House Update: When last I updated you guys, we were anxiously waiting to find out whether or not the seller had secured a new place to live. Thankfully, we have cleared that hurdle and moved into normal closing procedures. We’ve done the home inspection and appraisal, both of which came back pretty much as expected. There are a few items that will need to be fixed before closing, but nothing major. We are excited, but also still cautious at this point. This has been a fairly non-standard and very stressful process thus far, so we don’t want to get our hopes up. Our closing date is currently set for January 18, and we are keeping our fingers and toes and eyes crossed that everything goes well.
My only New Year’s Resolution this year is to give up Facebook. The main reason is that I’ve been wasting WAY too much time endlessly scrolling lately. I hate being sucked in so much, but can’t really seem to self-limit. The other issue is that too often I find myself mad or sad at what I’m seeing on Facebook. Political drama, personal drama, unnecessary photos of animal cruelty designed to make you feel bad and donate money… I’m not saying I don’t want to be aware of what’s going on in the world; I read the news and discuss politics and world affairs with friends and family. I just don’t need to be bombarded with that stuff constantly. My mental health is more important to me than following along with all the minutia. So I’m deactivating my FB account at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know if this will be a permanent thing, but I’m planning to stick it out as long as possible. I survived before Facebook, and I know I’ll survive without it now.
I got a new Funko Pop to add to my Lady Army: Captain Phasma! It was a lovely Christmas surprise from my friend Kellie, and I couldn’t be happier to add another badass lady to the gang.
Did you make a New Year’s resolution?
Darlin' Rae 
I get sucked into facebook, too. I’m trying to think of a way to limit myself without quitting entirely. There are a number of apps that suck me in, so I think my best bet is to keep my phone out of my hands. Good luck to us both!
Yes, good luck to you too! Even if I don’t have the app on my phone, I still end up looking at it through my browser, so I have to try going cold turkey for now. I’ve already deleted all the addictive apps on my phone (Candy Crush etc) which has really helped to minimize my screen time, so hopefully ditching FB will help even more!
Cool on the house – everything crossed for you guys!
I would love to downsize our house, but we have an absolutely sweet mortgage right now, so it is just not worth it. But hopefully we can get more minimal with our stuff in 2018 – definitely a plan.
It is funny – I’ve been on Facebook for over a decade now, and it started as a great way for a few groups of us to stay in contact instead of using group emails. And it has worked pretty well. I have always been an ‘early adopter’, and so I have accounts everywhere – the key is to figure out the use case and stick with it. In the early days I used to worry about unread tweets – can you imagine? haha – just browse a bit and move on. I like my Twitter feed – balance of video games, statistics, politics/social justice, and general fun and friends.
Instagram I really like because it requires much less time – but I have let my follow-count creep up to much for no good reason. Time for the annual pruning 🙂
Facebook tends to be much more insidious as you note – I used to keep people with opposing political views around to be more ‘fair and balanced’ … but that just made me mad and consumed too much time with pointless arguments. I still share some obnoxious stuff to try to spread awareness – or debunk things from my relatives in their 80s. I am trying to find the balance – but find the positives outweigh the negatives for me right now.
A suggestion – I have never been a fan of ‘resolutions’, instead preferring SMART Goals (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm), because of the details that go into them. So I would suggest to you that you make a SMART goal out of dumping facebook that relates to re-capturing time. Maybe you read more books or create more stuff or whatever … the goal should be to ensure you aren’t just substituting another useless time-sink. Right?
Regarding SMART goals, ABSOLUTELY. Probably the biggest thing for me in 2018 will be getting our house in order, and really spending time using the house and grounds instead of being sucked into FB and the like.
C’monnnnnn, house! Of all years, I can’t give up facebook–my relatives would kill me 😀
Hehehe, true, true. Happy New Year!
That’s good news on the house! I am rarely on Facebook, everything else yes but Facebook not so much. I’ve just never really been a huge fan of it.
At first I really liked it, but as time has gone on I’ve liked it less and less. I’d rather focus my time on social media I actually enjoy, like Instagram.