After reading a post on Electrolicious by Ariel Meadow Stallings about her new project called 52 Nights Unplugged, I decided to unplug myself for President’s Day. I love the Internet and enjoy spending time connecting with my clients and friends through email and blogs. I think I might love it a little too much. Recently I have started to get a little unbalanced with my daily computer usage. So, I made a conscious effort to unplug from anything with a screen for a day. No cell phone,computer, TV, or movies. I also decided to not pick up my digital camera. Ariel does use a a digital camera on her unplugged nights. But since I love and miss film I figure it is the perfect opportunity to take a break from my digital camera as well.

Lucky for me President’s day was beautiful in Tacoma so I enjoyed a nice walk to the store with Jon. Then I had lazy afternoon reading on the couch which led to a cat nap. I was able to get a little cleaning done and enjoyed an evening yoga class. The one time I REALLY wished I had my camera or even better a video camera was on our return from the store. As we walked we could hear loud and annoying honking coming from a car parked on the side of the street. As we got closer to the car we spotted a dog in the driver’s seat waiting for his owner to finish lunch inside the Thai place. The dog was honking the horn like crazy! It was so funny, we weren’t sure if it was purely accidental or if it is a trick that he has somehow figured out. (either way it was so funny)!

I have to admit that I didn’t make it unplugged as long as I had planned to. After yoga I talked with my sister on the phone (1st rule broken). After speaking with her I realized that I really needed to get us a room in New York for our trip this week. I considered putting it off until tonight but decided it would put us both at ease if I plugged myself back in and took care of business. I did find us a little apartment in Soho to stay at, so mission accomplished! It was nice to go until 10:15 pm without any screen action and the TV did stay unplugged all night. I definitely would like to make this a weekly goal and I am trying decide which night of the week I should unplug.

My mini break from my daily habits and routine was very refreshing! It reminded me of a quiet week that Jon and I spent in Italy a few years ago. We stayed in Venice and Cinque Terre for 4 days each. Both places do not have cars, motorcycles or mopeds so we walked around all day, every day, enjoying the quiet and charming streets. I believe this was the first time in my life that I wasn’t around cars for that long. After being away from motorcycles and horns for 8 days, Florence seemed much too loud and crazy the first few days we were there. It made me want to run back to the quiet life in Cinque Terre. And that is how I feel about my day unplugged. Today has been the complete opposite, lots of phone calls, editing photos, answering emails, finally the TV is off and I can think. I am already planning what I will do on my next day unplugged. I am hoping the weather will be nice again and I can fill some planters with spring color. Since I don’t have unplugged photos, I thought I would share a few from our quiet week in Italy. While in Venice my Hasselbland camera jammed up and stopped working. I couldn’t believe I was in such a beautiful place without my favorite camera. Luckily we had brought a little point and shoot camera along as backup. These images were shot with that little camera. There is something about how simple they are that reminds of how peaceful this week was for us.