Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Mutiny Month 4 Day 1: Media

As you may or may not recall, we are working our way through “7: The Mutiny” with our Hope Group. Here’s a little “overview” if you missed it when we began.

Thus far, we have made it through, I mean experienced…Food, Clothes and Possessions.

And now, today, we begin Media.

Food was by far the toughest…but we are already back to eating all the things we were really sick of by the end of that month. Choosing what to make for dinner became a real breeze. I kind of miss that.

Wearing the same 7 articles of clothes for a month wasn’t too terrible and even the day after we were finished with that fast, I found myself still wanting to wear the same things. Plus it made getting dressed in the morning uber-simple. Granted, we didn’t include workout clothes and jammies in our 7 articles, and with an urpy (putting it mildly) baby in the house, those were gifts we were thankful to have.

Possessions: I don’t think I even wrote about this one. Mostly b/c I wasn’t doing much writing, but also because I don’t think I did this one as well. I know I gave up the designated amount of 196 items (for my math-impaired friends, this equals 7 items a day for 28 days) but I know there is much work yet to be done in that area so I will continue to wade through my possessions.

Which brings us now to Media.

We decided not to skip the two weeks between fasts this time…mostly b/c we are so shallow as to not want to miss all the Christmas specials and such; staying the course, we will finish this month on December 19, just in time to squeeze in all those movies before December 25.

So clearly we still have some heart issues which need to be addressed…and I put myself at the top of the list of “who needs the most work”.

So what is the point of this month? My interpretation of the chapter is that it is to spend time in prayer, Bible study, and with family NOT staring at a screen together. Not that it is bad to watch TV or a movie together, but if that is your ONLY family time, it might be a problem.

Sorry if you feel judged…it’s not my intent. Mostly it’s about my/our conviction. Your conviction is totally on you. And God...I advise you to take it up with him.

So what are our rules? I won’t even tell you her rules because they are kind of cray-cray. We, as a group, we bent some, and then I bent them even more. So here are my rules, in no particular order:

  • I am refraining from Facebook (OK, I am allowing myself one visit and possible post to it per day…but even then it might not be even that often. I shall try…)
  • No Instagram.
  • We get seven hours of tv/movie time/week. We are not holding our kids to this (as in my family is not…I don’t know about the other families, actually), but we will not be watching TV together as a family every evening. We might have to bust out the euchre cards again. Wahoo!
  • Email as need for family business, work, etc. No superfluous emailing.
  • Same goes for texting. (Ugh…I am not sure how I will survive. How did I live prior to the text?!?)
  • I knew that I would be so filled with blog ideas in these 28 days that I could not take my blogging away…but I don’t plan to READ any blogs during this time. Which actually won’t be too too different from what I have been doing since The Little Man arrived, but still. I am intentionally refraining rather than simply being too busy.
  • Radio…I am choosing to only listen to Christian stations or Christmas…which should overlap but doesn’t always. I don’t think Dominick the Christmas Donkey is one we’ve ever sung in church. I could be mistaken, though, so don’t quote me on it…
  • No gaming…which is not a problem for me. Which may be why I included it.
  • We are allowing 7 minutes/day of superfluous internet access, which will be when I load my blog post into Blogger. (And check my FB.)
  • Also, I am not considering online shopping for Christmas in my 7 minutes a day…the way I figure it is this: if I can shop online and not have to either a) drag 1-3 boys out shopping with me, or b) go in the evenings or week-ends when Mr. AR is home, this will exponentially increase the amount of time we get to spend together so it seems like the “broken rule” that makes the most sense.

So with that, I will wrap up by telling you how I have failed in this experiment already. On Day 1.

When I was doing Christmas shopping online, my 11yo was watching “Elf” in the adjoining room…I tried not to listen but I couldn’t help it. Technically I didn’t “watch” it but I’ve seen it so many times I could picture it all in my mind. And maybe say the lines along with the movie. Don’t judge.

When we took the boys shopping at the actual mall (yes, I online shopped and then made them actually go to real live stores), I tried to get on the wifi to check Facebook…because I forgot about “7”.  Fortunately, the connection was slow so it never did connect.

But as I sat there waiting for Mr. AR and the 11yo to meet up with us, I sat mindlessly watching a TV that was set up there…because I couldn’t get on the wifi. So 6 of one, half dozen of another, right?

So yeah…it might be a long long month. If I have time, I’m sure you’ll read all about it. Lucky you!



2 comments:

  1. Eek! Did this thing start yet?? I haven't texted you about our date!

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    1. Oh that would not be superfluous...I just can't text all willy-nilly. You texting me about our dessert date would totally fall under "family business". :)

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