The week in pictures - June 11th - June 17th

I walked up to my computer one morning to find a snuggly lump next to it. 

Some middle kid had made her a bed. 

That's pretty sweet, even if you aren't a fan of kittens. (I hear those people exist.)

I got to celebrate the birthday of one of my favorite people. She wasn't 40 either. (I think we are holding at 32.) 

This was a couch date with the hubs. It went well for one of us and not so well for the other of us.  It was fun anyway.

Trying to do Bible study one morning, and this is what I ended up seeing instead of my Bible. I know he won't sit in my lap for much longer, so I'm trying to relish when he does. 

First trip to the pool with the kids for me! Yay! Now it really feels like summer!

Delivered one of my sweet friends to the airport at 4 something in the morning. It was neat to see the world at that hour. 

Sledding with cardboard box pieces. 

It's too hot to play outside most of the day. 

Trip to the zoo. Quick pic of my favorite animal. 

We got to see a lot of animals up close. (I won't post pics of all of the animals.)

This made me happy, and the bee in the middle of the flower made me even happier. 

Two of the three kids touched a snake. 

The baby kid doesn't take after me. I like snakes. 

He was sort of excited about getting to the splash pad. 

I can't blame him. It looks like fun. 

More happiness. 

My friend finished training in Virginia for a new job and ended up in South Carolina with family.

 She's inching her way home...

Slowly.

But surely. 

Just a little too slowly...

Father's Day is a hard holiday for me for several reasons. I decided this one to only be grateful. 

Finding old pictures helped that. 

Found this of the girl kid, I mean, me. 

Father's Day lunch. 

Hibachi for lunch, obviously. 

He chose this to see after lunch. That's a father for you! 

The day ended with a run with this. My favorite. 

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.