Happy Easter everyone!

I’ve been trying all of Lent to find time to write a blog about what I gave up for Lent, and since Lent is over….I suppose now would be the time 🙂

This year, for Lent, I gave up using my phone while driving!  This means I wasn’t allowed to:

• Call anyone
• Text anyone
• Google Map anything
• Email anyone from work
• Browse Instagram/Facebook/Twitter
• Listen to music
• Make grocery lists in my “Notes” app
• Check my stocks
• Check my bank account
• Take pictures of the sunset
• Any other things I do with my phone while driving

My dad is probably having a heart attack reading that I used to do all of those things while driving, but I did.  I did them knowing the dangers.  I knew none of those habits were worth the risks, but I couldn’t find it in my to cut them out when it would mean spending my 40-minutes-per-day commute being unproductive instead.  Lent provided the perfect extra nudge I needed mentally though to finally give them up!

The first few days were ROUGH.  I felt a constant urge to look at my phone.  I even had to go so far as to hide it behind me, in the back seat, shoved under my driver’s seat, so that I wouldn’t break the rules.  I literally felt anxiety wondering if there was an email I needed to read or a text I had to respond to, that couldn’t seem to wait the 20 minute drive to/from work.  The second week, I was able to move it to my drink cup, but I still had to shut my drink cup so I couldn’t see it, and I still felt paranoid about what I was missing.  By week three though, I had forgotten most of my old habits!  The only reminders were when the bad consequences of not using my phone popped up:

• Driving around lost trying to find my friend Sarah’s house because I couldn’t use Google Maps to find it, and i was too stubborn to pull over
• Constantly having to give the homeless man under the Rural Rd. bridge money because I couldn’t use my phone as a distraction from eye contact & tuning the radio only takes up so much time
• Not being able to take cute pics of Sunny when she does funny things during our road trips

Now, with Lent over, I can confidently say I am over using my phone while driving!  At the beginning, I fully expected to revert to my old habits as soon as Lent was over, but now, I think using Google Maps– only in worse case situations– is the time when you’ll be finding my iPhone near my face while driving.  For those of you that find yourself starting some of the same old habits as me– STOP!  I swear it is a lot easier to stop than it seems.  (And it would have been a lot easier to stop for me three years ago when I first started reading a text here or there at a stoplight…and then I just got more & more lax until eventually, I looked at my phone as much as the road 😦 )

Now onto Easter!

I spent Easter at my mom’s house with Sunny.

First, my mom was kind enough to give me my Easter basket, rather than hide it.  I’d say I’ve spent about 90% of the Easter’s in my life crying because I can never find my basket & my brother starts to make fun of me & then my mom starts to make fun of me & then I get embarrassed & frustrated & mad & Easter is ruined.  So she has smartened up the past few years and just given me my basket, to avoid the tears 🙂 haha.  Thanks, Mom!!

Then we all had brunch:

Then a bunch of this…..

 

Before dying some eggs!  My mom was a professional egg-dyer-and-foiler, but I absolutely sucked.  (Which means I hid them toward the back in this picture.)

 

I had to rush back to doggie daycare to drop Sunny off after, and then my mom and I spent the rest of the day doing the exact same things….at different houses.  She stayed up in Scottsdale, while I stayed in Tempe, but I am glad we got to spend the morning together 🙂