Smartphones effecting our society?

I watched a video today which really made me think about this. Like really, how are we as a society going to improve if we continue to think that life is about texting and social networking every moment of our lives? I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this. I'm a stay at  home mom, my only source of communication is with children or Facebook but isn't that sad?! I've literally gotten to the point in my life in which I don't call anyone. I text or if you don't have a cell phone...well I guess we won't talk. That's pathetic. Like I should really be a better person and call people and if not write a letter. Like Louis C.K. says in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c, we've lost our empathy and our ability to be alone by having smart phones. I agree. There's many times I wish I didn't have one, I'd get a lot more done without it. I'd blog more, I'd spend more time with my kids, my house would be cleaner, etc. I know this for a fact because I went without internet for days last month and my house was spotless! And when my phone is dead I play with my kids, have a conversation with my husband, get some of my work done. I'm so guilty of needing some sort of social interaction it's ridiculous, but I don't call anyone? Somethings wrong with this. And if I, as a 29 year old who grew up without a computer (until I was 12), bought a cell phone after high school, and spent my summers chatting on the cordless phone to my best friends on my front porch, find the need to be on FB all day, what are my kids going to do when they're introduced to it all? Granted I think a cell phone for calling home is necessary, there's many many times I had to walk home because my mom or someone didn't pick me up, or times I was gonna be late and couldn't call, and I ended up in trouble for it. But my kids wont have a smart phone, or Facebook for that matter, until they are older.

We need to teach our kids how to sympathize and have feeling for other human beings or we won't survive as a society.

Not only for the fact that I think they need better sources of socialization, but because I see all these teen suicides in which kids are killing themselves over whats being said on the internet. If you move your kid to a different school to avoid the bullying, that should be the end of it, but when you give your kids access to the internet in which they can easily be found, they have no chance. The bullying continues. Not to say I don't have sympathy for these parents, because lord knows if one of my children took their own life I would be more than devastated, but a lot of these suicides could possibly be avoided if the teens didn't have access to everything they have access to. Again, as Louis mentions, when you say "you're ugly" to someone's face, you see their reaction, you see that it hurts, and you rethink what you did, hopefully never doing it again. But if you go to someone's profile photo and say "you're so ugly", you get nothing from it but a response, whether it's a defensive or sad response, you won't feel it. You won't even begin to understand how that person felt when you said it, all you know is you said it and it made you feel good for the moment so there's nothing stopping you from doing it again. It concerns me that our children's futures are going to be surrounding with hate because of this.
On another note, with all these social networking sites, what's the point in high school reunions anymore? I went to mine with the thought that "I know everything about anyone I care about because they're on my facebook". I went to see how people I didn't like were fairing in life. In the end, I didn't even care. A lot of people were still the same and some people were still alone but they still think they're better than me, whatever. But the point is, there was no element of surprise, no "hey, so what do you do now? are you married, do you have kids?" Everyone who cares already knows the answers to these questions. However my husband who graduated 3 years prior, his reunion was a little "pre-socialized" because Facebook had pretty much just made an appearance, and he really didn't get on it (he still doesn't). People were actually interested in your life and how it was going. If that's how different it was in a 3 year time span, what's it gonna be like when my kid's have their first reunion's? Its scary to even think that some day they'll be that old, but even scarier to know that there won't be any point in going other than to have a few drinks.
There's days where I wish I could just exclude all this crap from my life, but without the internet my businesses would go nowhere, I have a hard enough time competing for people who can spend the whole day on the computer, no way I'd accomplish anything without it. However, I do know that I'm not setting my kid's up to be bullies, or be bullied. I'm not letting them go without learning how it feels to hurt someone, what its like to call someone instead of texting. How to spend an evening devoted to spending time with the family and not chatting with friends on the internet. I'm officially going to start taking two days off a week. I need to in order to set a good example for my kids.

Who wants to join me in this?!

