Where's Adrie? 😄

Hello out there! Is anyone still reading Enthusiastic Fantastic these days? 😄 I totally wouldn't blame you if you're not because I've taken such a ridiculously long break from blogging! While I'd like to feel shocked that I haven't blogged since 2021, I'm not. 😂 Taking an extended blogging break definitely didn't happen on purpose, life just kept me more busy than I ever planned on! So, here are some updates:

Way back on June 27th, 2021, I was called/sustained to be my ward's new Primary President! And now I've officially been in this calling for 22.5+ months! Oh my goodness, say what?! 😲 That was an event I definitely wasn't planning on, but it was in the back of my spiritual mind for a few years. Yes, I'll just admit that I totally saw this Primary President calling coming—just like I saw the Young Women President calling coming to me when I lived in Texas!

In Texas 2012, I received that almost-unbelievable spiritual prompting/knowing several minutes before the calling of Young Women President was extended to me in my bishop's office. This time around, I felt that I would eventually be my ward's Primary President, but I wasn't sure exactly when it would happen. I guess the Lord wanted me to have ample time—years, in fact—to prepare spiritually for when this calling actually came.

Thus, I've been very busy with everything the Primary President calling entails. It's been such a beautiful, marvelous experience 😇 and I wouldn't change it for the world(!)—but it definitely keeps me looking at my Google calendar! 😄 Thank goodness for electronic alerts to keep me on target because I would be lost without them!

Just before I was called to be my ward's Primary President, Greg and I decided to redo the entire outside of our house with new vinyl siding, and install new windows. It was an exhausting event that took up a lot of my time in terms of moving items around our house to make room for the workers (they needed access to the windows both inside and outside of the house), and meticulously cleaning up after the workers finished.

That said, it was a financial gift from Heaven that we were able to drastically improve our home—but it was definitely based on Greg's amazing work ethic. My incredible husband is an absolute work machine. He is unstoppable and I am beyond blessed to have him for my very own! 😍 Cheesy? Yes. I am still 100% smitten in love with my handsome, intelligent, funny, wonderful Gregor! 💖

Redoing our siding and windows completely wiped out our savings for quite a while—which was a bit of a scary situation to be in, but we're slowly rebuilding our reserves. 🙏🏻 Even though our remodel was extremely pricey—due to supply chain increases caused by the stupid COVID-19 pandemic (grrr 😠)—it was worth every penny! We have zero regrets about improving our happy home! Yay! 🥳

Thankfully, our 70s house is no longer The Disco Dandy! Hallelujah! 😂 I've now nicknamed our lovely little cottage Sunshine Blue! 💙 I truly love the way it looks, and our triple-pane windows are more wonderful than I ever could have imagined! Plus, it's really helped us save money on our heating and cooling expenses! I had no idea what a huge difference new windows and siding make 🤯—but I'm a believer now! 😁

In 2021–2022, I was also a busy mama who made darn sure my youngest child finished out his senior year of high school well. All of my children are very strong willed, and my baby is no exception! 😅

Before he graduated from high school, I spent so much time, energy, sleepless nights 🥱, prayers, fasting, and tears on my baby boy—you have no idea. *If any of you didn't already know, teenagers are a lot of work! 😅 Raising children is the absolute most rewarding endeavor ever 💛, but it is serious business that takes everything you have and more!

After endless conversations, and many disagreements and frustrations, we finally came to an agreement that my wonderful, brilliant, charismatic, sweet, entertaining son would graduate early from high school. He was insistent on this point and would not relent because he had more than enough credits to graduate with honors. You can't debate a 3.89 cumulative GPA!

To my son, school was pointless, and there was no convincing him otherwise. There wasn't anything more I could say or do to persuade my darling boy to finish out his senior year strong. (We all have free agency.) He was completely done with high school and there was no going back. Thus, on April 11th, 2022, we had him put on home release for the rest of his senior year.

Thankfully, my handsome son still walked with his class at graduation(!), which was very important to Greg and especially me. I wanted our family (and a few extended family members who were actually willing to join us) to celebrate all of his hard work for so many years! 🎓💚

When we talked with my youngest son's high school counselor, he validated that my son's high school experience was royally messed up (my words, not his) because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the lockdowns and school closures really did a number on my baby boy's desire to have anything to do with school anymore. 😢 I'm very grateful for my son's counselor's kind, understanding heart! *And I will say boo forever to the stupid, unhelpful, unnecessary COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

One of the most unexpected events of the past three+ years happened on July 30th, 2022. My mom's new husband died without warning. 💔 There is so much I could write about all of it—it could be considered months of free therapy, but out of respect for my grieving mother, I will stay relatively silent for now.

Over the final 18 months of his life, I ended up occasionally texting with my mom's husband; I spoke on the phone with him exactly once for about 10 minutes; he was very kind to me. I never met my stepfather in real life. After he died, I finally ended up visiting my mom's new home and observing the bliss she moved to for her new husband. Seeing my mother's new life for the first time—that was ironically ending (there's no amusement in that, whatsoever)—was surreal beyond words.

The unbelievably happy news is that in December 2022, my youngest child decided to enroll in one of our great local universities as a full-time student! 🎉 He finished his first semester with straight 'A's!!! He's even continuing in their 2023 summer semester with a full schedule! This happening is an absolute miracle compared to what my wonderful son said at the end of high school. Suffice it to say, my husband and I are beyond thrilled that our beloved youngest child sees what the real world really is, and has now done a complete 180 in terms of furthering his education! 😁👏🏻

I've also been a very busy piano teacher! I currently have 19 delightful piano students who keep me on my toes every week. I will possibly gain another three piano students in the near future, bringing up my total to 22. For quite a while over the past two+ years, I had 26 piano students! I absolutely love teaching piano to such wonderful children 💛, and I'm so grateful that their fabulous parents want me in their children's lives 🥰, but teaching piano is also tiring. Keeping up with laundry, cleaning, organizing, shopping, paying bills, cooking, etc., also takes up a lot of my time—but of course it's always worth it! That said, my bathrooms are atrocious and seriously need to be cleaned! 😂 Darn. Such is life.

One thing I will absolutely never give up is exercising six days every week. Yes, there are random days once in a great while when I have to skip working out one day, but for the most part, I hit my exercise-six-days-every-week goal and it feels super flippin' awesome! 🤩 I definitely stay healthier and my clothes fit nicely because I continually workout. 💃🏻 The fantastic benefits of physical exercise are truly endless!

