It's unbelievable what you can live without when you don't have a choice. During this past year, I've learned that it is possible to live without hot water for a week. By the way, I suggest you wait until your teenage daughters actually grow up and move out before you try doing this. I've also learned that you can live without heat in February. Yep! Totally possible. Of course, we only had to go a day without it, but still, I consider myself a survivor. Bear Grylls? Psh! I've gone without a fridge for five days. I'm still shocked none of us ended up in the ER with food poisoning, but yes, my friends, you can survive without a lot of things you thought you absolutely had to have.

For the last couple weeks, I've had to live without a computer. Torturous. This coming from someone who didn't even know what surfing the web was until I was out of college. Weird, I know. That meant no Pinterest, Facebook, emails, blogs, no - nothing. I would run to my friend's house to check for important emails, of course, but still - torturous. Yet, I survived. In the time that I usually spent on the computer, I found myself doing strange things that I have been an expert at ignoring: cleaning, dusting, and the worst of the worst - organizing. Here's a random thought: why do people always come over when the house is totally trashed, and now that my house looks like June Cleaver lives here, not a soul to see. I find that quite annoying.

Getting back to the point. We're tougher than we look. Take all the iPods and iPads and computers and Kindles away and you know what? We'd be OK. We'd be grouchy for a while, but then we'd find a way to survive. However, there are a few things I don't ever want to live without. 1) My children, 2) My friends, and 3) My health. I could not make it without them. I'd rather be at the bottom of a landfill covered with crappy computers that crash for no reason than to have to live life without the people I love the most and the ability to live and do and create. Everything else? Extras, I love the "extras," but it's knowing what's essential and what the "extras" are that make a person truly wise. Nah! Scratch that. It's a wise person who focuses his or her life on the "essentials" and not the extras.

Am I willing to give up my brand new laptop to prove this to everyone? Heck no. You'll just have to take my word for it. You'd have to pry my dead body away from this beautiful little gem. Spending more time with my kids instead of Facebook? That just might be essential. Dusting? Pinterest wins every time.