I called my cell phone company and they agreed to reduce my $419 web browsing bill to $50 !! It includes unlimited browsing until February 4. After that, I might agree to pay another $25 for another full month, because I'm really enjoying it! I'm typing this from the passenger seat of our car as my husband drives us home from his parents' in Green Bay. I enjoyed being able to check email from my phone. Hey, this is getting me motion sick!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Andrea challenged us all to write "5 things you probably don't know about me."
What obscure facts of my life have I not already broadcast via blogger, myspace, yahoo, or any other networking thing. Not to mention I know you all in real life, I think. Anyway.
1. I have a broken nose. It doesn't show from the outside. Every doctor I've ever seen since I was a teen ager has , with grave concern, asked me, "How did you break your nose?" I have no idea. I think I was born with it.
2. I personally attended the lighting of the 1991 St. Paul Ice Castle. It was the big one , they built for the Super Bowl, that broke the City of St. Paul Ice Castle budget for the next 10 years. It was freezing out, but I took the bus downtown, alone, to watch it anyway. I had nothing better to do back then. It was really beautiful!
3. I can't follow a simple map. So don't give me directions. I always feel deeply sorry for any passengers, if I'm driving them. I always have to turn back around in driveways and take U-turns, looking again for street names or house numbers. It's sad.
4. I appeared in Play It Again Sam, by Woody Allen, at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center community theater , summer of 1986 and part way in to that fall. I played an art gallary patron with a few lines. It was easy that summer, becuase I lived in the dorms and worked part time in the post office, and had plenty of free time. But when classes started, it was my Senior year, I would wolf down my SAGA dinner and race out to the bus stop. Someone else in the play usually drove me back to the dorms around 11 pm. I never told anyone. I didn't want anyone to know.
5. I often listen to KDWB top 40 music in my car, when I jog with a radio, and at my desk at work. I'm surprisingly familiar with today's commercial top 40 for a 42 year old. I like quite a lot of it. It's a total guilty pleasure of mine, like Chipotle steak burritos or regular Coke. But I listen to The Current or Minnesota Public Talk radio when I'm at home, especially when I'm cooking or taking a bath.
What obscure facts of my life have I not already broadcast via blogger, myspace, yahoo, or any other networking thing. Not to mention I know you all in real life, I think. Anyway.
1. I have a broken nose. It doesn't show from the outside. Every doctor I've ever seen since I was a teen ager has , with grave concern, asked me, "How did you break your nose?" I have no idea. I think I was born with it.
2. I personally attended the lighting of the 1991 St. Paul Ice Castle. It was the big one , they built for the Super Bowl, that broke the City of St. Paul Ice Castle budget for the next 10 years. It was freezing out, but I took the bus downtown, alone, to watch it anyway. I had nothing better to do back then. It was really beautiful!
3. I can't follow a simple map. So don't give me directions. I always feel deeply sorry for any passengers, if I'm driving them. I always have to turn back around in driveways and take U-turns, looking again for street names or house numbers. It's sad.
4. I appeared in Play It Again Sam, by Woody Allen, at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center community theater , summer of 1986 and part way in to that fall. I played an art gallary patron with a few lines. It was easy that summer, becuase I lived in the dorms and worked part time in the post office, and had plenty of free time. But when classes started, it was my Senior year, I would wolf down my SAGA dinner and race out to the bus stop. Someone else in the play usually drove me back to the dorms around 11 pm. I never told anyone. I didn't want anyone to know.
5. I often listen to KDWB top 40 music in my car, when I jog with a radio, and at my desk at work. I'm surprisingly familiar with today's commercial top 40 for a 42 year old. I like quite a lot of it. It's a total guilty pleasure of mine, like Chipotle steak burritos or regular Coke. But I listen to The Current or Minnesota Public Talk radio when I'm at home, especially when I'm cooking or taking a bath.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
We had a fire at our house last night.
We've had this house for 7 years, and it came with the novelty of a dishwashing machine. We'd never had one in any of our previous apartments. It's old, and loud though, so we often load it with dishes after dinner, but not turn it on until we're going to bed, so we don’t have to listen to the rattle and noise.
So my husband loaded it and turned it on late last night, after I had fallen asleep watching tv on the couch. He walked through the kitchen again a few minutes later, and found blue flames spouting from the control panel on the outside of the dishwasher door! He thought fast and put it out, quickly, with a nearby fire extinguisher. In my sleep-walking, I was about to throw baking soda on it, from a box, on the counter, even though it was clearly an electrical fire, and not a grease fire. The dishwasher continued to smolder, so he also went to our fuse box and turned off the curcuit that goes to the dishwasher, another thing I would never have thought of.
