Call Us

I think I mentioned that Beth is gone for the week. She went "Up North" with a friend. Our cell phone plan does not extend that far north. If she took one of our phones, which, at this time, would be mine, she may not even get a signal. If she did get a signal, every minute she used would be roaming, and that can cost plenty of money. So, we didn't send a phone with her. There is a land line in the cabin, and she was supposed to call Tuesday night when they got up there so we would have the number - just in case we would need to get in touch with her. She didn't call, until 6pm today, Thursday. All right, maybe she forgot. Then again, maybe it was a long distance call and she felt funny using their phone. Here is where a good online phone card would have come in handy. By using the phone card, she could have known that she (well, we) would be paying for the phone call. She could dial the access number and PIN and the minutes would be charged to the account. The rates are good, too - as low as 1.8¢ per minute. Pingo will even give us $5 in calls just for signing up - that can be up to 4 hours of international calls, because even the international rates are good. Not that we need international calling, but you never know.

Using Pingo sounds really simple, and we wouldn't even have to send an actual card along with Beth. All she'd need is the toll-free access number (so it wouldn't cost anything to call from any phone) and the PIN. I think it is a good idea for next time. The thing is, with this kind of call access, she'd be calling the boyfriend instead of calling us!

For more free call credit, users can create their own Usermercial, too.

This post sponsored by Pingo

She's Gone

Beth ran off and left us. She's going 'Up North' with Kayla and her family to play on the lake and go 4-wheeling in the mud and stuff like that. She won't be back until Sunday sometime. It's probably good for Kayla's family that the kids get to take a friend. They probably get less of the whining about being bored and such. How they could actually get bored, I don't know. It sounds like there is plenty to do, but I don't know if they have Internet at that cabin 'Up North' - and you know how important the Internet is to teenagers. Look who's talking. The Internet is pretty important to me, too.

Having Beth gone ought to save us some $$$, though. She's been running all over the place. Now that she can drive, she thinks that she should be able to go places all the time. Last week she wanted to see a movie with a friend, and we charged them money for gas. But, she has been running over to pick up the boyfriend multiple times. He's staying with a friend right now, and I had her check to see how many miles it was last night - she had to see him since she's going to be gone all week - and she said it was 10 miles. So, figure 10 miles there and 10 miles back, twice, since she picks him up, brings him here, and then takes him home after. That's 40 miles total and uses about 2 gallons of gas - that's $6! That girl had better get a job quick! She did have an interview at Culver's last week, so she's waiting to hear from them. Also, she's supposed to work a couple of weeks at the pizza place in Palmyra while her friend Alli is gone on vacation, covering her job. She had to go in for a couple of hours on Sunday to get trained there.

Besides just paying for gas and stuff she wants and wants to do, it will be good for her to have a job. She just doesn't seem to have anything else going in her life. The only thing she seems to care about is 'hanging out' with her friends. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is worth putting any effort into. It's really frustrating. Hopefully the incentive of being paid will at least give her a reason to do something. Also, it will keep her busy so she doesn't have so much time to just do nothing and complain about how there's nothing to do around here. Though, when I offer her things to do, she doesn't want to do that.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Disclosure Policy

Disclosure Policy
This policy is valid from July 1, 2007 (and updated 12/01/09)


This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I do accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions, free samples in exchange for my opinion, or other forms of compensation.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. I believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog, but the opinion will always be mine. If I don't like something, I will let you know or simply not talk about it - and definitely not recommend it.

I am compensated, and willing to be compensated, to provide my opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though I may receive compensation for my posts or advertisements, I always give my honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog may contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified. I mark all my paid posts, whether just a link or a full review, with the month and year, (01/09, 02/09, etc.) I started doing that because Google was penalizing bloggers for accepting paid posts and being up front about it. Since then, they have completely taken my PageRank anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter any more, but it also gives me a good way to keep track of all paid posts each month. If you have a question about whether or not I have been paid to write about something, please ASK.


To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Doing Business

When planning to do business with a particular company, wouldn't it be nice to know more about them before you establish a long-term relationship? Over at masterseek you can search for all manner of information on more than 45 million companies in 75 countries. You can get information such as company profiles, contact information, and descriptions of products and services. This could be particularly helpful if you're thinking of investing in a company, or even if you're thinking of buying some of their products. It is Masterseek's mission to become the preferred company search engine for finding new suppliers or potential customers or to monitor and analyze that investment potential.

Grrrr

It's the whole sense of entitlement thing that bugs me. I could blame it on being a teenager, but Beth has acted this way since she was little. If she wants to do something, she just does it. She doesn't think she should have to ask for permission. If she wants something, she just takes it. Later I find things missing. When she gets in trouble, she just acts like it's no big deal. She should be able to do anything she wants and have anything she wants, and she should never have to ask for anything. I'm always having to take my cell phone away from her, because she's decided it's some kind of toy, or it belongs to her or something. Today she's got friends in her room and I notice the phone's missing. They've got it in her room, making prank calls or some other nonsense. Excuse me - you're home. Use the house phone! Yes, we have plenty of cell phone minutes, but why waste them when we've also got unlimited calling on our home phone? And, besides that - it's my phone. She shouldn't just take it without asking.

