Let's Have a Vinyl Listening Party...

If we were at my house, I'd make you a drink.

Check out the entire Unlocked Recordings Archive 

Brought to us by the beloved, madcap archivists at The Internet Archive

by Laurie Allee

So, I did something crazy when I was in my 20s.  When my roommate decided to move to Boston, I agreed to help her drive her truck across country from Los Angeles.  She planned  to sell most of her stuff before making the trek, and since I was also in flux -- and broke -- I added a few things to her yard sale to make some extra money.

Selling my jerky ex-boyfriend's leather jacket he never bothered to pick up was a no-brainer.  Selling jeans I no longer wore and jewelry I never really liked?  Obvious.  But selling my record collection...

Analog Things: Art Journals

My art journals...

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by Laurie Allee

Making your own illuminated manuscripts...

Okay, so maybe they don't rival these illuminated manuscripts, but art journals have taken my regular blank books to a whole different level.  They've also given me a meditative practice that I look forward to doing.  Illustrating my journals adds another layer of creativity to my life, and provides a great alternative to scrolling on my phone.

Analog Things: Making Art

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by Laurie Allee

Here Be Dragons:  The Magic and Wonder of Nerdforge

I am a little bit controversial in the digital minimalism space.  While a life with almost no screen time is admirable, I'm not a neo-Luddite.  My life analog means using all the tools at my disposal to spend the majority of my time getting my hands dirty in the real world rather than scrolling mindlessly through hashtags and Instagram stories.  I'm happy to use the internet to make my real life better.  (Hint:  I'm blogging right now, not writing with a quill on parchment.) (Although I like to do that too.) If you do it right, your screen time can lead to remarkable real time.  

Case in point...

Analog Things: Building a Cabin by Hand

Meet Erik Grankvist...modern Viking builder

by Laurie Allee

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No Power Tools (or Nails) Allowed.

Covid-19 restrictions have given people inspiration to do things they might not have had the time or inclination to do before lockdowns.  I was feeling pretty great about my own self-isolation activities:  learning the dulcimer, experimenting with Prismacolor art pencils and tackling the classic books I'd never gotten around to reading.  Not bad, right?  No mega-scrolling, no Twitter ranting, just good old-fashioned analog activities, even in the midst of a pandemic...

Then I found out about Erik Grankvist.

Away from Keyboard: Embracing Slow Tech

by Laurie Allee

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So I've been offline a lot in the last few weeks.  While I think I can say I've successfully relegated my phone back to the status of a phone instead of a tiny monitor that never leaves the palm of my hand, I still feel the siren call of the internet when I'm working on my computer.  

And I have to work on my computer.