Me? Impulsive? Maybe Just A Little

I've never really been an impulsive person.

It's just not me. I am so far from being impulsive, I almost have to look up the definition in the dictionary. Most of the things I do are mostly well thought-out and I rarely regret doing what I do...until today. Today was the day I actually acted upon an impulse, and now I'm seriously feeling quite a bit remorseful. It's not completely my fault, though. I blame my phone.

I have been having serious problems with my phone lately, and I have had enough. Over the past few months I've been experiencing more and more issues with my phone which has resulted in a growing aggravation with the phone itself. You name the problem, I've experienced it.

Here's a list of reasons why I acted impulsively today: (which I will share shortly what I did)

1. My phone rarely rings when someone is calling me. Yeah, I know. It's a phone; it's supposed to ring, right? Wrong. Not my phone. Everyone else gets a phone that rings, so why can't I have one too? Is that too much to ask? I think not! Don't even think of suggesting that I check to see if I have my phone set up to ring when someone is calling, I have checked numerous times!
2. While having an instant message conversation with someone, my phone will exit the screen and not allow me to return to my conversation. When I am finally able to return to my conversation, my phone refuses to allow me the privilege of continuing my conversation which results in a one-way conversation. It gets very upsetting to those who are trying to talk to me. They then get so frustrated that I do not respond to their texts, so then they call me. See problem #1.
3. My phone freezes up several times a day. Yes, I get that stupid hourglass thing that just continues to rotate without solving my problem.
4. Because my phone freezes up so often, I end up having to remove my battery countless times a day! That should not be happening, PEOPLE!
5. I have the privilege of receiving e-mails to my phone. Sounds nice, right? Not when the ONLY e-mails I get are JUNK e-mails! All the people on my safe list do not get forwarded to my phone, but all those who are in my junk box get forwarded to my phone! SO FRUSTRATING!!!

Over the past several days, weeks, months, whenever it was that I started having these serious issues, I have been seriously tempted to just run over my phone with my car. Being the rational person that I am, I stop myself before I get too far with that idea and realize that doing so would produce a much grater problem than necessary. Today, however, I gave in to that impulse and did something really stupid.

By the time it was 11:00 this morning, I had already missed at least three phone calls because my phone didn't ring (see problem #1). I was already beyond the point of getting annoyed. While driving home from an outing with my girls, I received a text from my sister (see problem #2) and was starting to get even more aggravated. As you can see, my frustration and lack of compliance from my phone had escalated this situation past reconciliation. I finally gave into my impulse and I threw my phone.

I didn't think it would be that big of a deal until I realized that I could no longer see where my phone went. You see, I threw my phone towards the passenger seat by the floor. My phone bounced a time or two and suddenly disappeared. I think it went up around the wires or behind some of the plastic covering that is stuck to the door or something. My only problem is that I can call my phone to see where it is, but again, it doesn't ring. I gave in to my sudden impulse and it didn't pay off one little bit. I don't feel the slightest bit satisfied with my decision. Here I have created a bigger problem than the one I had before.

"Just get a new phone," you might say. Yeah, that is easier said than done. I have already tried that avenue a long time ago. They don't seem to care that my phone doesn't do what a phone is supposed to do. I don't understand how I am expected to deal with the phone I now have and to suffer with it for much longer! Either way I go, I am getting robbed! I have been told that I can either upgrade my phone and pay about $300 for a better phone than the useless piece of plastic I now have, or I can wait until my early upgrade date.

This sucks.

Audrey's Turn For Curiousity

I was upstairs on the computer yesterday with Jason researching information for our upcoming family camping trip.

After a few minutes being upstairs, Meghan informed me and Jason of something that had occurred that needed our attention. I quickly ran downstairs to find this:

Audrey had found some scissors that were left on the table and cut her hair. I was definitely less than pleased, but what do you expect? Thankfully she just cut some hair in the front that didn't look TOO horrible and not some hair near the top or the back of her head. The funny thing is that I can't exactly pull more hair from the top to hide it and make it look like she has bangs. Then she would be the only 2-year-old I know with a comb-over. I had a feeling it was going to happen eventually with one of my girls. I just didn't think it would be now. Oh well. At least it will grow back.

The Curiousity Of A 4-Year-Old

A couple weeks ago we had quite an adventure.

I went to pick up the girls at daycare the other day only to find Meghan in tears when I got there. Her teacher was quick to point out that Meghan's curiosity got the best of her when she ended up getting a little pebble stuck in her ear. Great. Just what I needed. Didn't she learn her lesson this summer when she stuck a bead up her nose??? Not only did she stick the bead up her nose, but we were on vacation at Lake Tahoe!!! Thankfully, with a few nose blows, she was able to get the bead out, but seriously! What is it about little kids and finding strange body openings to stick obscure objects in?

