10 days without a cell phone or computer.

let's take it from the top...

december 12th, 7pm-ish: 

my purse was stolen from inside the church 

WHILE we were performing:)

yes, said INSIDE the church.

awesome.

2 purses to be exact.

mine and susie's.

my wallet was spared.

inside my car.

but that's another story altogether.

phone gone.

car keys gone.

car there.

phew.

december 13th, 3:40am: 

crooks charge and turn on my stolen phone.

find my iphone app tells me where.

officer goes over.

sean goes over.

no telephono found.

{i'm still convinced it was inside that storage locker they wouldn't open.}

later that morning...

{7:30am or something}

try to turn on my computer.

negative.

try again.

no again.

give it an hour.

surely it just needs an hour.

this is what i was saying to myself.

because even i need an hour to wake up sometimes.

ok, almost all of the time.

turn on again.

double no again.

a big fat NO again.

and what does that spell in the right bold year of twenty-thirteen you say?

DISCONNECTED.

completely and utterly disconnected.

so as sean went off to work,

i jotted down phone numbers of my mothers,

linsey,

susie,

and julie

in case of emergency.

and then i spent my day driving around the salt lake valley to and from kindergarten and pre-school pickup without a cell phone by my side.

and do you know what it was like?

it was like

freedom:)

quiet

calm

freedom.

no phone calls.

no text messages.

no social media to pass the time waiting for kids to come out of school.

and so i spent the next week and a half reevaluating 

how one little tiny cell phone could have such a profound effect on everything i do.

and how when it's gone, it literally changed everything i did.

in a really comforting way.

like a good ol' days kind of way.

like a chasing fire flies out in the humid summer nights of ottumwa, iowa kind of way.

how does one little piece of technology being gone make you feel like you are alone?

but in a good way.

a quiet way.

a calm way.

a way that made me less irritable.

more patient.

less in a rush.

more excited to play with my kids.

talk to people on the phone.

do you know?

like the kind of way that the world used to be.

when we called people on their home phones from our homes,

when we were all home.

and only checked our email once at the end of the day.

or once every three days.

and it was just the best feeling.

to remember.

and have a technology vacation.

welp,

i'm here to say that despite public opinion,

and what i once thought myself,

i went without a cell phone for 7 days,

and without a computer for 10 days,

and i

did

NOT

DIE.

i know,

amazing.

i didn't know it was possible either.

as i myself have uttered these words my,

"i couldn't survive without my cell phone."

but i did.

and it was actually kind of great.

great

great

great

and it forced me to disconnect in this amazing way that made me reconnect.

do you know what i mean?

not to the internet or a phone.

but to other things,

like playing ponies,

and reading books to my kids,

singing bedtime songs,

cleaning up the house,

all without having something else that i wanted to check on my phone after i was done,

and reading books during the day to myself.

and watching a movie,

like my full attention on the movie

for

the

entire

movie.

great

great

great

and what has this 10 day phone and computer free spree taught me you ask?

boundaries.

it's taught me about boundaries.

who knew i'd learn to love boundaries?