Since March 2020, I spent a lot of my free time researching COVID-19, masks, and vaccines. I've wanted to do an epic All-Things COVID-19 blog post for years, but my research continued to be never-ending. Whenever I felt like I'd finally researched enough to write my post, I would inevitably stumble onto something new that I needed to research more!

Up until last week when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared officially over(!)/finished(!)/ended(!) 🎉🎆🎊, I'd been greatly concerned that if I write my true feelings here and share the many things/issues I've discovered/researched about COVID-19, masks, and vaccines, I would put my beloved blog in jeopardy. I never want to lose my favorite Enthusiastic Fantastic! I would literally cry if I ever lost my blog! 😭 I was also concerned that if people I personally know and care about were to read my epic CV19 blog post, I would be ostracized in some way or many ways.

At one point in 2022, after doing a lot of research on free speech and many different social media platforms, I had decided that I would only be able to write my CV19 thoughts and discoveries on Substack. I planned to create my epic CV19 post, publish it on Substack, and share the link to it here on my blog. It really bummed me out that I had to do that, but I felt it must be done that way—that I had no other option because Google was actively censoring websites and users that went against the global COVID-19 narrative. I was sooo not pleased! 😠 The fact that I felt I must be extremely careful with my words made me feel like we were (are we? 😬) in a version of George Orwell's "1984"! The situation was beyond frustrating to my soul—and actually frightening to some extent.

Speaking of social media, I'm ecstatic that Elon Musk bought Twitter!!! 🥳 Hip hip hooray for free speech winning! 🎉🤩 I've used Twitter a lot over the past two+ years to learn and study about things that I never would have found via regular search engines. Amazing Twitter users have been absolutely vital for my discovery and research! I'm 100% grateful that said amazing Twitter users were and are willing to put their reputations, careers, and livelihoods on the line to fearlessly make sure the whole truth is available for those who work to find it! 🌟

Yes, I was happy beyond description that I was able to freely share my thoughts/feelings/research on Twitter, without worry/fear that Twitter would ban me for "misinformation." I'm so sick of self-righteous people who think they have the only authority to judge and enforce what is true, vs. what is misinformation—without even being open to any new information at all! It's so beyond stupid! 😖😣

Basically, it's been an incredibly long time since I've felt that I have time to blog. I also didn't dare write what was in my heart for fear of censorship and losing said wonderful blog. 💔 I'm ecstatic that I finally feel like I not only have room in my life for blogging again, but I actually feel free and safe in writing all the things I've been researching/studying for the past three+ years! Yay! I've missed blogging so much, you have no idea!

There's absolutely no way I'll be able to write about all of the COVID-19 information I've researched over the past three years. But I will give my best efforts to document my family's and my personal experiences with all-things CV19! I'm excited, ready, and willing to do so! 🥳

As we all know, there are times and seasons for everything. My incredible husband and our three beautiful children are the number one most important everything in my life 💛—followed by my church, teaching piano, and exercising. *It's difficult to put exercising last in that lineup because working out is absolutely vital to me successfully fulfilling my life's mission. I would not be who I am if I didn't workout as much as I do!

In reflecting over the past three+ years, I have no doubt whatsoever that I've spent my time on the right things. I'm just very glad that blogging is getting some love, time, and attention again! Hip hip hooray for happy blogging days! 💛 Thanks for reading! I hope you have a very happy day! 😁

My Jerry Maguire Moment

At 10:37 p.m. this past Friday, I published a blog post that took me a couple of days to write. It was a deep, heartfelt, very raw piece of work. I worried about sharing it here on Enthusiastic Fantastic because it contained a lot of truths that would probably hurt the feelings of my childhood family (i.e., my "first" family; the family of my birth), and possibly further damage our relationships, but I posted it anyway. 😬

Around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, I awoke with my heart pounding and the thoughts rushed into my mind, "What have I done?! I need to go revert my blog post back to a draft RIGHT NOW!" Yes, it was a true Jerry Maguire moment—I laugh that I now feel such a kinship to a fictional character! 😂

Like Jerry at the beginning of his journey, I typed and typed and typed to create my truth-filled blog post! I endlessly wrote my feelings about, observations of, and solutions to my issues with members of my childhood family—things I've thought throughout the years but haven't said publicly. It was such a therapeutic opportunity for me and I loved every minute of it! 💛 But then the panic set in, just like Jerry Maguire's realization moment!

Sadly, this YouTube clip doesn't show Jerry's pit-in-the-stomach scene when he finally internalizes what he's done by creating his 25-page memo and sharing it with everyone in his company (they edited it out 👎). Spoiler alert! Jerry's bold, truthful actions got him fired!

Side note: you can watch Jerry Maguire (the creator of this video clip spelled Maguire wrong!) for free on Amazon if you're willing to watch it with commercials! 😃 *Also, I don't normally endorse rated R movies, but I saw Jerry Maguire when I was a very young adult and I hadn't made the commitment to not watch rated R movies. I personally own the content-edited-for-TV version and I absolutely love it! #noswearing 😀 Despite its conflicts in many areas with my personal beliefs and commitments, Jerry Maguire has some great universal truths that everyone can learn from.

I had the same type of freak-out thoughts when I awoke so early Saturday morning: If members of my childhood family read my brutally honest blog post, they just might not recover! I could be fired from my childhood family! 😂 And, when I really thought about it, no, I didn't and don't want to be fired from my childhood family. Because, for good and bad, family is family, after all. 💔

I quickly got out of bed and sleepily hurried down the stairs as speedily as I could without falling over—I always get headrush when I get out of bed too fast! When I pulled up my blog's stats on "Hmm, What to Say," I was relieved to see that only three people had viewed my blog post—whew!—and I was one, if not two of them! Ha ha. 😅 After I clicked "Revert to draft," I felt immediate relief! My heart quit pounding, and I happily and very slowly went back upstairs to bed. I instantly fell back asleep and slept well the rest of the night.

When I awoke a few hours later, I wondered if I had overreacted by reverting "Hmm, What to Say" back to a draft. I pulled up my blog post on my phone—thankfully, it was still there from the night before! I felt so sneaky reading my blog post that technically wasn't there anymore—it was such my fun little secret! 😄 That sounds so silly, but I loved it!

I read through "Hmm, What to Say" again and was very happy 😇 with my blogging efforts—it was a great post that I loved writing and reading! Yet after analyzing my words in the very bright morning light of my corner bedroom, I knew I had made the right decision to revert it back to a draft and not keep it posted here.

