Ten Reasons I KEEP My Facebook

I recently read an article titled “The Ten Reasons I Deleted my Facebook.”  While it was enlightening and all…I feel like I need to write a rebuttal for the ten reasons I KEEP my Facebook. So clearly I am not a published writer and cannot write an article in a periodical, so alas my free blog will be the place I express my logic for why Facebook is, well, awesome.

1. I’m a busy freaking fool. Facebook is the quickest and easiest way for me to stay in touch with my people.  No lie, half of my Facebook friends are my family, my CLOSE family, I enjoy being able to see their lives for more than just a 3 day family reunion once a year over the 4^th of July. The other 25% are my close friends or people who were once my friends and touched my soul deeply, and the other 25% are my in-laws.  I’m not friends with some girl I knew once in elementary school. Be selective about your friendships, lock your privacy settings up tight, and don’t freak about the whole world stalking you. Trust me, you aren’t that interesting anyway.

2. It is FREE and ELECTIVE. I hear people’s bitching and moaning over how the new layout sucks and seems so materialistic and all that jazz.  Well, it is free and an elective program you choose to participate in. No one forced you to sign up.  If you hate it so much, quit using it. Duh.

3. I can choose to block shit that annoys me.  Over lunch a few weeks ago, a dear friend said how creepy she thought it was that people were writing on the page of a man in a coma.  Ok, yeah, so it’s creepy…a little. Maybe it makes his friends feel better about life. Don’t like it? BLOCK IT.  I hope when I die, my husband, my Mom or my BFF hacks into my Facebook account and updates my status to “Jesus lives, the angels sing heavenly and God is a great cook. The food up here is kick ass.” Blasphemous? Perhaps. Funny? No, not just funny, hysterical! Don’t like it? BLOCK IT!

4. It entertains me to see people take a social forum really meant to stay in touch and express yourself and turn it into a political platform.  I mean honestly, I really laugh a lot when I see such heated debates over politics, religion, social reform….for Pete’s sake people this isn’t the place for these things. Have an intellectual conversation with a real person instead of on Facebook. If you want the opinion of someone far away, email them.  These arguments turn into a disaster, but it’s like my favorite train wreck, I can’t stop reading them.

5. Facebook has helped me find people I had lost track of and really re-connect with them on more than just an “Ayzlynn likes this status” kind of way. A private message with a phone number request and a lunch date later and long lost friendships are quickly restored. That’s pretty bad A if you ask me.

6. When something huge happens in my life, I want people to know, really I do! But I come from a family that on my Dad’s side alone has like 100 people I would need to call! You know how you fix that? Post it on Facebook. That’s right, I called a handful of people when I got engaged but mostly I just posted a photo of my ring with a caption that said, “I said yes!” Sure, I called my parents and siblings but I have so many people I care about that I would have been on the phone for hours calling them all.

7. I’m not an addict. Someone told me that they deleted their Facebook because they would get anxiety if they didn’t log in every day. Um…that isn’t Facebook’s fault, you need some therapy.

8. I don’t use it as a crutch to stop communicating in other ways.  I still call people and chat on the phone. I email. I text.  I visit, you know, like in person. Facebook isn’t forcing you to only maintain your relationship through their website.  Once again, if you use Facebook as an excuse for your failing social skills, get some more therapy.

9. When I go places and I’m the only with a camera, all the people involved can quickly and easily get copies of the photos when I post them on Facebook and tag their sexy asses.  Epic pass.

10. Where else can a person freely express such outrageous sarcasm and overwhelming wittiness? Except, maybe, a blog….

Cozumel

When someone says Cozumel, I hope your first thought isn’t, “That is where they killed people and put their heads on stilts in the town square!” So, that happened that one time, but when you vacation there, you are a long ways away from anything as scandalous or scary as that!

This is going to make me sound like a serious fatty, but my favorite part about Cozumel was the authentic food we ate! The mister, as per the usual, just got fajitas but I ordered tamales and a sopapilla that came with honey, nuts and apples on it! Commence intense chunky girl traits and show food pictures:

Pancho's on the pier

Best pico ever!!!

Tamales

Fajitis...Doug is boring.

The most delicious dessert I have ever eaten.

