We Deactivated Our Facebook Accounts!

We did it!  H3 and I deactivated our individual Facebook accounts! 

Some of you may know that H3 and I were recently married.  Since we have children from other relationships we decided to devote all of our time blending our two families together and developed a list of 10 things to do over the summer.

Once we started living together, we became obviously aware of the amount of time that we spent checking our Facebook newsfeed or new comments to posts throughout the day.

In addition, to checking updates, there were numerous intense trending topics that were popping up across timelines in the political, religion and even racial arenas. Luckily H3 and I are like minded in numerous topics and frequently talk openly and calmly about these topics. On facebook however the line of right or wrong is drawn and either you agree with others opinions (even if you don't agree) or you are WRONG. Some of these topics tend to get very intense and if you get to wrapped into it --- it can consume you.

I personally don't see some topics (politics/religion) as right or wrong.  It is about perception. I think one way and you may think another way and that is what makes us different. Running the country is like running a business. The Board of Directors of a company has a strategic plan just as each political party does.

Another reason that we are stepping away from Facebook (a "hiatus" as I call it) is to get in touch with friends and family on a more personal level.  Talking by phone, handwriting messages and sending postcards while traveling are things that we want to do more frequently.  We speak to immediate family very frequently and even send postcards to them when we are traveling but felt it was important to broaden our reach to all of our friends and family and to share it with the kids too!

I will say that we will keep our individual accounts deactivated.  Once we return to Facebook we will be using our joint facebook account that we created just before we married.

10 Things To Accomplish Summer 2015

Our family summer theme this year is --- Blending.

As some of your may know H3 and I are newlyweds.  Since we each have children from previous relationships we made the executive decision to spend the summer blending our beautiful family, haters and all!

We have given this a lot of thought and here is our list of 10 things to accomplish over this summer that we believe we help us accomplish our goal!

1. Deactivate our individual Facebook accounts

2. Decrease the amount of TV shows that we dedicate our DVR to.

3. Start a new tradition for our new family

4. Convince H3 that he needs work on his smoked brisket recipe and offer to be his outbreak money /  taste tester. :)

5. Take at least ONE trip to the beach

6. Family walk at least twice a week in the evenings - including Cadence!

7. Start AND COMPLETE a furniture project.

8. Attend our first 4th of July celebration as a blended family.

9. Play Foot Golf .

10. Go fishing as a family.

As we accomplish each of our summer goals I will add another blog post and link it to the corresponding goal.

GPS Hell! #HateTheSlash

Today, GPS systems, regardless of stand alone or via app are vital to our transportation needs and have become more and more robust over the years. It is an excellent tool that has made my family vacations and commutes to unfamiliar areas worry-free and making the big folding map and three feet by two feet Atlas book obsolete.   YEAH FOR THAT!!!

Sometimes this wonderful tool can be very ANNOYING.  Until recently the only thing that I personally thought to be bothersome, but excusable, about a typical trip using a GPS was that it could misinterpret where your vehicle was when you were too close to other streets or on big city interstate intersection like the famous Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta, Georgia, which is formally named the "Tom Moreland Interchange".  As you can see from the picture below, it is very easy and understandable for the confusion to exist.

Spaghetti Junction, Atlanta GA

Now that we have determined that there are excusable "glitches" lets talk about the annoying inexcusable glitches...

What is up with all these multiple street names for the same road????  On a recent commute to a larger city near me, while using my GPS, via Google Maps, I discovered the MULTIPLE STREET NAME GLITCH!  

Does this happen to you??????????????????

It makes absolutely no sense to me that the exit that I am about to take should have 5 names associated with it.  Will that street have five different names throughout the course of it's existence??? Sure that is most definitely possible! Do I need to know EVERY ONE OF THEM before they are even 5, 10 or even 20 miles from me??? NO, I DO NOT!!!

Help me spread the word to rid the GPS world of the INEXCUSABLE SLASH! #HateTheSlash

Why All The Damn Cups!!!!!

Can anybody else relate to this image???  
I cannot stand for different cups to be used throughout the day by ONE individual.
(image below says it all...)

It can get a little difficult keeping up with which cup belongs to who especially if everybody is drinking the same thing and all the cups are the same....

These are the glasses my family insist on using.

It is also difficult to determine who's cup belongs to who even if they all have a different drink when the cups they insist on using are glasses that are dark in color.  Can you guess what is in each of the glasses below???   Maybe it is water, kool aid, or lemonade.

Can you guess what is in each glass above?

I decided I was going to assign cups to everybody.  Many of the suggestions I discovered were to assign certain cup color to each person. I agree color cups are the best solution for most families but in my family I have 3 kids; my 40 year old husband, our oldest who is 20 and our youngest who is 10. Since our ages are spread across multiple decades and because the above glasses turned me away from any cup that has a color, I believe the best solution to be a Tervis design cup!

Perfect solution to unknown cups

You can buy them just about any department store and even Bed Bath and Beyond but I actually bought mine at the actual Tervis boutique store in downtown historic Savannah while on my mini honeymoon last month. It is right across the street from The Lady's and Sons restaurant owned by Paula Deen.  You can't miss it!!!