Sunday, after church, while Greg and I were having a deep conversation about both of our childhood families, I read "Hmm, What to Say" to him. It was such fun reading aloud my words that I had so painstakingly composed. Greg thought it was a great post, too! Yay! Disclaimer: I gushed quite a bit about Greg in my post, so of course he enjoyed it! Ha ha.

Greg eventually agreed with me that I shouldn't post "Hmm, What to Say" on my blog. He only admitted that after I pestered him to really tell me what he thought. Greg is and has always been 100% supportive of my blogging efforts here on Enthusiastic Fantastic. He continually says, "Write whatever you want! It's your blog!" and has never wanted to get in the way of any of my blog posts. So it took a lot for him to tell me not to post it—and I definitely listened to him because of that fact.

In the end, I'm so thankful I took the time to blog about something so serious, even though I didn't keep it published here. Writing is so therapeutic to my soul, it always makes me a better version of myself! I especially love blogging and always will! I'm so truly grateful to Blogger for hosting such a great space where I can share myself on the World Wide Web! Thank you, Blogger, from the bottom of my heart! 😘

Here is a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell's brilliant talk, "Enduring Well," that we can all learn from. His words apply to every experience we have in this life—especially when it comes to our families. 😊

"Part of enduring well consists of being meek enough, amid our suffering, to learn from our relevant experiences. Rather than simply passing through these things, they must pass through us and do so in ways which sanctify these experiences for our good (see D&C 122:7). Thereby, our empathy, too, is enriched and everlasting."

I am grateful for Elder Maxwell's wise words and will try my best to remember them when dealing with my childhood family and our ongoing issues.

Finally, I found this fabulous dress (photos below ↓) at Lulus for a fantastic price of only $14! Yes, I really did! Believe it! 😄 This dress is no longer available, as Lulus' inventory moves very quickly—especially when it's on sale. But Lulus always has amazing dresses and if you watch their website closely, you can frequently get outstanding deals like this one. That said, if you find a dress that you absolutely can't live without, I don't recommend waiting for it to go on sale because you might miss out on your size! And I don't want anyone living with dress regrets! 😂

*By the by, I'm not being paid or sponsored in any way to share my thoughts about Lulus—they are mine and mine alone without any sort of outside influence whatsoever.

Oh, how I love dresses and dressing up! 😍 I'm so grateful that my sweet little family puts up with my dress obsession and takes photos of me wearing said obsessions whenever I ask them! Ha ha. 😆 My darling Gregor took these photos for me after I got home from church yesterday. I love how he snapped a bunch of pics while I was trying to keep my hair from blowing all over the place—it's fun to see behind the scenes! Thank you, Greg! 💙😘

Click on each photo for a crisper/clearer view.

Bye now! I hope you have a wonderful day! 👋😀

Just Say "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg

Guess what?! I finally and thoroughly said "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg! And just how did I say no to the all-powerful Zuck, you ask? Simply by deleting my Facebook account! 👏😃 I'm also leaving Instagram, but that process is taking longer to complete than it took for me to delete my Facebook account—more on that to come.

You might wonder why I suddenly decided to delete Facebook after all of these years, and leave my beloved Instagram. Well, it's because I read a lot of articles that share just how much Facebook and now Instagram have messed with our society. It's not good news! If you're interested, here are the articles I read that solidified my decision:

"Facebook Stored Millions Of User Passwords In Plain, Readable Text"

"Instagram Is the Internet’s New Home for Hate
As other social networks wage a very public war against misinformation, it's thriving on Instagram."

"Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation"

"Instagram posts encouraging eating disorders are 'spiralling out of control,' psychiatrists warn"

"Facebook won’t let you opt out of its phone number ‘look up’ setting"

"Facebook and Instagram Going Dark Should Be a Wake Up Call for Entrepreneurs

Social media is a tool you use. Your website and your email list are assets you own."

"Opinion: Facebook crumbles around its lonely king
Shareholders gave Mark Zuckerberg all the power, and now watch as top executives walk away from his iron-fisted rule"

"Why Facebook waited 3 months to disclose its latest privacy screw-up"

"I Deleted Facebook Last Year. Here’s What Changed (and What Didn’t).

Our personal tech columnist didn’t lose touch with his true friends — but strange things did occur, including Instagram thinking he was a woman."

Also, in late 2018, I watched Frontline's documentary, "The Facebook Dilemma," and it definitely had an influence on my #deleteFacebook! decision. I highly recommend watching Frontline's entire presentation! ⭐

What's crazy is that those articles are just a sampling of the negative press about Facebook! Instagram didn't used to have much bad press, but since it was bought by Facebook, I've seen IG in the press more and more and it's not good news. Oh, how I wish Instagram had never sold-out to Facebook! 👎 That said, let's continue with my story. 😊

On March 23rd, 2019, I logged back into Facebook for the first time in four years so I could finally delete my account once and for all! (I deactivated my account on March 9th, 2015.)

Let me tell you, logging back in to Fakebook was the strangest moment I've had in the past four years! It was so odd seeing very familiar parts of FB, but there were also new things I wasn't familiar with. I read the instructions as to how to download all of my data and permanently delete my Facebook account; it took me a while to figure everything out.

While I waited to get my Facebook account's data download, I looked at several people's pages that I hadn't had contact with since I left that blue and white world. I was surprised to see that a couple of my friends had new babies, and several friends had moved to new homes, but everything else in everyone else's lives pretty much fell in line with their posts from four+ years ago.

It was so interesting to note that all of my Facebook friends and family (that I don't have continuous/regular contact with) basically stayed the same—meaning, we are who we are! Good, bad, or indifferent, we fundamentally don't significantly change over the years! It really was such a fascinating "experiment" on my end! I'm actually really glad I was able to experience my own version of a "social scientist study" by being active on Facebook, then deactivating my account, and later going back on it for a couple of hours!

What surprised me the most about my adventure of logging back in to Facebook is how much time I spent there! 😬 I pulled up many pages of people I wanted to check up on, so that took time in and of itself. Yet I never could have predicted my many random clicks—i.e., my wonderings about other people who showed up on my friends/family members pages—and how long my "inquiries" took to resolve! 😆

I really "fell down" the Facebook Rabbit Hole and it was nothing close to a happy Wonderland! Ha ha. It was a stark reminder of how Facebook is/was not good for me—it's a HUGE time waster!

