Walking, Flylady and journaling

I have a question. What did you do before blogging entered your life?

In a random check of some of the oldest blogs that I've visited (since I started blogging) I find that Tonya and Bonnie have been blogging since June 2005. Some of us have just started, some of us blog daily (or in Calico Cat's case two or three posts a day!) and some of us blog once a week, once a month, when we get around to it. Anybody know any history? Who was the first quilt blogger?

I started blogging at the very end of October 2006. And now it takes up a good chunk of my day. I tried to remember what I was doing before I started blogging. I was quilting and teaching. I had dogs and cats in the house and I was active at church. I used the computer a lot to e-mail my mother and my two kids in the States. But I think I can say that there have been activities in my life that overtook other things for a little while before I moved on to new things.

A good 10 years ago I started on a walking campaign. Our old dog Shoko was a willing companion and so we walked everywhere! I was walking about two hours a day and it paid off. I lost weight and my cholesterol went down. It was an obsession to see how much I could walk in a day with my little step counter (which I still wear) and minutes logged. That was a very good habit to get in to and I still make walking part of my daily routine but I'm not as obsessed as I used to be (and my weight has gone back up. Sigh.)

Another thing that took over my life for awhile was Flylady. Actually pre-Flylady I was drawn to a book on housekeeping, Side-tracked Home Executives, and I followed that system off and on from when my kids were babies. When Flylady came along I signed up for e-mailings and religiously attacked my cleaning zones for that week. My house really looked great and I think Flylady didn't train me to be such a great housekeeper as she taught me to use my time better. Tetsu really loved this stage of my life! Recently I've been thinking I ought to sign up for Flylady e-mails again... This house....!

For awhile I was journaling, for I'd nightly write the day's events and my feelings into a journal and this grew into a prayer journal too. I still keep a prayer and Bible reading journal but a lot of musings from that has blended into my blog. I have to be careful that blogging doesn't completely replace this quiet time with God.

And now I'm blogging and reading blogs and answering comments and taking pictures for my blog. I'm pondering things that I want to remember, things I want to tell people, things that my friends and family might want to know.

How did you used to spend your time before you came upon the blogging world? And do you think you've found a good balance for time in front of the computer (with cyber friends) and in your "real" world? (though blogging is REAL for me!)