Never mind the snow.

47 F and an itch for the outdoors.  I wrestled her bike out of the shed for her.  It was tangled in a geshnudle of rain barrel hose, swing chain, and pinned in by the legs of the sideways table.  I'm glad to say that I succeeded!  

Sunshine.  It's a very good thing.

You go, Dear Abby!

I was reading an article about a woman that wrote to Dear Abby with a problem.  Nothing new there. Her problem was that she and her spouse did not approve of the lifestyle of their gay neighbors, so therefore she did not invite those neighbors over when it came time for them to host a neighborhood shin-dig.  She writes to say that she and her spouse are now being excluded.

Hooray!

We have neighborhood gentleman who are gay.  They are the most wonderful neighbors ever.  We love them and they love our daughter as if she was their very own.  I've written about Mr. Don and Mr. Glenn before.  I would never want to leave them out, though I'm certain that in situations in life they have been left out.

We've shoveled each others driveway aprons.  They have cleared out sidewalk on more occasions that I can count.  We've swapped food back and forth.  We've played at their house.  They've played at our house.  We've gardened at both houses.  Mr. Don had his hip replaced and we checked in on him and K took care of him when Mr. Glenn was at work.  Mr. Don drove me to have my foot casted.  We've passed baking supplies back and forth across the street.  I taught Don how to can.  They have watched K and have picked her up from the bus stop.  We've chuckled and shared neighborhood dirt. I've called them to borrow linens and not only do they have them, but they've delivered them freshly laundered AND pressed!  (My sister was jealous.)  I think that it is a safe thing to say that all of us enjoy having each other as neighbors.

How so very sad.  That lady is missing out on a couple that she is not even willing to get to know.

Renewing the dreaded cell phone contract.

I've been dreading this for some time.  It was cell phone renewal time.  The current contract was rolling, but needed updated and whatnot.  We share a family plan with my in-law's, so my FIL went price shopping for all of us.  The cheapest price he found was with our current carrier, AT&T.

Last night, we convened, discussed what we wanted and pressed on to the store.  While I was busy trying to find a parking space that wasn't filled with parking lot snow overruns, Hubs and his parentals went in to prep the sales person.

I come in, she was crunching numbers and talking about how our bill was going to be a little bit more, there is data . . .

"But we don't want data.  We don't want smart phones.  We just want what we have."

"But they are only $5 more a piece.  You are paying $20 for the basic phone and frankly, we only have 2 that you could chose from to purchase anyhow.  You could do smart phones. . . "

"We don't want smart phones. I wasn't a fan of the touch screen on the LG that I had and I'm just not looking forward to it."

"Oh, the basic phone vs. smart phone is so much different.  Look!"  :insert phone demo:

FIL says, "How can we make our bill less?"

"Oh, you can't.  The bill would be $143.50."

My response is, "Does that include tax and any other fees?"

"Well, no."

"Then basically, I can go to Verizon and for $160, I can get far better coverage for the same price."

"I have to disagree."

"Can you tell me that you have coverage in, let's say, Amish Country?  I have to be honest, I've never found that we have coverage down there or many places south of here."

"Well, that is true.  Our towers are taller and can accommodate more callers, but Verizon has more towers, but they are shorter, don't accommodate as many callers and they drop calls all of the time."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a signal is a signal and if there is an actual emergency, I would rather have the option to call back than not to call at all.  I didn't tell her this, but every Verizon customer I've spoken to after this has never had a problem with dropped calls.  We just can't afford Verizon, which is why we don't have them.

After confirming that $143.50 is the lowest, I looked to Hubs and said loud enough for her to hear, "What happened to the $100 quote?"

"Yeah," says Hubs, "What happened to the $100 quote we talked about?"

"Um, yes, well-- it is for just unlimited calls and unlimited text."  Almost simultaneously we all exclaimed, "THAT'S ALL WE WANT!"

"Oh."

