The Joyful Housewife

Last year, my older sister spent months learning about smart phones with the idea that we could get mom one to help with losing things and paper clutter, and that she and I would also get one so that we can help mom use it. We went with the Palm Centro for various reasons (namely, that it didn’t require the $35 a month data plan) and I’ve spent several hours over the phone guiding my mom through its many uses (as well as helping her move from a PC to her new MacBook). She is finally coming around to liking it - it is not the simplest phone to use - but it has great capabilities.

Last night on my way to bed, my phone slid off the couch into a tall glass of water! It was very surreal. I had felt something slide of the couch when I was getting up, and heard a strange noise, so I turned around to see my phone completely submerged in a tall, wide Collins glass full to the brim with water. I actually heard it go GLUG! GLUG! GLUG! before I got my brain to tell my hand to fish it out and begin frantically wiping it dry. I so badly wanted to take a picture for my blog (!) but I knew I had to hurry. I tore of the back and left the pieces lying out to dry. This morning I realized that I hadn’t removed the SIM card, but it seems to be okay, as I put it in my ancient, primitive, Cingular phone that I used up until I got this one.

Then today, when I finally got a hold of all my loved ones through Gmail and Facebook, I learned that the thing to do is to put it in a bowl of rice to draw out the moisture. I hope it works.

Picture via popularmechanics.com. Click on photo to learn how it works.

I would have taken a picture of my own phone, but I left my camera battery charger at mom’s house in California when I was there over Christmas and haven’t gotten it back yet. It’s always something.

I hope this works. I’ll let you all know.

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There you have it ladies and gents. I just took this quiz about whether or not I would make a good retro housewife and the results are not at all surprising!

You Would Make a Horrible 1930’s Wife

You are way too non conformist, independent, and sassy to be an ideal retro wife. You may be so wild that you aren’t even considering marriage! Good thing we don’t live in the 1930s anymore!

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The fun, feverish, hallucinatory, meditative part of my illness has quickly left me for a scratchy throated, crappy feeling, in which I am fully cognizant of every darn thing I should be doing, but am not right now. I desperately need to clean my house this weekend. 

And so - for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting them since my post yesterday - my candid, kitchen photos!!! Please, do click on them to see them in their fully enlarged splendor.

I think the photos speak for themselves. Now, my housework experiment: Will posting these pics make me more motivated to clean this mess up by Monday? I’ll post pics Sunday night to prove whether or not I clean this weekend. 

Cheers!

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This is the type of thing I don’t want to represent my life anymore.

Did you figure it out?

There is a smoke alarm sitting on my bookshelf with its battery removed. Did you know that smoke alarms don’t work without batteries? Also, isn’t it illegal or something to take down the smoke alarm in a rented home?

And what’s more - it took us like three days for us to address this problem. We live in a row house and the neighbor in the middle house caught me in the backyard before work to ask me if I had noticed a beeping sound “like every 15 seconds.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s probably our smoke alarm or something.”

“Yeah…I’ve been hearing it when I’m in this room working and it’s kind of distracting.”

“Oh, sure, sure. Well, my husband and I are home today so we’ll investigate this and get it solved.”

I followed the sound and within five minutes, found the offending smoke alarm - after three days. It was in the basement and echoed right up through the floor into my neighbors house.

So I quickly solved the problem. I removed the battery. And there it sits. It could sit there for a year before my husband and I either find a battery for it or go out and buy new ones.

This is the story of my life.

Well, not anymore. I’ll update you when we get the battery in and put it back up. Let’s see how many days it will take….

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