One month ago, on August 30, I deactivated my Facebook account and committed myself to a thirty-day fast in order to focus on my studies. The decision was two fold: 1)Since all of my classes are online, I was concerned that being on the computer all the time would totally warp my brain and 2) (and more importantly) I was concerned about the distraction (and subsequent repercussions) that checking FB would have on my grades.
Now that I am a good month in to grad school, I have realized a few things.
1) I am much more inherently interested in grad school readings than I ever was while getting my bachelor's degree. Therefore, the allure of wasting time on the Internet in lieu of reading is not very strong. I actually thoroughly enjoy reading from both my text books because everything I am reading is interesting and relevant (unlike Anthropology 101- which interestingly enough was my only stupid "B" in college).
2) I am not missing being on Facebook quite like I thought I would. I realize I should have known this since I survived (gasp) a whole three months at NOLS without it! But being out in the back country and avoiding FB is much different than living in the front country and keeping oneself at a distance. The fact of the matter is that I can make it through most days without knowing which of my friends is "hating my day and all who cross my path" or "going out to the clubz with my sick bffs". Not that most of my true friends' postings say these things, but you get the idea.
3) I am enjoying the anonymity of not posting my every day life occurrences on Facebook. I realize that I can be quite the culprit in the aforementioned statements (posting such updates as "on a date with my awesome hubby" or "ladies night with the girls") and it's nice to know that the people who really truly care about me are getting their news by emailing or calling me (or from my blog postings). Haha!
Since I have reached the end of my intended fast, and have figured out to to handle grad school and real life, these thoughts have brought me to the question of whether I should get back on FB or not.
The question sparked a long conversation between Michael and me today-- side note: using "me" is grammatically correct here and it always bugs me when people don't use this particular grammatical rule properly-- culminating in the realization that not having a Facebook account in our generation, is like someone in our parents' generation refusing to buy a cell phone.
Sure, you don't HAVE to have either one of these things to survive and certainly there are many people out there who don't have them and get by just fine. But the fact of the matter is they are relevant, vital pieces of the social aspect of our lives. Cell phones opened the door to being able to contact people at any place and any time. No more waiting around for Sally to be next to the phone in the kitchen to ask if she wanted to go hang out. You could call her in her car, on a walk, or even at the gym.
In much the same way, Facebook is a major way that people communicate and is increasingly becoming the way people do business. It's a fixture of our society and to utterly avoid it causes one to miss out on what's going on in the world- even if that simply means not learning that your friend isn't going to Taco Tuesday tonight.
I have joined an adult Hip-Hop class at the Summit County School of Dance and it's AMAZING!! Knowing that I was going to be sitting and staring at a computer for three hours every Monday and Tuesday night, I decided I needed to get involved in something that would get my heart elevated and my body moving at least once a week.
Then, I saw an add for an adult hip hop class.
So, I signed up.
And was told to recruit friends.
So, I did.
And now, every Tuesday night for an hour, I rock out and get to dance with my Summit County girlfriends. If you've ever thought about taking an adult dance class, I highly recommend it. Especially if you can do it with friends, because it makes it ten times more fun.
I realize I've been a little M.I.A. the past week, so I figured I should give a little update on our life:
#1. I put in my two-weeks' notice at the preschool. This was a long, tough decision, but it basically boils down to one thing: I'm not cut out for daycare. The school I was working in was nice, but not really the true school environment I was looking for. I have the heart of an educator, and simply getting through the day watching three year olds for 10 hours a day, just wasn't cutting it. Put on top of that, the fact that I'm taking 6 hours of grad school, and I decided to "move on to the next thing". My last day is October 8!! Yay!
#2. I LOVE GRAD SCHOOL!!! It is the ideal college situation because I don't have to take stupid classes that I don't care about (like anthropology- yuck!) and I'm (mostly) working with people who really care about education and realize that it's not just daycare (see above for my dislike of daycare). I'm taking two classes this semester and they are both terribly interesting (one is literacy education and the other is applied behavior analysis). I definitely have to be self-motivated since they are all online, but it's very cool Skyping with your fellow classmates and professor. I feel very futuristic.
#3. Michael is currently in El Paso on a mission and is going to Ft. Huachuca for the month of October for the Reserve Captain's Career Course. The sad thing is we aren't together, the great thing is we're getting full captain's pay for about three weeks :)
#4. I'm going down to southern Arizona (aka northern Mexico) to meet up with Michael mid-October and we're going on a mini vacay to the Grand Canyon (insert laughter from my family here) and Moab for some climbing with our buddy B from NOLS!! More details and pictures to come later.
#5. Pepper has recovered from her porcupine attack, only to rip off one of her toenails during our latest climbing adventure. She's been on meds for the past week to prevent infection and has a new found love of peanut butter. (P.S. it took her about two administrations to learn what "medicine" means)
#6. Both Michael and I will return to the ski school for our second season starting some time around Thanksgiving. Michael will be instructing full time and I will be the indoor manger again along with instructing once a week. So, if you're in the mood to go skiing, give us a holler and we'll put you on the calendar.
