That day our internet was limited....

We moved into this GORGEOUS house mid-December. We love it, and so far we love everything about it. It was the house I wanted to hate when we were touring houses, it was a whole 15 minutes from work, as opposed to the less than 5 I lived before. It is out in the country. It runs on propane. It only has two bedrooms, with a beautiful unfinished basement that will hopefully not be too hard to finish off with the potential of two more bedrooms, another bathroom, a big multipurpose room, a laundry room, a storage room. It is a split level, four steps up to the main floor and nine steps down to the basement. It doesn't have a fence.  It isn't in my top choice of elementary schools. Ahhhh, we wanted to hate this house. I told Marc as we were driving out to the house that this had better be good or else there is no way.....

We walked into the house, it is totally open on the inside, the living room flows into the dining space, which flows into the kitchen. It backs up to the Crow Wing State Park (which we love and adore). It is a quiet neighborhood. It had two bathrooms, TWO bathrooms, this is a big deal when we have all of our family over. It has a three stall ATTACHED garage. It was under our budget. It had beautiful details. Besides the guest room nothing absolutely HAD to be painted. (Mom has since painted the 2nd bathroom because I didn't like the color before, thanks mom, it was livable but now this is wonderful). The guest room is next on the list to be painted. The yard is huge. We love this house, we have adjusted and really don't mind the 15 minute drive. Propane isn't a big deal to us. We continue to grow into the house and figure out where stuff goes. But one thing that we have found we actually don't mind is the fact that because we are so far out in the country we don't have unlimited internet access, we had to go with a dish internet provider which only allows us so much internet each month.

Living/Dining/Kitchen before anything was moved in

We actually read more books, we talk to each other more, we don't have Netflix streaming endlessly, we don't sit mindlessly on facebook for hours. We have plenty of data each month to do what we want to do, we just don't stream things without end. We communicate more. We enjoy the silence more. We get lost in more books and magazines. We watch movies we already owned. We check out movies from what feels like a nearly endless supply at our library. We have disconnected some, and we love it. We aren't as tied to our ipads, iphones, laptops, and tv. We were just discussing last night what a welcomed change this has become in our lives. Yes, we still use the internet probably more than we care to admit but it has been seriously lessened and we love it. I still make photobooks on shutterfly, instragram, facebook, read blogs, write blogs, and my husband frequently looks up triathlon training plans and I look at half marathon plans but we have taken a step back from the technology that had gotten a grasp on our lives. I don't think we even had a clue how much we were absorbed in it until our data was minimized and while there are moments we miss it, the reality is we are actually enjoying the lack of data.

How much do you use the internet in any given day?
Do you enjoy the chance to step back from technology?
What are your opinions on technology?

iPad

Sad Story: my laptop (Gladys - I named her in the midst of thesis writing in undergrad - because I was spending so much time with her and somehow it stuck - which makes me giggle now) - is from my sophomore year of college (2004) - she is getting old in the computer world, but she still works - her major default is her battery life is less than stellar and so any time I want to use her not plugged in I only have about an hour before the battery will be dead - she runs a little slow - but still runs well - and I love her - I know all the short cuts on my trust macbook, I know where things are saved, what programs she has, and her quirks. I am not ready to replace her (although I have started saving up for a new one - I haven't told Gladys this yet though - I don't want to be caught computerless and have no funds to get a new one).

True Story: I am cheap. I don't like to spend money on frivolous things (like a new computer when Gladys works just fine). My uncle every year for Christmas gives my brother and I $100 in Best Buy Gift Cards, there have been years in which I have gone out and bought things such as movies, video games, kindle gift cards, camera memory cards, camera equipment, etc. and in my later years I have learned the joys of saving up my gift cards and getting something even more wonderful, several years back I bought my wii with said gift cards (I LOVE my wii - games, amazon prime, and netflix). The past few years I have just been hording my gift cards questioning what I would buy with them, slightly debating a computer, but knowing that would take me a lot of years to get enough gift cards to get a new macbook, this year after we got our gift cards, it struck me, I was going to buy a iPad. This would extend the life of Gladys because I could use Gladys for certain things and my iPad would cover many needs that Gladys was starting to slack on. So I bought an iPad - I named her Ethel (sounded like a name of someone who would be good friends with Gladys).

Several people have asked what apps I currently love soooo here is my list: (please note above true story, I am cheap so generally I love free apps) (apps are in no particular order)

• Pinterest
• Pandora
• LOVE having access to music all the time
• Facebook
• TripAdvisor
• Super handy when on trips
• Instagram
• BBC News
• Pages
• SBR Speeds
• Remember the Milk
• my favorite to-do list app
• ELCAYMNET
• Google +
• Bible
• Songsterr
• Wikiweb
• was a free Starbucks app at some point - I actually use it quite a bit
• Where's my Water?
• Bejeweled Blitz
• Cook DASH
• Temple Run (Brave edition)
• Words with Friends
• Spider Solitaire
• Yahtzee
• Battleship
• Candy Crush
• Ruzzle
• Draw Something
• love this game
• Fruit Ninja
• Monsters Run
• Pages
• Blogpress
• I often blog from this app
• CaringBridge
• Love this app
• Amazon
• Shutterfly
• sort of a worthless app - it doesn't do a whole lot -I am often tempted to delete it but I keep hoping that they will come up with a way to work on photobooks from the app - it hasn't happened yet
• Twitter
• Amazon Prime
• Netflix
• yes please
• YouTube
• TLC
• ABC player
• yes please
• PBS
• IMDB
• I like information so I have a great appreciation for being able to have movie trivia at my fingertips
• AllRecipes
• perfect for when I am in the kitchen
• ScoreCenter
• LionBrand
• YAY crocheting patterns at my fingertips and no longer having to print out every single pattern I want to use
• Slide Shark
• super helpful for work and presentations

What apps do you use? 

Do you have any app recommendations that I don't have?