I get tired of feeling like I have to hide everything in my own house.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Sad Thing

The sad thing about Beth's grades? She could do so much better. So much of it is just laziness and not turning assignments in on time or at all. Her teachers know she is capable of so much more, and so they expect it from her. She just doesn't care enough to put any effort in - even for driving privileges, it seems. We thought we had finally found something that was important enough that she would be willing to put forth the effort. Guess not.

She Needs a B Average

Report cards came today. It looks like Beth's driving privileges are at an end. First she wasn't going to get her driver's license unless she got a B average. Her dad told her that at the beginning of 2nd semester last year, when she wanted to take driver's ed. - the classroom portion. She got to take the class. She didn't put much effort into the rest of her classes and had nowhere near the B average. Still, she took the driving portion of the class during the summer. She's a good driver, no problems with that. Still, no license without the grades because, once she gets the license, we have to pay insurance. With the B average, we get the 'good student discount' and save at least 1/3 of the cost. Needless to say, Beth did not get her driver's license on her birthday in September.

She did put more effort into her classes this year in school. Still, no B average. Finally, it was getting close to March when she would need to either get her license or renew her permit if she wanted to keep driving at least with us. She said she was close to the B average. The progress report didn't look too bad, so her dad let her get her license. Come report card time, no B average. All right. That was just the quarter grade, so she was told that she needed to work hard and get those grades up so her semester grade would make it to the B average. Well, she didn't do it. We've given her more than enough leeway in this, and she just isn't getting it. So, driving privileges need to be suspended - except for the times when we need her to drive or to drive to work when she gets a job. She needs that job now - so she can pay for the insurance.

School's Out for the Summer

Cory's last day was yesterday. He was only required to take 4 of his exams, and one of those was Jazz Band, which he took last Thursday. The other 3 were all yesterday, so that was his only day this week. Beth only had 3 exams she had to take, but hers were spread out - one each day, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So, when she got home today, she was all done - done being a sophomore. Next year she'll be a junior. Only two more years of high school. Wow. I remember when she started kindergarten, just yesterday.

It was good that Cory only had one day of exams. Otherwise he would only have gotten two days off (plus the weekend) before summer school starts. This way he got practically a whole week off. I don't know what he's doing with his time off, but it's nice to have some. I think tomorrow we might go to the lake and go swimming. Other than that, what should we do for summer? Better start thinking of some fun stuff.

Cory the Sax man

Cory the Sax man
Originally uploaded by bcmom.

The awards concert for both Jazz and Symphonic band was held May 22. I finally got one picture uploaded - though I took several. Jazz Band is nice because the saxophones are in the front row, so I can see Cory really well. For the symphonic band concert, I couldn't see him at all since he was back a couple of rows and behind people and music stands. The concert was really good. Our bands sound amazing! Every time I go to these concerts I find myself wishing I had stayed in band - but our band teacher wasn't nearly as much fun as Cory's band teacher. She's awesome, and makes band a good experience for the kids.

Cory got some awards at the concert. One for doing solos in Jazz Band, some for Solo & Ensemble, and he got his letter. So now his dad is thinking he's going to need a letter jacket. We'll have to see about that. Cory does need a new winter coat.

Another thing - the boy was getting shaggy, wasn't he? He has gotten a haircut since this. One of these days, I will get those pictures uploaded too.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I spent all day at school selecting artwork for the calendar. We wanted to get out of there by 12:30, but who were were kidding? That's never going to happen. We ended up leaving the school about 4, but we pretty much have the artwork and writing samples paired up, so that's good. After leaving the school, I stopped by the library to return a book and pick up a pile of them. I also got a couple of movies - Happy Feet and Much Ado About Nothing. I love getting movies at the library. It doesn't cost anything, and we get to keep them for a whole week.

Yesterday, Cory spent the day at Noah's Ark with the band. It's a traditional end-of-the-year band thing. Only the kids who practice a certain amount of minutes or who attend a certain number of lessons with the band teacher get to go. Cory got to go last year and again this year, and had a very good time. Both years they have been lucky enough to get a nice day. It seems like kind of a gamble this time of year in Wisconsin, but it has worked out. I guess yesterday it started to rain about the time they were scheduled to leave the park, so that didn't hurt anything. Then it rained on them as they drove home on the bus and was pouring when they got back to school - so, as soon as they stepped off the bus, they got soaked. So much for drying off and changing before leaving the park! Since Beth drives now, we sent her to pick Cory and Erich up, so she's the one who got to drive in the rain. Good thing we know she's driven in all kinds of conditions.

Yesterday, Beth's boyfriend broke up with her. He decided he still likes his last girlfriend. She broke up with her new boyfriend, too - so they can get back together. It's not like they were broken up all that long, maybe longer than they were actually together. I think Beth and this boy were 'official' for a whole two weeks. I think that passes as a serious relationship in teenagerland. But now it's over. Last night, her friend Ryan (the one she went to prom with) called and she talked to him for a long time. Today, he came over for a while. I guess if it's not one boy, it's another.