My son wants an iPhone, but I didn't want to deal with AT&T (bad experience with them from years ago when they took over the provider we had). My Verizon dealer says that it looks promising that they'll have iPhones in 2010, so then he can get one. Right now I don't know if I could part with my Blackberry, although I've played with DS's iPod Touch (which has the same touchscreen/apps/etc. as the iPhone) and it does seem okay (and it "learns" with you). We'll see if I change.

Wow, Shannon, that's a good price for your plan. I have basic nationwide service, 400 minutes and NO free nights/weekends, for $50 (which is paid by work). Like Allison AT&T is low on my list. They left the state, didn't provide us with good transition to Cellular One, and then after a few years, AT&T came back, and we had the same transition issues. THat's when I left them, and I hesitate to go back. I know that the basic service would be about $50-60, but then the internet is another $30/month. THe city clerk has one, and the city pays the basic and she pays the rest. If I weren't retiring soon, I'd consider doing that.

Iris - bananas are good no matter how you use them. :lol: I had one in my carry-on bag that got beat up. I just stuck it in the freezer for a smoothie.

I feel almost normal today. Still woke up early but later than yesterday. I should stop trying to sleep later when I'm waking up at 5 ish - just need to get up and go to the gym. It's going to be harder now that sunrise isn't until after 7 am.

Ha! Take that brownie! Nope, never had the brownie and turned yesterday into a better day in the afternoon. I was also 3 lbs lighter this morning so I'm sorta happy that I was retaining water, not fat. 2 more lbs from the weekend to flush away before it waaaahpfffts! onto my tummy (that's the sound it makes when it congeals).

My (29-year-old) sis & I are still on our parents family phone plan! We figure an extra $10 each for the two of us to share minutes that they never come close to using, rather than having to pay for whole new plans, is really the more economical thing to do. My dad is a gadget person so it wasn't hard to talk him into getting the plan that supports unlimited texting and lots of internet to our phones, too. I'll bet if Verizon ever gets iPhones it won't be hard to talk him into getting those, as I said, he likes gadgets. Mwahahaha!

Pink or purple cases would definitely improve the quality of one's phone. Definitely!

Pat, glad you had such a nice vacation, even if there were no vegetables to be found. Your weather sounds very nice right now!

Dagmar, couldn't you just go to sleep if you're that tired? I know I sleep extra when I'm not drinking coffee. It does sound like DH is enthusiastic about the evening walks, and it's good for him.

Iris, sorry you're having trouble waking up. I have trouble sometimes, too. I have to tell myself that the actual getting up and to the shower is the worst part, it's not so bad after that.

Shannon, I hope you're feeling better!

Off to the gym and then maybe to donate blood. I have lots of snacks to keep me going. I hope everyone makes it through their Wednesdays... then tomorrow is Thursday, practically the weekend! :)

away for a bit
 

One of the dogs I walk (7 year old) died this morning at home. Completely unexpectedly - I walked her yesterday and she seemed fine.

I have to take a few days to cry and stuff so I'll see you all Monday.

Dagmar :(

That's so sad Dagmar. Sorry to hear it. Makes me think that a similar fate may be mine in the near future. Buddy (not the avatar dog) is over 15 years old and that's old for a lab.

Dagmar, I'm so sorry about the dog. That's really tough.

Megan, we have my DSS on our plan, too. Since it's only $11 a month extra, I give it to her as a Christmas gift. Congrats on not eating a brownie.

Pat, it's hard to see the sunrise coming later, isn't it? Pretty soon it will be the solstice. Since it's still 90 degrees here, it doesn't even seem like fall.

Allison, that is old for a Lab. You've taken good care of him.

I've been volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday afternoons during their Power Hour (homework and reading). I was helping a 3rd grader today, and she had to write down her favorite thing in school. She said the Smart Board, and I asked, "what's a Smart Board?" Bad move! The look I got! Hey, they didn't have that stuff when my kids were in school. I had to google it when I got home. Never show 'em you have no idea what they're talking about.From now on, I'll just smile and nod, smile and nod.

