How to Boil Water

I have become so reliant on technology. Sad, really. I remember when Neal was deployed for 6 months and we had to write letters. Not emails. LETTERS. Like with stamps and an envelope and two weeks of waiting... military mail moves a little slower than a snail. There was no email, let alone video chat. I also remember getting so peeved at people and "their cell phones." There was a time when I used to say, "I refuse to get a cell phone!" Me! The one with the Blackberry in the doctor's office giggling at Facebook posts and texting all my friends like a teenager... I used to say I would never have a cell phone. It's kind of funny that I was so ANTI technology for a minute considering my dad's work has always sort of been at the forward point of technological developments. He sold the first fax machine, we had the first car phones, they even tried to develop a pager watch in the 80's, fiber-optic phone lines, video phones, and now renewable fuel. We were of the first people to have the CD player, the VHS player (never the Beta - my dad was too smart to fall for that short lived advancement) and the DVD player. My husband has an iPhone, we have a Wii and my mom's car doesn't require a key. So the short stint to struggle against technological advancements was kind of odd for me! I am now being punished for it.

My microwave is broken.

Do you have any idea how hard life is when you don't have a microwave!? And it's not one of the counter-top jobs that you can just toss and get a new one. It's one of those over-the-stove deals that requires a repairman. He's coming Thursday. The microwave broke Saturday night. My kids have no idea what it's like to live in a world where food isn't ready in 30 seconds. They have no idea what it's like to live in a world where you flush your own toilet, pump soap with your hand, turn on the faucet using the hot and cold knobs and roll the silver handle on the paper towel roll to dry your hands! Okay, I admit it's not quite that bad yet, but it's close. I can already see the future conversations like, "when I was your age we had to cook our food, it wasn't delivered by a machine in the kitchen and we didn't have robot maids! We had to clean our own rooms! And we drove on roads, not in space ships." Did I watch too much The Jetsons as a kid? Perhaps. But you get my point. Back to the microwave.

I have a 10 month old who no longer nurses - she drinks formula. Typically I heat the water in the microwave and then add the powder. But now I actually have to get up at 6 in the morning to boil water! Well... I put water in the bottle warmer and turn it on, but I still have to wait 5 minutes for it to warm the bottle... now that I've said that "out loud" it sounds really stupid, but I can't deny the truth in it. Waiting 4 and a half minutes longer for a bottle just sucks. Also, my usual lunch is something from the freezer, a sandwich or soup. Two of the three require a microwave. Okay, that's not entirely true, but it feels true. What's the point of cooking a Lean Cuisine in the oven? I might as well cook in that case and that is just too much effort for the middle of the afternoon when you're already chasing a 3-year-old, a 10-month-old AND trying to pay attention to Days of our Lives! I am not Super Woman! I am flawed Liz who is desperately trying to figure out the best way to reheat my cup of coffee!! The mugs are too big for the bottle warmer... I tried.

My house is starting to feel like post WWII Germany.

That might be a wee bit on the dramatic side. We have bread... and money, albeit no a lot of it, and most of all electricity. But I will admit that it will be a long time coming for me to squawk about technology again. Unless my WiFi goes out...