I'll make my husband hide my phone and give it back to me in the morning because I have no self control at all. And if there's something I think of that I need to do, I'm just gonna write a note and do it the next day. We've gotta start somewhere right?

TLC, pick me!!

I've been living on basic cable for the last year, and before that we didn't have anything. We lived on Netflix and movies, which I was ok with but missed a lot of shows that everyone was always talking about. And tons of "do you watch 'yada yada', oh wait, you don't have tv." oy, sounds like we were hillbillies, but really we are just on a budget lol.
Anyhow, I've finally got DVR! yay! and "on demand" which is next to awesome! I swear I went a week straight watching HGTV and when I was bored I started watching "Honey Boo-Boo" and "Cheer Perfection". Both are completely pointless shows but the entertainment factor is way up there. Especially "Honey boo-boo", lol, how can you not laugh at their ridiculousness. And I'm not criticizing them in anyway because they mean well, they're just...different. HAHA, the constant lack of class is ridiculous, but they all seem like very sweet people just trying to make it in life. And they're real, you can't make that kind of stuff up. A bunch of immature teenage daughters, a step-dad who just does what everyone wants, and mom who loves them all no matter what. It's cute and funny. BUUUUT what I'm really excited for is "Alaskan Women Looking for Love". NOT!! Why the hell are they making a show about this? Seriously, why? Every other channel has a show about match making, why does TLC need one too? Like seriously, they need to come to my house, we have way more entertainment value than that of a bunch of Alaskan's who can't just move away on their own and need TLC to do it for them. I mean in my house you've got 3 boys of different ages, one is a pain in the butt 2 year old, one is a timid 4 year old , and a 6 year old who is not only a clutz, but a whiney brat as well. Then you have a girl who's pretty flippin smart and knows it so she tries to rule the house and has quite the attitude. Next you have dad who's gone all day at work comes home and continues to make mom be mom because he either has other stuff to do or just doesn't care to fuss at the kids because he doesn't want to be the mean guy. And lastly, mom, me, supreme ruler of the house with one too many jobs, not enough sleep, and stressed out 90% of the time because I'm the only one who listens to myself. Did I mention we just moved to a super small town and there's notta to do and I live next to my in-laws in a house that needs a crap ton of work done to it before we can call it "home"? See, there you go TLC. Whole entire plot laid out for you.  I've been saying for years they need to come visit us, however I see the tabloids not liking me and I'm pretty sure I'll come across as another Kate Gosselin because I don't put up with the crap that most people let their kids get away with, and I don't let my husband get away with being half attentive either. Maybe this isn't such a good plot after all lol. Nevermind TLC, don't come hunt me down, aint nobody got time for that!

My semi-organized life

Honestly I suck at being organized. I have tons of ambition and then I get suckered into FB news feeds (which can be super boring most days) or Pinterest, a life long addiction I think. On a good note, Pinterest does have a ton of organizing tips that I either a)plan to use in the future, b)have attempted to use and never followed through, or c) really do work out to my advantage. Currently I'm hunting down storage ideas because our new house literally has no closets worth storing anything in and it's driving me nutso!! Also, as we live in a super small town and the nearest Walmart or super center of any sort is 45-55 minutes away I have to plan meals for 2 weeks or more before going. I've always had a calendar available and a white board for weekly reminders but I came across this incredibly cute set on Pinterest, every month has a theme. I love it and it keeps things fresh and festive. Best part, it's free! Is she not awesome?! http://www.creativideeworkshop.com/share.html   I'm on the second month of using her printable's. She has tons of other cute festive/monthly printable's available too, which I look forward to using as the holidays come up. I've seen so many other bloggers and websites that have their own but I really like her styles. Just darling and I don't mind having them on display.

