Cell phone providers are modern day vampires...

Seriously, why do they have to be the only carrier of the iPhone right now? I hate them. I didn't really hate them before, but I do now.

Why you ask? Well, I'll tell you. As I went to pay my bill online, a surprisingly large number popped up in the payment section. Since I pay a ridiculous amount of money to them every month anyway ($150 for 2 phones/550 min.), I was caught off guard when I saw that I owed $345...wha Wha WHAT?!

Here's my problem. Ok, we went over our minutes. I get that. But charging us 45¢/min is absolutely ludicrous, especially considering that when we switched plans (not carriers, just PLANS), we lost 9000+ rollover minutes. Yeah, that's minutes that I paid for and never used, just gone down the drain. So, that's why I'm pretty upset when they charge an insane fee for going over a small fraction of that. AT&T, I'm not amused.

There are a couple of things that have made me happy lately. First, I sold my camera: YAY! Can't wait to buy a new one, but right now I really needed a new work wardrobe. So I took some of that money and put it towards clothes. The greatest thing about this is that it was Jeremy's idea for me to go shopping for myself. How great is that? Absolutely LOVE that man. My friend, Kari, and I went out shopping on Wednesday. She was shopping for cute dress to wear to a wedding, so I tagged along. Thank goodness we didn't make it to the mall because I spent about $300 at Kohl's, Target, and the Dress Barn. Came out with some really great pieces though. Got 2 pairs of shoes, 5 pairs of pants, 8 shirts, necklace, and earrings. Not bad, I think. Simply cannot wait to do it again!

Jeremy's planning on selling some of his extra music equipment to give us some extra money to put towards some small renovations on the house and just to have a little cushion in the bank. If everything sells, it'll give us around $6,000 (part of which goes to a new camera?). So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Yet another thing that made me happy is a call I got from my new employer. They wanted to know what day I wanted to start. Turns out they want me to start on a Monday instead of the previous Thursday. This will give me a 5 day weekend in between switching jobs. LOVE IT!

We've also got some friends who might be coming into town. They're in Virginia right now and we're trying to make plans to meet up somewhere. More than likely they'll just spend the weekend with us. It'll be great because they're so flippin' funny! Our plans were foiled by the snow last time they were around, so hopefully everything will go smoothly this time. So excited!

Ugh...it has happened again. I get on here to write about one thing and I just start rambling on and on about an entirely different subject. Oh well. Maybe next time I can stay on topic ;)

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Etsy!

I bit the bullet and opened at Etsy shop! So excited :) Only have 3 items now, but here it is:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/cocoberrybaby

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It is so Monday...

I think that if I was somehow closed off from the rest of society and had no means by which to tell time or dates, I would still physiologically be able to recognize when it was Monday. Is there anyone who actually likes Mondays? If so, you're weird. Sorry, it has to be said. Go seek some counseling. Monday's are horrific. I've been staring at the clock for the past three hours, but it seems like it's been 12. Today probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad if I had something to do. Things are so bad that I actually thought proofreading would help pass the time. Now I don't even have that to do. Now that you understand my dilemma, don't judge me for blogging at work. Haha!

So, last night I was making every attempt possible to become a criminal. Well, sort of. I was "technically" making back up copies of movies that I own, just to figure out the process. I was almost successful too! To pull a line from the first Pirates movie, I could quite possibly be the worst pirate someone's ever seen. For some reason it skipped over the last chapter of the movie that I was copying and it went straight to the credits. But being the technical nerd that I am (or at least some people think me to be), I have no doubt that I will perfect the process in the next couple of days, hopefully without having to purchase any additional software.

Speaking of purchases that I really don't really want to make, I finally broke down and bought a new flash for my camera. In case I forgot to post about it previously, the built-in flash got destroyed when I knocked my tripod over with my camera mounted on top of it. I almost cried....seriously. I've been making due without a flash for a while now, but I have a couple of things coming up in the future that make this purchase necessary. So, here it is:

Nothing fancy...well, except for the price. This little thing cost $469. Eventually it will pay for itself, but right now that price hurts a little bit; mostly because I start thinking about how many new items of clothing I could buy with that $469. Jeremy was really funny when I was asking about whether or not I should spend that much on a new flash. He just replied with, "I have no idea what you're talking about, so just buy it if you need it. Just don't ask me because the moment you start talking about megabytes or pixels, I zone out."

