Day 5 of Summer ‘11

Yesterday, day 5 of summer vacation 2011,  Brenda completed our wills with some pretty awesome software, it’s called Quicken Will Maker Plus. Staples has it on sale, and it’s $20 cheaper then everywhere else.

After our will was complete, I groomed the dog. Here is a before and and after picture of Georgie.

Georgie is so patient while I groom him and I think he looks Marvelous…..if I don’t say so myself. The savings of doing it myself is contagious. Cha Ch'ing…$40 saved. What else can I do to save and help out our budget…

We ordered/upgraded our cell phones. Can I say that Verizon Wireless does not make me very happy. First a little history, I have always had a mid to higher end phone from them, so I could take photos and blog. Due to our budget and the fact the my blogging is only a hobby, I have never bought into the whole smart phone and required data plan. All of their smart phones require the full data plan which costs $30 a month, that’s 360 dollars a year that our budget just won’t allow for. Two years ago when we upgraded the choices of feature phones, or not so smart phones were dwindling and now it is absolutely pathetic. They do offer texting phones like the Pantech Crux, LG Cosmos, Samsung Intensity, LG Octane and the Pantech Jest. These all seem like decent phones for messaging and a few of them even have the higher end cameras in them. But none of them have the auto focusing lens package that the original LG enV and the LG enV touch had. This autofocus feature is what sold me on both of these phones. They take phenomenal photos, many of the still shots on this very blog have been taken with these phones. One of the days this week I stopped at the Corporate Verizon Wireless store and asked a gentleman named Bryan (Bethany was so intrigued we had the same names and that they were spelled the same.) I asked if they had any feature phones I could upgrade to without incurring the large data plan. As I showed him my worn enV touch, he kind of grinned and said “that’s going to be hard.” He continued to walk me over to the LG Octane which is the enV touch and enV 3’s successor. I explained that I really wanted the autofocus feature, he stopped mid way through his sentence and asked “Have you looked at a Sharp Kin Two m?” This phone rang a bell in my mind, only because online it didn't state that it required a data plan, but had an 8 megapixel camera, records HD video, had wi-fi, a touch screen and a full qwerty keyboard. I honestly thought there was a typo online, and also saw that the reviews were not completely favorable. Bryan gave me some of the history of this phone. It was released early last year as a smart phone. It did not sell well, maybe because it did not have the Android operating system, because you couldn't download any apps for it, or maybe it was requiring the full data plan. That is neither here nor there. Verizon pulled the phone off the shelf due to lack of sales and complaints galore, did a small reconfiguring of the os and re released it as a feature phone. The os of this phone looks entirely different from any other phone I have had, but the reviews as of late have improved. Needless to say, I ordered the Kin Two M and Brenda ordered the LG Cosmos, it may be a mistake, but I like taking a risk once in a while. If I absolutely hate it I can always revert to the two enVs that are still kicking. I plan of reviewing the phone, after I have it for a couple of weeks. Tune in to see if this risk was worth it…

We also had a family over for a small fire in our fire ring to just hang out around and make smore's on. It was a nice evening spent with friends.