about the other day

...when I wrote in Portuguese... sorry Katrina (LOL you seen the only one who noticed). I was just rambling about trying to get too much done online and how it was giving me a headache, an actual, for real, headache. I have since improved a little bit, but am just falling behind on everything I would like to do instead of permanently cutting on stuff. Truth is I don’t know what else to cut, since I seem to be mostly distracted by things which are top of the list to be cut (like reading blogs LOL)

Anyway, to give everyone some background, I feel this addiction to scrapbooking and its online community is the healthiest addiction I have ever had, if that makes any sense. I used to spend way too much money in paper scrapping, a real addiction, and for someone that won’t even buy a shoe without thinking twice, that was a big thing.

Then I got into computer games (that has been on and off for the last 15 years LOL) and World of Warcraft was a real bad addiction in this household. Sleepless nights were the least of the problems cause by the game. Me and Alex almost died when we went to Brazil in 2005 and had to go without the game for a month. Then we hurried our errands on the weekend to get back home to play, we would lose our temper if Mateus got out of bed during the night because we wanted to play, we didn’t invited friends over because we wanted to play, everything revolved around the game. That is how bad it was. My mom didn’t like it when she came to visit, my mother in law didn’t like it either. When Lucas was born it was a big wake up call for me and after trying to play “without interruptions” a couple of times, it finally sank in that the whole thing was just not healthy!!! I quit April last year and Alex soon followed. Our life has completely changed, completely, and for the better.

I started digiscrapping about the same time I got frustrated with World of Warcraft, and let me say, the addiction took over (what is it with me and this kind of behaviour?). Once again I planned my weekends around what projects I wanted to get done. Slept only after finishing such and such assigments. Hurried to get photobooks done to take advantage of a certain promotion. When I went to Brasil I kept thinking about all my CTs and the community and everything that I was “missing out” oh no silly me. Once I got back I realised I just could not do it all and quit a lot of things. Except for not being able to get to bed at night (LOL) I have improved a lot. Our weekends are now dedicated only to our kids and getting together with friends. I am trying to scrap what I want to and not what I “need” to. I am still enjoying it all and trying to find a balance. I don’t know if I will ever find it, but there is no other option but to keep trying...... speaking of digiscrapping LOL, just finished a page while I was typing this up :)

self-portrait, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

argh, 3AM again LOL Hope you are having a great week :)