*Please let me clarify that the people I care about aren't a waste of time. It's just that the way Facebook is set up is meant to make us waste as much time on there as possible, which is not good for us. If you'd like concrete evidence of that fact, read this statement from New York Media's Intelligencer article, "Sean Parker: We Built Facebook to Exploit You": 

"Parker explained just how he and the other early Facebookers built the platform to 'consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible.'"

Sean's statement makes me cringe and get a pit in my stomach! It's terrible what the Facebook machine has purposely and very knowingly done—and continues to do—to our society!

If you'd like to hear more from Sean Parker's interview, watch this video that also includes an interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, an early senior executive at Facebook

Sean Parker, Chamath Palihapitiya - Facebook is 'Ripping Apart Society'

*As a warning, be aware that Chamath uses strong language—i.e., swear/cuss words which I can't stand!

When it came down to actually deleting my Facebook account, I double checked everything very carefully. I made sure I had all of my data because those posts/messages/comments were important memories from my family's history! 💖 Once I was certain that my data download was complete, I clicked the blue box that said "⚠ Delete Account"! It was such an amazing feeling to click that button, you have no idea! Wow, talk about an adrenaline rush! 👏😃

Okay, that might seem like a strange reaction to have, but knowing I still had a Facebook account—even though it was deactivated—was always in the back of my mind, and it bothered me! I felt like a hypocrite because I so did not support Facebook and all of the problems it's introduced into our society, yet I still owned my deactivated account! 😬 By continuing to have a deactivated Facebook account, I wasn't living congruently to my soul. Thus I was so very happy to rectify my incongruous situation by finally deleting my Facebook account! Yay yay happy day! 😁

*In my estimation, my previous Facebook account has now been deleted from our universe for two-and-a-half weeks! Woohoo! 👊

Deciding to also delete my private Instagram account was a bit more difficult for me. I absolutely loved my time on Instagram over the past five years—I joined on February 26th, 2014—and I knew I'd deeply miss it. 😥 Yet after reading all of the articles I listed above, and knowing how Instagram has fundamentally changed for the worse since Facebook gained control, I knew what I had to do.

When I downloaded my private Instagram account's data, I was extremely disappointed to find that Instagram doesn't put your photos and captions in the same files! In fact, I couldn't even find all of my photo captions! They seemed to be hidden away deep within my data download, and the only way I could access them was to download my captions' file folder contents to a sketchy online program that converted them into an Excel spreadsheet which I then had to re-download.

I later discovered that that online conversion program downloaded a tracking virus to my computer, too. Boo! 😠 Thankfully, I eradicated the virus from my computer. But even when the sketchy online conversion program separated out my captions into the Excel spreadsheet, some of my captions were still missing—which ticked me off!

After all of the time and effort I spent downloading my Instagram world, I realized that this manipulation of our data is yet another devious Facebook tactic meant to keep its users hooked and brainwashed every day! But I will not fall for it! No, I will not! #feistyAdrie 😇

Thus, as much as I was so giddy to also delete my private Instagram account right away, it will have to wait for a future day hopefully not too far away. For now, I need to work on copying/pasting all of my photo captions into a Word document. Unfortunately, my captions won't match up exactly with my photo files as Instagram's data download just groups them by month 😞, but at least I'll have them!

Greg suggested that I create a private blog to post our photos and captions there, but that would take up entirely too much of my time as I have 950 private Instagram posts and multiple photos on many of them! So yeah, at this point, I'd rather have a journal-type document and keep it in the same computer file as my Instagram photos. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than not having my captions at all!

You see, I absolutely loved writing photo captions on my Instagram posts! It really helped me remember all of the wonderfulness or frustration of each day or experience that I posted about. Plus, I just love love love words!!! #EnthusiasticFantastic! 😁 So yes, a big part of the reason I loved contributing on Instagram was because of the wordy details I shared there. I love composing captions! 💛

And yes, I fully know that blogging is the best way to share large amounts of words, which is why I'm currently in the process of retraining my brain to come blog at my computer rather than composing and posting via my smart phone. It's been a long process to eradicate the "addictiveness" of Instagram from my daily life, but I'm totally getting there! I am making progress in my Instagram-free efforts! Yay! A fabulous quote I heard last night (while listening to a wonderful BYU Devotional, "Wrestling with Comparisons" by J.B. Haws—go listen to it right now! 😀) really helps me solidify that writing on my blog is one of the best things I can do:

"Writing makes an exact man."
– Francis Bacon

I absolutely love that quote and couldn't agree more! Yes, writing makes me an exact woman! #choosetowrite! 😁

Here are some of my Instagram side notes: my final post was on April 3rd, 2019; I completely deleted the app from my phone; I no longer scroll my feed; and copying/pasting my many photo captions into a Word doc will be one of my summertime projects of 2019!

Guess what else?! I have even more information to share about why we should just say "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg and get off all of the social media platforms Facebook controls. Are you ready for this?! 😃

A little while after I started my Facebook account deletion process, I saw this incredible new TED Talk given by Carole Cadwalladr at TED's April, 2019 conference—it's an absolute must-watch!

"Facebook's role in Brexit — and the threat to democracy"

Around that same time, I stumbled upon this article that deeply disturbed me 😧:

"Inside the Secret Facebook War For Mormon Hearts and Minds"

Here is the gist about what one former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did to his family members and friends, and the other people whose family/friends signed up for his "services" online via personalized Facebook ads—it's utterly appalling to me! I just can't believe that Facebook allows such blatant targeting of its users!

"...The project was called MormonAds, and it was a brief but perhaps unprecedented experiment in targeted religious dissuasion. In four months at the end of 2017, the project targeted more than 5,000 practicing Mormons with messages painstakingly crafted to serve as gentle introductions to the messier elements of LDS history that were glossed over within the church. All the names and email addresses for the campaign came from disillusioned ex-Mormons.

"...Jones had a working knowledge of Facebook's ads tool through his business, and he knew that he could precision target an ad to a custom audience as small as 20 people. All he needed were their email addresses. 'If I target my family with ads, then I’m not the apostate messenger,' he said. 'Maybe they’ll look at it or read it. If they knew what I knew about Mormon history, they’d understand why I left the church.'"

Based on that article alone, it's clear that Facebook is not safe for any of us! Facebook is not our friend in any way, shape, or form! We should run as far and as fast as we can away from Facebook's creepy alternate universe!

