One week without Facebook

I officially said good-bye to Facebook a week ago.  I had been signed out for 3 days before that, but made my official goodbye last Saturday.

This week has been much quieter than usual.  There have been nights that I have gone to bed much earlier than I normally would which is nice.

So here is a little week in review... I guess it is a nice summary and some of what would have been posted on status updates!

Because I no longer spend time checking FB I was able to go back through years of blog posts and change the photo size to medium in hopes of being ready to print some blog books soon.

I was able to email a dear friend who I have not connected with in years.  It was so refreshing to hear from her and to reconnect with someone in a meaningful way.

I have talked on the phone to many people at Children's hospital to plan M's surgery which will be happening later this month.  (There is a blog post in the works about this so I won't share more about that just yet.)

I have found new fun recipes to try on Pinterest.  The best discovery was learning how to properly cook dry black beans.  A few years ago I bought a lot of dried beans because I had this urge to not use cans... and then those beans just became one with my cupboard.  I was organizing cupboards a couple weeks ago and discovered them and decided something needed to be done with them.  I found a plan for how to cook and freeze them and use them just like canned beans.  It surely isn't rocket science, but it might have been a tad life changing.  The first thing I learned is that I needed to soak the beans for a long time before cooking them.  I soaked them in water with apple cider vinegar for a full 18 hours before putting them in my crock pot (with fresh water).  I was able to turn two cups of dried beans into 6 packages of beans ready to go!  It was like loaves and fishes folks!  The bonus, we ate Mexican food last night and the post I read wasn't kidding... no nasty tummy ill effects from the beans.  Mind Blown!

The kids had their first gymnastics class this week.  They both did well.  One of my kids might be a bit more focused during class... and one might be spinning and waving and yelling to me across the gym.  Any guesses on which is which?  :)

We took down the "Winter trees" at church this week.  Because they are decorated with just berries and pinecones they transform from Christmas trees to Winter trees the day after Christmas.  Alas tomorrow is March so the Cross is back and I am already missing the cozy tree feel.

iPhoto is a nightmare!  I know I will not properly describe what happened to our photos, but basically we lost almost all of them, like 99% of them.  We got a new hard drive on our computer this week so things are working somewhat better, but not in the photo department. Thankfully we were able to recover most through an old computer and the fact that we have lots of photos on our camera and phone, BUT I want to warn iPhoto users to back up your pics somewhere else!  We have THREE external hard drives so our photos were backed up like crazy but always within iPhoto and not as files.

We went to a wedding tonight.  Actually Brandon officiated so I sat with my amazing friend Charissa who then had to play music and sing in the wedding so I was double ditched haha.  Don't worry, I found plenty of people to chat with. The wedding was lovely and the groom got emotional which of course made me emotional!  I am so excited to see God work in the lives of this newly created family!

Local Grandparents Rock!  No, this isn't a big announcement about one set of our parents moving to our area (though if they wanted to I am sure we would help them house hunt).  I have been praying since we got M's referral that God would lead us to a set of local grandparents.  I was even praying that they would be empty nesters with no local grands so that we wouldn't take them away from time with them.  I was also praying that they would approach us and that caring for our kids would be something they truly wanted to do.  Don't get me wrong, we have a great church full of people who care about our kids, but many of them have local grandkids or work busy jobs etc. Through some very hard patches of trauma it was one of the only prayer requests I could keep up with, sadly.  Friends, God heard!  He provided an amazing couple from our church who love our kids and our kids love them!  We are so thankful for them in our lives.  Tonight they watched our kids so I could enjoy the ceremony.  It was incredible to be a part of the night and to know our kids were having a blast at home.

Many year ago I was a big tea drinker.  Then I had kids and just stopped.  I still have a big tea stash, but never really drank it.  The first day T went to school I made a big cup while I read my Bible.  I have become a tea drinker again!  Oh how lovely it is to drink a cup or two or three a day.  I don't get too fancy and mainly just drink Yogi tea as that is what I have on hand!

T has completed two weeks of school.  She is doing well (or so the notes home say).  I have enjoyed my morning of tea and 1Corinthians.  I have journaled, blogged (I have all the words written for the Christmas post but am waiting on the photos for that and many other posts), walked, done pilates, helped with the trees at church, voted, organized and more.  I think we are in the beginning of something beautiful friends!

Oh dear, this post is a total highlight reel.  I guess I did make it a bit more like FB than I realized.  To keep it real, we have had our share of trauma, potty training regression, a fifth round of strep, huge messes made, napless days, wakeful nights, FB withdrawl, major computer problem (which I did mention) etc.  We are still us!

Thank you to the sweet friends who have messaged me in email this week.  I feel so blessed by your words and prayers.  Thank you to the few people who are checking the blog and will see this post.  Here's to another week without Facebook, but very much with Jesus!