In Cozumel however, I also got to experience snorkeling.  It was fun but the waters were very crowded and I kept getting kicked in the face by other people’s flippers. I also looked upwards once to see a woman in a thong bikini! I didn’t look up again!  We saw some pretty fish, a wreck, a lobster and a crab.  It took me a while to get the hang of the snorkel.  The waves would come and I would try to swim against them because it was freaking me out a little that I was on the open ocean and when I fought the wave, I sucked in serious salt water.  Eventually I got the idea that you are supposed to just roll with the waves and let them carry you and then my snorkeling experience increased tenfold.

Cozumel was a lot of fun actually because the snorkeling was so early in the day that it allowed for time all afternoon to explore and shop.  Mostly we just browsed but it was fun to see all the things in the shops.  They had some cool water fountains and structures in the square as well as dressed up dancers and singers.  The water was very, very blue in Cozumel but in my opinion, not as clear as the water in the Cayman Islands. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very beautiful! We also found out from our dinner companions that the dock and all the shops on it are owned by Carnival. The shop vendors pay rent to Carnival to use the spaces.  They said they just asked the people on the pier and got all that information, so I have no way to verify the validity!  The day we ported in Cozumel, there were 4 cruise ships docked close to each other.  There were two HUGE piers and a ship was docked on both sides of each pier. It was pretty impressive to see such massive ships next to each other like that. The tourism alone must keep that island running.  I also learned that almost all Western Caribbean cruises port in Cozumel regardless of the cruise line, so I imagine business is good there!

Cozumel was very pretty and Doug got to use his Spanish speaking skills so that was a lot of fun. It was sort of a bitter sweet stop for us though because it was our last stop and we knew getting back on that ship meant heading home to cold weather! We had a lot of fun that day walking around and playing the tourist game, I would definitely go back if the opportunity arose!

The Cayman Islands...Finally!!!!

So you probably think that THE great reason that I loved the Cayman Islands so much was because that is where my lifelong dream of swimming with the dolphins came true. You would be dead wrong. I could have swum with the dolphins in Cozumel or Jamaica and loved the Cayman stop just as much. Let me tell you some great things I learned about the Cayman Islands while on the bus ride to the dolphin pools as well as our exploration of the island after our dolphin experience:

*They have no welfare system except for elderly and disabled people. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.

*They don’t have a littering problem; if you litter a napkin, you get a $1000 fine and up to 7 days in jail, on your FIRST offense!!!

*Minimum wage there is comparable to 12 bucks an hour in the states but milk is also 5 bucks a gallon.  Sea food though? Totally cheap.

*The Cayman Islands are still under the rule of Queen Elizabeth.  She appoints a governor to rule there for 4 years at time.  The governor is not allowed to rule for more than one term and he is never to return to the Cayman Islands again without being invited by the Queen herself. In all these years, she has never issued an invitation for any governor to return.  All these precautions prevent corruption.

*They drive on the wrong side of the road there.

*The water was the most beautiful, clear, WARM water I have ever seen.  We had to tender from the boat to the island and the tender ride was so amazing, you could look down into the ocean and see all the way to the bottom.

*Bartering and heckling are not allowed, in fact, they are illegal. This meant we could walk down the streets without people standing outside of their stores shouting for us to come in and check it out or street vendors talking to us or people constantly trying to sell us stuff. It was just like a regular day shopping, you go, you look, you buy it for the marked price OR you don’t, but either way the sales clerk just politely waits at the register.

*The people on that island were the friendliest people we encountered on our entire vacation.

*While there is always the risk of a hurricanes, our guide (who is a Caymanian) told us that they do experience tropical storms and occasionally hurricane winds, but that in the past 100 years they have only been truly devastated by a hurricane once. Those are pretty good odds in my opinion! AND they have such an awesome system in place they were up and running again within a month.

*Most Caymanian’s marry people that are not from the island.  As a result, English is the primary language but 90% of the population is at least bi-lingual and 50% of the population is tri-lingual.  How cool is that?! 

* They have an open trade policy with Cuba and the Caymanians are allowed in and out of Cuba at will, however Cubans must attain a passport with permission from the Cayman Islands to visit there.

