**Exciting news on the cell phone front. The new Moto E was announced, at $129. (The price drops this past 6 months are crazy!).

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/13/5712900/motorola-moto-e-re...

Moto E is not supported on Ting yet (neither is Moto G), but I will let you know when it is.

Moto E + Ting will make for some very cheap cell-phoning.

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**One of my pet peeves is loose change just sitting around (not earning interest in the bank!). I noticed a while ago dh had a bag of change laying around. He told me it was the money he found in Florida in 2012. (He found about $4 on a ride).

I was going to deposit it into the kids' accounts (free loose changing machine if it goes into their accounts) but decided that dh had more time and he could take care of it. He said, "Why don't I just take it to the grocery store change machine for an Amazon gift card?" I said, "Why don't you?" Because it's been sitting around for over 18 months and you haven't done anything with it? He is trying to drive me crazy!!

The kids take after their dad. They refused to deposit their loose change. So, dh lucked out. I told him to get the Amazon gift card. If I still see that change in a week or two, I might have to go figure that machine out myself. Finders keepers.

**Speaking of Amazon, I received a $20 Amazon gift card for doing a survey re: my profession. Woohoo!! I am supposed to get another $20 for a phone interview. I had almost forgotten about it because it took them a week to send me the gift card. It seemed pretty legit, but I was getting skeptical after a time. But then it arrived today.

I already spent my gift card. BM is going to sleepaway camp very shortly and I wanted to get him a disposable camera for the trip. I picked up a couple of things I needed and dh recommended a game for the kids (birthday) so I could get the free shipping. I don't know if I will get the camera in time, but I tried and the camera at least will be "free".

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One more random thing. I am still definitely jinxed (I have never spent so much time in my life dealing with customer service for this or that - OMG). I think the jinx has worn off on dh. For example, I ordered a smoothie maker on his Amazon account (I don't remember why I ordered from his account, but I did) and it arrived broken. Would not work at all. By itself, whatever, but this is every single thing I have touched this year. ???

So... We had some interesting mail this weekend. A birthday card and check arrived for dh. IT was postmarked around the time of his birthday, in JANUARY. It had come to us from California, to California, via Papau New Guinea.

It was from my parents. They didn't notice because they forgot to put the check in their register. We didn't notice because my parents never give us money. So we were surprised by the card, and even more surprised by the generous ($50) check.

But yeah, I think it's official. We both be jinxed.

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The jinx is annoying, but I can appreciate that it is just stupid little stuff.

We are holding our breath for the rest of May because it's kind of heavy on the medical front.

Sister has a big appointment early next week. I don't know where to begin with that, but if there is anything to report with that I will. For now, it just makes me anxious. She is very young, but her health is very poor due to her own choices and lack of care for her health. (It's not an addict thing, but is a lot like that). I am honestly surprised she has not had more problems, but being referred to a specialist is likely because she is developing more serious problems. I don't even know how honest she will be with us, which is a whole other thing. But she did tell us she had an appointment. *sigh*

That by itself is pretty heavy. But, in addition, for those of you who do not know, my spouse also has a brain tumor. It's relatively benign and harmless at this point (after surgical removal), but if it grows we will have to consider radiation and so on. So, he had his annual MRI this week. We will get the results at the end of the month. We are a little extra anxious this year because they were concerned it might have grown last year. (But it was too little to tell). It's the only saving grace about this type tumor. It grows really really really slow. But maybe that's bad too. Not looking forward to another "Gee, I don't know if it's growing or not" evaluation.

So I think my family and his family are all collectively holding our breaths a bit, until we get more news.