All of the information I've shared in this post would have easily been enough, but yesterday morning, I was introduced to two additional, shocking articles that further support my stance that we should all delete our Facebook and Instagram accounts immediately! I highly recommend reading both of them as they will blow your mind! 💣💥 I hope they will convince you to strongly say "NO!" to Mark Zuckerberg, too! #justdoit! #justsayNO!

The New York Times

Opinion

"It's Time to Break Up Facebook"

The Verge

"THE TRAUMA FLOOR

The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America"

If we want anything to change within our social media atmosphere, we must band together and stand up for what is right and true! You might think I'm overreacting, but I know I'm not. The future of our society for generations to come depends on what we all do right now! We cannot wait for some government to change our social media climate! Only we can make that positive change that needs to be made!

With every bit of seriousness I can muster, please understand that (from everything I've read, watched, and listened to) Mark Zuckerberg certainly will NOT be the positive and righteous change agent for our world. No, Zuck is fully looking to keep his world domination and has zero intentions of ever stepping down from his data-driven, citizen-powered throne! Furthermore, the many Facebook executives and employees won't step up and make the necessary changes either because they're all enjoying their vast amounts of money entirely too much—money that they've all made from us wasting our precious time on their addictive and destructive apps!

So, you might be wondering where I will go in our social media universe, as there aren't too many options outside of Facebook's empire. It's true, I'm definitely not going to give up social media all together just because of a few really bad apples in the basket. Thus, after doing a lot of research, I decided to join Flickr! Yay Flickr! 😀

I really like that Flickr was sold by Yahoo in 2018 to a conscientious, family-owned company named SmugMug. Based on what I've researched, Flickr is now all about its users': photographs; experience on Flickr; connection with people they want to be connected to; and privacy!

I also love the fact that I can pay for Flickr Pro(!) and get the following, "Unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, advanced stats, and more." I am so interested in unlimited storage, and especially in an advertisement-free(!) Flickr experience! Yes, I am totally willing to pay a small fee for social media freedom from constant advertisements and insane invasions of my privacy!

If you're interested, here's more information about the Flickr/SmugMug partnership:

SmugMug + Flickr Frequently Asked Questions

About Flickr

Flickr Help

Flickr FAQs

*In case you're wondering, no, I have not been asked to promote Flickr in any way. I've not been contacted by Flickr to sign up, share my thoughts, nor anything close to that. I'm simply sharing my opinion on what I think is currently the best replacement for Instagram and Facebook.

The only problem is, I can't get any of my friends to sign up on Flickr with me because they're all so in love with Instagram and Facebook! (They're probably also "addicted" to IG and FB to some extent.) #sosadface! 😢 My dearest mom and sweet auntie have both signed up on Flickr (Thank you, darling ladies!) and we're now following each other, but we're it! Oh, how I would love it if my other family members and friends joined me on Flickr!

Here are my stats for my other social media accounts:

I don't plan to ever quit Twitter unless something really crazy happens in the future. I haven't used Twitter a lot yet, as I've been super busy lately, but that awesome time will come in the future where I'll be sharing my blog post links to Twitter on a regular basis! Yay yay happy Twitter days! 😄 I've researched Twitter's CEO, Jack Dorsey, and while he seems a little extreme in some of his personal views and habits, I feel much better about him and his leadership capabilities than I ever did about Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe I'll just refer to Jack as being a little eccentric...as we all are in our own ways! 😉

I will totally keep my Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts, too. I share my blog post links on Pinterest, but I also love posting the many additional articles, videos, and podcasts I feel are worth sharing and referring back to. I'm not super active on LinkedIn, but I absolutely understand the tremendous value of being a member on LinkedIn! It is a great networking tool!

And of course, I will continue sharing here on Enthusiastic Fantastic! It is and will remain my main internet and social media love forever! 😄 Unless something catastrophic happens to me or the world wide web, I will always keep posting here!

Finally, I understand that many of you will choose to stay connected via Facebook and Instagram indefinitely, which is totally your right and privilege. I won't hold your choices against you—I promise! 😘 We are all so blessed to have the God-given gift of free agency! Each of us gets to choose how we live our marvelous miraculous lives and spend our precious beautiful days. 💗 But we are also subject to the consequences of our many actions—be they good, bad, or boring. 😉 Thus, we must be satisfied with the choices we make, for it is terrible to be filled with regret! Yes, I'm so happy that I choose to live my life free of regrets every day!

My sincere hope is that each of us as individuals, and our society as a whole, will wake up to this mess Mark Zuckerberg has created and be the positive change that makes our world a better place for everyone!

Have a great day making your best choices! 😘

Joining the Twitterverse

Good morning! So you might have been wondering where I've been these past three months. Well, I've been living! Ha ha. But seriously, life has been a bundle of surprises, changes, and a lot of work. Being a supportive wife, mother of three teenagers, homemaker, part-time piano teacher, occasional substitute teacher, and remaining strongly committed to my fitness regimen is surprisingly time consuming!

Every day, I think I'm going to have or make time for blogging, but then 11:00 p.m. arrives and I'm like, "Okay! I'll blog tomorrow!" Yeah, that's been one of my repeating phrases in my mind for umpteen weeks now! 😅 Someday, I'll actually be consistent at blogging again! Yet at this stage of my life, blogging as much as I want (my heart wants it so much!) is just not going to happen, and I'm okay with that. Right now, I'm so happy to help my children, husband, church, and myself with everything that is most important! But it would be such fun to have three extra hours each day to do more! Oh, yes, it would! 😁 One day, I know I'll have more time and energy to devote to my happiest Enthusiastic Fantastic! Until then, sporadic blog posts is my holding pattern. 😊

That said, I made a little progress this morning: I joined Twitter! I know, can you even believe I just wrote that?! I'm shocked, too! Ha ha. The reason I joined Twitter is because Google+ is going away. 😢

I've shared my blog post links on Google+ for years now, and I always loved the way my posts' images showed up on my profile page. So I was totally bummed out(!) when I found out that Google+ is being deleted from our Internet world! Seriously, what the heck, Google?! I still have my public Instagram account open, but I'm standing Wonder-Woman strong in my stance against Facebook, so I won't be posting publicly there (on my public Instagram account) anymore. When I looked at our world's social media ways, I determined that Twitter was my best option for sharing my blog post links from here on out. Yay me! 👍😁

While I'm disappointed that Twitter won't show my blog post links as prettily as Google+ did, I'm happy I have a place to share my links at all! It could definitely be worse!