So it took a half hour to get it through the salesperson's head that we wanted as we said- just what we had.  We were able to walk out of there with a contract for 4 phones for $96 including tax and whatnot.  Hubs is a public employee and as such, he gets a discount.  Fine with me.  I'll believe it when I see it when the bill comes.  It still doesn't make sense when she said it would only cost $5 more per smart phone that if we wanted as basic as we were saying, the bill should have only been $120 for 4 smart phones plus taxes and whatnot.

Until then, Hubs laughs and every now and then says, "You know, she was trying to bamboozle us."  "Yes, yes she was."  "She was determined we were to get smart phones."  "Yes, yes she was."  I was not impressed.

None of us got new phones, despite my need to replace mine sooner than later.  No one really understands my push against smart phones.  It is one more distraction that I do not need.  Truly.  Would I use it?  Yes.  That's the problem.

What's the point?

A mom didn't like what was on the front of some t-shirts at a store.  I get that.  She felt that they may have violated city law for where they live.  I get that.  However, the article says,

"Plus, she plans on returning the t-shirts for a full refund at the end of the store’s 60-day return policy."

If she doesn't want kids to be purchasing the shirts that she believes are inappropriate, then why is she returning them?  Does she realize that when she returns them, the store will either resell them at a discount or send them off to an outlet for discount pricing?  Just because she purchased them and held them for 59 days, returns them on the 60th doesn't mean that they will light a match to them.  In fact, a big hairy deal being made out of it just makes people more curious and honestly makes people want the mom banned item more.

I'm just sayin'.

I am picky about what my daughter wears.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't allow words stamped across the butt and frankly think that a young child should not be wearing a bikini.  I also watch cuts of shirts and shorts.  That doesn't mean that I run all over and throw a fit about it, expecting children to wear Dugger-like bathing suits and skirts to their ankles.

Thoughts?

Calamity Day 8: It's all of my fault.

Yesterday, I knew that there was a big, fat storm coming.  I decided that if I placed my spring wreath on the front door, it would take notice and dissipate. 

 Just in case you wondered, it didn't.  In fact, I think that it made it worse.

 It could be worse.  My driveway has walls, but I'm certain that up north scored more.

Today I decided to put out my "Welcome Spring!" flag.  I mean, maybe the spring wreath wasn't hint enough.  You can blame me when the epic storm of the century rolls through.  

In other news, K had an optional volcano to build for extra credit.  "She's doing great in science," says Hubs.  "It's extra credit and those opportunities don't come by often.  We'll be building a volcano."  We did!

We didn't have brown paint and it was Sunday and we were being snowed upon with about 4" then.  None of us wanted to go out, so Hubs suggested some gray house paint.  I mean, if it's good enough for the house . . .  I had some leftover Modge Podge from when Aunt Donna decided that she was going to save all of the puzzles that the puzzler ladies built downstairs.  It took once and she decided that once was enough.  K sealed it.  It sat on the floor near the heat vent for a day.  It was time for lava.  Well, since it was extra credit, I asked K if she wanted it to be rainbowy with glitter.  SURE!  Rainbow and glitter it is.  It has to work and frankly, I think her teacher cares none about the colors.  

An update to K's recent illness is that despite having a negative rapid strep in office, today I was phoned by the nurse to say that it was positive and she needs antibiotics.  Huh.  We were all surprised.  

I end with, my your snows be small, your warmth be much and may we not float away by the end of the week when all of this melts.  If Noah comes rounding the bend, I'll let y'all know.  

It tasted as if I had just licked a horse's hoof.

K and I decided to do the cheese tour.  You see, when you visit Heini's Cheese Chalet, you get to sample all of their cheeses.  It is delightful!  Yesterday, I tried some different cheeses I hadn't tried before.  One was kefir cheese.

It tasted as if I had just licked the hoof of a horse that just walked through manure.  Hubs was laughing so hard at my reaction that I seriously think he was on the edge of crying.  Seriously, it tasted like fresh manure smells.  It tasted awful.

If I were at home, I would have spit it out.  Unfortunately, I had to continue to chew and swallow, hoping for a highly flavored cheese down the line.  Thankfully, there were a few with onion that killed the flavor.

Whew.  I know that people loved it, but I had to share my opinion.  If you like the taste of manure covered horse hooves, Kefir cheese just might be for you!

:cringing face: