Mealtime - September 2007

Mealtime - a time set aside for meals. Almost makes it sound important, having its own time and all. Well, IT IS!

Even if you are single ... I think times should be set aside for sitting down and making your meals an event, and not just an afterthought handed to you through a drive-through window and consumed before your next destination.

There are times for drive-thru's - goodness knows I've visited enough of them in my lifetime. There are also times for paper plates and plastic utensils, like at the family reunion of my in-laws a couple of weeks ago.

But there's also nothing wrong with breaking out a tablecloth, or placemats, and metal "flatware" every once in a while either. Years ago, I visited with some friends of my mother for several days. While I was visiting, they had cloth napkins at every meal ... with napkin rings, no less. Did it make for more work for my hosts? Sure. But the boost it gave me towered over any inconvenience.

You see, we as individuals and families ARE important enough to take a little extra effort at meals. What we eat and drink is what fuels our bodies and allows us to get through what we have to do during a day. Yes, medicine is sometimes important too, but if you didn't or don't eat well, the meds can't work as well either.

So I have a challenge for you all:

If you are single, take a little extra time at one meal in this next week. Make a place setting, light a candle, put a flower on the table. If you're really adventurous, invite someone over to share a meal. If you are married with or without children, make a point to have everyone together at the table for a meal. Use real plates. Talk to each other about how your days went.

Here is a site that focuses on keeping children off alcohol and drugs. This may or may not be a concern in your family. Regardless, they have some good information.

Bon appetit!

Computers - September 2007

One way I've used to bring my family together is through the use of online photo sharing. The closest grandparent is 30 minutes away, but there are two in San Francisco (shortly to be moving to Fort Worth), and one in Salt Lake City. We can snap pictures here in Kentucky of the kids, post them to our photo accounts and within minute they can be printed out wherever the grandparents happen to be.

I "googled" "online photo storage and they came up with 21,700,000 results. I have, or have had accounts at several of them:

Photobucket, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Flickr.

For instance, here is a picture of my boys doing what they do best at the family reunion last weekend:

That's Ben actually looking at the camera, and Brian intent on the work in front of him!

Do you have online photo storage? If so, which service to you use? Do you like it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Technology and the Family - September 2007

While few would argue that technology has helped us in many ways (travel taking hours instead of days or weeks, laser surgery, etc.), how do we balance the use of technology in our lives so that it enhances our experiences and families and doesn't tear them apart?

Take computers for example. I first encountered this thing we call the Internet back in the fall of 1992. Back then we were talking amber or green print (no pictures, etc) on a black screen and moving from 286 to 386 connection was cause for celebrations. I was at college at the time and saw a listing of MUSHes (multi-user shared hallucinations), accessible via the computer, hosted only who-knows-where. So how does all that work? MUSHes are basically online role-playing games (rpgs), and people would type conversations back and forth between the different characters they assumed. Anne Rice was a big thing at this time (I don't even think the 5th book of the Vampire series was out), and most of my characters seemed to be vampires.

I met my first husband on one of these MUSHes. We talked back and forth, on the computer, and on the phone (one time alone was 2 hours). He asked me to marry him, before we ever met face to face and I agreed. (Yeah, I know, but I was younger and more stupid back then.) We got married in the county courthouse about 7 hours after we met in person.

So, now I had myself a "family", and that is a good thing, right? Well, 6 months later, I asked him to leave our apartment, and about a month after that, he left the state.

Flash forward 14 years. Computers are even more fun now then they were back then. The colors, the sites and sounds are astounding. They are used in nearly every corner of our lives: cars are computerized, kitchen appliances, washers and dryers, offices and schools, etc.

They also lead me to another man, another marriage and three children. That family is still together ... relationships are rocky at times ... but we were never promised it would be easy.

*****

While looking online for information about "technology", I came across this interesting article from Australia that suggests all the technology and choices we have this day is actually detracting from the family's time together.