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When you don’t have WiFi: Lessons I learned

Recently I shared that I lost my wedding ring. Thankfully, my husband Ray recently found it when he was sweeping the basement one day. My friends had been praying that I’d find it. I was like the woman who rejoiced with her friends when she found her lost silver coin. (Luke 15:8-10) God taught me many lessons when I lost it, including about my marriage, people who are lost without Christ, and losses in life such as at least 198 Ukrainian people dying from Putin’s invasion of their land.

In light of this horrific news, all else seems trivial. But we all deal with losses, big and small, and they can be stressful. 

This past week we lost our WiFi service! Ray tried to call our internet service provider numerous times, but his call kept getting disconnected. He also tried several times to chat with tech help online to no avail. This week another internet service repairman came. Things seem good for now. (Hold our breath!)

I hope you don’t experience this trouble. But here are lessons I learned when we went for over a week without reliable WiFi service. 

1. You can live without it. It is hard. Really hard. Definitely inconvenient.

“I only need 3 things in life: food, WiFi, and sleep.” (Anonymous)

What did people do before the net? They lived their normal lives! This reminds me of the movie The Net, starring Sandra Bullock. It’s one of my fave movies along with another movie she co-starred in with Keanu Reeves, Speed. In The Net, she’s laying on the beach in her bikini in Mexico, looking gorgeous as usual, with her laptop. This is extreme!

Sandra Bullock, The Net, Pinterest

Sandra Bullock, The Net, Pinterest

But I wouldn’t want to live without internet service. I’ve made some of the best friends of my life online. Originally, I got online (on Facebook) to keep up with my grown kids–our three beautiful daughters Heather, Eden, and Leah. Then they got OFF Facebook and Instagram. (Gen Z says Facebook is a boomer’s social network and made for old people. Many teens aren’t on it.  In a survey, 81% of teens use Instagram and 73% use TikTok.)

Our three beautiful daughters Eden, Leah, and Heather

Our three beautiful daughters Eden, Leah, and Heather

Our teen grandkids are on TikTok, Snapchat and Discord, which I’m not on. I now text our kids and our grandkids (I call them less frequently), and see them whenever we can do lunch or coffee together or I bring them gifts on holidays. (They work full-time and live very busy lives.)

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February 26, 2022 by
Blog

Facebook outage: Can we live without social media?

Yesterday when Facebook and its family of apps had an outrage that lasted for five hours, I didn’t know about it until it was around the time that Facebook and the other apps were restored. Why? Because I was busy living my life. The situation made me think back to the time of my life before Facebook was a thing.

What did I do before I joined Facebook? While I’ve had several part-time jobs during my marriage to Ray, I’ve mostly been a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. Below is a funny pic of Leah, Ray, and Heather when we went to Dunn’s Cider Mill for cider doughtnuts and for Heather to take Leah’s homeschooling senior pics with a good camera. That was fun!

At the cider mill with Leah, Ray, and Heather

At the cider mill with Leah, Ray, and Heather

Most of my days pre-Facebookwere spent teaching my daughters, cleaning the house (I used to be quite obsessive about this and Ray would complain that I bought more cleaning supplies than food), running errands, grocery shopping, reading, and journaling. 

Ray and I with our 3 beautiful daughters, Heather, Leah, & Eden

Ray and I with our 3 beautiful daughters, Heather, Leah, & Eden

The reason I even got online on the internet was because Ray encouraged me to get a website to sell my books and to promote myself as a speaker to get paid speaking gigs. In fact, most of my book sales and my bookings as a speaker have come by word of mouth and from Facebook. 

Beth Jones speaking

Beth Jones speaking

Later, I wanted to join Facebook to keep tabs on our 3 grown daughters and see what they’re up to! Now they’re hardly on there at all. Why? Because they are busy living THEIR lives! (I now resort to texting or calling them to see what they’re doing and have lunch or coffee with them, at least once every couple of weeks.)

Our granddaughters Violet & Annabelle at the Louisburg Cider Mill eating cider doughnuts and drinking apple cider

Our granddaughters Violet & Annabelle at the Louisburg Cider Mill eating cider doughnuts and drinking apple cider

Some younger people aren’t using Facebook at all. Millenials and Gen Zers are getting off Facebook and they’re going other places like Instagram and Snapchat. They’re doing this because of an influx of older people on there, competition from more mobile and visual-friendly platforms like Instagram, and Facebook’s privacy scandals. I know that our granddaughters Annabelle and Violet use Snapchat instead of Facebook. 

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October 5, 2021 by
Blog, Business, Coaching, Faith, Speaking, Spiritual Gifts, Writing

Conquer the 3 P’s mini-training (procrastination, perfectionism, and other pitfalls)

I’m not a procrastinator, but I have family members who are. Drives me crazy! 

However, I do struggle with perfectionism. I call perfectionism “procrastination dressed up in high heels.” Both are usually rooted in fear. Fear of being “good enough” or “perfect enough.” No one is perfect but Jesus!

There’s another “P” word. Pitfalls. What are these? Things like scrolling on social media too much, busyness, laziness, cleaning the house, organizing, errands to run, or anything that serves as a distraction to stop you from doing what God has called and anointed you to do and to be.

There’s nothing wrong or sinful about these things. But they can sabotage your success and mine.

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July 13, 2021 by