Where is the willpower?

I have none so it's no wonder I can't find it anywhere! In the past few weeks, I've added a couple of pounds onto a frame that already needed to lose weight. Stomping and throwing a temper tantrum won't get rid of it (if I stomp and tantrum for an hour, I wonder how many calories I'd burn?).

There are lots of appetite suppressants available, like Phentermine. My appetite isn't my problem though. My problem is that I don't eat enough, making my body hold onto every calorie it takes in, and I don't exercise. If I would exercise, it would jump-start my sluggish metabolism and start the fat burning.

I always think I will walk every morning after the kids get to school, but something else always needs to be done. I figured I would do sit-ups a few times each day but that only happened once.

You know, if I spent as much time exercising as I do dreading how I look, I'd probably lose a few pounds. Lazy. That's what I am.

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Don't Buy Palm

We bought two brand new Palm smartphones on our cell plan, one for me and one for my husband around March of this year. I have the Treo and my husband has the Centro. They have been problems for months.

Let's take my husband's Treo...

Last month, it stopped working entirely. It was stuck on the Palm logo page and that was all it would do. Couldn't phone anybody, couldn't text, couldn't get into the schedule - nothing! I went through with Sprint and Palm all the soft and hard resets that you have to try first. It didn't work.

Then they want you to do one of two things:

1. They will send you another phone out with a $300 hold on one of your credit cards (it would've been our bank card which means they'd hold $300 of our checking account money) until they receive the broken phone back; or
2. Send your phone in, they promise to fix it within 5-7 days of receiving it and will send it back to you.

We went with option #2 because who the heck has an extra $300 to give a company to hold onto for who the heck knows how long when you are supporting six kids? We sent them the phone according to their instructions and waited. And waited. And waited.

I called them because it'd been longer than the 5-7 days they'd claimed. They apologized and said they'd take care of it within 24-48 hours and send the phone back to us. We finally got the phone back to find that they didn't fix the one we had sent them. They sent us a refurbished phone back. We bought a brand new phone from them a few months ago and they send us back somebody else's repaired phone? Hm.

So, it should be all good now right? WRONG! The dang phone they sent us didn't work. We could barely hear who was talking...seems the ear piece was bad. So they sent us a bad phone after waiting weeks for them to fix the phone to begin with! Nice.

*sigh*

So I call them back and they'll fix the phone. They think they are being considerate in agreeing to waive the $25 fee to fix this phone. Huh? They sent us a broken phone so why the heck should I pay them to to fix it or be grateful to them for waiving that fee?

THEN....wait for this...

They want us to send that phone back into them and wait weeks to have this one fixed or replaced. Again? Do they not realize that we bought a new phone from them just a few months ago, that we'd waited weeks already for them to fix it, and they sent us back a bad phone? I tell them that isn't agreeable, for us to be inconvenienced for their mistake.

They tell me that they will send us another phone but will have to hold $300 of our money until we get the phone from them and then send ours back to them. What? This is THEIR mistake remember? I am livid at this point and ask to talk to a supervisor.

I get the supervisor who won't budge so they send me to corporate. They won't budge either. Why should I let them hold $300 of my own money for THEIR mistake? I basically tell them where they can put their Palm phones. They keep their patronizing tone on the phone with me while I hear some man laughing his backside off in the background at Palm. GREAT customer service!

I will NEVER buy a Palm phone from them again. Never. It'll be a cold day and pigs will fly before that happens. They have horrible customer service - sending us a bad phone and then refusing to fix it without totally inconveniencing us. What kind of customer service is that?

BUYER BEWARE! Their customer service was terrible to deal with and their products break down. After this happened, I went online and it seems like this "freezing up" like my husband's phone did is a big problem with the Palm phones. You'd think they'd have a better customer service response than the one they had with me.

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Internet & Children

We bought my father-in-law a new computer system with a faster processor and better hard drive. They are coming to visit soon and will be bringing their old system with them for my oldest daughter for school work.

She can't wait to have a computer again. She would like to have the Internet on it but I am against a child having Internet access in their bedrooms where they can't be monitored closely. I've heard there is a browser program that you can pay for monthly or annually that is totally parent controlled. However even at that, I still don't feel right about a child having Internet access in their bedrooms. Do you allow your child unmonitored Internet access?

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Acetaminophen (Tylenol) Causing Asthma?

Is the Acetaminophen (Tylenol) you give to your infant putting them more at risk to develop asthma a few years down the road? According to one study, it just might. Studying 205,487 children from 31 countries around the world seemed to point towards this.

Knowing how often pediatricians have recommended Tylenol for illnesses or before vaccinations, these are seriously scary results. Is Ibuprofen next? You never know anymore.

Read more about it here.

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