Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Leisure

Slow Summer Living

By

Summer is meant to for slowness. Savor it and get outside. #summer #powerslow

Remember those long summers from childhood? My family spent lots of weekends camping each summer – going on hikes, reading paperbacks in the shade, wading in streams, taking afternoon naps, and telling stories around the campfire. Back at home, my sister and I rode our bikes all over town, walked to the swimming pool most afternoons, made mud pies, captured bugs in jars, read dozens of books, and just played.

Recently I stumbled upon journalist Kelly Wilkinson’s blog Make Grow Gather. She’s on a mission to relive one of those slow, lazy summers from childhood.

This summer, I am attempting an experiment. An experiment to take back summer. Like when I was a kid and thought everyday could be warm and empty and mine.

She made a summer to-do list. Here are a few of my favorite things on it:

Walk barefoot • Take a nap outside • Make suntea • Pick berries • Spend time in hammock • Go on picnic • Make herb water • Hang birdfeeder • Grow vegetables • Go to a farmer’s market • Read the Sunday papers outside • Learn a summer constellation • Go camping •  Read a summer book • Pick wildflowers • Blow a dandelion • Watch fireflies • Make lemonade • Watch a meteor shower • Eat a watermelon • Take a walk on a dirt road

In our house, summer is an opportunity for me to work and write a little bit more, since my husband is home more to watch our son. And that works out great, because after so many months of tearful morning goodbyes and refrains of “Dada gonna be home soon?”, they’re both pretty excited to spend more one-on-one time together. But Wilkinson’s inspired me also to make old-fashioned summer laziness a priority in the next two months.

So I’m planning to spend lots of time here…

and here…

and in our other favorite escapes, and to just really enjoy these long days with my family. So I’ll probably be posting a little bit less during the next two months. But hopefully you’ll be too busy catching fireflies, picking berries, blowing dandelions, and gazing at stars to notice.

Days of Rest

By

Last week my son and I spent a couple of nice, leisurely days at the Oregon Coast with my mom and sister, who were visiting from out of town. I’m always amazing by how recharging even a short time away from work, emails, phone calls, and social networking can be.

In the last few months, I’ve started powering down every Sunday – leaving the computer, email, and phone off and hanging out with my family. Sometimes we go on a hike, go swimming, or walk to the park. Sometimes we hang out at home and linger over breakfast, read the newspaper, and work in the backyard. I usually take a nap with my son in the afternoon or read a novel.

At first taking a day off just felt strange. Between taking care of my son and the house and working on this blog and my writing business, I’m used to toiling nearly every waking moment. Sundays just felt entirely non-productive, even wasteful. But as the weeks pass, I find myself looking forward to my family’s slow, quiet, non-electronic Sundays.

Moreover, I’m realizing that a day of rest is actually productive. It gives me time to think and reflect, which are necessary elements to the writing life. And I don’t find myself wasting time, procrastinating, or avoiding work as much on the other days of the week, because I know I’ll get a chance to rest and recharge on Sunday.

Many have long understood the importance of a weekly day of rest. Followers of Judaism observe Shabbat from sundown on Friday until Saturday night. They are freed from the regular daily labor, can spend time with family, and can contemplate the spiritual aspects of life. Traditionally Jewish people also observed a Shemitah Year every seventh year, when they left the fields fallow to give the land and society time to rest. All debts were also canceled during that year, so they could begin anew again.

Many Christians observe a day of rest on Sunday. Some Muslims take a day or half day of rest on Friday. And there’s a new movement growing called Secular Sabbath. Marc Bittman wrote about it in the New York Times a couple of years ago, when he came to terms with his addiction to being plugged in. He discovered what I and probably many others have in our always-on society – forcing yourself to unplug can be surprisingly difficult:

I woke up nervous, eager for my laptop. That forbidden, I reached for the phone. No, not that either. Send a text message? No. I quickly realized that I was feeling the same way I do when the electricity goes out and, finding one appliance nonfunctional, I go immediately to the next. I was jumpy, twitchy, uneven.

Like me, Bittman eventually adjusted and came to look forward to his days off:

Once I moved beyond the fear of being unavailable and what it might cost me, I experienced what, if I wasn’t such a skeptic, I would call a lightness of being. I felt connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop.

Do you take a day of rest each week? How do you spend it?

TV Turnoff Week

By

beach

It’s National TV Turnoff Week.

I participated last April and wrote about it here and here. I had a wonderful, relaxing week last time, but I decided not to participate this week for a multitude of reasons. Most of all, I feel like I’ve found a balance between screen time and all the other things that make up my days.

