Text-less

I have had my cell phone for the better part of 3 years and it just doesn't seem to be pulling its weight any more. Every time I talk to my mom she says I sound like I am underwater and it gets a horrible signal even compared to other phones with the same service. Additionally, it has no idea how to utilize the memory card. It won't save things there and doesn't give you the options of saving things there, so the memory fills up very quickly. I am constantly having to empty my text message archives and every time I want to take a picture or a video, I have to delete something else to make room. Now if you know me, you know I don't want a phone that does too much. All I need it to do is make calls, take pictures and video, and text. I'm pretty easy to please. However, most of the phones available these days do everything short of cooking you breakfast and are quite expensive. I want a phone with a good camera, but all of the basic phones have lousy cameras. The one with the best camera was going to be too expensive.

Art has also had his phone for nearly 3 years and got the itch for a new one then all of the sudden it stopped turning on entirely. It would get to the startup screen and freeze. I have my suspicions that he purposefully sabotaged it so he could get a new phone, but he claims it was just a coincidence. My mom told me how she got her phone at Walmart through AT&T for way less than AT&T charges for the phone so I investigated it as she advised. I checked out their website and it's TOTALLY TRUE! The fancy pants phone I was looking at with the 3 megapixel camera was only $49 instead of $99. That's even less than what I paid for my less than desirable phone long ago. Art got his phone for significantly less as well. Even better, 2 day air mail delivery is free. How cool is that? They even had options to get the phone for free, but then you have to pay more per month for the plan, so it ended up being cheaper just to pay more for the phone and get the cheapest plan. The only downside is that they activate your new phone upon shipment, thus deactivating the phone in your possession. It's strange though, the moment I ordered it, my text messaging stopped working but I can still make phone calls. I imagine that will change any time between... NOW and the next couple days. So, if you text or call me and can't get a hold of me don't go thinking it's because you smell bad- even if you do. I will be text-less and potentially phone-less until Monday or Tuesday.

My Phone and Art's Phone - Aren't they cute together?

Now I will have a fancy pants phone, but I'm not paying an extra $30 a month to utilize all the fancy pants features if it's still not going to cook me breakfast. At least I can take decent pictures with it though. Oh, and it has crazy good talk time and standby time which will be nice.

As for Keira's potential tethered spinal cord, we are still waiting to hear from the pediatrician for an MRI appointment to see what's going on in there. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us at this stressful time. We had a family fast for Keira this Sunday and even though Art thought he was going to starve to death, we felt a lot of peace about it. I know that one way or another, everything is going to turn out ok in the end. I will certainly let everyone know as soon as we get the MRI scheduled and get the results back.

As a continuation of my previous post about the conflict with my orthodontist, to make an entirely long and bloody story short- by the end of that day I had to threaten to take them to court and remove myself as their patient. They are claiming that I will owe them way more money if I stop treatment early and go somewhere else, which is totally untrue, so I am consulting with an attorney to draw up an agreement that if they let me out of my contract and settle for what I have already paid them, I won't sue their pants off for everything they did to me. Sounds like a good offer for both of us at this point, so I am hoping they are smart enough to take it. The trouble I am facing now is finding another orthodontist to finish out these last couple months on my braces. I learned that not all orthodontists use the same braces and tools so no one will even give me a ball park price over the phone since they need to see me first. It just sucks so bad that they couldn't have just resolved the issue like reasonable human beings and stuck it out for the next couple months until I get my braces off! That pretty much sums up my lack of luck in life. Sometimes I feel like the world is taking a big dump on me.

Lastly, it has come to my attention that I have made no mention anywhere about the fact that my younger brother Kyle is serving a mission in Canada, specifically Montreal, Quebec, speaking Canadian French and he has been gone since November 5th. I feel like a horrible sister for not having acknowledged this fact in any way, so to make up for my poor sisterly-ness I have prepared a blog in his honor for all of his mission letters, pictures, video, etc. The link can be found to the right under Friends and Websites. He sends letters every Monday and I update it accordingly. Please feel free to check it out from time to time and share it with anyone who may be interested in Kyle's adventures in Canada.