21 February 2009

Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Wednesday

Yes, I know it has been a couple of days, but things have been happening here. And it all started with Low-Tech Wednesday. Now as far as low-tech goes, it was a bit of a failure. It did make me realise though, all of the wonderful tech that I just don't want to live without. (I don't say can't live without, as I have done so quite successfully in my childhood!) I mean, hot and cold running water! Flushing toilets! (I just have to put those two first, because I am NEVER going back to not having them, LOL.) But we also continued to use our refrigerator, freezer, lights, car (to go the playgroup and ferry DH to and from the train station), washing machine, stove top, oven and the dishwasher. That is a LOT of technology, just in one day. It is amazing how reliant we become on it.

When we were in the shed, it was slightly easier to do without some of these things. For a start, we didn't have a dishwasher! On previous low-tech days, I've avoided putting on loads of washing, or using the oven, and we've done our dinner cooking outdoors on the barbeque, but given our household's tiredness (I'm pretty sure even DD is a little sleep deprived right now, or maybe she's just having one of those growth spurts), we went the easy route. The only things we turned off for the day, were the computers/TV.

But none the less, it made a HUGE impact on our day. I've never been one of those people who insisted that the TV was bad, and we should do without it. However, low-tech Wednesday made me realise that we've been coming to rely on the TV and computers just a little too much for our entertainment, and we were all suffering for it. DD has been much calmer, and much more likely to find games to entertain herself, with her TV time limited to about an hour a day.

I'll be back to post tomorrow about some of the fun things we've been doing!

No comments: