Back from the Land of No-Blogging (and man does it feel great!)

Hello friends! I have missed you!
As I have mentioned in previous posts, we live in the country. Many benefits there. Privacy, lots of trees, spectacular view, and we can be our normal obnoxious selves and not bother the neighbors. The cons of living out here are fewer, but include the 26 minute drive to church many times a week, the 20 minute drive to get a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk, and SLOOOOWWWWWW dial up service for the internet. I had heard of some mysterious thing called DSL, but had never experienced it myself. Pages that loaded in seconds, picures that downloaded in mere minutes? Not here baby. We like to take it slow and easy. To write a single post may take an hour or more just to upload a few pictures.
Back in October, Joe suggested I call to see if DSL would be availabe in our area. I humored him, knowing full well that it wouldn't be. When I called they said that it wasn't available right now, but would be in February. I told them to put my name on the waiting list and to call me when it became available out here. I thought "Well, when February rolls around, I will call them and they will have some great excuse as to why it still isn't out here and I can say "Well, I told you so. Hope you aren't that dissapointed." I get a call the very next day stating that they had an opening and our modem was being shipped out that day and we should recieve it in 2 days. WHAT?? Are you serious? Eating crow now.
About that time our seriously infected and tremendously slow computer decided to bite the dust. After many attemts to fix various parts and kids whining about the lack of the internet to be able to finish school projects, we decided to send it the the computer geniuses. They called within a couple of days, told us it was totally fixable and for a very reasonable rate. They also cleaned off upward of 4000 viruses. (no wonder if froze, stalled and shut off on its own ALL the time!) We got it back, hooked up the DSL and lo and behold we have joined the land of technology once again. Seriously folks, in the old days, (pre-DSL) I would log on, go wash the dishes, type in the address for the web site I wanted to go to, change the laundry to the dryer, come browse, type new address, change the baby, download some pictures for the blog, fold 2 loads of laundry, fix lunch, clean up lunch, lay the baby down, come check the pictures, still downloading, go scrub the bathroom, check pictures, YES! they downloaded succesfully before the computer shut down! Start a post, computer freezes, pull out my hair, start the process all over again. Not to mention, this tied up the phone line for hours. Now, I click a button, the home page is up in 5 seconds. The file to downloaded from the email, 30 seconds. Your blog that I love to read, up in 3 seconds. Life is good. I had no idea that is how you people were blogging!
So what have we been doing for the last two months without a computer? I have been amazingly productive without the lure of the computer to seduce me into staring at cyberspace for half the day. My house has been cleaner, I have been more organized, I threw a fantastic Thanksgiving (if I do say so myself ; ). I have learned that I need to have more self control when it comes to playing on the internet. The kids are doing great. Joseph and Parker both made the Varsity wrestling team at high school. Caden made the JV middle school team and did a triathlon. (will definately post that one) Gabe has started reading AR books and proclaimed that day as "The best day of my life!" Abigail has become the biggest helper ever. Jacob started speech and has tempered his attitude a smidgen. Matthew has finally started walking and talks up a storm now. Oh yeah, and Joe and I ran a half marathon! Will definately post that one too.
I stayed up till one o'clock in the morning this past Saturday catching up with all of you and found that some have gone private. If you want to include me, I will come! I have missed you all and am so glad to be back!

p.s. you have music on your blogs?! How cool is that?