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?

Boundary Waters Canoe Area

I spent all of last week in the holy of holies, the sacred ground on which few dear to tread, the space in which you look all around you can't help but meet God there, I was up in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northern Minnesota. A couple friends, one 5 month old, and myself spent four nights loving every second we had together in the boundary waters in northern Minnesota. We went into BWCA through Duncan lake, over the staircase portage (no small feat), and found ourselves on a campsite on Rose lake overlooking Canada. It was glorious. I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.


A view out of our campsite - we had a 3 tiered campsite

 One of the quirks of our campsite, which we loved, was that we were right across from the portage so we watched people coming and going from Rose lake. It provided hours of entertainment, checking out what people packed and how and what type of boat they were using as well as what time of day they were coming and going. We also were able to talk to many people. One day while out swimming we saw some day trippers who had probably come over to admire the water falls as we were swimming in the bay and realized they were from Brainerd, so they jumped off the rocks with us and swam around.


Hammock Village - we overlooked the lake and bay from here

What did we do you may wonder? We spent our days:

• playing with the baby
• laying in our hammocks
• reading
• napping
• paddling around
• hiking
• swimming
• relaxing
• enjoying one another
• watching the wildlife: beavers, bears, bats, mice, bald eagles, and countless other birds
• laughing
• cooking and eating well
• chicken pesto pasta
• chicken with Thai peanut noodles
• beans and rice
• crackers and salami and cheese
• chicken, broccoli, and cheesy rice
• popcorn
• brownies
• oatmeal

Love these three

It was delightful. We had a blast. Our cellphones had no reception and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way [there are rumors of a cell phone tower going up in BWCA and I think even if one does go up I will continue to shut my phone off while up there]. Yes, I did miss being able to talk to people and know what was going on, but it was also very good for me to disconnect with the world for a while. It was glorious and now I am back to work dreaming of my next trip north.