I look in Meghan's ear, and yup. There it was. A nicely shaped square rock that had wedged itself nicely right in Meghan's ear. I had always heard that it isn't always the best idea to stick anything in your ear. Not even a "Q-tip". I called the doctor's office, and just my luck; they just closed the office for the day. Jason was out donating plasma (a nice $30 twice a week), and he isn't able to answer his phone while donating. I call my mom to ask her what to do. I get her on the phone and explain the situation to her, and her response was somewhat surprising, yet quite predictable. "Just use the vacuum hose," she said. Oh my goodness!

This comes from her experience from over 20 years ago when my younger sister got a little people stuck in her forehead from a wipe out on the driveway. My sister would not let my mom use tweezers to get the pebble out, so after a few days of struggling and some beginnings of puss, my mom finally decided that it was time for that rock to come out and the vacuum hose was going to make that happen. Sure enough, the rock popped out with very little effort or pain, so obviously, my mom thought it was a simple answer to use the vacuum hose to get the rock out of Meghan's ear.

The only problem I had with this solution is that I had heard stories that you could even blow out someone's ear drum just by giving them a peck on the ear. Just a little amount of suction can cause some serious damage. I know not everyone loses hearing from a ruptured ear drum, but that is something I didn't exactly want to risk given my sister's profound hearing loss. I would blame myself forever if something like that happened because of some poor decision I had made.


I eventually decided to take Meghan to Urgent Care to get the pesky rock removed. After A LOT of tears and persistence (the rock was the one being persistent), the rock finally came out. The next question from the doctor shocked me almost just as much as what my mom said earlier. "Do you want to keep the rock?" the doctor said. What??? Why would I want to keep something like that? I want to keep any sort of temptation like that as far away from my girls as I can! I did end up taking the rock home, but only for the purpose of my blog. How crazy is that?
I think I'm going to go throw this rock away now.

Adventure At 6 O'Clock In The Morning

I look forward to Mondays these days.

Part of the reason why I like teaching at my school so much is because I am off on Mondays. I take that time for myself. These days are mostly consumed with piles of papers to grade and planning for the next week's lessons. I also like Mondays because I can sleep in past 4:30 which is my usual wake up time during the week.

This morning started like any other. Jason woke up early (before his alarm clock) and started getting ready for work. He is also known for taking long walks in the mornings before he leaves for work.

I was woken up around 6:15 this morning because the phone was ringing. You know how it is, you are woken from a deep sleep because of a somewhat familiar sound. I was definitely disoriented, and was unable to get to the phone before it stopped ringing. I looked at the Caller ID and was puzzled as to why there would be an 800 number calling me this early in the morning. How strange. I proceeded to go back to bed.

Laying in bed and unable to go back to sleep, I started to think about what my day was going to be like. Suddenly, I heard my front door slam open, and I heard, "POLICE!" WHAT??? Is this really happening? In MY house? Did I really hear what I thought I heard? I raced down the stairs to find a flashlight beaming up my stairs and a police officer standing in the doorway.

"We're here ma'am because we got a call from your alarm company that your front door has been breached, so we came right away."

"Oh my goodness!" I explained to them that it must have been Jason who was leaving to go on his morning walk. Just then I see Jason running down the street towards us. The concern on his face was very evident as he caught the sight of three police cars sitting in front of our house.

We explain to the officers that Jason must have set off the alarm when he went through the front door this morning for his walk. We don't really set the alarm every night, but mainly when we remember. I didn't hear the alarm from all the way upstairs, and I didn't get the phone, so the next step was for the alarm company to call the police.

I felt so bad that the police had to be called so early in the morning for a stupid mistake, but I am thankful that it worked. Since we got our alarm system put in a couple years ago, I have been thankful for that added sense of security, but have always been wondering if it actually works. Well, now I know.

I thanked them as they left and definitely appologized for their waste of time. As they were leaving, one of the officers looked at Jason and said, "We need you to come with us so we can settle things. Why don't you sit in the back of my car, and we can give you some nice silver bracelets too!" He joked. It's funny how they can be so serious one moment, and the next minute they start joking around! We laughed and were very thankful that this was all just a silly mistake.

What makes this even funnier is that the girls slept through this whole incident! They had no idea that just moments before they woke up, there were three police squad cars sitting outside our house with officers prepared to deal with an unwanted intruder!

Whew! What a morning! I appreciate the time the officers took to make sure we were safe, but I hope I won't need their help like that again!