Days 18 and 19: I got nothing

Great weekend. I got some much needed rest. Watched some movies with the family, swam in grandma's pool. Went to church. Read a lot. Consumerism is losing it's appeal.

I got some needed quiet time and worked on my Scyfy book a little.

Accomplished a few other things, but mostly just enjoyed rejuvenating from a crazy couple of weeks. Back at it tomorrow.

Days 16 and 17: Be Still, My Kick Drum Heart

Counting minnows and wading in the river with my daughter. Now that's real "bucket list" kind of stuff, my friends.

First, yesterday I got home too late to bother writing a blog. Was in surgery from about 7:15 am until 8:30 pm. With an hour drive, shower and desperate need for food, I didn't get to bed until 10:30 and was pretty wiped out, but in a good way. The kind of tired where you feel like you earned your sleep at night.

Today was no exception, except that my third case of the day got cancelled and I got to come home an hour early after covering the OR First Line Sup for about an hour while she was in a meeting.

So today, Elizabeth went out with a friend for dinner, the boys went with a friend to concert in the park which left Maeve and I foot loose and fancy free. I've been promising her a date for a while but work has kept me from getting to take her out.

So I asked what she wanted to do. Her answer, "Taco Bell and go to the river."

I had just the spot. It's a gorgeous park that apparently no one knows about because no one is ever there. It was a warm night with a light up-river breeze. So we counted minnows, skipped rocks, walked barefoot through the aquatic flora, followed deer tracks into the woods, collected feathers and except for snapping a completely adorable picture of my little adventurer, the phone was off for the duration of my evening.

We got in the car on the way home and she asked to listen to Avett Brothers song "Kick Drum Heart" because we both know all the words and like to sing it really loud in the car with the windows rolled down. So yeah, my night was perfect.

Fill your time with stuff that actually matters, live in the moment and consumerism somehow just loses it's grip on your life.

Days 16 and 17: Be Still, My Kick Drum Heart

Counting minnows and wading in the river with my daughter. Now that's real "bucket list" kind of stuff, my friends.

First, yesterday I got home too late to bother writing a blog. Was in surgery from about 7:15 am until 8:30 pm. With an hour drive, shower and desperate need for food, I didn't get to bed until 10:30 and was pretty wiped out, but in a good way. The kind of tired where you feel like you earned your sleep at night.

Today was no exception, except that my third case of the day got cancelled and I got to come home an hour early after covering the OR First Line Sup for about an hour while she was in a meeting.

So today, Elizabeth went out with a friend for dinner, the boys went with a friend to concert in the park which left Maeve and I foot loose and fancy free. I've been promising her a date for a while but work has kept me from getting to take her out.

So I asked what she wanted to do. Her answer, "Taco Bell and go to the river."

I had just the spot. It's a gorgeous park that apparently no one knows about because no one is ever there. It was a warm night with a light up-river breeze. So we counted minnows, skipped rocks, walked barefoot through the aquatic fauna, followed deer tracks into the woods, collected feathers and except for snapping a completely adorable picture of my little adventurer, the phone was off for the duration of my evening.

We got in the car on the way home and she asked to listen to Avett Brothers song "Kick Drum Heart" because we both know all the words and like to sing it really loud in the car with the windows rolled down. So yeah, my night was perfect.

Fill your time with stuff that actually matters, live in the moment and consumerism somehow just loses it's grip on your life.

Day 15: That Moment When You Realize You're In 'The Matrix'

I lost my wedding band about a month ago. I had accidentally worn it to work and had to scrub in for an emergency surgery. You can't scrub in wearing a ring because that 5 minute-long harsh chemical hand scrubbing and two layers of surgical gloves are still no match for wedding-band germs that are way more resilient than hand germs, and may result in spontaneous combustion of you're patient or something. So I had to remove the band in a hurry. I placed it in the shirt pocket of my scrubs where I can protect the defenselessly anesthetized patient from the vicious gold-dwelling microbes... aaaaand, I forgot to take it out at the end of the day.

Who knows where the ring ended up after going to hospital laundry. My biggest fear is that those germs are in the drains somewhere raising up a subterranean super army of unstoppable bacterial soldiers of death.

I had to get a new ring. No more expensive gold rings for me. No way Jose! I'm going for titanium rings now. Why? Well 1. because they are cheaper, 2. the store clerk said that they are virtually indestructible, and 3. they were on sale (I think I got it like 99.9% off. I'm not entirely positive, but the clerk had to get out a calculator to figure out the thirteen different discounts I was getting for stuff like wearing a blue shirt, sneezing twice while trying rings on, and having already set up a super special titanium account - unbeknownst to me - with the department store and whatnot.

After talking about all the different options like Tungsten (which is so durable that someday we will make time machines out of it), gold (which was like 800 times more expensive than the other two options) and titanium (which is tough, scratch resistant and REALLY on sale). I went with the obvious choice.

