Monthly Archives: January 2007

Daycare Day

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Daycare starts today. Since it’s the very first day for this daycare, ever, Ingrid and I are hanging back to let the working folks through. Or, that’s my excuse. Really, though, this was also the start of moving back our waking time, and I’ve never woken Ingrid up before (well, getting out of the car sometimes, but never from her night sleep) and she was actually pretty cheerful about it. We had a sort of rough night, where she woke up at 2:30 to not nurse, but to just talk to me for 10 minutes. It was weird. I staggered in, latched her on, and she looked up at me, popped off and sat up  and just babbled for a while, I gave her her paci and put her in bed, and boom, she was out. Maybe she had a cool dream?

Anyway, waking up at 7 (oh, I know, I know… we’re trying to roll back to 6 eventually) means that the house is much colder than it is when we get out of bed around 8:15. I got her dressed and tried breakfast for the first time (for her) which sort of added to the confusion of her morning. She ate some, squealed at the kitty, smiled at her daddy, and was in a good mood. I just put her down for a nap, when I was done getting ready she looked pretty bleary-eyed, and I figured it was better to take a well-rested baby to her first day of daycare than an "I need a nap, yesterday!" baby.

I have everything in a big Bean bag, her two crib sheets, backup clothes, diapers, wipes, diaper cream, empty bottles, sippy cup, paci, fuzzy blanket, snowsuit, blah blah blaaaaaah… she’ll be fine. I *KNOW* she’ll be fine.

While she’s there, I have a list of errands to run (so much easier to swap out a ub of used syringes at the vet if Ingrid isn’t with me), I’m going to get my updated, COMPLETE, transcripts from the uni, make copies of all of my reference letters and test scores and certifications, and swing by the super’s office to get the subbing application. Honestly, if I could get 4 days of subbing while I look for a real job, that would be great. I’d be picking up Ing by 3, making enough to pay for childcare +extra, and not locked in to a job, but able to scope out the local schools. THere are 2 within walking distance (well, really, technically they are ALL within walking distance) but two just two blocks away. They don’t interview for subbing, you just have letters of reference, a 4year degree (in anything), and your fingerprinting certificate, which I have. (Not only do I have all that, I have it in hand — I was sure tracking down the paperwork would be a nightmare, since I was So Done with teaching when I finished in 2005, but no, I at least saw through the disillusionment to put all that stuff in a folder, and in a filing cabinet!) I’ll check in with the temp agency, go to target, probably, come home to pump (the big boondoggle with subbing is trying to figure out pumping, not necessarily even enough to keep Ingrid in 100% EBM, but just to take the edge off and maintain supply, and schools have very few private spaces) and then pick up Ingrid from her daycare.

I am confident about the center — my SIL actually saw it featured on the news, and said she immediately thought "that sounds like a place Gretchen would love!" (the montessori/reggia/attachment influences) and thought it was beautiful too.  It’s going to Be Fine. Lightening the mental load considerably would be word of A Job, though.

Oh, and? Dave and I drove through the Honda lot yesterday, and I loooooove the 07 CR-V, even after seeing it in person, so that’s on deck for…. next year. We just need to keep the outback going til then (and then that makes our goal of one-car-payment-at-a-time more doable, too, since Dave’s car will be paid off in a little over a year.) It’s pretty sweet, and I don’t like the older models for a few reasons, sort of more truck-like, and I really don’t like those rear mounted tires, which the older models have. And, 2007 Hondas have 3 sets of LATCH in the back, finally adding center LATCH, which pleases the car-seat nut in me to no end.

Alright. Daycare. Right.

Fueling the Fire

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Yeah, yeah, I KNOW. I NEED A JOB. But I’ve essentially decided that I want the CR-V, and not just ANY CR-V, but the 2007 CR-V. This wouldn’t happen til at least September, I’m thinking, but seriously, this is what the Edmunds.com review says:

Although the all-new, third-generation 2007 Honda CR-V is likely to
appeal to buyers of all ages and both genders, Honda’s target audience
for its redesigned small SUV is women in their early 30s with a child
under two. And when you drive the new CR-V, it’s obvious the company
had this audience in mind from the very beginning.

