.

So, don’t judge me but I calculated out how much time I spent on social media and it came out to around four hours a day. That’s a low number. That is 120 hours per month. Five days worth. All wasted doing nothing. I am totally disgusted with myself. I think about how quickly time passes and I wasted hours when I could be doing something productive? I don’t want to wake up, old, and say, “where did the time go”. That scares me.

I feel like this can of worms is not getting closed up at the end of the month.

Wish me luck🤞🏽