Cell Phone Etiquette

We are firmly a cell phone society. I love my cell phone. I have a full keyboard to allow for easier texting. And I admit, I have more texts per month than minutes used. We've all accepted that the person next to us in Taco Bell is chatting on their cell phone. It must not be too private a conversation if the rest of us can hear it. And like all the other people I know, I've gotten good at tuning it out.

With iPhones making it so easy to surf the internet all the time, we're a very in touch world. There's nothing wrong with being in touch. But sometimes, it is just too much. I can ignore you texting & talking on your phone, even surfing the internet. But did you ever stop to think how rude that is?

I'll check my phone when it rings to see who it is. I do the same with texts. If I would stop my conversation with you in order to take a call from that person, I'll answer the text or accept the call. (I do have friends who just can't talk on the phone, they send texts instead- always.) If it's not a call I really need to take, I'll let it go to voicemail, or not respond to the text. That's the great thing about texts, you can answer when you have time. I will finish chatting with you, then return the message.

I understand that not everyone does this. There are people who really need to answer every text or accept every call. What about those who compulsively surf the internet on their phone? That's just as distracting to me, and as rude, as them completely ignoring me the entire time I'm with them.

When this really bothers me is in class. That's right, in class. There are people sitting right there in the front row surfing the internet and texting the entire time the teacher is lecturing. I find that rude to the teacher. I'm sure their grades will reflect this since they haven't really paid attention to the lecture. But to me it's still rude. Not quite as rude as those who brought in their laptops to watch the NBA finals during class, but pretty close. And the teacher is aware of it. I see their class participation points dropping swiftly.

Have you become one of the rude ones? Do you surf the internet while your friend talks to you? Do you spend all your time texting so much that the person in front of you sends a text to get your attention? Is your cell glued to your ear?

Still here

I'm still here. I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. I've got so much homework I can barely keep up. And I'm getting bad headaches almost everyday. No big mystery there. The floor below us at work has been under remodeling for new tenants for about 5 weeks now. They're sawing, hammering and drilling just under my desk last week & this week. How can I tell it's under my desk? My desk vibrates. I end up with a headache pretty much everyday from it.

Paige is having fun with her summer. Our daycare does scheduled classroom work during the school year. Summer is fun time. Every Wednesday is water play. Paige gets to wear her Ariel swimsuit & run around in the sprinklers. This months theme is Up in the Sky. Last week they did airplanes. This week is balloons. I believe today is water balloon day. Good thing we have extra clothes at school! She moved up to a new room last week. Now she's in a room with my friend Jessi. (Her son is Jude. If you remember, Jude is Paige's boyfriend.) I'm sure Jessi will completely soak the kids with the water balloons. What a blast!

Ronnie's job is picking up. For the first couple of months he was to observe & see what was going on before making changes. Well, now the changes have begun. He's starting to get things into shape & bring the kitchen up to the new program standards of the company. New program being a lose definition, it's been in place for about 2 or 3 years now.

Our fun, FREE weekend

Summer fun is here and in our town, that means some cool, free stuff. If you haven't checked out your local library summer reading program, you should. And fast. Our library kicked off Saturday with some arts & crafts fun. This years theme is Be Creative. They let kids be creative by making shakers, sun visors, and notepads. They also had a bean bag toss game setup and volunteers were giving tattoos. We were joined by my friend Lisa and her daughters Celeste & Aaliyah.

Here Celeste models her new tattoo.


Paige and Aaliyah make sun visors.


At the end Max came out to greet everyone. Paige gave him a high five.


They have some nice giveaways for the readers. We got a certificate for a free kids kup from Smoothie King, a free kids meal at Applebees, and a voucher for a free kids ticket to a local minor league ball game, with discounted tickets for Mom & Dad. The finale this year is held at a local art museum. Free admission for the family, and scheduled kids events as well. We have some good stuff to do and all of it free, for almost free. Our library does a great summer program! You should check out yours.

Sunday we went to one of the best free attractions in our area: the beach. We're not on the beach, but are within a 30 minute drive of a beautiful, clean beach.

Let's go, Mommy!


Paige & Daddy swimming.


A very serious builder.


Thanks to SPF 50 all of us came home without a burn. We only stayed out about 2 and a half hours. We didn't want to overdo it. After looking at my burnt crispy coworkers today, I'm glad we kept it short.

We definitely had a fun weekend. Other than a little bit of gas to get where we wanted to go, the entire weekend was free. I'm on the lookout for other free stuff over the summer. With school out there's plenty going on. The trick is to find what you like to do, at a time where you can do it. Most of the fun things I've found are during the workday, when I'm, well, at work. Weekend stuff is a bit harder to find, but you can.


On a side note, please forgive the sporadic postings. My coworkers had warned me that I'm taking a very time intensive class. Shortening it from an entire semester to a summer mini semester makes it that much harder. I'm enjoying the class, so don't get me wrong. But we average a full chapter each class. Before class I need to have read the chapter & done the assigned problems to help understand. Then, after class, there's a problem to do in our ongoing project. Portions of the project are due almost every class. If you notice, most of my posts are done between 7:45 and 8:30 pm. I do them just after Paige goes to bed. I leave for class at 7:30 and get home about 10:30 or so. I just can't find the time to post while in class (probably a good thing) and I'm doing homework most other nights. I'll figure it out. Just remember, it will all be over on July 23rd. That's when I take my final.