Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). **Dh got a new cell phone. $20 after rebates and all that stuff. It's NICE too. We generally buy the nicer phones with rebates and deals, since we prefer not to replace them every 2 years (the crappy freebies). In the past I would keep my cell phone 5 years, easy. BUT we may have to rethink that going forward. Technology just seems to be speeding along at warp speed. Where once I wouldn't mind holding to a cell phone 5 years, I Feel strangely out-dated (my phone having been bought exactly 3 years ago).
Well, I'll keep my eye out for a similar upgrade deal. 
In the meanwhile, I will survive.
**Dh and I had our lunch date at Round Table yesterday. BM tagged along. $12 for all-you-can eat for the 3 of us (with coupon). Not bad. DH and BM certainly ate their fair share!
**BM has his last private swim lesson today. We'll play it by ear. In 7 short lessons (will 6 down, 1 to go) he has gotten comfortable with dunking his head, jumping into the pool and swimming, and well, he can swim quite well.
I hope and assume his teacher will work with getting him to jump in the deep end and swim. He can certainly do it - he just needs the confidence.
In the meantime, he has no fear of the deep end otherwise. We were in our community pool over the weekend and someone challenged him to a race across the deep pool and he just took off (with his kickboard). I was like, "hold on, wait a minute, I do not know if I can save you if you fall off!!!" I am not so strong in the water and the pool was quite long. (Plus I had LM in my arms). But it was nice to see no fear there. He just needs to know he can jump in the deep end and swim just like he does in the shallow end.
So, I am pleased. Will probably take him practicing this weekend and see what we think. If we can just commit to practice a couple of times a week the rest of summer, and his skills don't slide, then I think that will suffice. May be ready for intermediate lessons next year. OR we can just resume private lessons again (even better).
$110 well spent!
**Work is crazy!! (Mostly why I have been MIA a bit). 7/31 is a big deadline for me.
**I am in love with Facebook.
I have been having so much fun over there. A friend invited me a while ago and this quickly led to a reunion with a childhood friend (last weekend). This week I stumbled upon two of my very best friends from middle school.
Anyway, it has just been very fun, and I think Facebook is 100 times better than MySpace.
I realize too I miss the diversity of my childhood friends. With age I hung around a lot more accountants (college, jobs). & moving to Sacramento I mostly hang around older, white accountants. LOL. It's just nice to experience a slice of that diversity again. It feels oddly comforting. None of my childhood friends are accountants. & yeah, it's refreshing to talk about things besides diapers and sleepless nights, as well. (As I run across more childless friends).
I think also as I struggle with friendships as I age, it is nice to know somewhere along the road I made very strong friendships.
Don't ask me why we didn't keep touch. I think a lot of it was I worked so hard in college. I kept in touch and hung out much with a few great friends, but grew apart from many of the rest. IT was hard to see so many people skate through college, completely paid for, and go off to school, while I Was working so many jobs and trying to make it on my own (Sticking around close to home; too broke for dorm life). As I find my friends from the past I am making a mental note not to let them go again, not so easily anyway.
**I perused online (should have done this sooner) on a fix for my car door lock problems. I found a quick, easy FREE fix. I printed it out and put it in my glove box for next time. Now I feel stupid paying the dealer $100 to fix. (& my mechanic $500 last time!). The fix was to literally pull out a fuse and put it back. I think we had looked closely at the fuses when it came to the windows, but not the doors (since those went next and we thought it was an electrical problem at that point).
As an aside, I Was also looking up quick fixes for the sticking window. No one else had figured it out it was simply a "grease" problem. I have to grease it up in the winter. Well, my mechanic has to, but I think he largely did it free. Which we did not have the right tools to get to the mechanism, so will have to bug him again I am sure.
SO A+ to my mechanic for the window fix.
F for the door lock fix. C- to the dealer for charging $100. Ack! I am sure they just did the fuse "pull out and replace."
I am learning it is good to get other opinions, even when you have that "ideal" honest mechanic. They just don't know everything (too much to know). 
But at least I know he would never charge me $100 to pull out and put back a fuse. YEesh.
The internet is such a great tool in that regard though.
**Dh and I are going on a date this weekend to see the Dark Knight.
It just occurred to me that this is the only forum/space that has not been inundated with the Dark Knight! (Don't think I've seen a mention).
Kind of sick of hearing about it, but want to see what everyone is talking about.
Tidbits
July 24th, 2008 at 08:38 pm
July 24th, 2008 at 10:54 pm 1216940043
I think cellphone choices should be made based on exactly what you DO use it for. Aside from PDA features, I actually don't use the phone itself much. So, my next "phone" MAY (but I'm not sure) be more of a PDA that just happens to have phone features... but I'm not sure yet.
I also confess that I am also feeling a little bit lusty towards the iPhone 3G. However, I really do think I prefer something else maybe.... Hmm, I think I just contradicted myself.
As for Dark Knight, we've been talking all about it at work.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:17 am 1216945076
I agree with you about facebook. I like it so much better than myspace. I've reconnected with many people who've not been in my life for a long time - and I probably would've never gotten in touch with again any other way.
Recently, I've even had my SA world combine with my facebook world.
As for the cell phone . . . I've had my current cell phone since June. The *only* reason I upgraded was because my then current cell phone's battery was completely dead, and my charger was in CA. So, I could have spent $15 for yet another charger (although I couldn't even find one for my phone - at least in a physical store!) or I could buy a new battery for $50, or I could upgrade to a new phone for $30. Ugh. So, I went with the least expensive phone they had in the store - all I cared about was the alarm clock function and that it could make phone calls.
My phone before my current one was bought *only* because the previous one completely konked out on me. I *loved* that phone, and still miss some of the ringtones I had on it.
My plan is to keep the phone I have now until it dies. It has the features I want - makes phone calls and has a multi-alarm clock. I just have to keep better track of my charger!
July 25th, 2008 at 01:28 am 1216949313
It amazes me all that is offered in phones now that weren't before.
I could use blue tooth for sure (will make life easier). I probably should have looked into it - I already spent $40 on headsets. (The first one sucked and the second one is nice enough, but was pricey). Maybe could have just bought a blue tooth phone for $40. Hmmmmm. maybe I can... Return the last headset. (Dh is loving the new cell).
I totally forgot to mention the OTHER reason dh was looking was for GPS capabilities. Yes, his phone has it but the charge is $10/month. !!!!!!!!! HOLY COW! We passed. I think we will end up buying a stand alone GPS unit. Either that or wait out price drops (may be a while). I can't believe I forgot to post that. Yeouch - thought they were crazy.
July 25th, 2008 at 01:38 am 1216949907
Not sure how I feel about that. Glad I use a handle here, though would be willing to reveal my identity to some of the long timers...
July 25th, 2008 at 11:11 am 1216984268
When I first started doing Craigslist I decided to send email to myself, just to see what showed up. I was a bit taken back to realize that it had my first and last name fully spelled out! Ooops. Needless to say, I've changed that feature on all my emails.