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Losing Traditions

It's kind of a weird fear, maybe not even a fear really, but the feeling of forgetting to teach my kids all of the "important" songs, traditions, stories, etc.  Sometimes I feel guilty if my kids don't know the words to "I've Been Working on the Railroad" or I haven't forced them to read some classic book.  But I think that's kind of prideful.  Why are my traditions/favorites/experiences the best or most important?  I don't know why I feel like old culture is dying out as if I'm some 100 year old historian who must instill every last detail of civilization into my children.   The truth is I am teaching them plenty.  Maybe we haven't covered every fairy tale that I adored as a child, learned every song I learned and loved in elementary school, or even done the same type of important unit studies on ancient Greece as I did in high school.  But are those essential?  The things I learned growing up are not the same things my parents learn...
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Creating Anything

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Creating feels like such an overused word.  Maybe because it's now associated with "content creator" and even saying "I am creating something" sounds pompous and ridiculous.  Or maybe it feels vain to say "I'm creative".  I don't know.  But I'm using it anyway.   In my quest to not be consumed by mindlessness I have been listening to more videos about pushing back against our natural inclination to fall into time wasting.  Videos that talk about how much time we spend on our phones, how much time that adds up to in a week, a year, etc.  It's pretty gross, and not what I want for my life.  Yesterday I spent almost an hour in more or less silence (kids were reading or outside) trimming quilt blocks.  No music, no audio, not much talking to anyone.  Being alone with my thoughts.  To be really honest it was very boring at first.  Usually I am at the very least listening to music, if not having multiple conversations with the k...
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Phone Addiction/Wasting Time

Like every other person on this planet I seem to have an endless addiction to my phone.  I realize that before I had a smart phone I was also similarly obsessed with my laptop, and before that my desktop computer, but the tiny computer is very easy to take everywhere.  Additionally, we all know that over the years companies that sell devices, apps, content creators, etc. who all want everyone to LOOK at their stuff, and to look for as long as possible have gotten significantly better at enticing us.  I can't really use that as an excuse, as I'd like to be responsible for my behavior, but it surely contributes to increased time spent starting at my tiny screen.   As I try to pull away from bad technological behavior, I have been focusing on creating instead of consuming so much.  And by consuming I mean both buying physical stuff (junk) and just endlessly doom scrolling as many of us are prone to do.  Do I enjoy a good LOTR meme, a funny video about how...
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