My Strange Addiction (which isn't all that strange)

I have an unhealthy addiction to the internet (says the girl writing on her internet blog).  When I am home alone and bored, I find myself visiting the same sites over and over again: Facebook, Pinterest, Cracked, and Buzzfeed.  Literally for hours.

It started off innocent enough; Pinterest helped me shut off my brain after a long day because I could just stare at pretty pictures as I scrolled down the never-ending page.  Facebook let me stalk my friends and family so that when I saw them next I could ask them what was new and pretend like I had no idea.  Buzzfeed let me look at gifs of puppies and kittens.  Cracked taught me things (mostly useless things, but things).  I was learning and being entertained; life was good.

The tipping point came when I read an article from one of the magazines my church publishes; you can read the article here: https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/06/media-with-merit?lang=eng&query=media+with+merit

I realized that although I was keeping my brain occupied, I wasn't really doing anything.  I was passively staring at the screen taking in information, and because of that I was wasting hours of time.  So The Man and I sat down the other night and talked about the article and things we could do when we got home that maybe didn't involve the computers (a great one for me right now would be grading, seeing as there's only two days left of school...oh well).  It's weird, because I always thought of myself as an active person until I looked at what I really did during the day.  So I resolved to make a change.

Yesterday I did not visit Pinterest, Cracked, or Buzzfeed at all.  I did check Facebook, but for no more than 10 minutes.  Since I wasn't glued to the screen, I did four loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded, and put away), made dinner (meatloaf, due to a craving), graded some papers, washed all the dishes, picked The Man up from school, got some supplies from the store for school today, and cleaned the microwave.  Which doesn't seem like a lot, but keep in mind this was after 10 hours of being at school, and I'm pregnant.  So, I feel pretty dang accomplished.  I just got home from school half an hour ago, but here's to hoping for another successful day.

I figure that if I talk to you about it, dear interwebs, it will give me more resolve to stay away from useless sites (at least until I can self-regulate my usage).  Want to join me?  Could be fun!  We could whine about our withdrawals together!