So the way I use these is pretty simple. The meal planner I literally spend hours planning meals, mostly because I get so sick of eating the same thing all the time, but then I also have to consider that not everyone likes the same things and we have picky eaters around here so I try not to have two meals in a row that not everyone will eat. This can be a very daunting task. Then on the side of that I have the shopping list. Granted I usually use a major shopping list like this (sideways sorry), to take the store for major shopping days. So the fridge list is generally used for items we run out of and will need replaced. Most things like milk or veggies are replaced at the local store weekly.

Includes Price matching that I find a Pricematcherz.com (lists local store deals so you don't have to look for hours in the papers) 

 The Weekly Planner I use for reminders because for whatever reason it's easier for people to see a list of things to do than actually look at a calendar (these people include my one in only husband who needs multiple ways of telling him something is happening so he can't say he didn't know about it!) And the monthly planner is, well, a monthly planner. Permanently written on it are things that happen every month. This includes spelling tests and what days the kids have P.E. so they know what days they have to wear tennis shoes and what days flip-flops or dress shoes are ok to wear. And each month I go through the school calendar as well as my own personal scheduling book and write down things on the paper itself. If things come up I can easily add to the calendar because these are all in the plastic sleeves you can buy for like $1 to use in binders, and I tape them to the fridge. Makes it easy to switch out monthly printable's this way too. Also I keep Teagan's dance calendar and the school calendar behind the monthly so I always know where it is and can use it for the next month.


On a non schedule based organization topic I use a lot of flipping Thirty-one products in my house. I have a million totes I swear. But for my kitchen I have this family organizer which I love. Currently it's kind of a mess and doesn't match my kitchen at all, and actually won't match when I repaint either, but whatever lol. Each kid has a pocket for their school things, spelling lists, memos, weekly news,etc. Then one pocket is for bills, and then I have a few extra spaces for the kids who aren't in school yet. I have plans of organizing life enough to do activities with them a few days a week here shortly so they will get filled, but for now they're empty. The organizer is only $25. Seems pricey but Thirty-one makes quality products from a Christian based company, you can't go wrong with that! (I am in no way affiliated with the Thirty-one Company past or present, and am not in any way being asked or paid to say this, I truly love their products).

Oh ya, I have a cleaning list that I printed off from somewhere, I'm horrible at following it. Those marks are from 2 weeks ago lol. Anyhow, there's a glimpse of my semi-organized life. It's a work in progress but some day I'll have everything down.

Maddox's surgery

Before, all he cares about in watching cartoons

My little monkey, thumbs up for all the Popsicle's and crackers you can eat!

A lot of people didn't know, but Maddox had surgery last Friday to fix and umbilical hernia that he'd had since he was itty bitty. Literally itty bitty, the kid spit up everything his first 12 months of life so he weighed next to nothing. The spit up and the constant crying had played a big roll in this hernia issue. And for years the pediatrician's have said "well if it's not gone by two" then "if its not gone by time he's in school" and so on until I put my foot down and his current pediatrician agreed it was time to take care of it. She was slightly worried that the closer of the two doctors in the area wouldn't do the surgery because it was small but he did. He said the fascia was tight so there wasn't any chance of it getting worse as he got older, however that also meant that it wasn't gonna get any better. Ultimately it was never gonna cause any long term effects but for peace of mind I didn't want him to get hurt playing football or landing on something wrong and damage the intestines that were sticking through the hole. That, to me, seems like something that would be way worse and more traumatizing than the minor surgery (that took like 25 minutes) it took to correct it. Currently hes doing good, and was actually up and moving around quite a bit the day of. 4 days later he's back in school (Labor Day weekend worked perfect, he had a few extra days if he needed it) and yesterday we were at the fair all day and he seemed to be doing great. I'm quite proud of my little guy. He's a tough cookie and even came out of anesthesia without any issues. The nurses were all quite surprised at his nonchalant attitude the whole time, and even happier that he didn't freak out when he woke up. He wasn't able to look at the incision for the first few days because that did freak him out a little, he just didn't want to see the blood, but now he's cool about it and happy to have a "normal" belly button for once. He's a great kid, proud to call him my son!