Now I'm going to shoot off in a completely different direction. I have a little brother named Derek.

Cutie, right? One thing I like to do with Derek is take him to different places that he might not otherwise get to go to. For instance, I took him to see the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls when it came to Raleigh. We don't always get the chance to take a "bigger" trip like that though. But he loves to just be out somewhere with me, so I decided to take him to Greenville to do some shopping. We ended up just going to the mall because the weather was terrible. Unfortunately for him, the game room has closed down. That's the only thing he was really interested in doing. He's a sweetheart though and was content with just walking around with me while I did some shopping. While I was trying on clothes, he "pointed out" that I might not be as fit as I once was. I was wearing a tank top, which I thought looked pretty good, but apparently this is what he saw:

So, for those of you wondering what I'll be doing later, you can find me on the bowflex or the treadmill.

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Musings from Jeremy's Birthday Weekend

Just wanted to share the happenings of this past weekend. Jeremy's 29th birthday was yesterday and bless his heart, he had to work...again...lol. Not too long though. He did take off Thursday to celebrate however, which was wonderful. In between my shifts at work, I took him out to eat at El Norteno (LOVE LOVE LOVE El Nor!) and we did a little shopping. It was soooo nice to be out and about during the day with him. It was even better to see him get some time to himself. We both bought some video games (to feed our inner 12 year olds) and he bought some new jeans (which I picked out, they look great on him). His big birthday present to himself that he's been saving up for is a new Bowflex: 

You have no idea how excited this boy is over this thing

You too can own this lovely piece of machinery for the low low price of $1398.00. We have a budget set up where we each get a certain amount of money to spend on whatever we want each week and this is what he put his stash towards. And even though I've got my free membership to a gym, I'll probably end up using this thing more. 

Saturday, I finished up my marathon week at work and then did a little shopping for the hubby's b-day. I should note, men are impossible to shop for. I'm making a new rule that Jeremy has to compile a list of everything he could possibly want in every price bracket just so I have a reference point. I knew he wanted to get some new cookware though. We really want to get away from using Teflon so we're switching everything to either stainless steel or cast iron. This stuff is so expensive though. Soooooo, I went to one of my fav stores, TJ Maxx and did a little shopping:

This was my first purchase for him. It's a Wolfgang Puck brand chicken fryer. I think it was $24.99, but it normally retails for around $35.00 I think, so not too shabby ;)

I'm a little more proud of this one. Ignore the Partridges watermark on the front...lol. It's a Kuhn Rikon Switzerland casserole with lid. It's only a 1.5 quart pot, but the cheapest price I found online when looking for a pic was $85.00! But I got it for $14.99! Woohoo! Thanks TJ Maxx!

Also, for the past several months, we've been purchasing Propel fitness water packets. They are SO good! And the great thing about them is that they make you drink more water. Well, we've just been reusing water bottles that we had already. That was fine until someone had to go and tell me that these bottles eventually start breaking down and releasing plastic residue in your water. I'm no scientist, but it *seems* like drinking plastic residue wouldn't be good for you. Therefore, I also bought this: 

It's a stainless steel water bottle. They're reuseable, eco-friendly, and won't slowly kill you with plastic. Not bad, I think. I highly recommend buying one of this if you use a lot of water bottles. They come in a bunch of different colors. I got the blue one for Jeremy and the red for myself. Absolutely love it already! Can't use it with hot liquids, so it's not for you coffee drinkers out there. But I got this one for $4.99 and they're selling for $9.99 online right now, so they are well worth it!!

On a final note, Thursday I fell in love with a lady from Scotland. I'm sure everyone has heard of Susan Boyle by now, but I just wanted to mention her again. Last time I checked, the video on YouTube had hit 30 million hits and I account for at least 150 of those. And I cry EVERY time! She is a fantastic singer and I love the fact that she got up there and absolutely shocked EVERYONE! I'm actually watching it again right now and I still get chills. It's just amazing. Go, watch, now!

Susan's Britain's Got Talent Performance

I just love Simon's expression at 4:02 on the clip. It's fantastic.

Can't wait til she puts out a CD.

Especially after hearing this song from 10 years ago she did.

Cry Me A River

LOVE HER!!! She's just so adorable.

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