Challenge for the New Year: Delete One Game App

I have often come under fire for having "boring apps" on my iPod Touch. If you take a look, you might agree with my detractors.

The Pocket Frogs is for Jacko and the Angry Birds is a middle-of-the-night feeding companion; Words with Friends can be considered a game, but I find it keeps me mentally challenged in a world of Thomas the Tank Engine and baby dolls.

Otherwise, it's all potentially informative and used to gain new knowledge. Even Twitter, y'all!

My intention for my iPod, as well as my internet use in general, is to keep my mind humming. I have patterned myself partly after my father, who I rarely saw watching TV and never wanted a "night out with the guys." If he had free time, he would do something productive around the house, help my sisters and I with homework, or seek out a classic book he hadn't read yet. I do watch a ton of TV, but I usually am doing something while I watch—folding laundry, crocheting, scrapbooking. I do have nights out with my ladies, but that is more about building vital friendships than retreating from my normal life. I want to make every moment of my life count, even though I usually fail in the afternoons. Dang you, mid-day laziness!

There is someone I'm really close to (wink, wink, Caleb) who finds it vital to have a place to escape. My husband uses World of Warcraft to relieve his daily stress; I am vehemently against him playing, because I think it's an incredible waste of the several hours he plays each week. But, I can't argue that he has found an outlet for all of his frenetic energy. Do I hope that it's a crutch that he will eventually replace with the gargantuan "Honey, Do" list I have for him? Yes.

If you fill up your iPod or smart phone with games and play them at any available chance, might I recommend that you delete one of them this new year? Just one—use all of that free time, even if it's five minutes a day to do something memorable/productive/lasting. Clean out the cookie crumbs from your kitchen drawers (HOLLY). Try and figure out how to become a future friend to a current enemy (HOLLY). Write or draw in your paper journal about nothing at all (HOLLY). You can see that I have a few loose ends I'd like to tie up around here.

My challenge to you for the new year is to make the small moments count. They will add up to a year of fond memories.

2011 was a roller coaster. And I am going to earnestly try to make 2012 a year I'll look back on fondly.