Then we stayed awake and watched a Star Trek Voyager rerun until 1:00 in the morning, because we were afraid to go to bed in case it flared up again. By then the dishwasher door felt cold, so we were willing to go to bed.
I can't stop thinking about all the times I've put the dishwasher on and gone to bed, and all the times I've put the dishwasher on and left the house, sometimes with my children at home, and always with my dog at home! What if my husband had not had to walk through the kitchen one last time, and noticed the fire? Do we have a fire alarm? Yes. Where were the batteries? Out, because we removed them one of the many times that simply cooking set off the fire alarm , and had not replaced them. Believe me, the battery is back in the fire alarm now, but it wasn't at the time, and would not have alerted us.
And now we have to buy a new dishwasher. Good , because the old one was loud, and this justifies buying a new one. Bad because it'll cost us, and installation will be a hassle!
Replacing the stove a few years ago involved the gas company coming out to disconnect the old one from the gas, the store delivering the new stove and taking the old one, and the gas company coming back to connect it to the gas. Installing the new refrigerator involved us figuring out on our own how to disconnect the ice maker from the water line, which involved going in the basement and turning off the water hose to it, the store taking the old one and putting the new one in its place, and a plumber coming to connect the new fridge to the water hose, only to inform us the old water hose was non-standard, and he had to replace it , too. Then the new fridge sucked up too much electricity and we had to replace the whole fuse box as well. Installing the new clothes dryer involved disconnecting the old one from the gas line somehow, the store delivering the new one and taking the old one, the gas company connecting the new one to the gas line, and a local building repair person creating a new vent and ventillation tube of aluminum and duct tape, to vent it to the outside. Installing the new furnace a few years ago also involved some drama involving correctly ventillating it to the outside, involving someone having to drill a new hole in the foundation of our house and creating a new tube to vent to the ouside. What horrors will replacing the dishwasher bring ?
I, who complain of already being over-scheduled just took on a new weekly meeting. I re-enrolled in Norwegian Language class on Wednesday nights, for the next 10 weeks, at Mindekirken Church basement in South Minneapolis. I attended for 9 months last school year, and have really missed spending that 2 hours a week studying norsk. Again, the hassle of getting there is a stressor, but the class itself is one of the most fun and relaxing things I ever go to! And my family won't miss me, because that's when my kids go to Catholic Education, and my husband teaches Catholic Ed, so they're not home most of that time, anyway. And it's only or 10 weeks. After that I can decide if I want to enroll again or let it go for a few more months.
I just found out there's a "Frozen 5K" run, as part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, on Saturday, January 27. I want to go in it !
We've had this house for 7 years, and it came with the novelty of a dishwashing machine. We'd never had one in any of our previous apartments. It's old, and loud though, so we often load it with dishes after dinner, but not turn it on until we're going to bed, so we don’t have to listen to the rattle and noise.
So my husband loaded it and turned it on late last night, after I had fallen asleep watching tv on the couch. He walked through the kitchen again a few minutes later, and found blue flames spouting from the control panel on the outside of the dishwasher door! He thought fast and put it out, quickly, with a nearby fire extinguisher. In my sleep-walking, I was about to throw baking soda on it, from a box, on the counter, even though it was clearly an electrical fire, and not a grease fire. The dishwasher continued to smolder, so he also went to our fuse box and turned off the curcuit that goes to the dishwasher, another thing I would never have thought of.
Then we stayed awake and watched a Star Trek Voyager rerun until 1:00 in the morning, because we were afraid to go to bed in case it flared up again. By then the dishwasher door felt cold, so we were willing to go to bed.
I can't stop thinking about all the times I've put the dishwasher on and gone to bed, and all the times I've put the dishwasher on and left the house, sometimes with my children at home, and always with my dog at home! What if my husband had not had to walk through the kitchen one last time, and noticed the fire? Do we have a fire alarm? Yes. Where were the batteries? Out, because we removed them one of the many times that simply cooking set off the fire alarm , and had not replaced them. Believe me, the battery is back in the fire alarm now, but it wasn't at the time, and would not have alerted us.
And now we have to buy a new dishwasher. Good , because the old one was loud, and this justifies buying a new one. Bad because it'll cost us, and installation will be a hassle!
