iMom

I have GOT to get out of this bad habit of getting way behind with blogging, and then backdating and dumping it all at once!  By the time I finally sit to write, I have already forgotten what has happened and have to refer to facebook photos to revive my memory.  ...and in turn, that means that if I didn't post a picture about it, it probably won't be recorded on here.  ...and of course everyone knows that there are plenty of moments worth remembering that don't get caught on film.  In fact, that's a huge point in keeping this blog.  ...So now that my self-aimed lecture is complete, let me hop on facebook and see what I've missed.  ha, well I have to catch up before I can start a better habit!

Oh, well let's start with this:  Bran and I got iPhones for birthday presents this -- our first ones ever.  I know, plenty of 10-year olds have beat us to this, but we've been holding out, living in the Stone Ages for the past several years (In fact, we just got the 4s so there are plenty still an upgrade ahead of us).  Let's face it, we are a fam of five living off a youth pastor's salary and we felt like we had no business spending that much of our monthly budget on a cell phone plan.  Plus, we were not suffering for Jesus or anything on this one.-- We have a laptop at the house, Bran has one at work, and the church gave him an iPad upon completing ordination, so this isn't a poor us moment.  But around Christmastime, we discovered that if we linked up to B's family's plan (which they were so gracious to let us do!), we could give up our free phones that we got 4 years ago, upgrade from no data to unlimited data, and best of all bring our combined cell phone bill down to about $50 a month.  We had to switch from Verizon to Sprint, which had terrible coverage when we first moved here but is totally manageable now.
So we are no longer phone martyrs, and have joined the rest of the world in things like knowing what's happening on Facebook at all moments of the day, working hard at Scrabble With Friends, and having to fight our kids for our phones.  haha.  More than anything, I was worried about how much time our eyes would be glued to those little screens.  It has proved to be a valid concern, even for a boring stay-at-home mom, but we're working it out.  Of course there are some pretty valuable points to having an iPhone too but even some that I hadn't anticipated, like not having to carry around a wad of coupons every time I shop because of all the store apps (don't care how "mommy" that makes me, I'm pretty pumped).  I also love the YouVersion app, which has about every version of the Bible available (you can even have it read aloud!) and some really cool devotion plans (I'm loving the She Reads Truth), leaving me with very few excuses not to get into the Word regularly.  Of course the best part is the camera.  I didn't think I'd use it much because the pictures aren't nearly as good as my real camera and I'm already so used to carrying that with us most places.  I have become a big fan though because of all the quick moments that you can snap that would otherwise fly by too quickly (small perk of phone in hand too much?), and even more importantly you can send them on to friends or family with the click of a text.  I may or may not bombard my mom and sis daily with even more kid pics than I post online (is that possible?) as well as the ridiculous amount of cute little girl items to drool over.
Why am I even explaining all of this when I am the last person to learn it anyways?  I don't know, because it is what's going on in our lives right now. ..and because it gives me an excuse to dump a few of these Instagram moments caught on the phone.  Yep, I use that too (though not really sure why?).