My blog comments are being over run by ads for Hermes bags. Does that kind of spamming ever really work.

I spent the day laying around with my son watching Psych and stitching.

It was the best kind of day.

He eats the other dog’s toe nail clippings.

He isn’t ashamed.  In fact he’s like an aggressive Hoover about it.

I’ll let you know if it goes up on the site.

A moment of silence for that please.

It was a heart wrenching moment for us both.

I don’t know when we went from having phones in the walls, to feeling anxious if I can’t text the babysitter as I’m returning from the Courthouse to make sure she picked up my kid from school.

Mine’s been doing funky stuff for awhile.  I’ve just been living with it.  It is old.  I have the original Galaxy S and I think they are now on permeation III.  But it worked.  Or it did right up until it started doing weird stuff.  Like the alarm stopped working.  It wouldn’t let me down-load any apps and wouldn’t update any apps that I did have.  It rang only when it decided it wanted to.  It didn’t regularly notify me of text messages.  It would lose text messages.

I talked to AT&T about it.  They said, “you have a really old SIM card.  Why don’t you come in and get a new SIM card.”  So I did.  But I couldn’t tell that made any kind of difference.

I called AT&T again.  Not soon after I got the SIM card because calling AT&T is an all afternoon affair, what with the being transferred from one person to another who couldn’t help me.  Finally, someone at AT&T had the grand idea to transfer me to someone at Samsung.

They weren’t much more helpful.  They said, “you need to down-load the Kies software to your computer and update the software on your phone.”  But because it is a time consuming process, they don’t want to wait on the telephone while I do those things.  And I had to stop in the middle and make dinner or some other bothersome every day occurrence that was more important than making my phone work.  So it took me awhile to get that done.  None of the drivers would install.

So several weeks later when I had some time, I called Samsung again.  Having gotten their direct number when I talked to them the first time.  They told me that what I needed to do was completely uninstall the Kies software and download the Kies-Mini Software.  But again they didn’t want to wait on the telephone while I did it and with one thing or another it took a few days to get that done.

The Kies-Mini didn’t work either.

So I called Samsung again.  Now every time I talked to Samsung they gave me the same song and dance about how if I sent the phone to them it would be two-to-three weeks for them to work on my phone and get it back to me.  They almost made it sound like a threat.  And I said, “I can’t do that!  I use it for work.  I need to be in contact.”  And I could almost hear them smiling while they said, ”well take it to the AT&T store and see if they have the equipment to Flash it.”  Sort of “haha, sucker, you are not gonna be our problem!”

So I went back to the AT&T store where they said, very nicely I might add, “I don’t know why Samsung told you that, we don’t have the ability to Flash your phone.  It takes a special piece of equipment we don’t have.  But we’d be glad to sell you a new Galaxy S III for $199 and a two year extension on your contract with us.”

But you see (besides not wanting to spend $199 on a new telephone right now) I plan to break up with AT&T.  I tell them this every time we talk.  I have a pre-teen boy.  Soon he is going to turn into a real teenaged boy who (as opposed to the one who rolls his eyes into the back of his skull at me for breathing too loud and one minute wants me to stay with him while he goes to sleep and the next minute is telling me to stop treating him like a baby for telling him not to open the car door before I get the car stopped in the carpool line)  is going to want an unlimited data plan.

AT&T doesn’t offer any unlimited data plans.  So when everyone on our plan is out of contract we are breaking up.  I’ve got another 11 months to go before everyone is out of contract and we can move to one of the other companies that offer unlimited data plans for about what we pay now for our limited data plans.

AT&T doesn’t seem to care.  They tout the ”shared data” plans they have now.   But they charge by the device and it was going to cost us more than what we are paying now and we’d all have to share the data.

So I called Samsung back and told them I was sending the phone back to them.  They were defeated but very efficient about it; sent me instructions and RMA numbers, and a UPS shipping label and instructions on packing my phone.  So I boxed it up.  Kissed it good-by and returned it to Samsung.

Now I’m carrying this piece of junk Pantech my son was using.  I’ve cancelled my smart-phone internet access and instead turned on the $10 a month internet acces this one has.

And I’m counting down the days until my precious Samsung is returned to me.