Hmm, yes, that would be ME. In looking back at the different models, the truck-like appearance appeals NOT AT ALL, whereas this new model is much more car-like. And dude, has center-LATCH anchors (3 sets across!) which means not one thing to anyone that DOESN’T have a kid, I’m sure.

Dave totally understands the stupid thrill of researching new cars, he does it ALL the time, and last night was like "we should go look at the CR-V!" Everytime I mention it, it’s stated, out loud, that this is totally my way of coping with daycare, going back to work, etc, and that he shouldn’t fear coming home and finding I’ve traded in, oh, the house, for a new car. Of course, his thrill extends to his job, where he sees all the new car stuff, spends lots of time on car lots, and even drives a lot or new cars when he’s working. (He doesn’t only do car commercials, but he does a lot, and does all of them for the company that deals Honda.) So, tomorrow we’re going to go look in the windows at the Honda place, because we are HUGE geeks, and are into virtual car-buying.

I’m also getting Ingrid’s stuff ready for daycare, my Mabel’s Labels came in yesterday, just in time, so I’ve labeled her bottles and sippy cup (Oh! Today she figured out haw to use the straw-based Nuby cup! I’m so proud!) and I’m writing her name in stuff, getting everything ready, along with a list of questions. At the uni, I could leave food there, in the kitchen, and then she had a cubby for her coat and backup clothes and all of that. At this place, I saw her cubby (smaller than the uni one) but I’m hoping I can leave food there, like "hey, just feed her one of these jars and some of this oatmeal and a few of those veggie puffs" but we’ll see. In doing that, I’m bib-shopping (I know, shut up) because we’ve been using the little cotton bibs for now, but they A)generate a ton of laundry and B) do nothing for her sleeves, when she’s chasing avocado and blueberries all over her tray. I have these Bumkins sleeved bibs in my Amazon cart, but haven’t yet pulled the trigger. I’m thinking of getting two, one for home and one for daycare, with the thought that they can just be wiped down daily, and then maybe washed weekly. Anyone have any experience?

The next big, giant, HUGE worry is about the new morning routine. Where before, we wake up just as Dave is leaving for work, we are going to all need to be getting up earlier. The plan is for everyone to get up at 6, I take a shower, Dave dresses the baby. I get dressed, Dave takes a shower, I feed the baby, Dave takes the baby to daycare, I go to work. There will be a nurse-up in there, I’m thinking, but I realllly hope that this doesn’t mean that suddenly Ingrid needs to go to bed earlier, because that will wreck me. (Currently, she goes to bed at 7ish) Instead, I’m hoping she consolidates her naps a little better, and maybe sleeps more during the day, so that I get her more at night.   This coming week, I don’t have any work scheduled (yet, knock on wood) so I think we’ll try a transition to an earlier wake up time for all of us, maybe trying 7am on Monday, I’ll take her to daycare, and then go to the super’s office to see about subbing, do some housework or something, just to let Ingrid get accustomed to her daycare gradually. I’m going to miss her, though.

I better have an awesome car this time next year.

8 months

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Dear Ingrid,

Today you are 8 months old, and it was our last weekday at home, just you and me, before you start daycare on Monday. It snowed, and we picked up Grandma and Grandpa from the airport, both of them way more interested in seeing you than me, or their car, or anything else. In fact, I had to tell you grandpa to "please, turn around and sit in your seat!" because he was so excited to see you after a 2 week hiatus.

I cannot believe how quickly you change, and yet how much of that tiny baby I held in my arms for the first time, 8 months ago, can be seen in you, still. You love to sit, have no interest in crawling, but you love to talk to us now. We’ve spent the last two weeks screeching in tune with each other, or having long conversations of "eh?" being volleyed back and forth.

You know what my glasses are, now, and in the mornings when we wake up, you get so excited to see me put them on.  I’ve even started letting you get my glasses. I fly you over to the nighstand, and you study all the temptations on it, and when I say "Get mama’s glasses!" you forgo the remote, the receipts, the post-it pad, the lotion tube and the pill bottle, and reach out your fingers like a little restaurant-lobby-claw game, plucking my glasses from the pile and then, of course, trying to eat them.

You have a favorite book, it seems. "Where is baby’s bellybutton?" is the first one you seem to recognize as having a value beyond "delicious," and you have quickly learned how to pull back the flaps. I left the room for a few minutes the other day (easy to do when you don’t crawl yet!) and came back to find that you’d found the book amongst your toys, opened it on your lap rightside up (granted, that was probably a fluke), and looking at the faces and talking to the babies on the pages. "Eh! Eh! EEEEEEpffffff Eh?" 

In this month, you celebrated your first Christmas, and your first New Year. There was lots of happiness: aunt kate was so happy to see you, and you’d grown so much! And you saw all of your cousins on your dad’s side on Christmas Eve, and Grandma and Grandpa were with us for Christmas day. There was sadness too, with our cousin Colson’s death, and the funeral that followed. And in between those events, you were sick, and had your first ER visit (luckily, just a fever).  In sad times, though, you managed to bring smiles to so many faces.

You start daycare on Monday, for-real daycare this time, not like the campus daycare situation. Your caregivers seem kind and smart and caring, and the building and grounds are beautiful. I hope that I find a job that offers some flexibility, because I will miss our storytimes and massage class. I will especially miss lazy mornings, with you getting a nurse-up in the big bed before we start the day, and after Daddy has left.  Those quiet moments are the ones that I carry with me at all times, the ones I hope to never forget, the ones that make me content to be Ingrid’s Mama. In those moments, my degrees don’t matter, my looks, my income, my weight — in those moments I am exactly the person I’ve always wanted to be, with the person I always wanted to be with, I just didn’t know it yet.

I love you, Ingrid.

Love, Mama

No word yet

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No word yet, on any of my resumes or temping or whatever. I did, however, see that my degree status has changed in the campus info system, meaning my stuff has been processed and I honest-to-god have a master’s degree. So, that’s cool.

Ingrid starts at daycare on Monday, regardless, and if I don’t have any temp assignment, I’m still going to take her to transition her, and then go to the superintendent’s office to fill out subbing applications. And that’s fine, because a gradual transition sits better with me, anyway.  Damn, I hope I get a bite, get something, some kind of forward motion with this whole ‘job’ thing.

Being all consumery and crap, part of the way I keep this job-fire lit is to compile mental lists that employment will afford us… aside from daycare, of course. I could use some new glasses, we’d like to do the windows/roof/siding eventually, and the big "I will research into the ground" product is a new car for me, because of the whole uninspectable thing going on with mine. WHich, I’m totally not worrying about, the new rules are set up to make it so that poor people can’t drive, and right now, I’m poor. I’ve been hearing lots of crazy "the car didn’t pass because" stories, and fuck, mine WON’T pass, to get it to would cost more than I paid for the car, probably, so I’ll just wait and if I get a ticket, whatever. Cheaper than a sticker.  ANYWAY. While we love our Subarus, our local dealer totally, completely sucks, and we’ve always said "oh, we’ll just go to dealer-in-a-town-an-hour-away" but as we tried to figure out how to get my car inspected/serviced there, we realized that tha was a real pain in the ass, too. I love my Outback, but now we’ve been talking about small SUVs — the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CR-V. My SIL had the CR-V a few years ago and didn’t like it, didn’t like the AWD as compared to a Subaru, but damn, there’s a lot of pros to that car (not the least of which is that it’s sold by an in-town dealer that doesn’t have a horrible reputation, and that is also a client of Dave’s, which lowers the ‘I’ll screw you over’ threshold to about nil, since he gets on well with the president/owner/whoever guy, who is just a few years older than us..)  Toyota isn’t a client, but my folks have switched to Toyota because they like the dealership and service people so much.

Anyway, it’s all a fantasy world right now, of course, because I don’t have a Damn Job. I haven’t had a car payment in five years, and haven’t shopped for a car in, god, ten. (Holy shit! TEN?!) The last car I shopped for I bought from the Honda dealership, actually, but it was a used ford, and they were good to me then, too. (TEN YEARS, though? HOLY FUCK.)  Regardless, that wouldn’t be for a loong time, summer, anyway I’m thinking, but just daydreaming about having a new-to-me car is a little bit exciting. . .

In other news, my parents are coming back tomorrow, after having their return flight cancelled and rebooked for tomorrow because of the Texas ice storm. They lost a day with grandma by being stranded in San Antonio (it was a trip to grandma’s with a meeting in SA stuck in the middle) and then gained that day back with the flight cancellation. Of course, we have a nor’easter incoming, so that might fuck up their return flight, too, and almost certainly guarantees they wills tay with us tomorrow night (which is totally fine, Ingrid will be excited about that, I think.) Denver blizzard screwing with my family’s travel plans? check. Texas ice storm doing the same thing? check again.

I’m tired. I want a job and a known income and my savings account to grow quickly. Yawn.

Daycare

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Today we had our daycare meeting, an orientation and tour with the teachers Ingrid will have. I have to say, I feel really, really good about this place. On paper, it looks great, of course, and everything in there is brand new, which makes its own impression, but even more, the teachers seemed to be really nice. They were personable, and professional, both with bachelor’s degrees in ECE — one a fairly recent grad, from what I could tell, and the other was probably in her 40s. The room that Ingrid will be in is huge, easily more square footage than the infant and toddlers had put together at the uni. Because of the supply/demand, she’s actually the youngest baby in the Toddler 1 room, for 11-18 month olds, but the infant room (6w-11mo) had so much demand, and the Toddler 1 so little, they wiggled the dividing line to accomodate as many people as possible as they got started. Ingrid is one of 5 kids, the oldest 13mos, in the ‘Toddler 1’ room, with 2 teachers. (HELL of a ratio there, 2:5! and as that room fills, they’ll hire to keep the ratio at 1:4) At the university, the infant room was for 6w-18months, and that’s quite a span… Of course, Ingrid will be the little sitting buddha of the Toddler room, since she firmly believes that crawling is for pussies.  The room itself is bright and cheerful, with 2 little toddler height sinks, and wooden furniture, wooden play kitchen, a foam crawling area, books, puzzles, dolls, bead paths…. just really, really warm feeling. They have a no-shoes policy, another thing I like that the uni didn’t have, where adults take off their shoes before going in (as do the kids, I imagine) so that they don’t eat rocks and dirt and stuff, since kids of that age spend a lot of time on the floor.

My other big concern was about pumping and breastmilk storage — the paperwork said that bottles had to be prepared by us, not the staff, which would mean having to estimate how much she’d eat, blah blah blah… whereas at the uni, I just kept frozen EBM in the freezer, and they used it as necessary, which really cut down on waste. Unless you’ve pumped yourself, you have no idea how horrible the concept of "waste" is in this scenario. Anyway, they are totally cool with frozen bags of EBM, and really, it’s just for the next 4 months anyway, and I’m not opposed to supplementing if I have to. I want to nurse as long as Ingrid wants to, but the general rule is that one doesn’t need to pump after a year, and that would be cool, as pumping blows, and a lot of my internet people have followed that same path with great success.  They also provide snacks (fruit, cheerios, etc) and when she’s older, they’ll provide organic, vegetarian lunches. Good lord, the girl will eat better there than at home.

Today, it was snowing like mad, which made the location really stand out as a strong point. It’s less than a mile from our house (and if the director can get them to re-connect their entrance street to the business park road, that would probably cut our drive to less than .5 mile) and if I don’t work for an organization with snow days (highly likely) that means we have to get her to daycare anyway, and the less time that Ingrid is on a crappy road, the better, IMO.

And, the icing on the cake? because she’s a ‘toddler,’ we pay the toddler rate — NOT the infant rate, which is $15 dollars more a week. Yeah, it’s fifteen bucks, but every penny counts. Now I just need a Damn. Job.  At least I feel totally confident in our childcare choice now, it all looked good on paper, but you never know, you know?  They have a great facility — totally renovated, great playground, an activity room for gymnastics lessons (SHUT UP, AMY :P) and a kitchen for the kids to learn to cook (probably when they are a littler uh, older than Ingrid) and kid-size everything, which is really cool.  It makes the whole prospect of going back to work so much more manageable for me.  Not working is Not an Option, and to have a good daycare is so, so, sooooo great.

