I am a recovering internet potato. My recovery is rife with bumps because a lot of things I do actually require me to be online and be online a lot. It's not that I spend too much time online (no, really - it's not), but that I spent too much time online doing nothing or doing something other than what I'm supposed to be doing. The internet is my favourite distraction, is full of some of my favourite people, and one of my absolute favourite things. But the internet and I, we have some balance issues we need to work out and the truth is we might have never had to face it if I hadn't moved in with my boyfriend.

Although we've been living together for almost a year it's only been in the last couple of months that we've both been working out of the house that Lee and I have finally settled into our true new normal. There are always negotiations when you move in with someone. Who will feed the cat? Him, because we were bribing the cat into liking him (which we are claiming a success...most days) but I'm the primary litter scooper. Who does the cooking? For dinner mostly me but he's the primary breakfast person because I'm utterly useless in the mornings. Who does the dishes? Him because he refuses to have a dishwasher. Actually, he does most of the cleaning and laundry because honestly, I could let that stuff pile up for awhile and not care. He does. So he does it.

So what do I do while Lee cleans? Not whole heck of a lot. I hate cleaning and will do almost anything to get out of it. I always have and proudly proclaim my lack of domesticity with my "domestically disabled" Ann Taintor mug. It would be one thing if he was doing all this and I was being productive in some other fashion but the truth is, I was mostly just sitting on my butt in front of the computer. I wasn't working, which to be honest I'm also often doing in one form or another. But on those occasions (which were too plentiful) when I was playing he was often trying to get the cleaning done while I'm "writing" so we could have time together later. That wasn't the only thing either. Because I was wasting my time playing on the internet I wasn't doing other things I wanted to do, like read the books I had checked out of the library or watch the DVDs we had rented. I was stressing out because I had no time to do anything and the reason I had no time to do anything was because I was spending too much time doing nothing (oh the irony). The worst of it was that I had no one to blame but myself and if the situation was reversed and Lee was the one online all the time I'd be really cranky about it.

So I've been trying to wean myself out of my internet potato habits. In the past year there have been times when I've had to totally disconnect. A two-week trip to Europe (ok we did a couple of check ins from internet cafes but they were short). A summer vacation. It was during these down that I made an important discovery - the internet did not die without me and I did not cease to be without it. In fact, we both came out of it pretty ok. Sure while I missed my online friends and the ability to have information at my fingertips but it was really ok being offline. So ok that I've started instituting "internet-lite" times into my schedule - predominently Tuesday evenings and all day Sundays. I had actually tried to go totally internet-free but realized that doesn't quite work. The internet is huge part of my life and if I'm trying something new for dinner there's a good 90% chance I'm trying a recipe from a food blog. Or I'll need to check a measurement conversion or an ingredient substitution. Or we're (finally) watching one of those DVD rentals and I'm going nuts trying to figure out what else that person's been in. If I was going internet-free I'd be jonesing to go online and check out any of those things but with "internet-lite" I can jump on, check, jump off and not beat myself up about it.

I'll be the first to admit that I was inspired by Electrolicious's Unplugged Project from 2008. While she realized just over the half way point that being offline didn't really change what she did, just how she did it, I'm finding that I'm actually doing things that I want to get done. Throughout this process the hardest part isn't finding things to do with my time but giving myself permission to not be online. It sounds preposterous doesn't it? But in this day when everyone is used to instant responses and connections it felt almost wrong to not check email for twelve hours even though the laptop was sitting right there. If I went away for the evening and got home late in the past I'd always check my email before bed. Now I let usually let it sit because what's so urgent than I have to answer it at midnight instead of 8am the next morning? Not much and if something was that urgent I'd have a voicemail. As our lives become more and more connected online it felt wrong to be pulling away from it.

I know I'm not alone. I know I'm not the only one. It's so easy though, to hop online to check one thing and find yourself slip sliding down that path of interesting thigns only to find you've spend way more time online than you planned to. Rose is trying to spend less time online for that very reason and Brit at Nothing, Exceptional took an internet break at Christmas.

It’s time to refocus on my own environment, and probably process lots of information I’ve been soaking up. Sometimes it seems so easy to get lost in my own mental world to the detriment of the real world.

So what are we doing now that I'm not being sucked into the big bad internet black hole quite so much? We're cooking together. One Sunday we spontaneously spring-cleaned our pantry, which lead to some yummy healthy meals. We're even exercising together. No, he didn't get me onto the exercise bike we've done yoga and pilates together. We talk. We play board games. We take silly pictures of the cat. If winter ever ends we might even take evening walks. Cutting back on my internet time wasn't just a healthy move for me, it's healthy for us.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.