My husband and I don’t watch much TV, but we do struggle with computer time. For awhile it seemed like when we were home together, one of us would invariably disappear into my office just to “see about that one thing” or “write a short email”, and then an hour or two would pass.

To solve the problem, we instituted an “electronic sunset”. Now we shut off the computer (and other electronics) at 7:00 every night. After that, it’s family time. Our self-imposed electronic sunset has helped us find a better balance – at least for now.

Are you participating in TV Turn-off Week? Have you found a balance between screen time and family time? I’d love to hear about it.

Save

Take Back Your Time

By

timeclock

(The first in a series highlighting U.S. Movements to celebrate, support, and spread the word about.)

Americans, along with Australians and Japanese, lead the industrialized world when it comes to the number of hours we log on the job. We work a full nine weeks more per year than most Western Europeans. And we’re guaranteed no paid sick, vacation, or family leave through the law. American workers have made large jumps in productivity in the last forty years, but our increased productivity has not translated into more leisure time for us. We’re toiling about five weeks more per year than American workers did in 1970.

With so many Americans out of work today, it may seem weird to talk about the issue of overwork. However, the two problems are related. The more hours individuals work, the fewer jobs are available, which is why companies nationwide are instituting voluntary or mandatory furloughs and reducing employees’ work schedules to avoid layoffs. As strange as it seems, with company’s closing, mass layoffs, and sky-high unemployment rates, we may actually start hearing more about overwork. In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, a thirty-hour workweek passed the Senate. (The Roosevelt Administration withdrew its support, and the bill didn’t make it through the House).

The folks at Take Back Your Time (TBYT), a broad, non-partisan coalition, have been sounding the alarm on American “time-poverty” for years. They contend that overwork and “time-stress” have detrimental effects on our:

  • health
  • marriages
  • families
  • relationships
  • communities
  • democracy
  • pets
  • self-development
  • spiritual growth
  • environment.

Their six part Time to Care Public Policy Agenda fights for:

1.   Guaranteed paid leave for all parents for the birth or adoption of a child.

Currently the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act only allows 12 weeks of unpaid leave if you work at a company that employs more than fifty employees. Between 2001 and 2003, only 28% of pregnant women actually took maternity leave.

Why is paid family leave important?

baby hand bw

Time off from work before and after a baby’s birth helps strengthen families and has broad societal and health-care-related effects. Consider the findings from two studies conducted by Sylvia Guendelman (University of California Berkeley) :

  • Women who took leave in the ninth month of pregnancy were 73% less likely to have a Caesarean section than those who worked up to delivery. Caesarean deliveries are associated with longer hospital stays, risks of surgical complications, and longer recovery times for mothers. (Women’s Health Issues, January/February 2009)
  • Women who returned to work shortly after delivery were significantly less likely to establish breastfeeding within the first month. Breastfeeding is associated with numerous health benefits for babies and mothers. (Pediatrics, January 2009)

The World Health Organization has this to say about the importance of Family Leave:

famleave

A pregnant woman should have a reduced physical work load and no night work during the second half of pregnancy.

A pregnant woman should have complete absence from work from week 34 to 36 depending on her health status and physical workload.

Women need at least 16 weeks absence from work after delivery.

Breastfeeding is a major determinant of infant health. Infants should be exclusively breastfed on demand from birth for at least 4 and, if possible, 6 months of age and should continue to be breastfed together with adequate complementary food until the age of 2 years or beyond.

How does the U.S. compare to the rest of the world? Here’s a sampling of parental leave benefits in other countries:

  • Sweden – 16 months with 80% of pay
  • Lithuania – 52 weeks with 100% of pay
  • Spain – 16 weeks with 100% of pay
  • Poland – 16-18 weeks with 100% of pay
  • Canada – 50 weeks with 55% of pay
  • Algeria – 14 weeks with 100% of pay

[digg=http://digg.com/health/Take_Back_Your_Time]
2.   One week of guaranteed paid sick leave for all American workers.

Americans currently have zero days of sick leave guaranteed through the law. The implications of this has been in the news recently with the threat of a flu pandemic.

3.  At least three weeks paid annual vacation leave for all American workers.

time off

More than 147 countries mandate paid vacation. The United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t .

Are vacations important? Consider these findings:

  • Over 12,000 men were enrolled in a heart health study (Psychosomatic Medicine,2000) and followed over nine years. The men who took vacations most years were 20 percent less likely to die of any cause and 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease than those who forewent regular vacations.

vacation

4. A limit on the amount of compulsory overtime work an employer can impose.

Currently the Fair Labor Standards Act provides no protection for workers 16 and older who do not wish to work mandatory overtime. Adult workers who refuse overtime are subject to employer discipline and discharge.

