life without facebook

After my leave of absence from facebook, I can tell you a few things that have drastically changed:

1)     I get WAY more school done during the day (and evening)

2)    I’ve gone to bed almost an hour earlier every evening

3)     I pay almost 100% more attention in class. I’m not tempted to get out my phone and mindlessly fidget with it wavering back and forth between facebook and/or twitter.

4)    All the “chatter” in my mind is more calm

5)     I’m glad that I don’t know what you’re doing today. And I’m even more glad you don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going.

6)    I’ve had many more phone conversations and made more attempts to be fully present with the people that are actually IN my life (not on a screen)

7)     I feel less dumb

8)    I’m reading a lot more at night

9)    I’ve had more time to pay attention to what’s actually going on with me—instead of ignoring or evading things I need to be looking at.

10)                         I feel more “healthy” all the way around

I don’t know why it took me so long do to this. I’ve known I needed to do it for a while.

I hope your Lenten journey is one of thoughtful reflection and focus on why you do what you do. Why you believe what you believe; what changes you want to see in your life long-term; what’s keeping you from living the life you’ve always wanted to live.

In other news...

I made a brief trip home over the weekend—literally less than 72 hours but it was so wonderful to see my mom and dad—and of course my little nephew—who is almost 2!! This time I could really tell how much he’s grown. He’s talking more and his little personality is blossoming and let me tell you—he is ALL boy! That boy could play outside for 24 hours if we let him. He loves all our animals (by the way, we are now back up to 3 dogs and 3 cats! We haven’t had that many animals in years. My poor mom and dad)!

And now it’s back to the real world for me. The next two weeks at school are going to be the most hectic yet. We are getting ready to cram in a second round of tests before Spring Break—and while I’m maintaining a very B average this semester, I need to do well on these so I’ll have a little leeway going into our finals.

I have to tell you, I’m really ready to be done with this first year. The past few weeks I’ve realized how tired and worn-out I am of just my regular routine. My daily routine starts somewhere around 5:30am every morning and I usually never get into the bed before 11pm. But the end is in sight. Thank goodness. 

Blessings to you and yours!

With a full heart,

Jennifer