Crunchy Techno-Hippies

I often jokingly call myself a technophobe. The truth is that I'm not. I just prefer that whatever technology I'm using have a super easy user interface. I can't believe I even use terms like user interface. I took a computer class in high school and used a computer when I was the copy editor of the yearbook, but that was really the extent of my computer use. I started using a computer, reluctantly, in college. I found that it was nice to be able use a word processor to type up papers. Then, I discovered playing Solitaire. It really took a while for me to warm up to "technology." Something that goes alone with it - science fiction - was pretty unknown to me as well. I had seen one Star Trek movie, and that was it. I hadn't even seen Star Wars until I met Trey.

However, the hippie side of life always came naturally to me. When I was a kid, I used to call my mom a "stylish hippie." I don't think she ever knew that! LOL. It was a term of endearment. Our family never really was "mainstream." My parents were attachment parents before there really was a term for it. They believed in breastfeeding, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, and mostly being attached to their children. We were semi-vegetarians. My mom cooked from scratch and made my clothes. We always had a big garden, and my mom taught me to cook and can, sew and crochet. She tried to teach me to knit, but I apparently was a slow learner with that one. My mom made us homemade granola bars when most people thought granola was just dry "hippie food." (I really wish she could remember her recipe - they were good.) "Alternative medicine" wasn't weird to us.

My husband grew up in a loving but mainstream family. He may not have been used to many of the things I was used to, but there were other things in his life that were foreign to me. I've heard him wax poetic about his Commodore 64. My comment to that was, "It was a computer, right?" LOL. Trey, his brother, and his dad are all into techie things. His brother is also a computer engineer. Trey really found his niche when he decided to get a degree in computer science. He is a fabulous software engineer/architect. He is really good at what he does. It's not only his profession, it's his hobby. He's been successful at work. He sees things differently than some people. He can just see the solutions to problems that elude other people. Unfortunately for him, he married a woman who knows nothing about computers! So many times he's been excitedly telling me about some techie thing, and my eyes just start to glaze over, and eventually I'll say, "Uh, maybe you should call your brother!"

Who would have thought that in just a few short years (12) of being married to a techie, I would turn into someone who is addicted to blogging on my laptop Mac, can't be away from my camera phone, keep in touch with my online friends as well as I do with my IRL (and I even know that IRL means "in real life") friends, am a certified "Trekkie," have seen Star Wars more times than I care to count, and is quite proud of my pro-bowler Wii status.

Possibly even more amazing is that my formerly mainstream Republican husband is now a staunch Democrat (his heart is Green, he just doesn't believe we can win), vegetarian, homebirthing-breastfeeding-cosleeping supporter/advocate, alternative medicine user, whose dream it is to build an off grid dome home!

So, I guess we've grown together and melded, and we are now firmly a part of the "crunchy techno-hippie" sub-culture!!!