Thing #5: IM checked off!

OK, after much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair (and that was just what Allana was doing when dealing with me), I decided Google was not the IM for me and switched to Yahoo. At Allana's suggestion. It worked! I used to IM with an AOL IM account at home. My brother is in Ohio and it was a faster way to correspond than emails. That's one of the benefits of using IM--faster feedback. I think I stopped when I got too busy to be at a computer so much and when I got a national long distance plan, so it was no longer the only way to communicate.