As I'm checking out, she offers to sell me some "peace of mind".

"Say what?" I didn't realize that I was in such a Holy place capable of delivering on such lofty promises.

"Insurance."

"Aw. Okay. Why?" I was pretty sure already that I wasn't going to buy the insurance for my ring, but I wanted to give her a chance.

"In case something happens to it." She smiled at me with a slight hint of sorrow for the poor uneducated young man making his first big boy purchase ever.

"In case I lose it again?" I asked.

"No it won't cover that," She shot back abruptly. "In case it breaks or scuffs."

"I thought this titanium stuff was super durable."

"Well, you never know. Just in case."

See what she did there? First, she sells me on the durability and inexpensiveness of the ring, so that I don't have to freak out if I lose it and I can feel confident that it will stand up to the rigors of Elizabeth's jewelry box (which is where it will live during the week when I'm working). Then, in order to tempt me to spend more money, she creates a sort of uneasiness about it actually lasting until I once again do something stupid like drop it into an alligator infested swamp, which would never happen because swamps are hot and stinky and alligators terrify me.

This is the subtle ploy of consumerism. This is how marketing works. The goal is to entice the customer with a promise of satisfaction, but never let the satisfaction last for long enough that the customer doesn't come back and spend more money. Check it out for yourself sometime, go experiment by fake car shopping (be very careful that you don't actually get talked into buying the car). You've probably, like me and everyone else, been suckered into making regretful purchases in the past.

But realizing the subtle messages, the psychological scams being played on you, the empty promises, the calming joyful music, bright lights, engaging and labyrinth-like layout; it's all there to trap you. When you start looking for it, it's like Neo realizing that the Matrix is a lie, a false experience designed to satisfy just enough, but it isn't real. That my friends is consumerism.

Sweet dreams.

Day 14: Consumerism is a voracious monster...

Elizabeth petting a dog in Haiti. She's so cute in scrubs. (I'm probably going to get in trouble for this).

I started the audio book today on my way to work, "Consumer Detox". It was written by a British guy from a UK perspective which is, well, it's identical to the US perspective on consumerism. We aren't alone folks.

Big issues the book has covered so far: 1. dissatisfaction with our stuff even though we have way more stuff than we need. 2. we are all constantly bombarded with a multi-billion dollar marketing machine and are pretty much helpless to defend ourselves against it.

Okay, so not a happy start. I'll update you when the news is good.

In other news, I've had no sugar, tons of coffee and maintained social media silence since arriving home from work! Yay! Freedom!

I'm going for a walk. Peace!

Day 13: I'm a hack!

Best lawns in the county!

First of all, I'm a hack. There is a book out that I just was alerted to called, wait for it... "Consumer Detox: Less Stuff. More Life." It's by Mark Powley.

I obviously used an Audible credit to get it. I'll start listening to it tomorrow. It seems I'm not the only one thinking about this.

There are some important points to this that I have been discovering as time goes by. First, it is really hard to isolate yourself from a consumerist lifestyle in the country. I'm not just talking about the stuff that you have to consume like food and clothes and energy. The wealth that we experience in this country makes virtually everything accessible. Second, the way that we prioritize how we spend our wealth has a lot to do with how much money we make and how hard we have to work for that money. Finally, just because we prioritize the right things doesn't mean we aren't susceptible to the traps that our multimillion dollar marketing industry sets for us to spend unnecessarily.

As I write this I'm sitting in a beautiful custom soccer field watching my son play for an elite soccer club. He is learning absolutely amazing skills and strategy that I would have never had access to when I was a kid. This is partly because of how expensive this program is. Now I'm not trying to brag about him, the cost or the great wealth of coaching talent we have in California. If anything, I have this small shred of gilt over the fact that I'm spending this kind of money on this. It's actually not as expensive as other regional programs, so we really are getting a good bang for our buck, but there are also cheaper programs with pretty good professional coaching.

This is absolutely a luxury. From the very beginning I've thought about how his learning to play soccer at this level so young may be useful in the future for him and also how he might use this skill to glorify Jesus in his life. I'm not taking about Tom Tebow-like religious athleticism, I'm thinking about how he might someday use his talent and training to coach other kids positively and mentor them in a Christ honoring way.

Is this really a necessity? No.

But should I take him out of this and spend the money on something else? That's a harder question to answer.

This is the kind of mindfulness about my consumerism that has been inspired by my trips to Haiti and personal exploration into what drives my spending.

I'll pass on any good tidbits I get from the Consumer Detox book. Thanks for following along with me in this experiment.

Day 12: Still flailing

I got called in for surgeries today at 0900. I went in immediately after church and didn't get home until 2230.

I've now worked the last 7 out of 7 days, and I don't even want to count the hours. I'm going to bed, and I'm watching a Seinfeld re-run, doggone it!