Hope everyone has a good Thursday!

So sorry about the dog Dagmar. I am sure you will grieve him almost as if he was yours.

Shannon-- cool apps-- the best one so far is Shazam. You "tag" a song you are listening to. It can then tell you the lyrics, the artist, all about the artist, etc. And you can watch the video or buy the song from iTunes. It has helped me up my workout repertoire!

:hug: Dagmar.

Sheila, don't feel bad - I don't know what a smart board is either. We still had chalk boards and I'm only 24 so it wasn't that long ago!

:grouphug: Dagmar, I'm so sorry about the dog.

Sheila, now I have to google smart board too. I'm 27 and when I was a kid we had chalkboards, and in college whiteboards. I have to say, it bugs me when I see stuff on TV about the laptop usage in classrooms. I am one of those people who learns things by writing them down -- by hand. Typing what the teacher is saying onto a computer screen will not make me learn the way taking notes by hand does. I saw an article the other day about how people's handwriting is getting worse and worse because kids don't need to write anything by hand anymore, all their homework and tests are on the computer.

Hi all,

Slightly bummed that lightning came through the cable line last night and took out my new TV. It's just a TV, I know, but still... Anyway storms kept waking me last night so I'm a little :yawn: today. I'm lucky though. With all this rain, the next town over is having problems with almost everyone downtown's septic backing up into their houses... ewww... and I'm glad that's not happening in my house!

No weird side effects to donating blood last night like the last time I donated. I'm glad - I would still donate, but would have to cut out workouts entirely on donation days (now I just go to the gym first). For the first time ever they had semi-healthy snacks after donation, 90-cal packets of dried fruit (yes, with some sugar added). I politely declined their cookies and told the techs I would drink water and eat walnuts from my purse, and this one guy dug out the fruit for me and as I left a protein bar. Hello, where have these been? It was nice to have a few better-ish options.

My parents are teachers and their school (which is the one I attended) built a new building almost immediately after I graduated from high school. It had smart boards, but nobody told the teachers about smart boards, they just told them to move in. One of the teachers moved into his classroom, thought it was a white board, and wrote all over it. It had to be replaced. So note to all of us - you can't write on a smart board with white board markers! I'm only 27 and I didn't know what they were, either.

I can almost believe that handwriting would become obsolete. I remember we got graded on our penmanship in first grade, second grade... doesn't that happen anymore? Maybe 27 is old, lol!

Dagmar, I'm so sorry. :hug: It's so hard to lose a pet.

I'm sitting at my desk staring at the rain and doing some computer work today. How's everyone else's day going? I hope it's good.

So far, so good. Snuck a peek at the scale today - 130.5!! =) Now to maintain that through tomorrow night's happy hour :p

I'm glad the weekend is almost here - I need some me time. Maybe buy myself a cute outfit if I've maintained the loss by saturday!

Dagmar - :hug: I'm so sorry about the dog. It must be hard in your line of work, getting attached to so many different pets. It is hard enough for me thinking about something happening to the two owned by my parents and my cat.

Iris - I make smoothies almost every day, and have found myself eating bananas as a snack a lot lately, too. Never a bad time for banana! ETA - :high: on the loss! Definitely cute outfit time!

Allison - I don't love AT&T either, was with Verizon for a number of years and liked their customer service more, at least initially. In the last few years I was with them they had started to decline so there wasn't a lot of difference in the level of service between them & AT&T in this area. The Verizon dealer who sells us our company plan also says that they should have iPhones next year.

Pat - if I would just get up when I first wake up instead of trying for the few extra minutes of sleep it would be easier for me as well... I have a harder time getting up when it is dark outside, too.

Megan - good job on the brownie! And sucks about your tv - did you have it on a surge protector? I put mine on a battery backup with surge protector so there is some kind of warranty if it gets damaged by lightning.

Sheila - I didn't know what a smart board was either. :) My 4 year old stepson has computer time at daycare...

Michele - I've heard of Shazam - have to look for that. Thanks!

