Facebook Lessons from 2013

Providence Hospital's beautiful setting.

It is New Year's Eve and Rees is at Providence Hospital, admitted last night with some smart strain of the flu that slipped past the shot. Instead of shooting off fireworks and eating moose stew with dear friends, we're separated, but safe and thankful (Actually, I'm pretty upset but trying to count my blessings.). Ken is with Rees and I'm home, sitting here at my computer desk with a glass of Guinness (nothing festiver or fancier, oh well).


After witnessing a few friends come and go with Facebook this past year and wondering if I should end it all to prepare better lunches for the kids from now on, I've decided that I will not give it up. Here's why I think it has been good for me:

* Because of my CF Mamas group, I have become less selfish. I pray for a cure for CF now, not just for my own children's health.

* I figured out that answering questions about our conversion to the Catholic faith = good conversation, but purposefully engaging anti-Catholics = ugly conversation. Stopped doing that.

* Receiving "comment smacks" has taught me to tighten up my own comments to stick to the topic, check sources, notice and call out others' strawmen, and to graciously, humorously admit "OK, you got me there!" without it ruining my day.

* I would never have read such gems from FB friends sharing articles as ~
   Paglia's defense of masculinity, or
   How canned and frozen vegetables are awesome, or
   Real life re-thinking.

* I would never have learned about or read these books from FB friends ~
   The Sinner's Guide to NFP, or
   Teaching in Your Tiara, or
   If Protestantism Was True.

* I would not have had hundreds of views on this little blog without FB sharing. Here are 2013's 3 most-viewed ~
   Not Cystic Fibrosis,
   Five Things Homeschooling Has Not Been, and
   We'll See.

Should I? Could I talk Ken into it?

May 2014 see a cure for CF, or even better,
the return of Our Lord.






Happy New Year to the real, delightful people that live inside my computer!
Love, Allison

Last year's picture, but our camera has been dead for a month.