Replacing the stove a few years ago involved the gas company coming out to disconnect the old one from the gas, the store delivering the new stove and taking the old one, and the gas company coming back to connect it to the gas. Installing the new refrigerator involved us figuring out on our own how to disconnect the ice maker from the water line, which involved going in the basement and turning off the water hose to it, the store taking the old one and putting the new one in its place, and a plumber coming to connect the new fridge to the water hose, only to inform us the old water hose was non-standard, and he had to replace it , too. Then the new fridge sucked up too much electricity and we had to replace the whole fuse box as well. Installing the new clothes dryer involved disconnecting the old one from the gas line somehow, the store delivering the new one and taking the old one, the gas company connecting the new one to the gas line, and a local building repair person creating a new vent and ventillation tube of aluminum and duct tape, to vent it to the outside. Installing the new furnace a few years ago also involved some drama involving correctly ventillating it to the outside, involving someone having to drill a new hole in the foundation of our house and creating a new tube to vent to the ouside. What horrors will replacing the dishwasher bring ?
I, who complain of already being over-scheduled just took on a new weekly meeting. I re-enrolled in Norwegian Language class on Wednesday nights, for the next 10 weeks, at Mindekirken Church basement in South Minneapolis. I attended for 9 months last school year, and have really missed spending that 2 hours a week studying norsk. Again, the hassle of getting there is a stressor, but the class itself is one of the most fun and relaxing things I ever go to! And my family won't miss me, because that's when my kids go to Catholic Education, and my husband teaches Catholic Ed, so they're not home most of that time, anyway. And it's only or 10 weeks. After that I can decide if I want to enroll again or let it go for a few more months.
I just found out there's a "Frozen 5K" run, as part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, on Saturday, January 27. I want to go in it !
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
My resolution to get more organized in general was a miserable failure by Jan 2 !!!
Jan 2:
I booked my SECOND round trip flight to Atlanta, after my first disasterous trip ,the one that I only figured out after I go there that the project had been cancelled. Just about 3 hours later I found that,1) I had the departure date wrong by one day, and 2) I can't go. I'm booked solid that entire 2 week period.And the ticket was non refundable. And no, they couldn't make an exception, I even called and asked.
Jan 3:
So I spent all day today making use of my new cell phone's calendar feature, putting in every appointment date and time anyone in our whole family has, so I can check it easily, and the timer should go off and alert me to things. I was all proud of myself. Then tried to call one of the people I have an upcoming appointment with, and found out my cell coverage was cancelled because I hadn't mananged to organize paying the bill for it recently, and had never really read the policy for it, anyway.. Big Dummy!
It's going to be a long year.
I was all excited about my cell phone until today. I had to call my cell phone carrier to ask why I was disconnected. They told me it was because I had gone over my $500 limit!
Mind you I may be a month or two behind, and it might include some long distance charges from my land line, but I can assure you most if it is me not checking the rates, times of day, and using up all my contractually limited daytime hours playing on internet web pages and seeing what works.
When our phone was just a phone, I didn't use it that much, never went over the time limit, and didn't even really know what it was.
I can remember when my husband and I paid $425 per month for a very nice apartment. OK that was 15 years ago, but still, I can't believe I owe the cell phone company $500. Ok maybe I can believe it. But I have to be more careful. Well I paid a bunch of it today. And will pay the rest of it in a few weeks.
Oh well I still like it. I will post pictures from it when I figure it out
Jan 2:
I booked my SECOND round trip flight to Atlanta, after my first disasterous trip ,the one that I only figured out after I go there that the project had been cancelled. Just about 3 hours later I found that,1) I had the departure date wrong by one day, and 2) I can't go. I'm booked solid that entire 2 week period.And the ticket was non refundable. And no, they couldn't make an exception, I even called and asked.
Jan 3:
So I spent all day today making use of my new cell phone's calendar feature, putting in every appointment date and time anyone in our whole family has, so I can check it easily, and the timer should go off and alert me to things. I was all proud of myself. Then tried to call one of the people I have an upcoming appointment with, and found out my cell coverage was cancelled because I hadn't mananged to organize paying the bill for it recently, and had never really read the policy for it, anyway.. Big Dummy!
It's going to be a long year.
I was all excited about my cell phone until today. I had to call my cell phone carrier to ask why I was disconnected. They told me it was because I had gone over my $500 limit!
Mind you I may be a month or two behind, and it might include some long distance charges from my land line, but I can assure you most if it is me not checking the rates, times of day, and using up all my contractually limited daytime hours playing on internet web pages and seeing what works.
When our phone was just a phone, I didn't use it that much, never went over the time limit, and didn't even really know what it was.
I can remember when my husband and I paid $425 per month for a very nice apartment. OK that was 15 years ago, but still, I can't believe I owe the cell phone company $500. Ok maybe I can believe it. But I have to be more careful. Well I paid a bunch of it today. And will pay the rest of it in a few weeks.
Oh well I still like it. I will post pictures from it when I figure it out
