Cell Phone Distress

The screen on my cell phone went out last night. I'm assuming Chloe had a little something to do with it. I was laying on the couch last night, and she ever so kindly brought my phone to me. I don't know how she got a hold of it or how long she had it, but when she brought it to me, the screen was blank. It's been blank ever since. Right now I have it sitting in a bag of rice hoping that the rice can draw out the little bit of slobber moisture that may be keeping the screen from lighting up (I did some internet research and decided this was my best option). Here's my dilemma though. I have two lines with Cingular, which of course, is now AT&T. I haven't been happy with the coverage we get at our house. I used to constantly drop calls, but it hasn't been too bad lately. But I always have this strange noise in the background when I'm on the phone. It sounds exactly like a Sharpie marker on a poster board. Anyway, one of my lines is out of contract, but the other won't be out until June 08. I've been considering my options. This is what I've come up with:

1. Stay with AT&T
get free phone
sign 2 year contract
keep rollover minutes
try to get old phone fixed and send it to Miguel since his is on it's last leg

2. Switch my line to T-mobile, put Miguel on individual plan with AT&T until contract expires
have 2 bills instead of one
no rollover on my line
should cost about the same I'm paying now

I dunno... I can't decide. I'm just reluctant to sign a new contract with AT&T since I'm finally out of contract and I'm not too sure that I'm happy about them taking over Cingular. If anyone has any insight, please share. If you really like your cell phone carrier, let me know. And if you don't, let me know why. I would love any suggestions. One thing that upset me today was when I went into the AT&T store. I looked online, and if I ordered a new phone through their web-site, I could get several phones for free. I figured if I went to the store, I could find the same thing. WRONG. The best deal they could give me (which required signing a 2-year contract) was $169. That's ridiculous! I've bought phones from the store when they were Cingular, and they've always had free or near-free options. That's part of the reason why I'm a little nervous to stick around with AT&T. But then there's the allure of rollover minutes... help!

In other news, I'm trying one last time with a made from scratch cake. The reason I won't give this up is because I don't really like the texture of cakes from the box. I really want to find a good recipe. I remembered that my coconut cupcakes were really yummy, so I'm trying that recipe in double-layer cake form. I've been baking a lot lately. When I go to the grocery store, I never buy pre-made goodies. I have a serious sweet tooth, and it's a lot worse right now with the pregnancy. My logic is that I have to want something sweet bad enough to put forth the effort and time to bake it from scratch. Unfortunately, I've been craving sweets so bad lately that baking hasn't been much of a deterrent. In fact, it's kind of backfiring. Instead of getting a few cookies from the bakery, I end up making a huge batch at home and eating the entire thing, even though I have good intentions of sharing with the neighbors. I have no self control. I vividly remember sitting in the living room of our new home when I was 9 months pregnant with Chloe and eating ice cream directly out of the container. I ate A LOT of ice cream during my last month with her. Because of that, I haven't bought ice cream in the past 3 months or so. But it doesn't seem to matter because I'll just bake up something equally as sugar-filled and fattening. At least this time I'm working out.

I just frosted the cake and had a piece. It's delicious. Way to go me.

I sprinkled this entry with photos of Chloe that I took today. She pulled the little seat pad off the restaurant booth in the kitchen and was using it to push herself around the kitchen (it's the polka-dotted thing she's sitting next to). It's kind of hard to explain what she was doing, but I'll try. She placed her front hands on the cushion and then pushed herself around with her back legs. Needless to say, she thought it was a lot of fun. Too bad I didn't think to get some video of it.

And of course, we have a photo of Chloe in her Dora chair playing with tupperware. Does she have toys? Yes. Does she play with them? Rarely. Apparantly seat cushions and tupperware are more fun. After I bought the Dora chair, I didn't think she would use it because she wasn't very interested the first few days. But now it's a big hit. She sits in it every day. Last night she watched America's Funniest Videos for a good 10 minutes while sitting in her chair. She also found a binki today. I don't know where she found it, but she's making good use of it.

Well, I better wrap this up. Seriously, if anyone has cell phone advice, I could really use some! Thanks!