Remember when you were very young and your parents told you "Play outside until dinner is ready!"?   

When was the last time you "played outside"? I am not talking about running in Memorial Park or even walking your dogs around the block. I mean really play! We are all so serious. We turn on the news in the morning while we are dressing, only to hear about the games being played by our politicians or that someone in our community suffered a tragedy. We then rush to work in our air conditioned cars and once again turn on the radio to hear the same news we just turned off in our homes. Our smart phones all have Facebook, Twitter and our emails coming through to us in seconds. If we are not on a computer, we are on our phones.

Next time you are out to dinner, look around and see how many people are face down looking at their phones, with their fingers and thumbs pound away messages to people that we just left at the office or just hung up with on the phone. How was your partner's day today? Did your children have fun today? Did they do something that was not electronically transmitted?

Remember the aftermath of Hurricane Ike? No, I am not talking about the damage. Remember for a few days when we had no electricity? When the cell towers were overwhelmed? When our televisions did not work? We sat outside, we visited with our neighbors, we grilled everything in our fridge before it went bad and we shared! Kids were running in the yard, we heard the sound of crickets and we listened to the stillness.

Once a month, stop! Turn off your phones, computers and all other electronic devices. 

Go and sip some lemonade...and play Hide and Go Seek. You never know what you will find!