Kristen Johnston is Sally.  Sally wore high waisted pants.  I miss those times.  Sally was smoking hot in that show.  Even in her high waisted paints.  (I think toward the end of the show. fashion had made a turn and low waisted pants were back in.)

Have you tried to buy a pair of pants these days.  That makes me long for the mid-ninties and Sally from 3rd Rock.  I am a middle aged woman.  An over-weight middle aged woman.  NO ONE wants to see my belly.  But pant manufacturers don’t seem to understand this.  Because it is almost impossible to buy pants that come as high as my natural waist. It’s even hard to find pants that cover my belly button.  And while there are women for whom that is a good look, I am, honestly not one of them.

I didn’t stay up late last night to watch the election results.  I really didn’t watch much at all last night.   I won’t say I didn’t care, but my energy levels are still low from my Shingles, and it seemed like it took a lot of effort to follow the election results so I did other stuff.

One good thing about my illness (can there really be anything good about having the shingles?)  I’ve begun to stitch again.

I’d stopped when I was running and exercising so much because I didn’t have the time or energy for it.

Now  I’ve got my bag out with my stitching and some of my stitching books and have been working on Christmas ornaments.  They are for 2011 mind you, but I’m almost finished with them.  Then I’ll start on 2012 which are much simplier designs that shouldn’t take much time at all.   They won’t be finished in time for THIS  Christmas, but it gives me something to do and feel productive.

It has inspired me and I’ve already begun thinking and looking at what I might do for ornaments for next year.  I’m thinking about Penguins for next year.  Don’t penguins just say Christmas?

I remember, as a child, going to the polling booths with my parents.  It was exciting to stand behind the curtains, click the clicker-thingy and then pull the lever.  Now they’ve gone to paper ballots, fill in the squares and shove the ballot into the box which reads it electronically.   Probably worlds more efficient, but not near as fun.

I took with me my needlepoint and my Kindle so I’d have stuff to do while I waited.

Once I went to vote and stood in line with my Father for hours while we talked and waited to vote.  Once I went and they had chairs lined up in a row and would move people from row to row as others voted.

Today I walked in, showed them my driver’s license, got my ballot and voted.  Pretty anti-climactic.

But I did it!  And you should to!

Tomorrow, however, is election day.

Go vote.

I don’t really care who you vote for, just that you actually do vote.

This is the greatest country in the world and everyone needs to exercise their rights.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

We arrived, waited for the judge a few minutes, got our Scheduling Order and were out the door.

My Son’s assessment of what I do, “We drove all this way for that ONE piece of paper?!?”

Yes, Son, that about sums up what I do.

On the first day, my son said, “no, I’ll go to school.”  I was a little surprised, because when I was his age and if my parents had offered me the opportunity to not go to school, I’d have been all over that.  At the end of the day I asked him how the day went.  He said, “fine.”  His standard response.

On the next day, when I said something to him about it, he shruged his shoulders and said, “I think I’d rather go with you today.”  I didn’t question him, or ask why.  But we had a good day together.

On Friday, there wasn’t even any question about him going to school.  I inquired whether something happened at school on Wednesday.  He  finally summed it up by saying, “no, it was just kind of boring.”  Puzzled, I said, “really?”  And he said, “Yeah, Mrs. Jones makes me work more than the substitute does, so it wasn’t very interesting.”

I had to text the teacher with that, so she’d know that all her hard work and efforts weren’t going for naught.

I’ve got video and pictures to post.  And all I can really say was it was AWESOME!

However, shortly after I took that trip down the Sandridge Building, I got Shingles.

And let me tell you, Shingles are as bad, if not worse, than everything you’ve ever heard about them.  It is painful, energy zapping and did I say painful?

I’ve managed to work some, but David has had to take up pretty much all the slack at home.  I’ve not been running, or exercising or even had the energy to take the dog for a walk.  And she needs it almost as much as I do.

I think I’m on the mend.  I’m down to just taking Motrin now for the pain.  I’m hoping it will go away soon.

I’ve got photos and video to post about my adventures on the Sandridge Building but it will have to wait until my energy levels rise.

And if you can take the vaccine I’d strongly recommend you do so!