#15 Go a week without watching TV

Everything in moderation.

I’ve always been a bit of a couch potato. I love television. Movies, too. I have my shows that I watch regularly, characters that have become my “friends”. Some of you can relate, while others think I’m crazy. Although I love TV, I do know that everything is best in moderation. I decided that it was time for a little “TV Detox”. I thought maybe going without television for a week would help me decrease my TV intake.

The week of Thanksgiving (yes, I put this one off for nearly the entire year), I locked up my entertainment center and fasted from my television. I can’t tell you how many times I reached for my remote control to turn on my TV. It’s normally the first thing I do when I get home from work. Is there something specific that I watch when I get home from work? No. So why do I do it? Why do I turn the TV on if there’s nothing specific I want to watch? This week taught me what was at the root of my attachment to the television. Loneliness. I don’t like it to be too quiet. This week I visited some friends of mine. When they leave their dogs alone at home, they turn on Talk Radio. Their dogs don’t like the quiet either. Some people turn on music to cut the silence. I enjoy music, but I’ve never been as into it as many people are. I don’t even have an iPod. Or a working CD player for that matter. So, instead of music, I use TV to keep me company when I’m home alone. But not for these seven long days.

My TV locked up tight

So, what did I do during my TV fast? I thought that maybe I would be more productive. Do some cleaning, cook more, organize my closets, get to bed early. Nope. I’d like to say that I spent the time reading my bible and praying. That’s what I should have done. No, I read 5 books…traded one lazy activity for another. I enjoyed it, though! I even sat at my dining room table to eat dinner one night! That never happens because I usually eat on my couch and watch TV! I also got to appreciate the church bells that ring at the church down the street from me, marking the hours. They‘re usually drowned out by the sound of my television. When the quiet got to be too much, I used the Pandora music player online and listened to Christmas music. I found some great new Christmas songs.

While there were some positive aspects of my embargo on television, it magnified my "aloneness". The fact that I’m alone never escapes my mind. When something like this is always rattling around in your head, it doesn’t take much to bring it to the forefront. Those little colored rubber bands that come with your electric toothbrush…you use them to identify whose toothbrush head belongs to whom. I throw them away. A reminder. Filling out my filing status on the 1040 EZ. A reminder. Slipping and nearly falling while getting out of the shower and wondering, “How long would I lay here with a head injury before someone found me?”. A reminder.

A few years ago, I wanted to see a movie, but had no one to go with. So, for the first time, I mustered the courage to go to the movies by myself. It was at my town’s little theater and it was on a weekday.

I ordered my ticket, “One for Rent, please”.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can only play the movie if there are two or more patrons and so far you’re the only one who wants to watch that movie”.

I cried the whole way home, reminded.

The quiet in my house was another glaring reminder. I hear of moms all the time, locking the bathroom door just to get some peace and quiet. I have peace and quiet in spades…and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. While I do value a certain amount of alone time, too much of anything is never a good thing.

Everything in moderation.

#24 Sleep outside during a meteor shower

Growing up, in the fall, my family and I would brave the mosquitoes and the balmy air, wrap ourselves in bed sheets like mummies, and lay on the lawn to watch meteor showers. We’d lay there, waiting for a shooting star while the mosquitoes buzzed in our ears. Just as we were about to give up, one would streak by, giving us another dose of patience. This cycle would repeat itself until we couldn’t take the buzzing any longer. One night, I was driving my niece and nephews home from a movie during a meteor shower and they were captivated by the falling stars they saw out my car windows. I thought it would fun to spend a whole night outside during a meteor shower and fall asleep watching the stars.

So last spring, when I knew there was going to be a meteor shower, I took Lauren, Braden, and Braden’s friend Chris, to my parents on a Friday night with our sleeping bags in tow. As the sun set, we set up the cots and made up our beds in the middle of my parents’ driveway. My parents live about a mile out of town.  They're surrounded by farmland, so when the sun goes down, it's dark enough to see the stars!  When I would fly home from college for the weekend (from Southern California) and my mom would drive me home from the airport, I would get out of the car, breathe in the fresh, sweet smelling air, and look up at the sky.  It was the only time I got to see the stars.  They're something you start to take for granted when you see them all the time. 

My Bed

Once it was dark, we climbed into our beds to watch the show. My parents joined us for a while.  I had to leave my contacts in so that I could watch the stars as long as possible before finally succumbing to fatigue.  If I hadn't been wearing my contacts, I wouldn't have been able to see an asteroid the size of a garbage truck if it landed in the pasture next to us. That's just how blind I am.  Even with corrective lenses, I've never been very good at spotting things.  I was always the one in our family, when we went for drives in the hills, who couldn't see the deer or turkeys on the side of the road.  Despite my observational shortcomings, I saw several falling stars, and the boys claimed to have seen about 65 (mmmhhhmmmm…sure).


