Technology, the Avocado Phone and Flowers!

You know...I love technology. Without it I would not know where my children are 24/7 via the cell phone, I would not have the world at my finger tips thanks to the internet, nor would I have the instant gratification of having my written word read through blogs the moment my work was completed. Most importantly I would not have my job.....as I work in a computer store where we sell and fix technology. I could probably sit here and come up with a million reasons why technology is my friend and why it would be very difficult if not impossible to do without it. Then I stop and think back.

I remember a time when telephone communication was attached to my kitchen wall in a very stylish avocado color. Portability meant having a cord that stretched from the wall maybe to the living room. If someone was waiting on a call....no one else could use the phone (there was no such thing as call waiting) and every once in a while, signals where crossed and your phone became an old time party line where you could catch your neighbors conversations. Parents didn't have the security of knowing where their kids were every minute because of cell phones and GPS's. They had to rely on word of mouth, their kids honesty and if you lived in a small town.....gossipy neighbors. Also.....kids didn't have dialing and texting as an added distraction while driving. The radio and maybe a cigarette were all that stood between our full attention and the road.

When we paid our bills we actually used envelopes and stamps and mailed them (the snail mail way) or we hand delivered them. Never would anyone have been able to convince my mother that there would come a day when she could pay her bills at a computer and never have to touch paper or money for that matter. Heck....no one could have convinced her that someday just about everyone on the planet would have their own computer.....in their home.

I remember when I graduated high school (and contrary to what my children believe....it wasn't the stone age)  there was one computer in the school. Since there was no internet and in fact no one even dreamed of the internet back then, the computer was only a storage unit and nothing more. Only the smartest kids in the school could use that computer (I think there were two of them) and the rest of us just looked at it like it was some piece of foreign matter. While those two were storing information on that computer and dreaming about bigger and better computers in the future.....I took typing and home-ec to prepare for the world. I really didn't see computers as much more than a fad. Yep... I can type 100 wpm (on a typewriter) and make a pillow.....those are skills that have really moved me up in the world. Perhaps I should have paid a little more attention to that computer and little less time making cupcakes.

Before technology took a hold of us and made us slaves to computers and gadgets, we read actual books...not virtual ones. We looked up words in a dictionary and information in an encyclopedia....not Webster.com and Wiki! We spent our evenings and weekends with our families going places and doing things.....not playing online poker, surfing the net or playing on facebook. Kids played outside, our identity's were safer, if we bullied someone it had to be in person, and predators were not invited into our homes.  

Now I am not bagging on technology....although it sounds a bit like I might be. I just happened to have  lived long enough to have seen the before and after and the comparisons are starkly different. Maybe before we were more family oriented, more active and less tuned into the world. Now we are far more tuned in to the world...but maybe a little disconnected from the family. With the inventions of social networking we can now meet up with and talk to people we went to kindergarten with, or maybe someone we met once in 1975 at a KISS concert, or even someone we have never met but have something in common with like politics or anchovy tasting.

The point is....like with any "great" thing.....after awhile, the pros and cons become evident.  We can talk to a soldier in Iraq while sitting in our recliner, pay our bills, catch up with high school friends and look up any disease known to man. We can work from our homes and have meetings with people from around the world....while still in our pajamas. Technology has moved us into a world our parents never even conceived.....let alone dreamed of. We are also a world more in touch with itself.....but not quite so in touch with our families or the simpler things in life such as picnics and letter writing. Perhaps someday we will be able to find a way to use technology and its advances.....without excluding the past. Because while I love my android cell phone and being able to blog about my thoughts.....sometimes I wax nostalgic for that old avocado phone on the wall and my notebooks full of ideas and words....and miss that simpler time before technology came to call.

Your Photo Here.............(Day 19)

 Beauty in Flowers!

Today's photo is the flowers I bought after church this morning at Walmart. I actually went to get potting soil for my veggie plants and while there I saw this stand which I knew would fit beautifully on my sad little front porch. It is actually little more than a step but since I have always aspired to having a huge front porch.....I always try to pretend like it is bigger.

After finding the stand....I of course had to have something to go on it, so I found these. Because it is spring and so far we have had good moisture and temperate days....these plants are looking wonderful. I am greatly afraid though that after a few days under my less than green thumb....they may be looking gravely different. For now though....they are lovely and fill my front step with some much needed color.

So for today.....we are basking in the beauty of flowers! Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!