Nostalgia

It's been a while since I've blogged. I'm blaming it on a lot of things. For one, we moved to a new house, clear across town & I am on a mission to get pictures on the walls, all boxes unpacked, & garage cleaned out to the point that we can park at least one car inside....all while hanging with 2 kids and working full time jobs. Yeah...that's gonna happen soon ;) My second excuse is that my laptop sucks & so I am having to blog on my iPhone. Just think, I'm essentially texting y'all this entire post. Ugh. Not appealing. Thirdly, I've had a little trouble trying to figure out what's blog worthy and what isn't....so, I've decided that I don't care if it's blog worthy. Ya know...it's my blog and I'll blog if I want to ;) 

So, here's what's been on my mind for about the last month or two. I'm feeling nostalgic. Big time. It kinda hit me when I saw this Facebook post that showed an old school McDonald's menu. You know, where the marquee was brown with little lines and little white letters on it to announce the menu?!? Here's a refresher:

Yep. That's it. See it? Well, one day I see it on the Facebook and what happened? I cried. You totally read that right...I stinking cried. Like a sobbing cry. Did I lose any readers there? Better yet, did I lose friends? It's the dorkiest thing ever. The true answer probably was that I should've driven to Kroger and bought some tampons because the cycle was coming, if you get my drift....but, as I got done sobbing, I thought about this menu and tried to psychoanalyze myself to see what the devil was wrong with me that drove me to the point of tears over an old mcdonalds menu. 

I thought about a birthday party at the local McDonalds circa 1984. It was me, my cousins & our parents. We ate our cheeseburgers, French fries, & cokes. We did not supersize them, because there was no such a thing. My dad probably ate something that came in one of the styrofoam containers. It may still be in a landfill somewhere trying to break down. I probably got a happy meal. It may or may not have had a toy. I probably giggled at Grimace. I always laughed at that big purple thing that is so much better than Barney ever wished he could be. I probably liked Hamburgler too. But I bet he's somehow politically incorrect now and is hurting someone's feelings, so they ditched him.  After our food, we went to watch Return of the Jedi. Then we went and played Pitfall on the Atari at my cousins' house. Half of y'all reading, this meant nothing to, the other half may have a tear in your eye too. You get it. You get my feeling of nostalgia. 

I know part of it is because I have a baby starting first grade tomorrow. The second part of it is that I can't stand our world today. I think about such a sweet little childhood memory and how warped it would be today. Today, I wouldn't have my party at that mcdonalds, because it's in a scary location of town now. If I only had my 2 cousins & my parents at my birthday party, It would be as if I didn't have any friends. If there weren't Pinterest inspired party favors, take home gifts for everyone, & a customized meal for each kid at the party, no one would bother coming. We couldn't just go see Return of the Jedi...we would have to rent the place out, or do something extravagant like that. If we did party at mcdonalds, Michelle Obama would want my guests to eat some orange wedges instead of fries. Yuck. Who comes to a party to eat oranges?!? 

We had deacon orientation at our church last night. Each man had to give a 3 minute testimony. One guy really struck a chord with me when he said that he came to know Christ because he became inquisitive about Him after hearing about Him in school. I was totally taken aback. I thought, heck, the closest you get to hearing about Him in our schools today is if someone is following His name up with the word 'damn'. This man heard about Jesus in school. He went to a public school, y'all. Wow. I found that awesome. The good old days. 

I'm nostalgic because as much as I love, love, love my smart phone, I think they are a huge detriment to society. We can't interact with people anymore....heck, or our family. It's the things that are meant to bring us closer (internet, texting, etc) that essentially brings us farther apart....as evidenced by the fact that I've been typing this for about 30 minutes with my husband lying beside me and we have spoken about 2 paragraphs to one another. 

I'm nostalgic because I want my babies to have a simpler life when it comes to the way we live. I would love to live on a compound, away from the 24 hour news that brings me down & scares me to death, away from sex trafficking & offenders, away from the things that society pushes on our kids way too soon, & away from the big government that tries to tell me what to do and how to do it. 

And, I'm gonna, always, follow this up with an admission of guilt. I blow up my smartphone and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and snapchat like it's nobody's business. I adore Pinterest and will be having 2 Pinterest inspired parties for my girls in the next 2 months. Heck, I'm gonna do something kinda Pinterest for my dog this month on his 10th birthday. I also realize that if I lived on a compound, I might have to cook :/ Sometimes, even though we hate things, we love them too. You follow me? 

This nostalgic conversation has lead to many more conversations around our house lately, which is cool. I love to bounce hypotheticals around :) so...like a cliffhanger, my next blog will be a spinoff from a conversation about nostalgia. It's a fun question to entertain- and I've enjoyed hearing answers...so, stay tuned. I promise to not let 2 months pass ;)