Saying hey.

A few months ago, I took a road trip with my sister, her husband & their son. (I was invited. By her husband. Just to clear the air on any potential intrusion claims.)

One of my (very many) convos with my very talkative nephew (could I be prouder?!) included a discussion about cell phones. And how I use mine a lot. And how he doesn't have one. And how I didn't, either, at that age -- partly because my parents never would've stood for it AT AGE SIX, but mainly because they didn't exist...and when they did, they were in bags.

My favorite response from Caleb (with a similar expression to the embedded pic) was, "But....if you and my mom didn't have cell phones, how did y'all say hey?!"

It was SO cute (from my unbiased perspective, of course), and frighteningly, so telling.

I mean, from birth, this child has been totally used to us picking up the phone or texting at any given moment to "say hey." No boundaries, no long distance, no time constraints -- we just do what we need to do to get through that moment, or day, or hour.

Which is super nice. And makes me wonder how we survived before. Although I know we did. And even before email. (Which is enough to make this communications addict shudder.)

But thank the good Lord for modern technology.

I do love my sister. And saying hey.

Send a text via email

My friend and fellow blogger Shawn often posts cool tips, innovations, and new products that are out there. In fact, her blog is mainly that, and I recommend you visit it.

One of Shawn's recent tips was something I knew about, but when I read it I thought, "What a good idea, Shawn. Letting everyone know about it." So I'm blatantly copying her and doing the same.

You can send free text messages from your email account if you know the recipient's phone carrier. Just type in a phone number before the recipient's correlating address below:

Alltel - @message.alltel.com
AT&T - @txt.att.net
Sprint - @messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile - @tmomail.net
Verizon Wireless - @vtext.com
Virgin Mobile - @vmobl.com