Awesomeness

Here's a new standard on how I want to live my life:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/saltlaketribune/obituary.aspx?n=val-patterson&pid=158526785

Here's the reaction to the awesome link above:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54505245-78/patterson-val-jane-mary.html.csp

Amen to that.

A Couple of Reflections Upon Getting Home

Hey everyone,

I just spent a lot of time reading the past couple of posts, and it just warms my heart to read such insightful, beautiful thoughts from everyone. So THANK YOU for writing, everyone. And like Kevin, I am trying to make more of an effort to write and keep in touch.

I wanted to share a thought upon arriving home from Connecticut, via driving across the country....

The home that I arrived to is a new one for my family! Its only about 30 minutes away from my old house, but its our first move in 20 years, and really the first one I can remember. But its a beautiful new house with wonderful views of the ocean and mountains.

But it just made me think all those cheesy thoughts about how its the people in your life that matter, so much more than place. This new home feels like home because my wonderful parents are here, my dogs are playing in the backyard, and we have family pictures all over. Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before, but its a really good reminder that people matter the most in life. I've especially felt this over the past 2 months as Drew and I have been in about 15 states, without a real home. But we've gotten to see old friends and family, and that is invaluable and incredibly comforting.

And when I think about Colby, yes I love Waterville (can you say Champions?) and the Colby campus, but its YOU folks who make me miss Colby every single day. Its you wonderful, wonderful people who I hope to visit this year with my public school calendar of national holidays off! (Michael, let's do some road trips)

Also, I want to put out there that everyone should come to Seattle! We've got tons of room at our new house and Seattle (specifically, Edmonds) is a prettttttttttty awesome place.

Lots of love,
E

Fasting

This is a long one, prepare yourselves.

There have been a few articles going around recently that have talked about how much time we spend on the computer. How we're always 'busy' and how this busy-ness may actually be a byproduct of our culture and the interweb, constantly telling us we should be doing more. Because we're constantly connected, we can technically never stop working - just one more email, just one more thing.

Well, I also realized that this dependence on the internet is doing two things:

1. Making me much less productive: facebook, email, gchat, youtube videos = distractions

2. Devouring my soul: facebook.

I had admitted this dependence to myself a few weeks ago. I was unhappy about it, but it's pretty difficult to avoid when you're not necessarily 'busy' at work for the full 8 hrs you're supposed to be there (disposable employees for the win?). 

Then, two weeks ago in church, my pastor brought up our dependence on the internet. It was a pretty powerful sermon, punctuated by the fact that when he asked us who finds them self on the internet more than 4 times a day (he quoted a statistic that in 2000 and 2001, the average American connected to the internet 4 times a day - do we even disconnect 4 times a day?) NO ONE RAISED THEIR HAND (myself included). This was actually pretty funny and he laughed and gave us a few lines about how lying is not really helping anyone, especially not when it comes to admitting your downfalls. 

So, as a church, we're starting a media fast on Saturday. In the context of our church, it's to find a little more time to concentrate on finding God in your life and doing things that help others - getting out and getting into your community. But on a larger scale, it also just a good idea. It's summer time, it's beautiful out, and there's too much in our lives that can be missed while we're sitting behind a computer screen. Too many beautiful things that we don't experience when we're behind a computer screen. This also goes for when we're out with friends - next time you're at a bar, pay attention to how many people you find playing on their iphones. It's startling that sometimes (at least here in DC) I can count at least 10 people. How can we form relationships with our heads buried in our technology?

I often find myself saying "I'm too busy" when it comes to things like calling my grandma or calling my uncle. Instead of getting things done, I whine that I'm too tired and that I'll do it tomorrow. Truthfully, I always find time to make food, because it's something that honestly makes me happy and that I've gotten good at. However, as I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, the internet has made me less productive: when I get home, I check my mail again, even though I just had it open at work. I can check facebook on my ipod touch. I can play internet games with some of you on the ipod. 

I'm trying to make a conscious effort to focus on what I'm doing when I can - that means talking to someone without simultaneously scanning something on the computer or my ipod, as the most relevant example. Once I made an effort to stop multi-tasking when it comes to relationships in my life, I realized how often I was doing it. 

Perhaps all of you are better people than me and don't have these things to worry about. DC is blisteringly hot in the summer (don't ever come here in the summer - heat island to the max), and it makes me not want to go outside or go play. But I'm going to try to make a solid effort to do things in this new city of mine this summer.

I once had a conversation with Hasan when I was unemployed (unemployment round 2, 2012) and depressed, and he told me to go get good at something: "You have the time...why not?" It was probably one of the conversations that I've thought the most about since finding a job. Why not choose something to get good at and go do it? It happened with me with cooking during unemployment round 1 back in 2011. Honestly, I don't regret it at all - that is a super useful skill, and something I now know I love doing. 

In conclusion, this post is really just a heads up to save any of you from experiencing these things I've been dealing with the past few weeks/months. If any of you would like to join me during our 40 day media-fast, let me know. I'll be turning off my facebook and hiding on gchat. I won't be fasting from the internet or email as a whole, as those are two pretty necessary things in my life these days. I'll just be more diligent about what I'm doing online. For example, instead of wasting away on facebook, maybe I'll go do some research on a topic. Maybe I'll sporcle the countries of the world. I guess my media-fast is really just a facebook-fast. #sorryimnotsorry