Why I removed Facebook from my smart phone

I love Facebook, or at least I did 4 months ago.  Now I am not so sure.  Let me explain.  When I was living in a city where I had a job, a church community and a group of really good friends that I saw on a regular basis I loved Facebook.  It was a way to connect with people that I didn't get to see very often.  I loved to snoop on what my friends where doing and to post superficial status updates about what I was watching, cooking or baking.  I felt like Facebook was a good add on to the community I had in real life.  I could ignore the overly dramatic 'vague-booking' statuses or the fear mongering news reports.  I could block the game request and unfollow the few people whose status updates I found annoying without unfriending them (don't judge, we all do it).  It was great when it was just the icing on the caking, not the cake itself.

Now that I have moved to a new city where I do not have a strong 'in-person' community yet I find that my feelings for Facebook have changed.  I find that the same type of superficial status updates that I enjoyed before now make me sad, they leave me craving 'real' contact.  At this point I would give almost anything to be able to call up a friend and meet for coffee or a glass of wine, that snooping on people who are engaging in those type of activities is hard.  Listening to people complain on Facebook about their spouses, children, neighbours, jobs or salaries is frustrating.  And being bombarded with 'end of days' media posts makes me feel ill, like I've eaten too much icing.

Now here is my problem.  I still want to stay connected with many of the people on Facebook and I know, from experience that real community can be had through social media and I love it when it works well.  I just can't have it be my only community.  I know that having Facebook in my pocket, on my phone, wherever I go is not helping me create community, it is keeping me locked in a community I can only access online.  It is too easy to sit in the church foyer after a service on Sunday checking my Facebook instead of engaging with the people around me.  It is even easier to go to the park with my son and sit on my phone scrolling through statuses instead of trying to start a conversation with another mother at the park (realistically the other parents will be on their phones too, and there is no judgment here...I've done it many times) and the same goes on the bus, commuter train or in a coffee shop.

So here is what I am going to try to see if it helps me.  I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone and removing Facebook from my phone.  I am going to see if not having Facebook so readily accessible will help me engage a bit more with the world around me, at least when I am out in public. I believe you can not create community without engaging, so this is my experiment.  I am not leaving Facebook altogether, as I still see the value in it, I am just not taking it with me wherever I go.  I will check and update Facebook at home, at a computer.  It does feel a bit strange, as I am still at this point keeping Instagram on my phone, as well as Twitter but at this moment I do not check those nearly as much as I check Facebook.  I love and appreciate all those on my Facebook, and still look forward to keeping in touch.

 I'll keep you all posted on how this works out for me.

Pictures as promised!

Ok everyone, I am sorry that it has taken me so long to upload some photos from the themed wedding we attended in August.
First let me say that it was a beautiful wedding and the bride looked stunning!
Secondly, it was rather neat to see all of the themed outfits.  There were a lot of men in suspenders and bow ties including my handsome husband. And a lot of pretty ladies in 'flowy' dresses.

So I decided not to post some of the 'test hair' that I did leading up to the wedding but just the final product.

 Here is what I ended up looking like

My handsome husband (don't mind the patch work ceiling...I'll post about that one day too)

The lighting at the dance was crazy, but I wanted to show that my hair totally flopped after an hour of dancing

A little added geekiness, the bride and groom are huge Legend of Zelda fans and got these wonderful items as wedding gifts.  I also love LoZ so I jumped at the chance to snap a photo with the Master Sword

One more picture of my cutie

And this photo sums it all up

Blame it on the flu

So I have been sick for the last two days, well truthfully I am still rather under the weather, so all I have done is stay in bed or on the couch playing video games.  Well there was a problem with that, my husband and son where home as well, being the weekend and all, so I found myself without a computer to play on (we only have 2).  Normally I would hop onto the WiiU and play, but I have finished all the games I want to right now and there is only so much Mario Kart 8 one can play (a lot...but there is still limits), so I stole my son's 3DS and started playing Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon.  What a fun game. The game is absolutely beautiful, but also very fun and even a little challenging for this old lady.  I admit it, I have died a few more times than in respectable, so I will blame it on the flu. Luigi's Mansion reminds me of all the fun I've had playing any number of the Super Mario Bros games as a child and I am looking forward to playing more of it today.  I am about half finished the game, but unlike when I was a child I have things I need to do today, sick or not, so I will play in between loads of laundry and cleaning the kitchen.
Oh I should also make supper at some point...I wonder what Luigi would want.

Highballs, Hairdos and Health potions

Hey everyone!
Today I want to share with  you a new passion of mine, a video game called Don't Starve.  It is this fun survival game where your main purpose is not to starve.  Sounds simple, but it is not really.  I am not sure why I like it so much, mainly because it presents a challenge to me in my otherwise routine life right now.  I am constantly trying to top my number of days survived.  Right now my highest is 58 game days.  It's tough.  It is one of those games that you can be 10 game days in and then you die and you need to start back at the beginning, with nothing on day one.
Here is a link to my YouTube video of me starting a Let''s Play series of Don't Starve and you guys can check it out for yourselves.

Don't Starve


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Thanks everyone.