Update on a Facebookless Life

Once you have a Facebook account, you can never not have a Facebook account. 

That still bothers me. 

It also makes it easy to get back on once you've "left Facebook for probably forever."

Although I don't think I ever really said that.

Maybe I did. 

Anyway, I logged back onto Facebook one day to see exactly when it was I left Facebook.

If that makes any sense. 

It was the middle of January, by the way.

But the odd thing was that it wouldn't let me deactivate my account again.

It kept saying my password was wrong. 

You know, the exact same password I had just used to log into my account was now incorrect since I was trying to deactivate my account (again). 

I started to panic.

For real.

Because once I logged back into that world, I felt the same sense of dread. 

And I'll you a secret.

I lost about thirty minutes of my life just seeing what everyone had been up to.

Without my even realizing it. 

Good grief.

It was a good test. It made me realize that even though there are parts of Facebook I miss, this was absolutely the best decision for me. 

I still get sad because I miss out on a lot of stuff. I miss seeing what far away friends are up to. I hate that I'm not seeing their kids grow up or see how they are. I miss announcements of playdates and things like that. 

But it's okay. 

I'm trying to keep up better with those people in other ways. And it's working.

And I'm protected from a lot of drama.

A. Lot.

A sweet friend told me of a situation on Facebook where her feelings were hurt just the other day. It made me sad, and I thought about this phenomenon of social media even more. 

I read an article recently about ways women struggle that men don't usually. A major player in this "game" of disfunction was social media.

It's become a huge enabler in our sea of disfunction. A weapon of mass destruction.

And I simply was not above using it myself.

So I removed myself from the equation.

I'm explaining this a lot to my daughter. 

Not everything is bad. I'm not sure I will ever be able to say that Facebook is bad. (I have noticed that nearly everyone who asks where I've been on Facebook responds the same way when I tell them I've jumped ship: I should do that too. Then they get this sad look on their faces. I'm not ever sure how to respond. I'm usually quiet. Unless they ask my opinion. This is something that is between an individual and the Spirit.) 

As there are a lot of things in life that aren't bad, they may not be good for me. I'm trying to teach her this in so many different areas of her life. 

It's not easy. I'm not sure she gets it. I will keep trying to explain it to her. And to me.

I keep thinking about this.

That's probably another post, though. 

This is still the best thing for me, though. This not being on Facebook. And after these five months away, I'm more certain of that than ever.

There is a sweet blessing in obedience, even when, or especially when, it's hard to obey. 

The week in pictures - June 3rd - June 10th

Daddy taught the boys how to play table football. They loved it. 

All the pets in this house love the hubs. I went and got a kitten to hold one night, and she went right over, snuggled down next to him and promptly went to sleep. 

Stinker. 

The girl kid continued to be far away. Neither of us were really okay with that. 

This is the end of the school year disaster area. My soon to be done project is tackle this mess. I did make some nice, neat stacks at least. 

The girl kid came home. I'm not sure which of us was more happy about this. 

I really really love my new shoes. 

We went shopping for hub's birthday. He feels about hats the what I feel about... shoes. Yep. 

For hub's birthday, we went to see a Led Zeppelin tribute show that friends of his were in. He said that my going was a gift to him. That's what a good wife does, right?

I actually had more fun than I thought I was going to...

I got to hang out with this sweet girl. She's one of six homeschooled kids, and we talked for the longest time all about what it was like to be homeschooled all the way through school, go to college and then emerge into real life all as a post-homeschooled kid. She's really amazing, and it was so good to hear what she had to say about it all from a student's perspective.

I also would love to hug her mom. She's actually still a little busy schooling the last kid, since her mom was 44 when he was born. He's just now 15 years old. 

Her mom might be my new hero. 

We spent a lazy day Saturday doing things like playing Summer Dance Party. I may or may not have made fun of the hub's (lack of) dance skills.

No worries. I can't play the guitar. 

The baby kid and I amused ourselves by playing airplane and taking pictures at the same time. 

I asked the middle kid if he wanted to hang out on the couch and watch a movie, and he went and brought me a kitten. 

I guess that was a "no."

Stinker. 

The give away the kittens countdown clock is still ticking. I'm more than ready to have my garage back kitten-free. 

The weekend ended with us at a baseball game. I think someone misunderstood me. I wanted to go to a Braves game. 

This was one giant green bug. He was cool. 

See my kids way over there?

See them now? They really wanted to catch a foul ball. 

He was a little excited. He even slept with it. 

Retelling the ball story. 

This is how I watched most of the game. 

I did enjoy sitting behind home plate. 

I'm so glad she was comfortable. That's exactly what those pillows are for-her comfort. 

School's out for summer!

School is over!

Yay!

It ended with a wimper more than a bang, but that's immaterial.

It's still over.

I love the before and after pictures:

Several months ago I got a summer dance party Wii game on sale. I waited until the last day of school to give it to them.





They had a blast.

This is how we celebrated quickly the afternoon we finished school before we ran off to do other things.

We even celebrated the end of school in a hurry.

I found these snakes on Amazon after reading a homeschool blog about them. 

The ninja/nascar guy and his brother and sister watched this video about them, and spent nearly the whole day playing with them. 

I'm thinking that can still be "school." 

I'm calling it summer school. 

Summer school will include some work in the mornings and fun field trips too. 

(I love how kitten pictures are everywhere. My phone, my computer, and now even popping up in my blog posts. I must have added it by mistake. I'm leaving it because she's cute.)

I'm deeply reflective this time of year. I'm thinking over what went right this year, and what went  wrong. I ponder our strengths and weaknesses. I cringe at the ways I failed. I think of what I should have done better, been stronger at and how things could have been better. 

I wonder if the kids really learned anything at all. 

It can be exhausting. 

I look at my house, which looks like multiple tornadoes hit it all at once. 

This sort of feels like post traumatic stress disorder. 

All I want to do right now is get my house clean. 

Then we'll have some fun. 

I have learned from my past mistakes, though. Last summer we didn't do anything during the two months off, and I didn't prepare well for this year. And we suffered this year because of that. 

So starting Monday morning, we have a tiny amount of things we will do each morning. 

And I have homework to do.

But it's okay. I don't want to have the same problems this year that we had last year do to my lack of preparation. 

I allow myself a couple of days of fretting about the past year, and then I say,

Oh well. 

The year is over and we will do more/better next year in some areas and hopefully maintain the good we did this year. 

Because there was some good. 

And I'm praying God will cover with grace the areas that I failed these kids.

I know that we are walking in obedience on this path. And I'm asking Him to show me where to do better. I'm also asking Him to help me be a better steward of my time this summer than I was last summer. 

I do want to have fun this summer with the kids and our friends we don't get to see enough during the school year. I want to eat grilled out food and sit on the patio. I want to swim and play and laugh and read and sleep late some days. 

I want to rest and play and pray over next year. 

I am thankful that I get to school my kids at home. I'm thankful another year is done. I know that one day I'll be sad that they are all over. I resolve to treasure these days and appreciate them more...