I struggled with the fact that Twitter wouldn't let me create the user name I really want—@EnthusiasticFantastic—because it's over their character limit. What the what?! Why, Twitter, why?! After trying many user names that were either too long, already taken, or too short (seriously, Twitter?!!), I finally settled on @EnthusiasticAP. I'm going to let my handle sit for a while and see if I really like it. If not, I'll change it to something else. *But after searching and thinking deeply for quite a while, I really do think that @EnthusiasticAP is where I'll stay in the Twitterverse! Yay!

Okay, my happy blogging time is up—I get to go workout now! Catch ya later! 👋

Updating "Enthusiastic Fantastic"!

Hi, Everyone! I have super happy news! Remember when I recently posted that I wanted to buy a Chromebook to help me post to my blog more often? Well, I made my dream come true! Yippee! 😁

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased this awesome Acer 15.6" Chromebook(!), and I found this fabulous laptop bag to go with it—I love them both sooo much! I did a lot of research (on Google, of course! 😄) before purchasing my new friend, and let me tell you, I found the perfect Chromebook for me and what I want to accomplish!

In other words, even though my Chromebook doesn't have the biggest memory at 16GB, I literally don't need anything more than that because I'm only using it for online content—I won't be saving anything to its hard drive. Its RAM at 4GB is totally perfect for my needs, it's as speedy as can be! And please let me tell you how much I love my Chromebook's huge screen and battery life!! They really are amazing!! And while I didn't initially plan to use my Chromebook's speakers for anything, I've now used them for watching several videos (election research 😄), and they are spot-on exactly what I didn't know I wanted! Yeah yeah yeah!

All of that said, the screen resolution could be a tad crisper, but it's nothing I can't handle. I just wanted a big screen to make blogging easier on my eyes, and that mission has been totally accomplished with Acer's 15.6" display. If I want better screen resolution for other things, I can use my desktop computer monitor or our HD TVs. And seriously, if screen resolution is my only and very minor complaint, I'm doing great!

Plus, I've been a huge fan of Google Chrome for many years, so to have a laptop with a Chrome operating system is pretty darn enjoyable for this Googling lady! Ha ha.

Basically, my main goal for my happy new Chromebook is to post to my blog more frequently and pin to Pinterest all of the fascinating finds I've discovered (I'm super behind in that area). And my Acer is already helping me achieve that goal! Woohoo!

Although, I have to admit...I'm super bummed because I bought my Acer Chromebook at the regular price, not the sale price. #sosadface! I checked to see if I could utilize Best Buy's price-match guarantee and get a $30 refund, but I'm outside of their 15-day purchase window (or whatever it's called). Darn! 😞 Alas, such is life. That said, my laptop bag was on sale when I bought it, and now it's not! So at least I scored in that area! Yay yay happy day!

So, long story short, I'm completely thrilled that my process has begun for updating Enthusiastic Fantastic! For any of you following my blog updates, you'll probably see me posting a lot of stuff from days gone by. I'm sorry it's not current information, but, as I explained in my post about Instagram's changes, I'm now transferring my content from my public Instagram account over to my blog. It will be a  l o n g  process, but I'm excited to make it happen!

Oh yeah, and I've been having lots of fun figuring out all of my Chromebook's tips and tricks! This fabulous machine and its operating system do so many delightful things! And I really love typing on my new keyboard! Clickety-typety! 💻

Thanks for reading, I hope you have a wonderful week! 😀

P.S. I created this post because I wanted to share my good news with the world! My opinion was not paid for, nor was I asked by anyone to write this post. 👍

Guest Post by Greg Peterson: "Remember Who You Are"

Hi, Everyone! Today, I have a special treat to share—a guest post by my wonderful husband! Greg wrote his very first bishopric message for our ward's newsletter that was published and delivered to our neighborhood just yesterday! Yay Greg! I love Greg's message so much that I feel it must be shared with the world!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, Greg was called, sustained, and set apart as the second counselor in our ward's bishopric of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Sunday, August 5th, 2018. If you'd like to know more about how the Church is led, read this informative outline, "Lay Leadership: Volunteer Ministry of the Church," found on the Church's Newsroom.

In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, I edited small grammar issues in Greg's composition, but the message is 100% absolutely his. Oh, how I love reading my husband's words!! Remember? Greg and I wrote letters to each other for two+ years while he served in the Japan Fukuoka Mission for the Church! If you'd like to know a little bit about that time in our lives, read my blog post, "Choosing Power."

*Disclaimer: My husband and I are not official representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We simply love being members of the Church and greatly enjoy serving our fellow brothers and sisters. 😀

Without further ado, here are my Gregor's fabulous words!

Twenty-four years ago on June 30th, 1994, I asked a lovely young lady named Adrie out on a first date. Our plan was to see a new Disney movie that had opened the previous week called The Lion King. Going to see that movie changed the direction of my life—for so many reasons. First, that lovely young lady now shares my last name! Second, there were life lessons within the film that helped me better understand the gospel then and continues to guide my life even today.

Some people say The Lion King is a blatant rip off of a Japanese comic book series from the 1950's called Kimba the White Lion, (ジャングル大帝 Janguru Taitei, or Jungle Emperor) which tells the story of an orphaned lion who becomes king. What it may lack in originality it makes up for in great voice acting, beautiful animation, and a truly inspirational story line. There is a quote from that movie that I can’t help but share today because I think it is so powerful.

Simba has rejected what his legacy says he should be. His role in life—to be the next king—has been usurped by another (his murderous uncle), and instead of fighting for his rightful place, Simba adopts the philosophy of “hakuna matata,” or “no worries.” He now looks at the past this way: Sometimes bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Simba is acutely aware of his inadequacy. He knows he is not living up to his potential and that his father, Mufasa, would not be proud of the way he is living his life.

What happens next is the turning point of the movie: a visit from a crazy old baboon who claims to be able to show Mufasa to Simba. Simba follows this baboon named Rafiki to a pool, and Rafiki points into the water. “Look down there,” says the baboon. Simba looks down and sees only his reflection. He tries to blame it on his father, shouting at the nighttime sky, “You promised you’d always be there for me. But you’re not!” Rafiki points into the water again, “No, look harder.” Again Simba looks, and now he sees not his own reflection, but a reflection of his father. “You see?” says Rafiki, “He lives in you.”