Now, send some job juju my way, wouldja?

Whoa!

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I’ve never actually seen "Instructional Technologist" as a title, for real. But that’s what’s in my degree, and what I put on my portfolio, almost tongue-in-cheek… annnnd, today, in the paper:

Data Specialist / Instructional Technologist

       


Full-time position in the Registrar’s Office responsible for transcript
analysis and recording student transfer credits into CAMS system.
Perform data entry of mid-term and final grades, execute reports to
faculty and staff. Process graduate petition requests, diploma orders,
establish and maintain course offering schedules and process academic
status-related documentation in a timely manner. Set up new user
accounts in CAMS and provide training workshops for faculty and staff.
Develop customized reports utilizing SQL, as needed. Establish and
update Student/Faculty web based portal and troubleshoot moderate
technical issues. Develop e-portfolio, laptop instruction for student
cohort groups. Minimum Bachelor’s degree required. HTML, SQL,
proficiency in MS Office, CAMS system software desired but will train.
2 years business and/or computer applications experience, preferably in
a higher education institute.

Whoa! From what I know, CAMS is student info management (UM has DSIS), which, I can figure that out with a day or two…. and I don’t have SQL, but "as needed" gives me confidence that that’s not a huge deal, and it’s not the director position, so there’s someone else that knows what’s up with that. And seriously, e-portfolio? How many applicants will actually *have* an e-portfolio, online, with the URL on the resume? No, seriously? How many? Most of the IT grads don’t keep their portfolios when they are done (and they are generally kind of lame to begin with, I really bucked tradition by self hosting under my own name, but THIS is exactly why I did that.)  No idea of salary, not sure on the experience part, but, whatever. I’m an Instructional Technologist and the local private college needs an Instructional Technologist.  And I bet it would at least cover daycare costs…..

Temp Agency

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I had my interview at the temp agency today, which went swimmingly. I filled out the boilerplate stuff, and then was led to a room to do a skills test. The first one was typing, which, I’m a pretty good typist, but the keyboard to the PC was like this one, where instead of a double-wide backspace key, it was single wide, with the forward slash key next to it, instead of on the bottom row, which meant that any error became a double or triple error, as it would be like "Teh//he" and on and on…. so, when the interviewer came in when I was one, I mentioned in a very professional, not know-it-all way, that their keyboard blew. (For me, it was also one of those with the sticky-uppy clackety clackety keys, basically the opposite of any mac keyboard, or any modern PC keyboard for that matter…) She looked a little puzzled, until I pointed at her own keyboard and said, "see, yours has the double-size backspace key…" and she went "ohhhh! I never even noticed that! you’re the first person to mention it! Maybe we should change that…." and then looked at my test score and said "But even with that, your tests are excellent, so that’s good." Heh. Maybe I should add that to my list of Mad Skillz: can type on non-regulation 20th century keyboard.

The interview part was fine, I explained the daycare-economy driven need for employment, which she totally understood, and I also mentioned my previous temping experience, that I knew what it was all about, and it might be good while I look for a permanent job, etc etc.  I don’t think she’d ever gotten a resume that included a link to an online portfolio before, either. Anyway, there were a couple of tech supportish positions available, one that I’d responded to from an online ad, and another at the local phone company, which is about .5 mile fromour house, closer even than daycare, smack dab between the two. The job description for that read like something I was about 90% qualified for, so I initially was like "hmmm" because the 10% I wasn’t qualified for was telephone technology, but in my recent angst, someone mentioned that I manage to figure stuff out, anyway, so I said "yeah, you know what? send them my resume. If I’m not the right person for that job, I’m not, but maybe they have something else they’d want me for."  Also? $15/hour. (REGIONALLY, people, that’s damn good. 😉 ) It’s actually the company we have our phone and internet through, and when I had to deal with tech support recently, they were really great (and I was prepared to throw down) and listened to me when i said "no, I’vetried all that, something is not right on YOUR end," and when the guy realized no one had ever activated my modem, he was instantly apologetic, and had us up in no time.  When I had gone to the office to pick up the new modem, the receptionist and I talked for a good fifteen minutes about kids (she has twin girls, now 12), and I actually came home and looked up their website to see if they had any job listings, which they don’t — because they go through this agency. It seemed like a not so bad place to work, and seriously, I could WALK THERE. Entertaining a fantasy of walking Ingrid to daycare and myself to work, even. We’ll see.

