After posting some pictures of Luke's hair a couple weeks ago, I decided that it really was getting out of control. Babies can get away with messy hair, but his had gotten so long that it would flop over to one side, and more and more people started mistaking him for a girl. I was tired of always correcting them, and I felt bad that his hair was always in his eyes, so we decided to take him to this cute children's salon for his first haircut.
I took tons of pictures, I didn't want to miss a moment of it. Luke did so good; he loved sitting in the little car chair and playing with the cape he got to wear. We didn't want to cut his hair too short and we still wanted him to have his cute little faux hawk that we have been styling him in almost since birth. The stylist did a great job with him, and we love his new little look (she cut about two inches off in length, and he still has that much hair!)
Lately I have been trying to get better at working on family history. Church leaders have been encouraging members for years to do it, but have been even more adamant as of late that family history is essential. I was lucky to be able to participate in a sort of "Family History 101" class at church before Luke was born and have been trying to stick with it ever since. One of the reasons I didn't do more sooner was because it always seemed so I overwhelming. I didn't know where to start. I've learned a few things now, and while I'll admit that it's still a bit overwhelming for me, I am enjoying it.
Luke's middle name is Clyde, we named him after my dad, whose middle name is also Clyde and who was named after his grandfather, [Roy] Clyde Nuckols. When I started the class at church we were advised to pick one family member we wanted to learn more about as a starting point and then branch out from there. I decided I should know more about my great-grandfather so that I could tell Luke about him one day.
I started by asking my dad more about Clyde. He told me stories and sent me some pictures. Since then I have been working on making Clyde's information as complete as possible (using familysearch.org), which has also included completing more of his parents and siblings information as well. It has been fun to see their pictures and imagine what their lives were like. For someone who has always enjoyed looking into the past, I'm surprised that I didn't get into family history sooner; I'm glad that I'm finally doing it now.
I've been blogging a lot more lately, and I have really enjoyed it. I'm determined to really make this blog a personal history and keep it updated instead of letting it fall by the wayside like I have time and time again in the past. But, despite my determination, there is another reason I have recently become more gung-ho about blogging: I closed my Facebook account.
The first and most obvious reason is that I was simply spending too much time on it. Ever since I got a smart phone last year my time on Facebook increased exponentially, and then it doubled after Luke was born. It became so bad that I would go to open my phone for an entirely different purpose, but out of habit would open the Facebook app first, only to get sucked in and forget all about the real reason I had opened my phone. I found myself becoming distracted more easily, even in everyday tasks and though some might argue otherwise, I attribute it to excessive Facebook use. Facebook has taught us to share our lives in real time, so we are constantly looking for the next update, the next post, the next comment; we go a million miles a minute and as a result all have the attention span of a goldfish. I wanted to slow down and focus a little more on important things, not on what so-and-so ate, or who is stuck in traffic, or another picture of that cat...
Second, and to me more important, I didn't like the person I was when on Facebook. I started to notice that I would feel frustrated, irritated, sad, even angry at times after spending time on my account. This was often because I had a tendency to get swept up in others' (or my own) controversial posts. We live in a difficult time where there are many opinions on what is right or wrong. I tend to be an opinionated person and often shared my feelings on everything from abortion to gay marriage to vaccines to feminism and Disney princesses. Not surprisingly, other people also voiced their opinions and I soon found myself in the middle of a heated debate. The problem is, Facebook really isn't a good forum for debate. You can't express yourself clearly without writing a page-long comment, and even then readers often don't get your tone or expression. Sometimes that adds to the contention that may already be felt over some of these topics. Too often I was becoming upset because someone didn't understand what I was trying to say, or took it out of context, or became offended when that wasn't my intention. Or I would become annoyed or angry at what other people were posting, forgetting that I too may have been misunderstanding what they were trying to say. The fact is, even if I knew I was right, Facebook wasn't the right place to say so. I can more fully explain and express my opinions here on my blog, or I can just do it the good old-fashioned way and talk to people in person about my beliefs.
So why should you consider closing your Facebook account too? I have been surprised by the reaction I have received as I have told people that I no longer have Facebook. It's almost always, "Good for you! Maybe I should close mine..." Its clear that I'm not the only one who has spent too much time on my account, or even the only one who has found it to be a more negative than positive experience. You may have the same reasons as me, or reasons of your own, but I can definitely say that I have been a happier, more productive person since I took my account down. Maybe its something worth considering.
And, while I'm on the topic, check out this video that I love:
