It all starts Here: http://www.outsideonline.com/1870381/take-two-hours-pine-forest-and-call-me-morning?utm_source=fitness&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=12072016&spMailingID=27270455&spUserID=NzQ1NjI1MDE5MjcS1&spJobID=941639112&spReportId=OTQxNjM5MTEyS0

"Indeed, in 2008, the world reached a curious milestone: more people lived in urban areas than outside of them. In the U.S., urban areas grew faster in 2010 and 2011 than suburban regions for the first time since the 1920s. According to Nicholas Carr’s 2010 book The Shallows, the average American spends at least eight hours a day looking at some sort of electronic screen. Then we try to relax by watching TV. Bad idea. Research shows that this only makes us crabbier. Logan asserts that, since the age of the Internet, North Americans have become more aggressive, more narcissistic, more distracted, more depressed, and less cognitively nimble. Oh yeah, and fatter."

The thought lodged: could I live without screens? It seems like an easy question, doesn't it? But, for five whole minutes, it sent me to my bed, scared and depressed. What could I do? What would I do? Would I close down that particular webpage, stop reading that article? Let it go without posing the question to my friends and family?

No. I may be scared because it's an unfamiliar territory, but that's not a good reason. Everything is unfamiliar, until you explore it.

So, let's do that. My world without screens. What would that look like?

I wake up anywhere between 3:30 and 6:00 am. Instead of checking my phone to see what time it is, I check the clock in the kitchen, one room over. After all, we still have electricity. Next . . . I check my eBay sales - nope. If I'm going to sell things, they are going to have to be to people immediately available to me. Yard sale? Resale store? Check my LinkedIn - nope. I'll have to get to know other people in the sustainable agriculture industry where I have immediate access. Get to know my local farmers at the downtown market. Check my Facebook - nope. There goes my Perfectly Posh business, down the drain. The company is not local and I have only one local customer. I do have lots of samples I can hand out, but I will be unable to order more product - it's only available through the Internet. Friends? Again, my friends will be relegated to local or people with whom I write letters. Ah ha! The old-fashioned address book comes back into being. My fitness routine will have to be of my own devising - Nerd Fitness also only exists on the Internet. PayPal becomes obsolete. Email? Ha! Anyone who wants to get in touch with me will have to know my address and send me mail or visit me. Everyone in this house has smartphones - without those, we have no phone service.

This blog becomes a diary. My meticulous to-do log, also on paper. Paper books, no more Kindle. Computer games - gone. What will my teenagers do, without YouTube and Overwatch? My older teenager-at-home will study. He has just realized that he will be a senior next year and wouldn't it be lovely if he got into college? He asked me just this morning if I can pick him up from school later so he can study. The computer is too much of a distraction to study at home. Music in the car, well, good thing I still have all those CDs! To the tune of "the knee bone connects to the leg bone," we have "the smartphone connects to the aux cord."

Without these, what do I do during the day? I cook. All the things I've been meaning to cook and then, I don't. I learn to sew. I pay more attention to my family and my animals. I write letters. I send packages of love to faraway friends. That doesn't sound so bad - it sounds positively blissful . . . I read books. I make love with my husband, instead of binge-watching Bones on Netflix.

My husband has to actually go to the college campus where he's in school. Without screens, we have no need for computer techs, so he learns to cook instead. He doesn't have to get to the next level of Skyrim, so what does he do during the afternoons . . . he is pondering this now.

My daughter doesn't watch her shows on YouTube or movies on the dvd player. What does she do, instead? Inquiring minds want to know. Upon inquiry, she says she would make a nuisance of herself. However, I think that would get old and she would learn to entertain herself in other ways - not a bad thing at all.

So, now, at the end of these musings, what happens next? What do we do with this idea? What would you do with this idea?