I can’t say I love my iPad. It’s a lifeless device. But I do appreciate its usefulness and I take it with me to work, too. I ditched my smartphone. Yep, you read that right. After using one through the school lunch project and the two years since, I went cold turkey.

It was a financial decision. Last year was rough. A bunch of things hit us all at once: buying a fixer-upper, leaving my job, no one hiring a pregnant school-lunch reformer, having a baby, having medical bills, an unpaid maternity leave… I couldn’t justify having access to Google at all times, even in my car.

I realized that I really didn’t need to check Facebook at every stoplight. So I downgraded to a “dumb” phone. It was a brilliant move.

I’m no longer bothered by email notifications interrupting my thought processes during the day. I check my wifi-only iPad at home and at work for emails when I want to. No email is important enough to need immediate attention. I enjoy being able to knock out several email in a couple minutes when I choose to.

I check Facebook and Twitter on the iPad in the kitchen when I get home from work. I’m actually not missing anything.

I really like a regular phone. The iPad does everything my smartphone used to do for me. However, I most likely will go back to having a smartphone next year.  But I won’t load notifications on it, that’s for sure.