Happy Monday

On Friday night The Bookworm went to bed earlyish, about 9pm. As usual I said I would be up soon. At 10:30 I realised that I had been almost obsessively cycling through my social media accounts for over an hour. I was waiting for a reply to something, hoping the person was online but also just looking at all the new things slide into my newsfeeds, cycling between so that I didn't miss anything new and exciting while catching up on a bit of Bloglovin. I kept telling myself "Just one more post, I'll just read one more, something positive to go to sleep with."

I need an intervention.

I am time-poor. I work full-time, with a daily commute (drive) approaching 2 hours, I study part time and write in my free time. I bemoan the fact I don't have enough time to write but Lady, there's your problem - an hour and a half of random social media. I consider that social media isn't time wasted, there is a friendship-maintaining/networking/contact-making/positive-ju-ju-giving aspect to it; but not if it is taking away from the things I want to be doing. I can't 'detox' because so much of building my blog is about interacting with you, my treasured readers, and it is the only way I can keep up with so many of my friends. I realised I felt very lonely on this Friday night, that I was aiming to fill the void with human contact, even if it was on the other side of the computer screen. Many of my friends are interstate and many of my local friends are also time-poor with schedules that completely contrast with mine. In those brief times we do actually manage to meet, it helps if I have an awareness of what has been going on in their lives for the last six months (yep, sometimes that long or longer). However,  I do need to cut back and perhaps allocate time to social media rather than allowing it to fill my moments in between.

How do you deal with social media? Have you found a balance?

Anyway, there were some moments in-between the scrolling and the work to enjoy the little moments and that is why we are here.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: Visiting my work friend and her brand new baby boy with gifts. He is so tiny and so squawky (as tiny babies are I guess) and I didn't want one at all. But it was beautiful to see the love on C's face and how well, at only five days old, he knew his mum. She hypothesised that it was just because he could smell her milk and I'm inclined to agree, he was sniffing around like a little pup at one stage.

:: Tea and cake at my friend's house. She made the tea, I made the cake and it was such a delightful afternoon interlude.

:: Sneezing on the tram and having another passenger say 'bless you.' I had just been thinking how soulless the early commuters can seem, so it was nice to be proven wrong.

:: Realising how much I adore learning. I had lectures this week for the second subject of my WSET Diploma. The subject is business-based, an area I have never studied before, so I was a little hesitant. I knew a little more than I gave myself credit for, just life-experience accrued, but I loved the discussion and the opportunity to increase that knowledge exponentially.

:: Wine-nerding in the afternoon. After class on the the second day a few of the guys hung about for a drink at the bar downstairs. Bellota has this cool setup where you can buy a bottle from their retail shop next door and just pay corkage. We tried 2 different bottles between the six of us and it was so lovely just sitting about and talking wine with some really interesting people.

:: A spontaneous invitation to the next door neighbour's barbeque. Such a simple thing that brought so much joy. I am aware that in the past I would probably have said no- I needed to do some study, I already had dinner in the fridge. I have been saying 'yes' more this year and it really is the way forward.

:: This gorgeous dinner of crumbed, pan-fried flathead and mango salad with a lime dressing; prepared by my personal chef. Also, the fact that it was a rare night together. Both of us studying and working is a tough gig.

:: Kindness. When you start actually looking for ways to help others there are just so many ways you can brighten somebody's day and brighten your own in the doing.

Happy Monday. In addition to telling me what made you happy this week, please give me your social media wrangling tips :)