5.  Making Election Day a holiday.

declarindep

U.S. voter turnout for presidential elections jumped about five percent between 2000 and 2008. Yet only 56.8% of eligible voters made it to the polls last November. Contrast that to turnout in:

  • Australia – 95%
  • Italy – 90%
  • Germany – 86%
  • Brazil – 83%
  • Canada – 76%
  • Britain – 76%
  • Japan – 71%

Why are Americans so lackadaisical when it comes to democracy? In a survey conducted by the California Voter Foundation, 28 percent of infrequent voters and 23 percent of unregistered voters said they don’t vote or don’t register because they’re too busy. It can’t help that voting day is on a Tuesday, when the majority of us have to work.

If making Election Day a national holiday seems too bold, we could simply move election day to a Saturday, or as Martin P. Wattenberg proposed in a 1998 Atlantic Monthly piece, move it to the second Tuesday in November, combine it with Veterans’ Day, and call it Veterans’ Democracy Day.

6.  Making it easier for Americans to choose part-time work, including hourly wage parity and protection of promotions and pro-rated benefits for part-time workers.

Part-time work equality benefits families. 60% of working moms say they’d prefer part-time work.

The European Community implemented a directive on part-time work to “end less favourable treatment of part-timers in order to support the development of a flexible labour market, by encouraging the greater availability of part-time employment, and increasing the quality and range of jobs which are considered suitable for part-time work or job-sharing.”

You can learn more or become a member of Take Back Your Time at www.timeday.org.

Are you a fan or member of a movement fighting for social, cultural, or environmental change? Leave a comment! Your movement could be highlighted in a future New Urban Habitat article.

[digg=http://digg.com/health/Take_Back_Your_Time]

Powering down : Field notes from TV turn-off week

By

In honor of TV turn-off week, I moved the TV to the closet on Monday morning. I like the room so much better without it, and I love that we can’t just mindlessly switch it on. I think we might have found a new home-base for it. My real challenge wasn’t dumping the TV though, since it’s hardly ever on. Unplugging the computer, on the other hand, was a bit more of a mêlée.

Actually, it was a wonderfully relaxing week. It didn’t hurt that the weather was near-perfect, and the magnolias, rhododendrons, lilacs, and cherry blossoms exploded into aromatic splendor. Instead of gazing at a screen and click-clacking away at a keyboard, I:

  • Played and read with my baby.
  • Made bread the old-fashioned way (I’d forgotten what a workout kneading is!)
  • Read The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen; Herbal Tea Gardens by Marietta Marcin; Spunk and Bite: A writer’s guide to Punchier, More Engaging Style by Arthur Plotnik; and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin.
  • Laid on the grass and watched the birches and poplars sway.
  • Brewed the first herbal sun teas of the summer.
  • Took afternoon and after-dinner walks.
  • Tended to our newest housemates – four adorable fluff balls (aka chicks).
  • Relished long, still afternoons – just like the ones I remember from childhood.
  • Indulged in naps snuggled next to my baby

Okay, so, yes, I might have replaced my computer time with lots of relaxing. It’s probably no wonder that I enjoyed the week. It was liberating to put my endless blogging and writing to-do list aside for several days. But, I did miss writing. I even found myself reading a book on word choice, a sure sign that one’s obsessed (or hopelessly geeky?).

The week’s lesson is that I need to unplug myself more often. So I’ve resolved to:

  1. Take one screen-free day a week.
  2. Only check my email once a day and look at Facebook even less.
  3. Avoid the computer during family time.

I’m ashamed to admit that before TV turn-off week, I was checking my email three, four, even (ahem) six times a day. I’d be typing my password before I was even aware what I was doing. I felt jittery sometimes when I couldn’t check in, and I was always at least a tiny bit disappointed when my inbox was empty. Email and Facebook had become a way for me to procrastinate, to distract myself, to be mindless. Even worse, Internet-time had been getting in the way of things that are more important to me – quality time with my family, writing, reading, and creative projects. When I switched the computer off for a few days, that habit (okay, addiction) dissolved, and I felt so much more relaxed.

Even though it’s been nice to catch up on my emails and my favorite blogs today, I’m already looking forward to the next TV turn-off week (September 20-26). Last week, my house and backyard became like a retreat, and I so delighted in the long, quiet days.

If you feel like you need a vacation, but can’t get away, you might just try a few days without the screens. It could restore you.

Save