Seven: Media Fast Day 26

Holy smokes, the closer we get to the end, the more I'd like to just cheat and say I did it. It's just two days early, right? I've learned through this experience that my husband is a rule follower of all rule followers. Therefore, cheating is not worth it if I feel the need to confess, which I usually do.

So here's my confession for today... I looked on Facebook, but only for like 5 seconds after looking up what I needed to (one of my friends from Haiti is in the hospital and the best updates on how she's doing are on Facebook - merited...). But after I saw how she's doing, I just browsed like the top 5 posts on my news feed today. Like I said, I'm over it. And I don't really feel guilty - I only will when I have to confess tonight.

Something great I'm learning through this - there's no way in heck I could do this without community. Jen said it in the book and I thought I could do it alone, no problem, but people - a month is a LONG time. For real. And having Jarred do this with me has been a game changer because it reminds me that People magazines are media and YouTube links in a text message are media and it's worth it to power through the last two days. So very worth it. I've needed him. Without him I would totally have cheated more than once or twice by now. He's been my person and it's made us more of a team; for that I'm incredibly thankful. Truly.

A sad thing that's happened during media month? I COMPLETELY forgot to call not one, but BOTH of my grandmas on their birthdays. I blame Facebook, but seriously I do. Facebook reminds me of those things and my iPhone update didn't transfer all of my birthdays and then my grandma's felt unloved and forgotten. Yuck. So ready for those reminders to be back in my world. And it's ended up costing a pretty penny to send something nice with an "I'm sorry" card to make up for my brain fart(s). This part made me really sad and even maybe made me say, "It's not worth it." But I can't blame media month - only myself.

One of the greatest things we've learned is what Jen's husband Brandon says in the book about their experience:

"The dangerous part of our social media and technologically saturated world is not it's existence, but what it distracts us from." pg. 116

We are loving learning things we've never known about each other - going for walks, talking more, watching each other's personalities, spending time with our pup - all because the distractions have been removed.

This is decidedly good for us - more distraction free lives and more time with people we love. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Stay tuned for the grand finale post for media month. I'll talk about our plan to implement this beyond one month as well as what challenge we've chosen for October. This whole Seven thing is really hard. And good. And hard. But we love it.