But, here’s my question, maybe folks can weigh in: Master’s Degree. Do you expect someone to be an actual MASTER of everything in that field, OR, does it indicate a level of intelligence/dedication/work ethic that shows one can master new ideas? Does the degree indicate a noun or a verb, you know?  In looking at jobs, i think, "Oh, I have 90% of the skills" but I know I could learn just about anything, but do hiring managers, etc, think the same thing? Just a curiosity, really.

Work and Stuff

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So, I’m looking for a job, and I have daycare lined up, and I have the master’s degree finished. But damn, it stresses me out. This stuff is hard.

Today, for instance, it is crappy and freezing rainy/snowy, and so Ingrid and I are going to stay in the house. I’ll finish the laundry, I have tea on, she’s up for her first nap and Dave will be home at noon for his lunch hour. We got out of bed at 8:15, and the only reason I know that is that I check the clock to figure out the cat’s insulin shot. I’m dreading the idea of getting us all out of the HOUSE by 8, when we don’t get out of BED before 8.

I got the Y brochure this weekend, and went through it looking to see if they’d added new baby programs so that I could update my website if necessary. They hadn’t, but, it still made me miss my fantasy SAHM world, where we have a family membership to the Y, and a few days a week I take Ingrid to infant swimming, or take her to the child care room so I can do the lunchtime yoga class, or pilates, or… something. And then we go outside and get in our street legal, low mileage Outback to get to the library for some books, before meeting friends at the Bagel Shop for lunch.

The reality? Is that I’m dodging cops on the way to free storytime, because my inspection is way out of date, and it will cost a ton of money to inspect my car this year — a combo of new inspection rules, and people not letting the Stuck-On ABS light to slide. (which sucks, it was a recall my parents tried to fix for YEARS, but the local dealership — who we will never buy from, incidentally — never actually fixed it, they’d call them to come in — form 100 miles away, of course — not fix the damn light, but say the brakes needed to be entirely replaced or whatever. They have a big award in the waiting room for selling the most ‘parts and service’ in the region or country or something, which… that’s not the award you want to see, am I right? I digress…) so, I dodge cops, our savings is dwindling, and affording a luxury like the Y isn’t going to happen. And working won’t let it happen, either, because when I’m going to be reducing my RDA of Ingrid to like, 2 waking hours (UGH) I don’t want to spend that time at THE Y.

I feel so lucky to have had 8 months of All Ingrid, All the Time, and I need to be bringing in an income — in addition to the car repairs, we need a new oil tank this year, which is a major expense. And hi, savings. We need to build that back up. And my student loans are coming out of grace soon. And. And. And.

I need to work. I need to have a job. I am thankful that I have a daycare slot in the only accredited place in town, that it’s near to our house and Dave’s work, that I have a degree that means I will be able to (hopefully) work in a field I love, not just nights at Wendy’s or something, and actually MAKE money over and above the daycare expense.  (You know, knock wood and all that…)

But still. It’s HARD to wrap my head around, and then add in that any job I get will be brand new, so there’s all that new job anxiety, plus First Job as a Mom (I don’t count LLB here, because that was quite mindless, and didn’t involve a daycare payment near the price of our MORTGAGE), and, damn, it’s nerve wracking. Nerve. Wracking. 

