Off the Shelf; or What's New in My Corner of the World 3

Today is the first day in a long time that I don't have a pile of work awaiting my attention. Mid-April always means a lighter workload for me, and the timing couldn't be better. With milder temperatures, spring fever sets in with a vengeance, and I'm itching to get outside and fix up the deck, clean the porch, and tidy up the yard and gardens.

On the schedule for this afternoon: buy potting soil and clean out my planters so I'll be ready to start shopping the local nurseries. Oh and it's only two more weeks until our outdoor farmers' market opens for the season. Good-bye vegetables from California, hello local produce!

Quiet time: A few years ago I edited a parenting book that inspired Mr. BFR and me to implement a change in our (childless) lives, and it's become a welcome habit. Almost every night after dinner we have a no-screen hour. During that time, we don't watch television and stay off our phones and computers. It's our time to do something fun (like play cards or work on a jigsaw puzzle) or listen to music, read (eBook screens are allowed), do crafts, enjoy a hobby, get a chore done, and so on. We don't always engage in a joint activity, and we don't set a timer. We've both been surprised at how often an hour of reading or playing the guitar (Mr. BFR) or lacemaking (me), turns into a whole evening without the television or social media. It's a great way to de-stress.

Still struggling (kind of): On Twitter the other day I joined a conversation about reading digital books. A couple of us agreed that making the switch was less about reading on a screen instead of holding a book and more about getting used to the other aspects: flagging quotes, marking data for use in reviews, not having a clear visual of how much you've read and where the end of the chapter is. The other big issue was remembering what's in your digital library. When I go to pick my next book, I like looking at the covers, maybe reading the first page or so, and seeing all my choices in a row (or stack). I forget to look at my digital library. One friend mentioned that she keeps a spreadsheet so she can see her digital library. My problem is that I'm not usually near my computer when I go to pick out my next book . . . perhaps I need to print out monthly lists. I'm going to give it a try.

Instagram: I used to share a daily photograph, and I loved looking at the world through the eye of a camera lens. I've gotten away from that, mostly because I live in a small town, walk the same four or five routes, and work from home. I thought my photos were becoming repetitive and I was losing my inspiration. I've recently decided that the pressure was all in my head. Instead of making sure every photo was "artsy" why not just share a moment from my life? I'm about a week into my new approach, and I'm happy. I've been photographing my books, what I baked, what I saw in the garden. I'm just going to go for it. If I get a lot of likes--yay me. If I don't--oh well.

Life changer: Huge shout out to SuziQoregon (Whimpulsive blog), for introducing me to ProtoPage, which I'm now using for my blog reader. I'm just setting it up and haven't added everybody yet, but I'm loving it! Here's what I did. First I either deleted or moved everything on the home screen that was already there (suggested by the app). Then I filled the front page with the blogs I read, editing the view to suit my needs. Now I can go to ProtoPage and see if anyone has published a new post and click through to read it. This works beautifully, and I'm so glad to be back to making the blog rounds. I'm slowly adding everyone's feeds to my ProtoPage home screen and love feeling connected again. BTW: it's a pretty cool site, and you can make tabs for different kinds of blogs or for adding Twitter feeds, news feeds, and even your Google calendar. Say thanks to SuziQoregon.