electronic free world

I dream of an electronic free world. I realize that this sounds pretty hypocritical seeing as how I am sitting here typing on my laptop computer but there are so many times that I truly feel that electronics have taken over our lives. We have come to depend on them so much that when things aren't working smoothly it feels like our life is falling apart. How crazy is that?

This spring we turned our TV off. Well I should say we turned our dish off. So now all we get are a few channels from our antenna. We laugh and say we get 2.5 channels. We get ABC and CBS and the we get Fox but only sometimes. We do get a few other ones but we don't really count them. I realize those shows were probably classics in their day but I just can't get into them. We do just fine without the TV most of the time but I find myself struggling without my Tivo more than anything - Just wrong!!!

Another thing about electronics that has bothered me is our cell phones. First of all I don't know how much higher up on a hill we need to be to get service but we don't get any up here. Well unless you stand in one spot on one leg and your arm up in the air... I feel like I am reliving the days of using a clothes hanger and tin foil to get reception of one of our 3 whole channels of TV when I was a kid. And then about a month ago Rob's phone just quit and so I had to go get him another one. Rob does not do well with change -at all!! I always say if Rob could still have his bag phone he would be content. But since they change styles all the time and they make them so cheap he has to get familiar with new ones. That does not make him happy. Well he finally got use to that one and then yesterday it was raining hard all day and he had it sitting in the cup holder of his excavator while he was working. He didn't notice that the cup holder was filling with water. He tried to use it and the speaker part didn't work. When he told me I panicked! I had intended on putting the insurance on it but I had 30 days and I wanted to make sure he liked it first. I had totally forgot to go back in and put it on. Long story short - I had to re buy him the exact same phone yesterday...not a good day.....:-(

And then there is our whole computer life. The drama over whose computer in the house is having the most problems. My hard drive just went out on my laptop but luckily the computer guy was able to save All my photos by moving them over one by one (and I have ALOT!!!) My desktop has this pop up thing right now that tells me I have to "insert the disk so I can continue..." I don't have a CLUE what disk it is talking about. And then there is our Internet. Right now I am grounded from downloading anything until August 4...I guess with the kids being home this summer we have been on the Internet to much and we hit our cap on usage...how Frustrating. That is one of the joys of living in the country - there are not alot of choices in providers. And the other fun thing about our Internet is that when there is a storm it goes off. Right now it starting to storm so I am hoping I get to Upload this before I loose my Internet once again. Yesterday during the storm Becca and I actually took our computers to town and sat in Culvers so we could have Internet. We looker around and there were quite a few other people in there with computers as well. I looked at Becca and said..."they must have WildBlue too.."

Yesterday when I took Rob his new phone to him (after I had put insurance on it...)He thanked me and said he felt like he had lost his right arm without it. Becca and I did a Spanky and Our Gang look at each other. I knew right then and there that the world had gone to hell in a hand basket...(I never understood that term but it seemed to fit here...) The day that my husband admitted that he was lost without an electrical device I knew that we were all doomed. He doesn't watch TV, doesn't know how to turn on a computer and fought cell phones every step of the way...And yet here we are.

Satan is sneaky...All these things seem harmless really. And yet we become more and more dependent on them. They are supposedly meant to make our lives simpler and better. And yet the amount of time I spend complaining about these things is ridiculous....Now that I have expressed this does it mean I am ready to give them up and dive in to my husbands dream of "being Amish" (see earlier blog..) Not so much.. But I do realize it and I truly want to get a handle on things. I want to Rule it and not let it Rule me.....

Well friends....have a wonderful day and an event less electronics day....