I remember being graded on handwriting... I wonder if that still happens. Probably not. My aunt has three kids, one who is 25 I think, and an 11 & 8 year old. She says that the schoolwork she is doing with the younger two is totally different from what she did with my older cousin. She was helping the 11 year old with an English assignment a few weeks ago that had a section on text messaging and its role in language development. WTF? I see no language development in text messaging. Heck, the 'intelligent keyboard' on my new iPhone fills in the word it thinks I mean even when I spell it totally wrong. I went as off the wall as I could yesterday to try to test the limits. I typed 'ebodj' and it filled in 'which'. Which was the actual word I meant in the context of the sentence I was writing. Creepy.

Well, I had great intentions of exercise yesterday, then by the time I got home I could barely keep my eyes open. I sat down on the bed for 'just a minute' and slept for over two hours. When I woke up the ear congestion, couging and dizziness was back so I tabled the exercise. I might give it another day or so and see what happens, if it isn't cleared by Monday I'll go back to the doctor. Figure I'll try exercise again tomorrow and see what happens. Might have to hit in the morning before the energy level bottoms out.

So, I think I've been having hot flashes the last few weeks and just didn't recognize the symptoms. I go from perfectly normal to red, hot, sweaty, out of breath, temp spikes up to 100-100.5, dizzy and a little shaky in about two minutes. Lasts anywhere from five to ten minutes then settles back down and is back to normal. I started paying attention since I've been sick, it always happens between 6-8:30 in the evening, and has happened every day. As I think back, it was happening before I got sick, too. Does this sound like a normal symptom? I'm only 37...

Good day everyone!

More downpours and severe storms here, though they didn't wake me until 6am today. I'm going a little stir crazy! The ground is already super-saturated and roads, yards, etc. are flooded everywhere already and it's still raining. The good news is my TV magically started working again last night. I established that it worked, then unplugged everything for more coming storms, lol. Shannon it was on one of those surge protector strips, but not a big battery back-up like we have for our computers at work. I don't understand it but I'm glad it started working again.

Yesterday the power went off at the office at 12:15. We waited 1 1/2 hours, no power, so I went to the gym. Turns out the power didn't come back on for many hours. At least I got a good long workout and got in bed early last night.

Shannon, ummm, to me text messaging slows down language development, if anything! How bizarre. Sounds like you're still sick and needed that rest. Let yourself rest! This is one instance where saying "I can exercise later" is ok.

Iris, I hope you get some good "me" time and a really cute outfit this weekend.

Not much going on here this weekend - the usual working out, laundry, hanging out w/ BF, and I think my beer club is going to brew a new batch Saturday evening. What are everyone's weekend plans?

Megan, glad the TV is working again. We had an issue a couple months ago where a power surge wiped out the entire memory of our DVR! (Of course it was the only thing we DIDN'T have plugged into a surge protector.) I wouldn't mind if the power went out at my office and I got to take off early, that's for sure! :lol: Also, I forgot to say it earlier, but I'm glad you and BF are working things out!

My only weekend plan is our Rosh Hashanah dinner tomorrow night. MIL is out of town on a bike trip so we're hosting it. As of right now I think we'll have nine people total for dinner. Today my plan is to find a good slow-cooker brisket recipe. Not sure if we'll cook it overnight tonight or just get it going early tomorrow morning.

Megan, we're getting inundated over here, too. The lawn service got a lawnmower caught last Tuesday in our backyard, which has turned into a small wetland. They had to tow it out. (I'm in the Tampa Bay area.)

The cable service probably went down in the storm, or a fuse protector in the TV was tripped and then reset. Who knows? We have satellite TV, and unless something strikes the dish we're OK. :yikes: We have everything plugged into surge protectors, although not the high-end kind, and we haven't had any problem. The one thing I do worry about is the phone line--but at least with a wireless network in the house, the computers aren't directly plugged into it. Oh, and we have cordless phones, so if the phone line was hit, only the base unit would blow (and not someone talking on the phone).

Interesting, isn't it? No hurricanes so far, just big thunderstorms one after another. :dunno:

Jay