After having to live without my tablet for a week, I'm realizing just how much I really, really love it. My old tablet had been slowly dying--constantly rebooting randomly, freezing, etc. So my husband bought me a new Galaxy tab 4 for Christmas, and I had it all set up with my Kindle, Moon pro, Handwrite apps, etc. until I tripped over my daughter's shoes in the foyer on new year's eve and the tablet went flying down the stairs, cracking open. *sigh*

It still worked but fortunately my husband had bought the 2 year warranty so we returned it to the store and they gave us a refund in a gift card form to then go back to the electronics counter to just purchase a new one. Of course, they didn't have any in stock. It had to be ordered. Seven days without my tablet and I'm realizing just how much I really relied on it.

Reading books on my phone is just a pain in the butt. Plus, I realized just how much I relied on the Handwrite App. At night, as I'm falling asleep, ideas for stories (current or future) often hit me as I'm drifting off. I've been using the handwrite app to quickly open and jot down the idea. It's nice because I don't have to try to type anything, just scribble it with my finger. I can do it quickly and easily, and then I can actually fall asleep without worrying whether I'll forget the idea. Not having that for a week was painful--trying to write on a notebook in the dark is not easy (it's the way I used to do it before I had a tablet, but it's not easy).

Then of course I got to thinking about how much things have changed since I was a kid. I was the first one in my house to even get a computer --a Commodore 128, woohoo! --because I wanted to be able to save the stories I typed. Before that I was typing on an electric typewriter. My kids look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them that. Oh, yeah, and portable phones? Huge clunky things that plugged into your car. And guess what? They only made phone calls!

I do have to say that of my whole family growing up (mom, dad, and sister), I'm the only one who embraced technology wholeheartedly. Oh, I remember getting our first microwave and, hell, cable TV--more than 5 channels--yay! But my parents and even my sister (who is two years younger), even now still seem to rebel against new technology. They do know computer basics of course. They do have cell phones, albeit, the basic ones with a slide keyboard for texting, but not the touchscreens, internet, apps, etc. (Oh, heck, when my mom started texting it was like woohoo, she's entered the 21st century. I still get middle of the night phone calls for tech support from her because something didn't work right on her laptop (which she uses only for storing pictures and emails).

I think my four year old nephew knows more about tablets than my sister, since he stays at my house Wed thru Sat while I babysit him. ( He gets higher scores on Doodle Jump than I do!) I struggle because my sister is so against him playing on a phone/tablet or watching any TV. And I certainly understand too much of anything is bad, of course, but to avoid it all together? He's growing up in a rapidly changing, technology based world. In this day and age, it's almost imperative to give him the opportunity to explore and learn through tablets, phones, computers, etc, as much as it is to run and play at the play grounds and playing with cars, puzzles, etc.

Sorry, that's my little ramble today, as I finally had my tablet back last night (and had to jot down two ideas on the handwrite app while drifting to sleep!), that I thought about how much things have changed since I was a kid. Probably why I find that song 19 Something by Mark Wills so dang funny.