I still haven’t heard anything from the resumes I’ve sent out (tho one has certainly not arrived yet, the school dept one…) but I have to tell dave, out loud, when I send one, just to get used to the idea. It also makes me a little accountable — not that I have to report to my husband, but it’s good for ME to say "hey, I saw a job" and follow with "and sent them a resume today." I’m really wondering what the Staples copy center folks think, since I’m always applying for tech jobs, but going to THEM for printing. I mean, I don’t have a printer anyway, and fuck! It’s likw $.20 a copy, laser B&W, on pretty, heavy, paper! Why WOULD I fuck around at home?

Well, that’s that.

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Loooooong story short, my cousin’s ex has taken the kids to MO, the eldest basically against his will, and in the process she made sure to tell everyone what a horrible person my cousin was (my aunt, his mom, got the majority of this discussion — classy) while everyone else just sort of watched her, slack-jawed, through all of this because she is THAT much of an asshole (with serious problems, not the least of which is nicknaming her 12 year old daughter "Tits.). In addition, because my cousin had never formalized his will, and because the estate by default goes to his kids, and because she got a lawyer to grant her custody, she gets the estate, too. Not that she cares — she took the kids to the airport as soon as she could, and is gone.  We are all fairly confident that we won’t see the kids ever again, unless they survive her to adulthood and realize just exactly what’s gone on in the last 2 weeks — hell, their whole lives. In. Fucking. Sane.  And unbearably sad, mostly for my parents (who were, for example, the emergency contact for the kids — they would spend sick days in the studio with my mom) and for my aunt (who has not only lost her son, but now, his kids too) and for the kids, who may never know exactly what they’ve lost.

Cell phones

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I cancelled my TMobile service on the 1st, because while it started off really good, the service in the last 6 months has gone completely to shit, as I’ve mentioned before. I would have five bars of service, dial, put it to my ear "call failed!" and look down, no bars of service. And this is in TOWN, not in my parents basement in the middle of the woods or whatever. I don’t even get how people can rely on a cell as a sole phone number, because I swear to god, my own experiences have just sucked. But, they do, and I see people on cell phones EVERYWHERE. Hell, in my own HOUSE I barely got service, but I’ve seen people from all kinds of other providers talking away on theirs! Anyway. DEEEpressing.

So, I cancelled the service, and want to go with a regional carrier, Unicel, because it seems that around here, if you can rely on your cell as your sole phone, you use Unicel. Plus, it’s the only carrier that has mini-plans, which are my preference, because I’m really NOT a cell phone user, but it’s really nice to have when I’m running late, or whatever. Plus, I am a HUGGGGE geek, and love the camera phone concept, and, quite honestly, I used my phone more for it’s camera than it’s PHONE, so,err, yeah.

Anyway.

Here’s the rub! Yay, Unicel for having a $20 plan and good local coverage and all of that! But, your phones blow, from what I can see. I really loved my Motorola V330, like, a lot, and it’s not an option at Unicel. I really want a camera phone but my choices are the RAZR (so does not appeal to me, looks like an accident waiting to happen) or the PEBL in red (very cute, but not well reviewed), or the Nokia 6103 — again, looks fine, but not well reviewed, and maybe possibly the Sony Ericsson z520A – no longer on the website, but it was at the kiosk in the mall. The Sony appeals the most, I think, but then there seems to be some problem with the screen going black within months, if I’m to, again, believe the reviews.  The  cheapest  camera phone option is the LG1400, which won’t allow me (if I’m to believe the website) to use the picture messaging email thing, which if I get a camera phone, i totally want to do, because I’m a weirdo and love Molly’s cameraphone LJ, which would be possible to do through unicel, I do believe.  Oh, and the Nokia and LG are tri-band, instead of quad.

And then I think, jesus christ, it’s a PHONE that you will rarely USE, so just get the freaking base model, the Motorola V197 (it has to be a flip phone, that’s a dealbreaker) which would be like, 30 bucks before rebate, is quadband, all of that….  which would really be the sensible thing to do, you know, just get THAT and then… upgrade? I wonder if you can do that. Or when I get a super awesome job, maybe I’ll be able to upgrade to a phone I really want, instead of choosing from phones I don’t necessarily dig. Any experience or advice?

ARGH.