cellphone sabbath

About 5 weeks ago I left for Honduras. When I arrived my fears were confirmed and there was no Verizon wireless cell service there. Then, I left my cell phone in the hotel and came home. In Houston on the way home I facebooked a new friend who went to the hotel and retrieved it for me and it's now in the mail to me... but this created a 5 week cell phone sabbath.
I have to say... I've hardly missed it. I was pretty addicted to it and the ability to connect before and I'll confess that I was pretty bad about texting while driving, sad to say. I try not to when the girls are in the car, because they're at the age they're learning to drive and I know it's a horrible example.
I know not having the phone was annoying to others who needed/wanted to connect with me, but my life has felt just a little less hectic and driven by the tyranny of the urgent or frankly interrupted, i've been more focused.
This week, after carrying around a loan phone for a week, i reluctantly connected it so that I could return to the cell world. A couple of times when I've left campus for meetings etc. i've forgotten it and left it on my desk and been pretty much delighted.
Clearly, it's not the cell phone that's the problem. In fact, it's a great tool. For instance, here's some video from Abby's jazz band concert: Abby soloing (only caught the very end- still learning how to use the new borrowed phone)

Christmas...
In some silly way, this sabbath has helped me realize more about the pace I ran at/run at. This continues to be a learning for me from my trip... s l o w down...
I love connecting but there's definately something to be said for turning the phone off, not checking facebook, having twitter updates sent to the web vs. the phone, not logging in to IM and putting up an out of office reply and then really not checking the mail.
So if it takes me a little longer to reply to you... know that when I'm actually with you, i'll be a little less distracted from now on... at least i hope so.