Day 19!

Okay first some housekeeping...

Habit broken! I'm not checking on my phone. I don't absentmindedly open up Amazon now. I swipe the notifications away people have posted. Facebook has upped their game on that and tells me about a LOT of things now. The people I interact with the most I am guessing. When Caren posts a  picture, when Dana updates her status, when Eric tags Susan in a picture, those sorts of things. I just swipe them away without clicking. I could delete the Facebook app from my phone but I'm not sure Messenger would still work if I did and I would lose my birthday notifications. Which I made a list of July birthdays as well but if the Facebook notification pops up I can click that and go directly to a birthday post area without seeing anything else on Facebook. It helps keep me honest.

So birthday posts, cross posts from Instagram, one post from another website for a deal for a new food delivery service I'm trying, and the blog.

Oh, and Brent shows me things here and there. Like he'll send me a video of the goats visiting the otters at our zoo because he knows I would miss that not being online and I really love baby goat visits. He also tells me things you all have said. Not a lot, one he's being supportive of my time away and two he's a guy so he thinks that "there is a discussion on your post" is plenty of information when I want to know who is discussing, what are they discussing, and what does their latest profile picture look like?

I also dropped the crossword game like I thought I would and today deleted another game that I've been playing. I need to make sure I'm not replacing one bad habit with another. And since I have a little less than two weeks left this is the perfect time to make sure I'm not.

I've also read a good chunk on my year for every year list and some extras. I did five years in four days this past week. Now to be fair a few of the books were not very large (there was a graphic novel in there and a YA that moved very quickly) but still. I've made enough progress that I'm actually eyeing a stretch goal of starting my 50th year book on the week of my 50th birthday. I think that's a bit ambitious, especially considering I will be on Facebook for three of those weeks, but it's in my head as a strong maybe right now. 

So anyway that's where I am.

Now I want to give you all a shout out.

One of the hardest parts of this experiment has been this page. Posting into the void. You all know how much I HATE submissions. Part of that is that I am not a good editor. To submit I write, rewrite, cancel, rewrite, delete, write, make Dana read it five times, rewrite it again. Then submit. And then, usually, nothing. You hear nothing. I was so excited this year with the first contest I entered that I got rejected within two weeks. Yes, it was a rejection and those sting, but it was something. The second submission this year I still haven't heard back from even though they SWORE everyone would get feedback.

The silence sucks. It's a big part of why I have this blog. First off the I hate editing part. Most of what you read from me I wrote in an hour or two I re-read once, tried to catch any errors (which you all know I didn't because you read my stuff) and then toss it up. And then you click on it and I can see that 5 people read it. And then I get a few comments and a couple of likes and I feel good. Because you read it. It's not posting into the void.

This month has just been posting into the void. Even though I am SURE there are comments on the posts (at least the one with the poem, because Brent told me) I am not looking at them or answering them or getting this is great or this isn't clear or this sucks or you're brilliant or you're misinformed or anything...I'm not a fan.

So...what I'm saying is thank you. Thank you all for reading my stuff, my fiction, my non-fiction, my weird goals lists, my political rants, my ideas. Thank you for reading it all. Thank you for letting me know that you've read it. Thank you for being in my world letting me know that I'm not just shouting into the void.

See you all in two weeks.

(You know the living room still isn't touched right?)