Cell Phone Luddite: An Occasional TracFone User Explains Why She Doesn’t Want a Smart Phone

TracFone

Low cost TracFone

Nearly everyone in the civilized world aged 12 and above has a high-tech smart phone these days. (Government programs give away better phones than I have to low-income people.) But I’m not a convert yet, and I’ll tell you why:

1. I’m very frugal. My TracFone costs $99 a year and 3,200+ minutes have carried over from last year.

2. I have other plans for spending the $100+ a month it costs for a phone plan.

3. I don’t want to have to carry a phone on my person 24/7.

4. I don’t want to be accessible every minute of the day. The key to relaxation, in my mind, is going shopping or somewhere that people can’t reach you.

5. I don’t want to run the risk of offending others with bad phone habits. Have overheard one too many women talking loudly on cells phones in public bathroom stalls (and flushing) next to me. (Who would do that?!) Am always tempted to flush about 100 times to see if they notice.

6. I don’t need insurance with a TracFone and don’t have to worry much about losing or breaking it. You can pick up a new one for less than $50.

7. My cheapy phone sends texts and takes pictures that you can email to friends (and it supposedly accesses the Internet, although I’ve always given up and turned it off after five endless minutes of waiting….). That’s really all I need most of the time, although the apps other people have look like a lot of fun…

If you’d like to discuss this more, please post a comment. Don’t call, ’cause I only turn on my TracFone on Saturday and Sunday — and then it’s usually out in the car …!

 

 

 

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First 30 Days of Lifestyle Blogging

30  blog posts, 1165 hits

30 blog posts, 1165 hits

Wow — I’ve written and published one Thoughts, Tips and Tales blog post a day for the first 30 days in a row! And managed to get 1,165 hits (not too bad for a first stab at a personal blog ??). Although my mom does subscribe to get a daily email update, I swear she hasn’t been clicking on the blog all day every day…

The main reason this experience has been so interesting is that, by day, I’m a writer and newsletter editor — and manage the internal communications blog at a large organization with offices worldwide. The posts are, of course, work-related, but the hit count is slightly higher (3.2 million hits since May 2010).

Although the blog’s purpose is to provide need-to-know info to employees, we still manage to have fun with it. Last year when we reached two million hits, we held a week-long company-wide celebration that included banners, posters and more.

My talented coworkers and I produced a video (which, of course, was posted on the blog) that featured a skit starring employees who spoofed the old Austin Powers movies. In situations where Dr. Evil would cackle and say with glee, “One MILLION dollars!” — our Dr. Evil would shout, “Two MILLION blog hits!” (What can I say? We thought it was hilarious… and it still cracks me up thinking about it)

The cafe manager even agreed to rename menu items after blog terms that week, so that customers got to order “blogburgers,” “million meatball subs” and other wacky foods.

Enough about work…

To everyone who’s read the various blog posts here, thanks for your comments and your interest during an exciting first month. Writing about my personal life (and trying not to reveal too much) to friends, family, and “friends I haven’t met yet” has been a new and entertaining experience.

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Can’t Cure a Magazine Junkie

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve had a wicked addiction to magazines since first grade.

It started with Highlights for Children in elementary school, and progressed to Tiger Beat (ooh, those cute long-haired musician boys), Young Miss, Teen and Seventeen (oh so cool).

The old favorites that my mom read, Family Circle and Woman’s Day, made me feel grown-up as a married woman.

Other much-loved magazines over the years — and through the various stages of life –have included Glamour, CosmopolitanWorking Woman, Bicycling, Mademoiselle, Parents, Working Mother, Good HousekeepingRedbook, Self, Better Homes and Garden, Ladies Home Journal, Yoga and More. Since I’m an avid scrapbooker, I also had subscriptions for years to all the scrapbooking magazines – but, unfortunately, every single one has stopped publication!

Featured in First magazine

Family featured in First magazine

When I was a stay-at-home mother of a young child, my then-husband, son and I were even featured in an article in First magazine. What a thrill! A friend in another state contacted me after the issue came out and said she’d been reading a magazine in a doctor’s office and there I was.

During the past five years or so, my favorites have been Real Simple, Bottom Line, O – the Oprah Magazine, HGTV, First and All You. One of my criteria to determine if a magazine is useful is the number of pages I rip out of it and keep for future reference — and I do a lot of ripping from these magazines (which explains the huge tub of items to be filed in my spare bedroom).

I guess the next stage of life — magazine-wise — is AARP. My friend keeps giving me her old issues and telling me how great the articles are (the same thing men say about Playboy), but I plan to hold off getting a subscription for a few more years…

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Zumba is Exhilarating!

