Be Local

I got nothin'.

That's how I feel when I look at this blank box, this "New Post" square for the blog.

What is there that I can add? There are experts everywhere on every single topic. Need to know how to cane a chair? Diffuse oil? Weave hair? Pop a boil?

Hee, hee. I just said that 'cuz it rhymed.

Anyway. Whatever your need, whatever your quest, the Great Oz of The Wonderful World Wide Web will provide. Help is but a keystroke away.

Which, perhaps, is my problem.

I live in a semi-rural area that's on the way to a very rural area. In our local thrift store, I heard a woman debating with the store worker about what made a "smart" phone. She was convinced that any phone that you could take to a store with you was a smart phone. He calmly tried to explain that some people's phones that they can take into stores (cell phones) actually function as small computers. She was completely confused. The conversation ended due to lack of communication, but it was in no way for lack of trying!

Also, where I live, words like "local" and "farm friendly" are used every day and meant in positive ways. We know our bacon and the farmer who raised him. (I say this as an example. I cannot afford the bacon my farmer raises. I also have ten children, and do you know how quickly ten children devour a pound of bacon? And just you try frying some up without having anyone notice!)

But anyway. Back to the matter at hand.

I'm just sick of it.

Sick. Sick. Sick.

I'm sick of everyone being an expert because they googled, everyone being a friend because they requested on Facebook, everyone's world being contained in a box a foot from their faces.

Myself included.

Only, I remember, THAT'S what I have. Oh, yeah. The world.

These.

You know, real family. Real friends. Real.

I understand that the Internet is here to stay.

So is high fructose corn syrup. And mosquitoes.

I'm trying to figure out how to be less present among all of that and more present among all of this.

No contest, really. I mean, what difference does it make if you Shop Local, Support Your Local Farmer, Eat Local ... if you don't Live Local? Who cares if your meat came from the farm down the road, your vegetables from the back yard, your eggs from the chickens across the street...if you spend your evening tweeting about it, sending Instagrams of it, and updating your Wall? WHO CARES??? Who are these people that CARE about that junk? Care enough to want to read someone else tweeting, Instagramming, updating?

The thing is, as people, we are made to multi-task. And that's good and right. Otherwise, the laundry would never get done, or we would never eat. You cannot give your FULL attention to only one of these tasks and still get the other done. You just can't.

But as mothers, we cannot multi-task with one foot in this world and one foot in the online world without causing a colossal upset. I'm not talking about checking for recipes, or reading a funny post, or even maintaining a blog (heaven help me if I ever post on that!). I'm talking about those who live their lives here and now as fodder for posts/updates/photos there and then (or worse, there and now). You cannot live like that and not have it hurt your parenting, your marital life, your very self.

I maintain that you cannot do it. Not as a mother with children in the home.

You cannot do it, and I cannot do it.



So I guess, really, when I said "I got nothin'," what I meant was, "I got a whole lot of somethin', and sit you down and listen."