The Black Hole of Cyberspace

Media Monday is back again.. welcome to the month of August! Does anyone else feel like time is on power-boost?  Today is my mother's birthday and reading Courtney's post brought a smile to my face. As she recounted her grandmother's accounts of how chickens used to be delivered .. I recalled my own grandmother who raised chickens and my mother's own experiences.

Let's just say that she was the one chasing down the chicken in the backyard for her brother to do the dirty work. She also had the lovely tasks of  cleaning up the coops and climbing under the house to clean droppings or fetch runaway hens or stray cats (houses used to be built on pillars back then).

Well, on to the meat of this post... how does media affect our homemaking. First-off, let me say that without a doubt the things I've learned from others here have really changed the way I look at my homemaking and it could be both positive and negative.

Blogs such as Women Living Well,  Time Warp Wife,  Raising Homemakers and Joyful Mothering  have really set the bar higher for me and I've challenged myself to do things differently.  Its been great to learn new things and get tips from other mothers. On the negative side... sometimes I can feel a little intimidated when I see how well some people appear to be managing their homes compared with myself.  Its easy enough to click on other blogs and see beautiful pictures and read about how other mothers are so well-organized.  Its easy to get sucked into the myth that their lives are perfect and mine is not.

There is also the very real challenge of being distracted from our chores by the media...Courtney was very honest here. I also tend to read about things while not doing them. Recently I signed on for three different challenges.. hoping to motivate myself to become more organized and productive, lose weight and increase my biblical knowledge.  I think you can guess what happened.. I ended up reading about everyone else's progress and having nothing much change from my end.

I've come to realize that the internet is like this black hole that can suck you in.. there's always some link to click on.. you tell yourself that you'll only read a couple of blogs and then get on to your chores. The next thing you know its almost lunch time and you've still got laundry in the washer and dishes in the sink and you start pulling your hair out to get it all done.. anyone can relate?

All in all though.. I love being part of the blogging world. I love reading other women's ideas and seeing beautiful pictures. I love getting new recipes and seeing a different perspective on things. You ladies inspire me to do better and quite a lot of you share your own struggles too.. so I know I'm not alone in my challenges.

Now, its really tempting to keep reading from my blog feed, but  I'd better go get started on my mother's birthday cake!  Speaking of which I saw a great recipe on  browneyedbaker  that I want to try out...sigh.. I'll 'see' you all later.