Reconnecting over Dinner
*This post has been sponsored by Adproval and it’s client. All thoughts, opinions and photos are my own.
One of my main September goals was to reconnect with my husband after being apart from him for 6 weeks. Even before that time apart, we had a bit of a rough summer with constant moving and never having a space that was ours to communicate in, so it’s been at the top of my priority list this month to reconnect, relearn each other and to get back into healthy communication habits.
As we discussed what things we could do to reconnect (minus spending all our money at the arcade) I told Dustin that one thing I really wanted to work this month while we got settled into our new home was having our dinners together. At the dinner table. With the TV off. Before our move, Dustin and I got into the habit of parking ourselves in front of the television during dinner time and watching a show or two while constantly texting friends or scrolling through our Facebook feeds. We would barely talk, except to ask for the salt to be passed. We swore it we would only eat in front of the tv twice a week, but it quickly escalated to an every night thing.
And, now that I blog full time, LWR and all of the social media that goes with it has the potential to take over my life: between being an admin for #passionproject, twitter chats, emails, commenting, snap chatting, my phone is always lighting up with notifications. I know that Dustin sometimes feels like he is taking second place to my phone and my blog, and I don’t want that for our relationship! My blog is my work, but my husband is my life and he should take number one priority!
That’s why we have decided to take the 10 in 2 #billiondinners challenge over these next two weeks. That means we will be having 10 dinners in the next two weeks together, unplugged from all technology and social media! When I first heard about the Billion Dinners movement, I felt like everything Dustin and I had talked about when it came to dinner time was being confirmed. In today’s day and age where technology is taking over, I really feel like we’re losing the ability to create real, authentic connections in every day life. It’s only when I realized I was losing out on creating those connections with my spouse did I realize we needed to make a change. It’s time to start reconnecting over dinner.
Using the Dinner Call app, you can track your family dinners! By logging your family dinners, you will be adding to the goal of a billion family dinners world wide. Don’t know how to have a family dinner unplugged? The Dinner Call app includes conversation prompts that you can use to help carry on a conversation at the dinner table…face to face. And I know, sometimes it can be hard to coordinate schedules and have dinner together all the time; but the point of this movement is to make the effort, to unplug yourself from the technology and to connect over food and love.
These next two weeks, I’ll be on snap chat (cwhit145) sharing the recipes I’ll be using for dinner time, but when Dustin and I sit down to eat dinner, the phones will go off and the tv will go off. We will have a dinner together (with Rosie begging for scraps) and reconnect and communicate. And then (while Dustin is doing dishes) I’ll turn my phone back on and log our dinner, so I know I did my part to build a better world where authentic connections are being made at the dinner table. Logging our dinners not only holds us accountable to follow through with this challenge, but I also hope it will encourage others to join us in igniting a movement that brings people together.
What’s dinner like at your home? Could you use some motivation to unplug and reconnect over food? I challenge you to join me in the #billiondinners challenge and to become part of a bigger picture of putting the phones down and turning the tv’s off and connecting. To join me (@carrchels) in tracking 10 Family Dinners in 2 weeks, take the #billiondinners challenge today!
