Hello all!

Hi Everyone,

Okay, so as most of you all know I am getting rid of facebook, at least for the time being, and I will be blogging everything about my life.  Hopefully I won't bore you to death. I will do my best to post updates as often as possible, but it's always easy to get behind so please bare with me.

I think the first thing I should do in introducing this blog is tell a little bit of why I decided to quit facebook and go to blogging and what the whole story is behind it.

For a few months now I have been thinking about deleted facebook. It seems to be one of those things that tends to completely run our lives, even if you're not using it. I found that even if I wasn't on it for long periods of time that I was still drawn to it all during the day. A few minutes here and there start to add up. I realized that even though facebook seems like you're staying connected with all your friends all the time, you really aren't. In some ways it is easier to keep in contact with more people, but I found that I didn't really know what was going on in their lives. Sure you see the status updates, but does, "I ate a really good meat and cheese sandwich for lunch today and I feel happy!" really tell you what's going on in their life? Uh, that would be a no... I realized that really the only way to know what was REALLY going on with your friends was through sending them a message over facebook that was personal, or chatting with them on facebook chat. So basically facebook, for me, wasn't actually keeping me connected with friends much more than I had been when I didn't have facebook. I've had MSN chat and email for a LONG time.

Thursday, June 16th 2011. I was heading out on the farm with our four-wheeler when I noticed Megan, my amazing cousin, riding along the path up to her place on another four-wheeler. I quickly swerved over to her and started riding along beside her. The look on her face was priceless as I kept revving the engine and laughing as I rode beside. Finally she stopped when we got into her family's and asked why on earth I was following her. I told her she just looked like she needed someone to talk to. After laughing and sharing some stories together we started to get into some really conversations about life itself and where the world is headed these days. Turns out, she did need someone to talk to.

As we were talking we found that we had the same problem. Facebook, computers, and TV rule our lives and steel way too much of our time these days. We both shared how we wanted to make the most out of the time that we have. Both of us have realized how precious life is and how fast time seems to be flying past us! As we were talking we both acknowledged how computer and TV time really cuts away your life if that's all you spend doing. It's amazing how fast a day can go by on the computer and you suddenly realize you did nothing worth remembering. How sad is that? We finally both decided, after talking for so long, that we should start living differently. So we made a vow to each other, me vowing to get rid of facebook and then both of us that we would only spend half an hour on the computer every day, unless schooling, sickness, or rain permits otherwise. With all the time not spent doing those things we could be free to do many of the different things we have always wanted to do. We don't want to waste the time that God gave us, so we're going to make sure that we are using up every last drop. Hopefully you will start seeing or hearing the results of what we're doing with our time.

My dad used a really good way to explain our time; imagine someone sitting in a chair and someone else hands them a dollar bill. The first person takes the dollar and puts a match to it and watches as the dollar slowly burns away until all that's left is ashes. Then he takes another bill and lights it, and watches as that bills burns away etc, etc... If you were watching that person there's going to be a point where you're going to yell at him to stop! I could use the money if he doesn't! That's how our time is. Our time is precious, God gives us each day, just like the second person gave the first a dollar, it's up to us on how we're going to use that day. Are we going to just watch the time burn away, or are we going to use it for something good. Will we use the time to make memories?

This is why I have gotten rid of facebook. I honestly think that in getting rid of it, but also watching how I spend my time that I will, in time, make more memories to remember for a lifetime. Time is precious.

I would encourage all of you, my amazing friends, to read "The Church of Facebook." No, it is not a real church, it's a book that someone wrote on how facebook and many other things like it control our lives and turn us in a certain way. One of my friends decided to read it when I told him about it, he ended up writing a paper on it for college and got a bunch of his friends at college to read the book. I think if you're going to have facebook it's a book worth reading. You may think that you don't have time for it, but believe me, if you have time for facebook, you have time for this book and I can certainly tell you which is a better use of your time. Farmville won't die if you don't feed the animals and status updates can always wait until later.

I hope that I will still be able to stay in contact with all of you awesome people! Please feel free to post tons of comments!

And now as Master Oogway would say from one of my favorite movies, "Kong Fu Panda", "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that's why it's called the present." I just had to put that in...

Everyday is a gift of time from God. Use it wisely.