Edie’s Three
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Top 3, Agriculture, Christmas, Tech Addiction, Time

I’ve Stopped Taking My Phone To The Bathroom

By: Jon Peters

This piece hit me hard, like a slap in the face really. I don’t go anywhere without my phone, it’s always in my back pocket (or tucked in my bra — come on ladies, I know I’m not the only one!) And although it’s always on silent or vibrate-mode, it’s always within arm’s reach. Thankfully it’s never been dropped in the toilet (yet), but really, it’s only a matter fo time.

Addicted? I don’t know if I’d use the term ‘addicted’, but I definitely depend on it much more than I should, so it’s probably the same thing, just a different term. I’m not proud of this — I grew up in a time when cell phones and the internet weren’t a thing! It wasn’t until after I graduated high school that the internet really exploded, and I had my first cell phone. A heavy ‘pay as you go’ Motorola flip phone with an antenna you had to pull out. I thought I was cool.

Now we live in a different world and we’ve become so accustomed to it that just the thought of being without can send some of us into a panic attack. I wonder how the world would function if we all unplugged for just one day…or even an entire week. Hmm…now there’s an experiment!

I’ll Never Stop Insisting Santa is Real

By: Rachael Hope

I’m a hopeless cryer. An emotional hot mess without the ‘hot’ part, on a regular day, so I was really glad that I read this piece at home on my lunch break, and not sitting at my desk at work.

I didn’t cry because it’s sad or sappy, but because it really hit me right in the feels.

As someone who’s been trying in vain to achieve that elusive “Christmas Spirit” for the best part of the last twenty years, this piece is a little reminder — a little much-needed kick in the pants — that the ‘feeling’…the MAGIC is there all along, we just have to believe to see it.

Children are so open-minded that they have no trouble believing in the magic of Christmas, but as we get older and stop believing in the entity of ‘Santa’, the wonder of it all starts to seep away slowly until we suddenly realize it’s all gone, and we’ve no idea where it went.

Santa — that Christmas magic-maker that brings the feelings of joy to all the little children — it’s still there inside all of us. And it’s very real, indeed! We just have to choose to see it again, and to believe it, and to BE it!

Back to the Land

By: Alan Asnen

This topic always hits home for me. We’ve become so engrossed with technology, enterprise, industry…that we seem to not only have forgotten about our roots. A way of life where we’re embracing our union and partnership with the earth.

It’s terrifying to think that the government wants to completely eradicate this part of life that means so much to so many people. Squashing the little guy to make more room for big business. Grow grow grow, bigger bigger bigger! Make more money!!! And yet some of us watching from the sidelines are seeing the carnage with tears streaming down our faces.

Generations of people working the land…loving the land, are now going to be replaced by corporations and machines to support the ever-expanding populations of cities. And now we have to feed more people so we have to produce more food at a faster rate, so let’s help it along with hormones and chemicals…the hell with consequences!