*hey there, it's christa*

My Poor, Neglected Little Blog...

I'm listening to French music as I write tonight and am mourning the fact that it's already May 10, and my poor, neglected little blog hasn't gotten any love yet this month.

In my defense, it's been a rather eventful past week, and not in the way that you necessarily want a week to be eventful.

As all my family and Facebook peeps already know, I got a rather unwelcome surprise when I wrapped up my workout last Wednesday. When reaching for my phone like I always do to see if I missed any calls or e-mails while I was sweating away, it was gone. And then after glancing in the backseat to see whether it was accidentally dropped back there, I discovered that my back rear window was smashed, and along with my phone, they ran off with my purse, wallet, sunglasses, lip gloss, you know life's basic essentials.

Naturally, I'm incredibly thankful that I wasn't carjacked or held at gunpoint while they ran off with my valuables. But undoing all they did, especially since they went on a little gas-buying spree with our debit and credit card, took a while. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm now familiar with the entire soft rock canon since that's what hold music tends to consist of.

It's weird how much we've come to rely on technology. I almost felt like my lost phone was a phantom limb or something since I kept reaching for it when it wasn't there. And now that I've replaced my beloved mobile with its younger, hipper sister, all suddenly feels right in the world again. Sad, I know...

On a totally unrelated note, one thing a phone, smart or otherwise, can't do is make your arms long enough to hang black-out curtains in your bedroom. I'm pretty sure I could've won a "funniest home video" contest in my hour-long attempt to hang the silly thing. Let's just say I'm not a DIY girl like my pal Wendy Lee. I'm guessing she could've hung the darn thing in five minutes flat and probably even has her own ladder to make the job easier.

But I am pleased to report that after a long, sweaty battle with the curtain that I finally emerged victorious. While it's not going to score any big points in the style department (I need to procure slightly longer panels next time around), it's definitely darker in our room, so hurrah for that!

It really is the small things in life that matter, right?

Happy (almost) weekend all!

:) Christa

Yep, There's an Ap for That...

As positively seductive as those commercials always are for the latest Smartphone, I always promised myself I'd never become one of them...you know those crazy-annoying, I've-always-gotta-be-checking-my-phone-or-the-world-will-surely-fall-apart people.

In fact, while practically everyone else on the planet was plunking down their hard-earned cash for his/her Blackberries, Droids and iPhones, I owned the trifecta of embarrassingly bad phones, namely a junky Motorola flip phone, an even junkier Motorola phone that didn't flip at all and the worst of the bunch—a sad, little silver Nokia with absolutely no bells and whistles and graphics shamelessly borrowed from the era of heavily sprayed bangs and hair bands. Yeah, there's pretty much nothing more uncool that an ap-less phone that only makes and receives calls and plays a demo (yes, not even the full game) of Ms. Pac Man.

Of course, there's always a reason a phone only costs $30.00 with a contract upgrade, and I was definitely getting what I paid for. So after the aforementioned Nokia began its quick, inevitable demise and dropped calls like nobody's business just like all those Motorolas before it, I decided to kick my pride to the curb and get a proper phone the next time around. Cue a trip to AT&T for...

As a lover of all things Apple, I opted against my original choice of a Blackberry (the hubs has one, and it didn't really rock his world either) and went straight for the iPhone. And I gotta say I absolutely love the darn thing. But then again, it's hard to hate something that's pink and this useful.

I mean it's practically MacGyver and literally does, well, everything short of making dinner and doing my writing assignments for me. It's a pedometer. It checks the prices of things I like at Target. It's my airport boarding pass. A flashlight. A mirror for checking my makeup and making sure there's no pesto in my teeth. A cookbook. My daily weather report. A way to find the closest Starbucks when I'm roadtripping. The only way I'll get to read the New York Times on a regular basis. And yes, I use it to update Facebook, Twitter and play Scrabble, Uno, Skee Ball and Family Feud, too.

Basically, I've been happy as a clam, and I still make sure it's switched off whenever I'm at the movies...a world where technology and good manners still collide, perhaps?