Lauren and I settled in and ready for the show

There’s nothing like the stars and the sky, or any natural wonder, to remind me of the majesty of God. One of my favorite passages that describes God’s “bigness” is in Job 38. Job is, as I have been known to do, questioning God’s plan. God comes to Job in a storm and responds with this:

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know? (I love that God is sarcastic here!)
Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
When I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
When I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
When I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?

Have you ever given orders to the morning, or show the dawn its place?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
Surely you know, for you were already born!

You have lived so many years! (again with the sarcasm! I love it!)
Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
(The passage is longer than this, I just included my favorite parts. I encourage you to read the whole chapter!)

I found this passage one morning while on a retreat in Tahoe this summer. I hadn’t been able to sleep, so at dawn, I took my camera and my bible, and I went out to the edge of the lake and watched the sunrise. I found this verse there. 

Now, when I witness a wonder of God’s creation, or when I begin to think my plan would be better than God’s, I think of Job chapter 38. God obviously knows more than I do, what place do I have to question Him, the Creator of the Universe?

Did you ever try to count the stars when you were a kid?  I did.  If you're still trying as an adult, you should throw in the towel.  Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains billions of stars.  If you were to count the stars in the Milky Way, one per second, it would take you 2,500 years.  And that's just the Milky Way, there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies like ours (at least that are known to man)!  It is truly mind boggling...and mighty humbling.  God created all this, and he loves ME and you!

"He brings out the starry host by number;

He calls all of them by name.

Because of His great power and strength,

not one of them is missing."

                                       Isaiah 40:26

I didn’t think the kids would make it through the night of star gazing without moving into the house. When I woke up at dawn, I thought they hadn’t made it, but they were there, just snuggled really deeply into their sleeping bags. I hope they recall that night someday and realize that God’s creation is big, but His love for them is even bigger. When we remember God's power, and we remember His love for us, we have no reason not to trust Him and His will for our lives. 

If you've never slept out under the stars, I highly recommend it!

#1 Grow out my fingernails and get a French Manicure

For as long as I can remember, I’ve bitten my fingernails. It’s a nasty habit, one I don’t even realize I’m doing when I’m doing it. I’ve tried stopping in the past, but I couldn’t seem to shake the habit. I put it on my list, determined to stop the chomping!

It’s really strange how easy it ended up being. It took focus for the first week or two, then once I saw a little success, I was encouraged and it became easier. I started growing them out in May, which turned out to be good timing, because apparently, nails grow faster in the summer! And I grew them out just in the nick of time. After the age of thirty, your fingernail growth slows down. Apparently, it’s all down hill from here.

I did have a few setbacks. I discovered I’m very rough on my hands. Several fingernails were broken while trying to open packages or by getting snagged on things. I also realized how often I had to clean them! I was constantly getting crud under them (of course, I was teaching kindergarten when I started growing them out, and kindergarten is messy business). I nearly started carrying a fingernail brush in my purse! 

I loved admiring them, though, when they were clean.  The bright white of my long nails would catch my eye at random times throughout the day and I would stop, stretch my hands out, and admire them for second or two.  I also found that I enjoyed drumming my nails on surfaces...and not just when I was bored as the action would normally suggest.  I drummed them on the steering wheel while I drove, my desk at work, and any other hard surface I happened to walk by. 

I’d heard about a kind of fingernail polish called shellac. It’s a very hard, durable polish that resembles the material that is used in acrylics, but goes over real fingernails. I decided that since I’m so hard on my nails, this was the finish I needed. I waited until I was in Portland so that I would have a beautiful French manicure for Jenn’s wedding.

I’d had a French manicure before. In eighth grade, as a graduation present, my three best friends surprised me with acrylic nails! Now, this was before it was a regular occurrence for 13 year old girls to get fake nails. It was very exciting! I thought then that maybe having the fake nails on would break my habit of biting my fingernails. No luck. But they were pretty while they lasted.

*I just bit a nail while trying to think of what to write next. See? I don’t even know it until it’s done. It’s a good thing I’ve never taken up smoking or drinking…to say I lack self control is an understatement.

So, when I went to Portland for Jenn’s wedding, Jenn and I, along with her two sisters, took a couple of hours out of the busyness of wedding preparations to get manicures and pedicures.

Pedicures

Manicures

Tada!

I have to admit, fingernails do for your hands what high heels do for your legs: they make them look longer and thinner. My stubby hands looked much prettier with some nicely manicured nails adorning them. And the tan I got for the wedding helped, too…

Unfortunately, immediately following the wedding, I spent a week camping at the beach (not the best setting for maintaining a manicure). It lasted for about two and a half weeks before the manicure got ratty looking and I took off the shellac. Without the protection of the shellac, my nails fell victim to my nasty habit once again. I haven’t grown them out since, but hope to again. They made me feel like a grown up….even if they did make texting and opening a can of soda really difficult.