I'm back

I was able to stay away from Facebook for 2 1/2 weeks. Then, in a moment of weakness last night, I caved. Oh well.

Kind of going off of that, I had coffee yesterday with a sweet friend of mine. We talked about how much we need our lives to be more balanced. It got me thinking about an activity one of my music ed professors did in class. We were given different adjectives, such as kind, helpful, honest, dishonest, and creative. We had to take each of the adjectives and write four behaviors that described each adjective. They didn't need to be all encompassing, just specific examples. For example:

Kind
1. Opens the door for an elderly person or person in need of assistance
2. Calls friends and family on a regular basis to keep in touch
3. etc...
4. etc...

You get the idea. Last night it got me thinking; I want my life to have balance, but what does that mean? What are some specific behaviors that describe a person with a balanced life? Here are some I came up with. Keep in mind, these are behaviors that help me feel balanced. I know brushing your teeth twice a day or making your bed may be second nature to most of you ;-)

Balanced life
1. Calls or makes contact with at least one family member or close friend every day
2. Brushes their teeth in the morning and at night
3. Exercises at least three days a week
4. Says at least one kind or encouraging statement to a person every day
5. Makes their bed every morning
6. Prays every morning and night
7. Reads at least one book a month for pleasure
8. Puts dirty dishes in the dishwasher
9. Reads God's Word every day
...

My list has many more behaviors than the ones listed, but I'm sure you don't care to read every single thing I put down. Here's what I decided. Every day I will make an effort to do what I can. I probably won't emit all of those behaviors every day. I think that being conscious of behaviors involved in a balanced life allows us to 1) Give ourselves credit for the things on the list that we're already doing on a fairly consistent basis and 2) Get one step closer to being balanced, even if we just do a couple of things on the list.

Just my thoughts. I'm going to close with a beautiful song I found by a musician and writer named Tyler Blanski. Enjoy!

NEW YORK!!

I decided I wanted to go somewhere during UT's bye-week next weekend. SO, I went on Orbitz and decided I wanted to go to New York. Their airfare from Austin was RIDICULOUSLY cheap for that weekend (I'm talking under $200 round trip, total), so I just booked the flight.

I'M SO STOKED!

Ok, that is all. More to come!

12:12

I am writing this post at 12:12 a.m. Do you ever make a wish when the hour and the minutes are the same digits, such as 10:10, 11:11, etc.? I do! Just made one :-)

Anyways, I have some updates. At this point, I will be VERY impressed if any of you can even see this because, as of a week and a half ago, I deactivated my Facebook account. Yep. I did it. Now, for those of you who are a little more Facebook-savvy than you would like to admit, you know that deactivating a Facebook account is not the same thing as deleting a Facebook account.

Deactivating an account means that your profile is removed or hidden. Your account is temporarily gone until you feel like coming back. I think all you have to do is log in whenever you feel like coming back. We'll cross that bridge when I feel like coming back.

"Why do it?!!!" you might ask. In a nutshell, I was spending WAY too much time on there. I'm talking, every time I was at a computer I would check my Facebook before I would even check my e-mail. It is embarrassing to admit, but come on, people! I know I can't be the only person out there who does that!

Anyways, back to why I did it. I did it for a few reasons. First, I wondered what I would do with the extra time I had when I wasn't on Facebook. Also, to be quite honest, I think I was starting to spend more time looking through pictures, posts, etc. of people I hardly knew instead of making a phone call or sending an e-mail to a friend or family member I hadn't talked to in a while. I had a light bulb moment when a few people requested me as a friend, I accepted, then went to my profile and saw that I had almost 1,000 "friends."

Haha. If you saw my crrraaazzzyyy social life you would know that... umm... yeah... if I actually had 1,000 friends I think I would have to employ an army of personal assistants to keep my head above water. I don't think Facebook is bad- in fact, I still get so flattered when someone I haven't heard from in a while requests me to be their friend. It is nice to see what people are up to. I love living vicariously through other people's experiences- backpacking through Europe, buying a new home, being a beautiful bride (ok, come on girls, I know you think it too!)... you get the idea.

It hasn't been long, but it's still a little weird not getting on. Within the first few days of my fast I opened the Facebook app on my iPhone without even thinking about it. Fortunately, the login screen popped up, so I was able to say NO! When I start to get bored, I've thought, "Ok Mari, a week and a half was good for you. Time to go back." Then the little voice in my head tells me not yet.

So here I am. I'm sure you have figured out by now that this is probably the time I would have been on Facebook. Instead I'm finally updating my blog. As tempted as I am to get back on, I'm still curious to see what will end up happening with all the time I've accumulated that would have been spent on Facebook.

Stay tuned, my friends.

P.S. This has nothing to do with this post, but I came across a website for a non-profit called Han-Schneider International Children's Foundation. The founder is a native of North Korea who was adopted by a college professor who was serving in the US Army during the Korean War. He is terminally ill, but started a non-profit that aids North Korean orphanages, as well as orphanages in Cambodia and Tanzania. Just thought it was cool. Bye now :-)