A 2007 Burton Lux 150 demo snowboard!! The best part?!?! I got it for $108 INCLUDING SHIPPING!! Thank you Evo.com! If you're looking to buy anything for this coming winter, from skis to boards to outerwear, this is the website to check out.
I only started learning to ride last season, but had a great time. This season, although I will definitely be on skis, I really want to get better on a board and thought that having my own is the best place to start. So, how much longer until the first snowfall? Potentially just a few weeks :)
Last night we had a few friends over to watch the (sad) Dallas Cowboys game. It was great to have a house full of friends, and watch a little football, even though it didn't quite go the way we'd hoped... thanks, Alex Barron.
Afterward, we said farewell to our last three friends, Ty, Emily, and Eric and headed out for a little late night walk with Pepper. As we were leaving the house, I commented on how dark and difficult it was to see, since there was no moonlight and our (very safe) street has about zero street lights.
As we rounded the corner of our house, I saw a shadowy figure saunter across the street, and motioned for Eric to slow his car so that I could get a better look at it using his headlights. Just as my eyes adjusted, and I realized that the stocky little creature was none other than a porcupine, I saw a flash of white dart toward it, and began to scream!
Michael, thinking the creature was a squirrel, on steroids apparently, had let her off the leash to go check out the critter!!!
And as a result, our little Pepper wound up with a face full of quills- well, 9 to be exact.
Never having dealt with a porcupine before, I thought you weren't supposed to pull them out. So I ran back to the house, got the keys and the 4 Runner, and started calling the emergency vet hospital. Unfortunately, there is only an on-call vet in Summit County. The closest actual animal hospital is in Eagle about a hour's drive from our house.
So, we did the only logical thing we could think of: we went the (human) ER.
Sadly, they were unable to help us, but they did inform us that we could pull them out with pliers ourselves. And save a ton on sedation and vet bills. So, at 11:00 pm Mike, Eric, and I sat in the backseat of our 4 Runner and while Eric expertly extracted the 9 quills from around Pepper's eye, cheek, and lip.
She was a total trooper and didn't even whimper, even when one got caught and broke off.
So, the next time your dog gets quilled in the face by a huge porcupine because you let her off the leash at 10:30 at night, just grab a pair of pliers and yank.
I can hardly believe it's been 9 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although the images are haunting and hard to watch, it's important to remember what took place that day and all of the lives that have changed so drastically since.
God bless all of those who were so tragically taken from us then, and for those who continue to put their lives on the line today. We shall never forget.
Today we received an email from our wonderful photographer, Lisa of StoryLens Photography, with this link to the gallery of our photos from our photo shoot last week.
I really enjoy the first series, although prior to the shoot, I had favored the dress featured in the final set. However, as we were shooting, a giant squall moved in (making for some fantastic scenery prior to the rain) causing my hair to blow around like crazy, and making it difficult to capture very many good shots. Darn, mountain weather! It can change on a dime. I love the shots along the road and my the fence.
This weekend we decided to head home and visit our sweet families in Dallas. We left the house at 4:35 am on Saturday for our 7 am flight (we were striving for 430, but I "always make us late") and headed to Denver. It was a cold morning at only 30 degrees and it was pitch black outside as we made our way through the mountains to the Denver Airport (aka Western Kansas).
Michael was at the helm and took the roads cautiously as a result of the utter darkness. We chatted and laughed the whole way to the airport, until we suddenly decided to check the clock, realizing, with sheer panic, that it was 6 am and we still hadn't hit the exit for the airport!!!!
YIKES!! We finally got to the parking garage at 620 and sprinted to the American Airlines kiosk inside. We arrived at 624, more than the required 30 minutes prior to departure, but were amazed to find that we could not check in to our flight. A lovely man informed us that we would need to speak to a gate agent, which we did, and were rewarded with our boarding passes.
The panic wasn't over yet, however. We still had to make our way through security and (I thought) the dreaded DIA shuttle. Luckily, we were departing from terminal A which allows you to bypass the shuttle and use a much shorter, more convenient security line.
We flew through security (even though Michael had to get patted down) and then ran to our gate just in time to hop on the flight and soar to our destination at DFW.
After all that hassle, we had a fantastic time hanging out with my parents, visiting both my and Michael's grandparents, and chillin with both of our sisters. It was a very restful weekend and full of familial love. We missed seeing Michael's parents because they were in Atlanta celebrating our neice, Margaret's 1st birthday!! Boy does time fly.
Our trip home was much less eventful, save the 20 minute search through the parking lot for our car. Due to the initial rush, we could not remember where we'd parked! Thank goodness for panic buttons.
So, ultimately we learned this lesson: Don't fly out of DIA at 7 am and allot yourself at least 2 hours, especially if you're flying out at the crack of dawn!!
For our fifth anniversary, Michael gave me a photo shoot in the mountains with a fantastic photographer named Lisa. We spent the morning with her this past Monday near Lake Dillon taking tons of photos. Tonight we got an email with a few previews of the session. Check out: http://storylensinc.com/news/2010/09/dillon-summit-county-portraits/ to see the pictures. We have our favorites... which is your's?
Michael and I have moved to Summit County, Colorado to pursue our dreams of living in the mountains. It's sure to be an incredible journey... Stay tuned
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