The wind howls, the sky darkens, and in the rumbling thunder, Simba sees his father in the clouds. Mufasa speaks in a low but powerful voice (imagine James Earl Jones), “Simba, you have forgotten me.” The young lion argues, “No! How could I?” But his father is firm, “You have forgotten who you are, and so forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become… Remember who you are… Remember…”

As an eighteen-year-old on a first date, sitting in a cold, dark movie theater, the words brought tears to my eyes as I thought about their power.

How often do we forget who we are? As a child of God, we are the son or daughter of a king. But do we remember? Or do we choose to live our lives believing hakuna matata: no worries for the rest of our days, a problem-free philosophy?

But is it problem-free? We were created to live lives of responsibility and meaning. “No worries” doesn’t exist. Sure, we don’t need to worry about everything that happens in our lives, but choosing to “put your past behind you” and just moving on is no way to live. We all need to see where we’ve come from and learn from our experiences—so we can be what we are meant to be!

How often does Heavenly Father need to say to us, “You are more than what you have become?” Do we sacrifice our identity as children of God for lives of leisure and ease? Our telestial world (similar to Simba's pride land) can be a difficult place where we must battle against an enemy and stand for what is right. That takes work. It's much easier to stay in an easy place of pleasure—entertained and enjoyed—than to fight against an enemy who has robbed us of our identity.

Mufasa didn’t tell Simba he should have gotten another degree, live in a bigger house, or make more money. He simply said, “You are more than what you have become.” Becoming more is much different than having or doing more.

It’s easier to quantify doing than being.

We can quantify what we do: how many sales we made, how many miles we drove, how many chairs were built, or how many pages were written. It’s also easy to see things that need to be done—dishes need to be washed, beds need to be made, lawns need to be mowed. Being is harder to quantify and measure: a great mom; an inspiring spiritual leader; a compassionate friend; an understanding boss; a caring, loving neighbor.

Becoming more may require doing less.

Who are you? Who have you become? And is that the person you were created to be? Our loving Heavenly Father has big plans for each of us, and we can’t consider ourselves fully developed now because we are continually learning and growing every day. The fact is that we are all more than we have become, and we need to keep working on ourselves so we can become everything we are intended to be.

How we live our lives matters, and not just for ourselves, but for all the people around us whose lives we might also affect in ways we don’t even realize. We never know when we might matter to someone else—when someone else is watching us or learning from our example, or when we are meant to touch someone’s life. And it’s up to us to rise to the potential that God knows we are capable of achieving!

Brothers and Sisters, our loving Heavenly Father continually calls out to each of us and invites us to “Remember who you are.” It is my testimony that through our Savior, Jesus Christ, we can be washed clean of our sins and return to live with Him someday.

P.S. When I copied/pasted Greg's bishopric message to my blog, I was shocked to realize that I missed a few typos! 😬 Hopefully, I fixed the rest of them now, but it was a good reminder for me to get more sleep! Yes, I was very sleep deprived when I edited Greg's message. 😪 Oops! 😄

What to Do with Instagram Now That Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom Resigned

Yesterday morning, I came across an article that totally bummed me out. While reading it, and researching further (before I believe anything I read online, I research and read multiple sources), I came to the sad conclusion that Instagram's founders are truly leaving Instagram (and Facebook)—for good. Here are the articles I read, in the order I read them:

With Instagram’s Founders Out, Welcome to Facebook Inc.

Statement from Kevin Systrom, Instagram Co-Founder and CEO

As Instagram's founders quit, Facebook swallows it whole

Why Instagram’s founders are resigning: independence from Facebook weakened

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Fakebook (feel free to read my post, "Just Do It! Dump Facebook! :)"). Thus, when changes began happening to Instagram over the past couple of years that felt very Facebook-ey to me, I became concerned. In March, 2018, I even looked to quit Instagram altogether and join Vero. Yet after signing up, my brother-in-law shared the information he'd researched about Vero's owners and I immediately deleted my newly-created accounts—they were worse than Fakebook!

Since my happy Instagram world was so coldly disrupted yesterday morning by Facebook 😢, I've tried to rationalize how I could maintain my Instagram accounts and remain true to who I am and what I believe. While researching other Instagram-related articles, I came across an article (below) that reminded me that Facebook and its leaders are NOT our friends. When it really comes down to it, they are all about making money, and that will never change.

How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met

The quote "If you're not paying for it, you are the product" fully and completely applies to Facebook and all of its products, which sadly includes Instagram.

Furthermore, the fact that Instagram's founders are willingly leaving their high-paying, cushy Instagram/Facebook positions tells me they can't live with themselves under the fake-umbrella-of-happiness, either! Their choice to leave Facebook shows they are remaining true to who they are—regardless of the money—and I applaud them for it. (Okay, I'm reaching there, but it's totally plausible they resigned for that reason!) *Yet in the same breath, I counter that with, "Why did you sell-out to Fakebook in the first place?! Why would you choose money over your loyal users' beautiful Instagram experiences?!" So sad, right?!

Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom claim they will keep their Instagram accounts, but I wonder how long they'll actually stay active on it? Instagram was their creation, so maybe they can't bear to part with their baby? I don't blame them if they continue using Instagram, but I'll be surprised if they remain on it long-term.

So, what am I to do now with this frustrating information? (I know I may be in the minority with my strong feelings, but I don't care. I can write whatever I want on my blog! 😁) Here are the thoughts I've had over the past several hours—I might change, delete, or update these points as more information about Instagram becomes available:

