So today my Facebook Fast officially ended – it ended up being a GREAT six weeks, and I’ve decided I’m going to make it an annual tradition (although I may do it in October versus November). Cootiehog was a lot of fun to work on in that time. I’ve posted almost every day – certainly every other day – since starting the FF. That has been fun. I’ve also done some tweaking to the site to try and make a few coins a month. Any little bit helps and I’ve specifically placed the ads in a location that is not distracting but still clickable for those that see an ad that strikes their fancy. Note to regular readers: do not click on my ads in order to send me a couple coins. Google frowns on that. Now, if you see an ad you LIKE, go for it. But don’t click for clicking’s sake. That’s a no-no.
What else did I do or not do? Well, I did try NaNoWriMo and failed miserably, which I already mentioned in a prior post. I got a couple days in and realized I am not a good writer, or I should say that I need to put more thought into something before beginning to write it. Now I understand why some writers do complete detailed outlines of the entire book before the first word is written.
The kids and I had a blast during my Facebook hiatus, as you know – we went to events that were already planned, but instead of having my phone out to send updates or pictures to Facebook, I just sat back and enjoyed the shows. I did upload a few things to Instagram, but that’s about it.
Another thing I noticed during my break? My phone battery is AWESOME when I’m not spending a lot of time sifting through posts all day long. Today I had Facebook open on my phone all morning and for the first time in six weeks my battery was at 58% by noon. Without Facebook loaded and open on my phone, my phone was hovering at 86% by the time I left work at the end of the day these last several weeks!
As for Facebook itself, I did go on today. I cleared out my friends list. Having been away for 6 weeks I realized that there was no reason for me to have 313 friends on there. Some of those friends are only on Facebook 1-2x a year, or I’ve blocked them for being annoying (or various other reasons), or they are people that I just don’t talk to anymore in real life – so was there a need to be friends with them on Facebook? By the end of my cull I went from 313 to 227 friends, with the intention to be more selective in who I friend going forward. There are probably another 10-15 people I could de-friend, but I kept them around for now. I may change my mind down the road.
This weekend we got the rest of our Christmas decorations up, and had no more shenanigans from the hooligans that messed with our outdoor display on Friday night. On Saturday we put up everything inside the house except the trees. Then on Sunday after church we did the three trees. This year we’ve moved two of the trees. We have the kids’ 3-foot tree on a table in the front window. The main tree is in the TV Room, in an area of dead space straddling the kitchen and TV Room. Normally that space houses the trash can, Dobby the Dog’s food bowl and the 4-gallon water dish for the animals. We figured for the party we would try the tree in that space because it allows people to be in the TV room AND the big kitchen area during the game. If it doesn’t work well, then next year we’ll go back to having the main tree in the front bay window.
The Swann security camera system we bought is great – it came with a smartphone app that lets you login to look at a live view or past footage, and it can also email you whenever there’s an “event” on the feed that it wants you to review. Very cool. After the new year we may buy one more camera and have them all professionally installed for even better angles than we have now. But it was well worth the money (it was on sale for $199 this weekend at Best Buy – a nice plus considering it wasn’t a planned purchase). We can also have the audio portion hooked up if we want to hear what people outside are saying – that could come in handle if more than one person is causing mischief and they are talking to one another loudly enough.
This is the week we go into heavy party-prep mode. Tonight we’re making the complete shopping list of every single ingredient we need for food prepping on Friday and Saturday. Denis and I both have Friday off to really get into the swing of things. I’m thankful that we’re not doing cookies this year – I am not in the mood to spend every evening this week making 2-3 kinds of cookies each night! So tonight it’s just the ingredient list. We’re slated to have about 34 guests coming – we had a few people cancel this week due to last minute schedule changes. That means we’re probably have about 27 actually show up on Saturday. Can’t wait!