It’s a long story but last Friday, I drove the kids to Jackson, left Ryan with Chris who took him to Fort Wayne to spend the week with his grandparents, and I drove Chris’ carpool coworkers home. So I’m chatting with them and I mention that I had just bought a new cell phone but I had to switch carriers from AT&T to Sprint in order to get the phone I wanted. And Chris’ coworker says to me, you can buy Unlocked Cell Phones that work with any carrier and all you have to do is take the SIM card out of your current phone and put it in the new phone and you are all set.

I did some poking around on Google trying to figure out exactly how Unlocked Phones work, and I have to admit, I don’t quite get it. I mean, I understand taking the SIM card out of one phone and putting it into another one, but what I don’t get is this. Let’s say I had done that, bought an Unlocked LG Rumor, taken the SIM card out of my old phone and put it in the Rumor. It would just keep working with my regular AT&T phone plane? AT&T would just keep billing me? Is it the SIM card that tells AT&T that the phone is in use and how many minutes are used, and all that? I don’t plan to buy an unlocked phone, but now I’m just determined to understand how it works! Anybody have one?

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I just sent my kids down to the elementary school in our neighborhood to play on the playground. Including the two and a half year old. Ryan, my oldest, who is 11, is so responsible, it’s not much different than if I had sent her down there with my husband.

And good gods did I need the peace and quiet.

They played Halo 3 with two of their friends on Xbox Live, and there was so much shouting and discussion of what they were doing and it just went on and on and on…

Finally after I actually HOLLERED at Nathan to get his attention, I informed them that video game time was over and they were going to go OUTSIDE and PLAY like the CHILDREN they are.

Sheesh. Anyone else remember getting on your bike right after breakfast, popping in quickly for lunch (usually with a friend in tow), then going back out until you heard your Mom or Dad yelling from the front porch to come in for dinner? And you had spent that whole time riding bikes, playing tag, building forts out of whatever you could find, and you were dirty and exhausted?

Man, those were the GOOD OLE DAYS, I tell you.

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Kermit Love-now if there was ever a name that belonged behind the scenes on Sesame Street, that would definitely be it. Although he swears that Jim Henson didn’t name his famous Muppet Kermit the Frog after him, Kermit Love did help Henson create costumes and puppets for Big Bird, Mr. Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster. Love even appeared on the show as Willy the hot dog vendor.

The first episode of Sesame Street premiered November 10, 1969, which means it has been on TV for my entire lifetime. Although episodes today are a little more modern than this, I found a YouTube video for the opening sequence from a show that aired in the 70s. See if this looks familiar:

One year into the run of Sesame Street, Big Bird puppeteer Carroll Spinney was worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep living in New York on the tiny salary he was earning from the show. Kermit Love advised him to give it one more month-the next month, Big Bird was on the cover of Time magazine and the show’s future was secure. Sesame Street went from a tiny Public TV show designed to teach preschoolers to read to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. The original series has been televised in 120 countries, and more than 30 international versions have been produced, not including dubbed versions. The series has received 109 Emmy Awards, more than any other television series.

The characters that Love helped create gave my generation characters that we think of as friends, and now our children are learning to read, spell, count, share, compromise, and explore the world around them by watching the show. Sesame Street is so fun to watch that kids don’t even realize they are learning!

Mr. Love, thank you for giving us an 8 foot tall bird with yellow feathers, his giant, brown, betrunked best friend, a green grouch in a can, and a blue monster who loves cookies. Rest in Peace.

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I may be spending a little too much time reading lolcats, maybe But I got assigned this task to talk about mailboxes, which got me thinking that I have never owned a “traditional” mailbox. I’ve lived in apartments with the banks of mailboxes set into the wall, then the first house we owned was built in 1928, and the mailbox was a metal flap covering a slot cut into the wall next to the front door, the mail dropped down onto the floor of our coat closet! We hated it the whole time we lived there.

The house we live in now was built in 1959, and we have a box attached to the wall next to the front door. If I want the mail carrier to pick up a letter, I have to set it in so that half of it is sticking out of the cover to the box, otherwise he doesn’t know it’s there. But then I started thinking about it, and I realized that no one in my entire neighborhood has the traditional mailbox at the end of their driveway! We all have mailboxes attached to our houses. Why? We don’t have a neighborhood association, so as far as I know it’s not a neighborhood rule, but I suppose the township itself might require it. The mail carrier still drives the same truck, but he parks it and then walks up one side of the street and down the other. Whatever happened to the mail carrier delivering the mail by pulling up to the mailbox in the truck? Maybe it’s a fitness thing, the walking is better exercise?

So now my curiosity is getting the better of me, and I want to know what you have. Do you have a traditional mailbox with a red flag at the end of your driveway? A box attached to the house? Or something else? Do you think we will ever get rid of paper mail entirely? OH, and don’t forget, if you live in a daylight savings time state, Sunday morning is when we SPRING FORWARD. Which means one less hour of sleep. Junk.

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My husband and I are really having some issues right now, and who knows how long it might be before we can take time to even go out on a date let alone take a romantic vacation. The last time we did, it was so long ago I can’t even remember what year it was, but he was working in Nashville, so I sent the boys to my MILs during Spring Break and spent a few days with him there.

We are hoping to take a family vacation this year, I doubt it will be very romantic but it will still be nice to get away. I’m lobbying for Orlando, because there are just so many things to do in Orlando-Epcot, Disney, etc. As always, I’ll be looking to my old faithful site Trusted Tours & Attractions for other suggestions of things we can do there, since my husband’s tolerance for theme parks is somewhat limited. Maybe we could take a boat cruise or find a cool museum or something. Even better, on their newsletter sign-up page, you can win a free digital camera just for signing up.

Check out Trusted Tours & Attractions if you are looking for vacation ideas. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and end up having a romantic vacation!

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