• Unlike many Instagram users, I've never made money because of my participation there. Even though I genuinely love my Instagram world I've created (so much!), I was also hoping that my IG contributions would translate into readers of my blog—which would then translate into advertising revenue. If you've read my previous blog post, you'll know that advertisements on my blog most definitely haven't paid off.
• I've not received nor retained the amount of Instagram followers I thought possible. I wasn't expecting to gain thousands of followers, by any means, but I topped out at 250 followers, and that number always regressed if I didn't follow back said followers. And I most definitely did not follow back people just for the sake of following back. I followed Instagram accounts because I really wanted to see their content, I don't give fake or hollow follows anywhere. Also, if I didn't post at least weekly on IG, I would lose even more followers, which was annoying because I wanted to post whenever I felt like it, not because I needed to retain followers.
• Now that I've removed advertisements from my blog, the point of gaining new readers for advertising dollars doesn't even matter. While I'm truly super happy if people find my blog helpful (I love helping readers!), I blog for myself because I genuinely love it! Thus, with these most recent Instagram developments, I don't feel the need to post to my public Instagram account and link it back to my blog anymore. If people find Enthusiastic Fantastic while searching the Internet, that's great! But the loss of time I spent posting to my public Instagram account definitely outweighed any benefits of gaining new followers/readers.
• I'm not willing to self-promote and/or collaborate to the lengths needed to succeed monetarily speaking on Instagram. My posts never have been and never will be about making money or jumping on the popular train. The same applies here on my blog.
• There are way too many advertisements on Instagram! I can't say for sure, but it feels like my public Instagram feed is 40% sponsored posts! This is not how Instagram used to be when I first began using it in 2014 (private account) and 2015 (public account). I honestly remember scrolling through both of my feeds and not seeing one single advertisement for such a long time! When advertisements began coming through my public feed, I sort of expected and understood it—as the Instagram algorithm determined I was a "business" account. Yet when advertisements began showing up on my private feed, I was like, "Nooooo!!! You can't do this to me!" But I put up with them because I loved my happy Instaland so very much!
• Instagram's new algorithm (created by Facebook) doesn't show posts in the way I enjoy. I want to see every post from every account I follow, in the order they were posted! I don't want to see posts and advertisements that the algorithm determines I would rather look at! I mean, why is that so freaking hard for Facebook to understand?! We users chose to stay with Instagram because that's how it started: posts were shown in chronological order, regardless of potential advertising revenue! Yet Fakebook ruined that, too. Rest assured, Facebook's leaders fully know exactly what they're doing. They are consciously choosing to put advertisers' dollars ahead of users' experiences. And I have a major problem with that.
• I've wasted a lot of time on Instagram. About a week-and-a-half ago, I realized that I needed to stop leisurely scrolling away my valuable minutes on my public Instagram feed. I finally recognized that Instagram has basically become a digital magazine for me—with fun, helpful, interesting, or beautiful information squeezed in between advertisements. Let me explain: back when I was a newer mom, I subscribed to several life/style/improvement magazines. I not only loved reading those magazines, I felt the need to read them cover-to-cover because I paid for them. I didn't want to be throwing away magazines (before we had the option of curbside recycling) without having read them, or it felt like a huge waste of money. But after several months of that behavior, I realized what a tremendous waste of time my magazine-reading habit was. I saw that I was missing out on precious time with my babies, and I wasn't quite as productive as I could have been for our family's improved happiness and well-being. Thus, I determined that I needed to cancel all of my magazine subscriptions, and I did exactly that! Let me tell you, it was a wonderfully freeing feeling and I never looked back! Thus, with this latest Instagram revelation of who will really be controlling the content we consume, i.e., The Big Bad Facebook, I've decided it's time to cancel my public "subscription"!
• I will keep my private Instagram "subscription" and follow only my family members, friends, and Church leaders. *This may seem like a cop-out to the points I've just made, but I can't reconcile losing my connection to the most important people in my life—especially since I'm not on Fakebook anymore! Thus, until a better alternative becomes available, I'm stuck with my private Instagram account—stupid advertisements, algorithm, and all. Thankfully, the amount of people I follow privately is relatively small, so it will be easy to keep up on their posts—unlike my public IG account where I follow 300+ people/organizations. When I just looked at how many public accounts I follow, I'm even more motivated to be done with the commercial side of Instagram!
• I love the posts I created on my public Instagram account and I don't want to lose them! Thus, I will keep my public Instagram account as-is until I transfer all of my non-blog posts over here to Enthusiastic Fantastic. That will be a labor of love and will take quite a while to finish, but it's totally worth it!
• I will keep my public Instagram account open indefinitely as a way for people to find me and my blog—plus, I don't want to give away my awesome @enthusiasticfantastic username(!) 😆—but I'll stop my time-consuming habit of posting there and scrolling through that feed asap.
• Eventually, I'll compose a final post on my public Instagram page, detailing where to find me at Enthusiastic Fantastic! Of course, that's assuming anyone actually wants to find me! Ha ha. It will be such a sad day for my Instaland-happy heart 😢, but I know deep down it's what I really want to do. I'm looking forward to the outcome of this big decision because, overall,  I know my life will improve!
• I'm actually really excited about the fact that I don't have to use a photo in order to post here on my blog! Instagram was so much fun to be a part of, but sometimes I didn't like that I always had to include a new photo, or a screenshot of text, or a typographic design if I wanted to post anything there. I can't wait to just typety-type-type and click "Publish" to Enthusiastic Fantastic!
• I'm completely thrilled that there are no character limits here on my blog! I can write as many words as I like, and—unlike Instagram—Blogger never tells me to stop writing! 😄 For this wordy girl, that is an unbelievably happy feeling! Yes, that was another way I wasted time on Instagram: I was always trying to figure out ways to compose my posts without going over their 2,200 character limit. With my focus returning to blogging, I won't have that stumbling block to worry about anymore! Praise be and hallelujah!

All of that shared, now I have the ginormous job of retraining my brain to come to my computer to compose posts on my blog instead of continuing to go to the easy default of my smartphone and posting on Instagram. It will take some time, but I know I can do it! Again, I am just not okay with Facebook ruling Instagram! If Instagram's founders would have stayed and continued running Instaland as they saw fit, I most definitely would have remained an Instagrammer forever! But The Big Bad Facebook has trampled Kevin and Mike, and I refuse to just fall in line!

As I round out my thoughts of yesterday's social media news, I've come to the surprising conclusion that I want to buy a Chromebook! I think it will help having another way to post to my blog whenever and wherever I want. 😊

Wish me luck in my new endeavors!

*Update: 09/26/18*

After publishing my post very early this morning, I've now read two more articles about Instagram and Facebook that I feel are completely worth sharing. They both illustrate that Instagram is now doomed under Facebook's unsupervised/unchallenged rule.

I also read a bombshell of an interview with WhatsApp cofounder, Brian Acton. His experience of dealing with Facebook's executives is mind blowing! And not in a good way.

These three articles reiterate that Facebook cannot ever be trusted to put its users first—no matter what kind of image its leaders try to create through feel-good commercials and personal posts. Yes, I am soooo over and done with Facebook and its greedy executives!

The departure of Instagram's cofounders is a bad thing for Facebook — but it could be even worse for the rest of us

The end of Instagram as we know it is here

Facebook used to leave it alone. Not any more

Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind