"I Kissed Social Media Goodbye" and Update!

I bet you're surprised to see me on your blog feed!  I of course have been wanting to blog for a while now, but literally just cannot find the time.  We have been non stop busy lately.  I think the only reason I sat down to blog today was because I set us up a desk in our living room!  It's nothing fancy.  It's actually just one of those plastic tables with metal legs with a table cloth over it.  But it works great. :)  We just have a laptop, so it's cool to actually have a place to have it set up.

Let's see....where to start.  Well, the boys are doing great.  August is 2 years old now.  I'm pretty sure we are out of the months stage with him, but just for my records, he is 25 months old.  He is at such a fun age!  I seriously love this age.  He is so much fun to talk to, and I love to listen to him and see how his little mind works.  He just soaks everything up like a sponge!  It's really fun to watch him learn.  He is really into cars right now.  Any transportation really.  He got a bunch of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars for his birthday, and he plays with them all day every day.  He also loves to point out cars, trucks, and bullzo's (bulldozers) when we are out driving.  Jude is doing great.  He is 9 months old now.  Nursing is still going well!  He nurses about 5 times a day.  All really quick though, like 5 minutes.  But he has always been that way.  Just this week he has ventured out into foods other than pureed baby food.  I used to make homemade purees for him, but they weren't very smooth and he hated it.  So I started buying him the store bought food, and he liked that much better.  If it had any texture though, he would throw up!  Like literally, throw up.  So it had to be super smooth, either stage 1 or stage 2 baby food.  Just in the last couple days I have gotten him to eat some yogurt, cheese, and shredded turkey.  Since he is replacing so much breastmilk with food, I decided I should try offering him so higher calorie foods.  He had just been getting baby food fruit with the rare veggie mixed in.  Wow, that's a lot of info about his food.  Haha.  Isn't it funny how when they are younger, you feel the need to update on their food/milk situation?  Lol.  What if adults did that when you asked them how they were doing?  Oh, I'm fine.  I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the occasional snack.  I also drink water and too much Coke.  Lol.  That would be pretty funny. I may start doing that.  Jude is just now starting to crawl.  He has really big thighs, so it has been really hard for him to go from sitting to the crawling position.  He just hasn't been able to get up and over that thigh!  Haha.  He is also waving bye bye all the time.  He says mama, dada, and bye bye, but they are all very rare.  He doesn't talk nearly as much as August did at this age. 

Adam and I celebrated had our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday.  We didn't actually get to do anything, because our night consisted of screaming kids during and after church so that was fun.  :)  Real life for ya!  We will actually be celebrating our anniversary on Saturday.  We are going to have a day date, which I am super excited about!  Day dates are my favorite.  I'm not a big go out at night person.  I guess that qualifies me as old.  Oh well.  :) 

I have actually had something on my mind that I wanted to blog about.  You might remember when I wrote about it here, that I cancelled my facebook a couple years ago.  I never really did an update about that, but I just wanted to say that it was and still has been one of the most freeing things that I have ever done!  I would do it again in an instant.  My mind just can't deal with that much info all the time.  I don't need to know who is where, who is with who, who "likes" and "dislikes" this, whose kids did what, what so and so's husband did for his wife...  I just don't need to know all of that!  It was taking up so much room in my brain!  It stresses me out just thinking about it. 

Anyway, so I was on Instagram for a while, and I loved it.  It was kind of like facebook without all the junk.  Just pictures, which is all most people care about anyway.  I loved instagram.  I loved that I could have all of my pictures in one place, even those that weren't on my phone anymore.  I loved that I could see what my friends and family were up to.  But then it started producing these feelings in my heart.  Discontentment, jealousy, feeling like I needed to prove that I was a good mom and a good wife, competition, etc.  So I quit Instagram too.  I still have the account, but I don't think I've updated it in like 4 or 5 months.  I took it off of my phone so that I don't feel the need to check it.  I also took Pinterest off of my phone.  I still have an account, and I occasionally get on, like maybe once every couple weeks or so.  But it's usually for a recipe that I already had pinned or something.  I think Pinterest is helpful when used right. It saves you from having a bunch of bookmarked pages on your web browser, but I don't agree with the way I and most people were using it.  Everyone pins a bazillion things that are not practical and that they will never actually have the time for.  Then, you feel bad that you aren't doing all those things that you pinned.  Then, you start to feel like a bad mom because you assume everyone else who is pinning all of these awesome things are actually doing them, when in reality they are just pinning them just like you are.  Anyway, Pinterest was making me discontent with my home, discontent with the time (even though it was good, quality time) that I was spending with my children, and it was giving me lots of unrealistic expectations about beauty, cooking, my body, pretty much every area of my life. 

After doing a lot of praying, heart searching, and Bible reading, I came to realize something.  At the end of the day, the ONLY thing that matters is,

DID MY DAY BRING GLORY TO GOD? 

That's it!!!  That's all I'm responsible for!  How freeing! 

I can't tell you how much my life has changed just by cutting out all of this social media CRAP!  Sorry, that was probably a little strong.  It may not be crap for you.  It may be helpful, and somehow, you don't have a problem with a chaotic mind, jealous feelings, and feeling insignificant because you are comparing yourself.  Or maybe you do have a problem with it?  I don't know.  But I can tell you that after deleting my social media off of my phone (and in some cases, permanently), I still have a nice, somewhat orderly home.  We still eat supper every night.  I still spend time with my kids.  I still love my husband in creative ways.  That sounds bad, but I'll leave it.  :)  I still take a small amount of time to make myself look neat, but I don't feel the need to perfect a "cat eye" or contour my face so it looks like I got in a fight with a tire, or try 45 hairstyles for short hair.  Life is simple again, and I didn't die!  :)  I'm not trying to talk you into deleting your accounts, and I don't think it's bad if you don't.  But if you struggle like me, I promise you will live, and you will live a much more free, happy, and content life if you do delete your accounts.  Ya know what?  I just might "pin this" blog post so I can get the word out.  FREEEEEEE  YOURSELF!  YOU DON'T HAVE TO CONFORM TO THIS WOOOOOOORLD!  (That was me yelling and getting the word out.) 

Ahhhhhh.  See? I feel better after just saying it. :)  Anyway, I will upload some pictures in another post.  I need to clear off my phone first.  Is anyone still out there?  Anyone still reading? :)  "Is anyone alive out there?"  Titanic reference?  Yes?  Alright, I am going to go fold some laundry while the kids are still napping.  Leave me a comment and let me know how you are doing, what you've been up to, what you think about social media. Have a wonderful day!