Why My Marriage is Pending -- On Facebook

Sometimes, social media gets me into awkward situations.
I blog, I'm on Facebook, I have a Twitter account and people keep following me even though I don't know why because I rarely tweet. You'd think that I am fairly savvy about technology.
But I can't tell you the number of times I've called my daughter Grace to say, "Fix  it!" I've usually posted something I didn't mean to or been tagged in a photo that I don't like or made some sort of awful editing error that will not look good for a writer.
One day, as Grace and I were looking at something on Facebook, she clicked on my profile and said, "Why is this pending?"
It was a request from Earl to confirm that we are married.
I mean, of course, we are. We've been married nearly 25 years.

I hadn't seen his request and had no idea when he sent it.
Originally, when I was using my Facebook page as an author page, I didn't include anyone in my family settings. As you know if you read my blog, I talk about my kids and their exploits. I didn't want to reveal to the world their last names, preserving them a tiny bit of anonymity.
But, now I have a separate author page, and I try to limit my personal Facebook page to friends and family, so I could safely acknowledge my husband on my Facebook page.
The only problem was, the day that Grace pointed out that I hadn't acknowledge the marriage request, well, Earl and I were in the middle of a fight.
It was only a few weeks ago, but I can't remember what the fight was about (of course). I told Grace I couldn't possible accept his request now because that would be a conciliatory act in the middle of an argument. The fight faded, but I didn't remember to go on Facebook and add Earl as my husband.
The other night when Earl was on his Facebook page, he clicked on his profile.
"Why is this pending?" he asked.
"Oh," I laughed and told him the story about seeing it when we were in a fight. He immediately pretended to be affronted and protested that I didn't need to acknowledge him if I didn't want to.
"I can't do it from my phone," I explained. My computer was all the way across the room.
But I updated my profile, typing in Earl's name as my husband, since I couldn't accept his request on my phone.
Now, our marriage is no longer pending. Facebook does believe that we were married in 2011 rather than in 1990. And if you were to click on the marriage statement, you'd see some pretty strange photos of me and Earl, like one of us standing on the top of an Indian head statue, Tecumseh, and accompanied by a French friend. Plus Earl's comment, "Beautiful day, beautiful bride." People must think, "Is this where they got married?" But his comments go with another picture and another post.

Like I said, it's all very complicated.
Very bizarre, but you can't always fix social media.
Here's an actual photo as we were driving away from Mom and Dad's farm to the reception.

Dragged Into Social Media

My kids have forced me to enter the 21st century with social media.
I check my Facebook most days and post on there at least once a week now. And last week I set up an Instagram account. Joining each community can be laid at the feet of my children's travel and  independence.
I joined Facebook in August 2010 as Grace journeyed 10 hours away to college. I wanted to be able to keep up with her posts and her friends. I still wanted to keep an eye on her.
Luckily, she didn't mind adding me as her friend.
Slowly I've added friends and when I got my iPhone, I found it easy to check Facebook, like other people's posts, and add my own "status updates."
My middle child doesn't have a Facebook page, and my youngest wouldn't add me as a friend, but he isn't active on Facebook any more. Now he's all over Instagram.
As he prepared to leave for a trip to France, I realized that if I wanted to see his pictures, I'd need to follow him on Instagram.
To me, the worst part about setting up an account for Instagram or Twitter or even Words With Friends, is choosing a user name. I know I'm going to be stuck with this name forever. Should I choose my name? Something I like -- writing, running, mochas? I avoided all "mom" names.
Tucker begrudgingly added me as a friend on Instagram and has posted sparsely this week from his trip abroad. Heer's on that he tagged: "Average night on the Eiffel Tower." And I note how "miserable" he looks surrounded by high school girls.
I have a couple of people following me on Instagram, but I haven't posted anything and don't know when I will.
For now though, I'm on Instagram and Facebook getting hints into the secret lives of my teenagers.