Zumba is Exhilarating!
If you haven’t tried a Zumba class, you should! It’s so enjoyable, you’ll forget you’re exercising.

I’m not much of a dancer, and the only dance I ever learned was the cha cha in junior high. Luckily, many of the Zumba sequences are based on that type of step — as well as other moves done in traditional aerobics-type classes, such as the grapevine — so a lot of the basic steps are fairly familiar.

During each session, you follow the instructor’s cues to dance to extremely upbeat Latin-inspired tunes.

If you have a FitBit or a similar device, you may be amazed to find that you take about 6,000 steps in a one-hour class!

And it’s really, really fun. If your frame of mind isn’t the best when you arrive at class, it will be totally turned around by the time you leave — because the camaraderie, the uplifting music, the dancing and the opportunity to let go of your inhibitions and shake your booty is a winning combination.

Once you get the steps down, you can tie a brightly colored blingy, jingly Zumba skirt– as seen in the photos above — around your hips before class and create a little music of your own. You definitely can’t have a great time like this walking on a treadmill!

Related blog posts:

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Confessions of an Adult Learning to Swim

I had a rather depressing milestone birthday this year and around the same time, a friend asked if I’d like to participate in a women’s empowerment mini-triathlon in September with her. It sounded like an intriguing idea – just what I needed this year to prove to myself I’m not yet “over the hill.”

The Ramblin’ Rose event in North Carolina involves swimming 250 yards in a pool, biking nine miles and walking or running two miles.

I was a member of a bicycle club (OK – it was 20 years ago) and went on several 50- and 100-mile rides as well as weekend biking trips, and I’m currently a member of a local walking club that covers long distances at a very brisk pace. The most challenging part – aside from having never done any competition such as a mini-triathlon  before – is that I really don’t know how to swim. Continue reading

Posted in accomplishments, childhood, fitness, goals, health, life, swimming lessons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 45 Comments

What Makes Summer Sweet?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA1) The smell of freshly mown grass

2) Wearing pink shoes

3) Legs looking tan and healthy (done instantly with skin bronzer)

4) Colorful flower gardens

5) Walks on the beach

6) Wearing skirts and going barelegged (that cool air flow)

7) Savoring June 21 — the longest day of the  year

8) Clothing in summer colors

9) Water sports

10) Icy cold drinks on hot summer days

Save

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Truth is Stranger than Fiction (People Do the Weirdest Things!)

Truth is Stranger than Fiction (People Do the Weirdest Things!)

One of my joys in life is reading and hearing true stories about strange things people do. These aren’t the everyday accounts about people who makes the news for winning a flapjack-eating contest or committing a minor crime. I love the truly wacky stories … the weirder the better… the kinds of tales that make you ask, “What were they thinking?!” Continue reading

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Decorating Your Home with Extremely Low Cost Framed Prints – Part #2

Decorating Your Home with Extremely Low-Cost Framed Prints -- Part 2

To expand on my previous blog post about tips for large framed prints, it’s also easy to decorate inexpensively with collections of small framed prints if you buy beautiful greeting cards or post cards and encase them in frames from the dollar store or a discount store. (They do have frames that don’t look cheesy!) Continue reading

Posted in bargains, decorating, framed prints, home decorating, household, prints, saving money, wall art, wall decor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

How to Decorate Your Home with Extremely Low-Cost Framed Prints

How to Decorate your Home with Extremely Low-Cost Prints

The cheapest way to hang nice-looking framed prints in your home is to buy them at a yard sale or thrift store. I was able to get the three prints in my living room, which have similar frames (gold wood) and styles, as well as the four prints in my bedroom (which also complement each other and have gold wood frames) at yard sales. Continue reading

Posted in bargains, framed prints, pictures on the wall, prints, problemsolvers, save money on framed prints, saving money, wall art, wall decor, yard sale | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Why I ♥ Yard Sales

Why I Love Yard Sales

I started going to yard sales many years ago, before Hurricane Hugo blew through South Carolina. For years afterwards, very few people had yard sales because many families lost everything or had extensive water and wind damage to attics and other areas used to store no-longer-needed items.

My family lost all our possessions (and our renter’s insurance wouldn’t pay for anything!) and the experience made me realize that the important things in life are definitely not material items. However, since I was a stay-at-home mom at the time, when the yard sales began reappearing, it was an ideal way to buy clothes and toys for my young son and to replace some of the clothes and household furnishings we’d lost — at a very affordable price. Continue reading

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