*They do not take refugees.  Any refugees that wash up are immediately deported back to their home country.

*The most beautiful beach (according to most island locals) is the south beach, which is not accessible to tourists or cruise ships, as most of the south beach is lined with private homes which cost (on average) about 150K American dollars.

*The Cayman’s Boast the whitest and cleaning beaches lined with sand in the Caribbean (probably goes back to that whole littering rule).

Now, if all those reasons aren’t good enough for you to think you want to move there yourself, call me, and I will provide even more persuasive evidence.  You see how, even without the dolphins at this island, I just fell in love? We also got to go to the turtle farm while in the Cayman Island, which was just phenomenal! Here are some pictures!

Driving in the Caymen Islands

Baby sea turtle, 7 weeks

Loving on the baby sea turtle.

This sea turtle is the equivalent age of a "teenager."

Here is a young adult sea turtle.

Not as easy to pick up the full grown ones!

Hilarious, right?

The view from our table at lunch

The restaurant we ate lunch at

The Mister and me

Gelato!

The shore on the north side of the island

Sometimes, Time Just Gets to Me

I have these moments in my life, when time stands still and I feel like everything is right in the world.  At night, when my husband's arm is wrapped securely around me and I can hear the steady sounds of his breathing, I can hear the heater kicking on to keep us warm, I can hear the house creek in the wind as it keeps us safe, I can hear the jingle of the tags on the dogs' collars, I can hear the purr of the cats and the soft sound of my own breath trying not to disturb any of it...that moment used to be one of my favorites. It is so highly treasured. It stands for so much. It is peace. Yet, here I sit, with the passing of another year, and that moment I so treasure on this particular night turned to one I dread.

In that quiet moment at night my mind was plagued with the suffocating sense of time.  I just turned twenty-seven. TWENTY-SEVEN!  Shouldn't my night be less peaceful? I worry sometimes that at night I should hear this:

I worry that in the day time I should be driving this:

I worry so much that I am not yet doing this:

Only English, I hate math.

I get stressed about the fact that I don't live in one of these:

I sometimes so wish I was a Mom doing this:

This birthday really freaked me out for some reason. I don't know why, it wasn't 30.  It isn't a huge deal, it's just the overwhelming sense, the feeling of the passing of time, the suffocating realization that life didn't go as I planned and I worry so much about what that will mean for my future. Today, though, I saw a quote that changed my fears.

"Consider Jacob’s virtual unawareness of time as he worked seven years for Rachel, as recorded in Genesis 29:20. “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.” Beautiful! We mortals are so trapped in this dimension of time. It is not our natural element. We wear it like an ill-fitting suit of clothes, and we wish to hasten its passage on occasion. We also want to hold back the dawn on other occasions. We are not at home with time because we belong to eternity. In the moments when we are true and at our best, we have the experience of timelessness which Jacob had." (Neal A. Maxwell)

Today, I was grateful to turn this many:

And participate in this tradition:

Then I remembered I waited a long time, but I did this the right way:


I got married in the temple.



I remembered I didn't have babies as a teenager or get married when I was still a child myself or buy a house and enter into huge amounts of debt because I was busy doing all of this:



I played in the ocean.



I witnessed miracles.

I learned the love and bond of a mother with her children.





I went to concerts.



I saw where dreams come true.



I watched my best friend graduate college.



I built a lasting relationship with my father.



I made lasting friendships.



I watched Tebow play, and WIN, live.



I ate at fancy restaurants.



I went to fancy theatre.



I made time for this woman in my life.



I never let this relationship lack, ever.



I have seen beauties most eyes only wonder about.



I Tebowed in front of Cafe du Monde.



I took a cruise.



I swam with a dolphin.



I held a baby sea turtle.

So I'm not a Mom yet. I don't drive a minivan and I don't kiss babies to sleep at night.  I don't live in fancy home and I don't have a masters degree.  I don't have stocks. What I have done is live a full life. What I have done is learned lessons no amount of early marriage or parenting could have taught me. What I have done is refine myself into being the person I WANT to be, a person I am damned proud of.  What I have done is choose a man who won't falter in this life, ever.  What I have done is gained work experience and built a 401K.  What I have done is LIVE. Why stop now? What's the rush? I have eternity...