Not living close to family is hard

Sometimes I'm glad that I live far away. Especially when my family has issues that I don't want to deal with. Most times it's hard though. I get lonely and miss my family, especially around the holidays. Everybody else is with their family celebrating and I'm home by myself. My friends usually invite me to celebrate with their family but I feel weird about that.

One of the ways that I keep close to my family is by telephone. My mom doesn't have a computer so email and instant messaging is out for her. I usually buy phone cards to save money. I never used them until I got a international phone card from my friend that lives in the Bahamas. It costs almost 3 times as much to call from your regular phone than it does calling with a card. Depending on the country that you call, you can save up to 80% off of the regular phone rates.

Some people suggest calling from your cell phone but that doesn't always work. I went to Canada last month and my cell phone stopped working the further away from the U.S. that I got. We plan on taking several more trips to Canada this summer to watch baseball games and to do the tourist thing in general. John likes to talk to his mom either every day or every other day. His cell phone won't work so we'll invest in calling cards to save money. Calling from the hotel is not an option because the cost is too much. It costs almost $3.00 per minute plus a connection fee. Uh uh I don't think so.

Now that I'm talking about our trip to Canada, I'm getting more excited about going. I don't want to rush the summer but I'm so ready for a quick getaway.