the time my internet went out

*Please excuse the proper capitalization in this post. It was written in Microsoft Word so I blame that program for refusing to accept my stylistic choice of not capitalizing in my writing.

Guys, I have gone to the edge and I’ve lived to tell the tale. I’ve looked fear in it’s eyes and survived. I have gone days without the internet. At home! Of course I had my phone data so I guess technically I wasn’t without the internet. I mean, Facebook can’t live without my likes and I’m pretty sure CrossWords would send an armed policeman to my house if I didn’t log in at least once a day. For reals though, I am a survivor.

One Saturday I noticed the internet was going super slow. We’ve had some problems with it in the past [thank you concrete walls!] and have had to put in quite a bit of an effort already to stay linked in**. Because LinkedIn needs my husband. Like most problems in our lives, we ignored it and hoped it would get better. And just like that suspicious mole, it did not. By dinnertime, it was dead. No internet activity whatsoever. I don’t think my kids really knew what deprivation was until I told them Netflix wasn’t working and they’d have to watch something off of a DVD; like some kind of 2000’s kid. I tried to stay strong of my kids but I was pretty upset. It was 7:00pm! I had been waiting all day to go and do some thorough stalking. Perusing during the day doesn’t really count. How would my friends knew I approved of their dinner choice? Or their pictures from their trip to Legoland? Madness. Worse yet, Justin and I were currently binging a new series and we needed to know what pickle Brian Finch got himself into [“Limitless” on CBS].

There’s something you need to understand about Justin. He LOATHES movies. 99.8% of them. If you ask him today what his favorite movie is, he’d probably say “The Italian Job”. Because the one time he watched it 12 years ago, he enjoyed it. Everything else he’s seen has been a disappointment. Or worse, sci-fi. He almost always calls the ending and would rather watch PBS then watch a movie. Now please be advised, we have one of those ginormous DVD cases too that holds 200+ DVDS. So we own them, we just don’t watch them.***

So with nothing else to do [because we weren’t about to not watch TV at the end of a long week], we turned on the DVD player. One of my 30 before 30 goals is to rewatch the Harry Potter and Twilight movies. Justin came in halfway through the first movie and said he would be willing to watch these with me. He told me he hasn’t watched all of them [and I still chose to marry him] and would like to from start to finish. Now, I love Harry Potter but the first movie is a hard pill to swallow. I know several lines and there are so many shots that are just iconic. It’s a classic; a cheesy, wonderful movie that my kids will mock enthusiasticly when they’re older. The graphics are a bit…dated but it was cutting edge at the time. Kind of like how I view “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. I must give my husband credit. He did not mock it one bit; something I couldn’t even do. He asked a few questions about how the wizarding world works and told me ‘that’s stupid’ or ‘that doesn’t make sense’ but considering how much he hates fantasty and anything make believe, that’s not bad.

Just like Matthew Lewis****, the movies only get better with age. The second movie we watched on the second day and I felt like I would somehow pass this trial unscathed. Then Justin called the whole movie and I was done. Our kids kept pestering us, we couldn’t hear the dialogue and we were out of delicious snacks. We got bored and paused the movie. We all walked around the house aimlessly, trying to fill the void that the internet left in our hearts. Do you know what it’s like to actually watch your children while they play outside? The struggle it is to poop on the potty without the “Daniel Tiger” song playing on YouTube? Did you know that some iPad apps don’t work without wifi! So I layed on the ground and played army men with my boys, like some kind of barbearian. I didn’t play on my phone every five minutes and gave them my full attention. I actually watched the movie and wasn’t pinning while Harry was wizarding. And I enjoyed it.

Like I said, I wasn’t completely internet-less; I’m no barbarian! I still had to plan my primary lesson and post a picture on instragram, but I couldn’t be on it too much. Mama doesn’t pay for my data no more! It was a struggle non-the-less.***** I had to actually watch things and listen when people spoke to me. It was difficult but achievable. Like I said before, I am a surivor. I can do hard things.

In all honesty, I am super guilty of zoning out and neglecting my family in favor of everything online. It’s not fair to Justin or my kids, but sometimes you've just got to zone out, ya know? Lately I've been worse then ever. Raise your hand if you've had to charge your phone mid-day because you've depleated your battery? Just me? This was a wake up call. 

This story has a happy ending though. Cox came out the next business day and got it all sorted out. And I didn't have to pay anything, or go over my phone data allotment.

A Few Days Later...

So we just FINALLY got our internet fixed. For realsies this time. It was almost a solid week of no internet. Can you imagine? They switched modems, that fried our router [which was less then two years old]. We tried a different router, it didn't work. We got a new router/modem combo. The speed was still not fast enough. I swear, those pioneers had nothing on the struggles I endured that week. [I'm kidding, in case Heavenly Father has a firebolt directed at me this moment]. It was pure torture. But like I said, good things came out of it. We're now movie #4 on Harry Potter. I got the kid's DVD player up and working. Oh yeah, and I actually paid attention to my kids. [lame]

Happy endings for all! [TWSS] 

**We had to rewire our Ethernet and move the modem into a more central location. Have you been in an attic in Las Vegas? During the SUMMER?  We also had to purchase a $$$ extender.

***Why do we own DVDs you ask? I used to buy a lot of my favorites and we’ve been gifted a lot. You have to remember the pressure of the early 2000s though. $5 bin at Walmart? A deal you can’t pass up. Black Friday sales? Yes please! I hardly buy any anymore.

****Neville Longbottom. I’m really into astricks this post.

*****How many astricks are too many astricks? I should problaby add here too that another one of my 30 before 30 goals is to go without technology for 24 hours. I guess I’m not quite ready for that yet.