After shopping around for smart phones and service providers, we finally decided on Sprint and iPhones. Last Friday after school we went to the local dealer and got set up.
Transporting our numbers meant we got the new iPhone 5c's free, instead of $100 each with a two year contract. The activation fee was waived because we are members of a credit union. There will be an 18% educator discount on the data charge.
They had a limited color choice left.
They didn't have any Sounders green left, so I got blue, Tom got yellow, and Jill got white. Tom and Jill will get covers that probably cover up their colors, but I got a clear one so you can still see my pretty blue.
But there is a problem, and we have spent much of the last few days trying to decide what to do. Sprint does not have a strong enough signal right here at our house so the actual telephone part works very poorly. We checked out another carrier, but the switch over would have cost us another $400 in "restocking fees at Sprint", and having to buy the phones at another carrier.
Sprint has come up with what I hope is a solution We will be receiving a piece of hardware called an Air-Rave, which hooks up to our modem and will receive a boosting signal via internet. This $100 item we are getting free because Jake at the Sprint store told me to tell them when I called that it should be free because it was Sprint's fault. It worked !
We are now free to get to know our phones, now that we know we are going to keep them! I already have done a lot with mine and I'm having fun learning. We are getting smarter slowly.
Tomorrow we are off to the Oregon coast. Hopefully our new phones will allow us to stay in contact at least with email and internet. You'll still have to wait for photos on the blog.
Oh, and we survived a very wet and stormy Sounders match last night. Unfortunately it ended in a disappointing tie. But, hey! We didn't lose, and we're still very near the top.
She just posted it on Facebook, so I think I have permission to begin celebrating too!
As my faithful readers know, we had an inspection Sunday on the house for which Jill has an accepted offer. There were some issues, most not too difficult or costly, except for the roof, which might have to be replaced sooner than later.
The inspector was a great guy, very experienced and knowledgeable, and full of good information. He declared the house sound and a good value.
As Jill said, " It has a big yard for Isaac, a downstairs for Irene, and a hot tub for me!"
Jill's loan guy will now get the paper work processed and closing should be in mid to late October.
Entry. ↑
Living room/dining room. ↑
Downstairs.↑
Sun room. ↑
Deck and hot tub enclosure. ↑
Tom already has a list of jobs to do at the new house as soon as we can get access. The house is clean and almost move-in ready. It's only 3-4 miles from us.
And now we can declare that we are EXCITED!
I was reading my Kindle at 10:30 last night when I got a warning that the battery was low. My Kindle PaperWhite can go a long time without recharging, so I forget that it actually needs to be plugged in once in a while.
I don't remember the last time I charged it, and therein lay the problem. I went to plug it in so that I could read some more in bed, and something was missing.
This. The outlet adapter. I couldn't very well plug it in without a plug!
I looked once, twice, three times in all the places it could be. I thought I remembered using it at the Whidbey cabin, and I pictured it there still plugged into the outlet under the work table.
We had no plans to get back there soon, and I didn't know if it was really there. I am 90% finished with a very long novel, and I really wanted to finish it. So I went online at 11:00 last night to see if I could get a replacement. This is an Amazon product, and sure enough, they had just that piece, not in a package with any other accessories. With Amazon Prime, which we purchased this year to see if we will get our money back from the $75 investment, I could get it for $19.99 and no shipping with a three day delivery time. For $3.99 more I could get it in 24 hours. I chose that.
Last year we were just under way into a three week trip when we got an email that our MasterCard was security compromised - again- and they were going to cancel it and mail us a new card. But we were not at home, and everything was pre-booked to the old card. We called Bank of America and got an extension. This had happened too many times, so when I got back home from that trip, I got a second, back up credit card. I decided to go with the Amazon Visa card, and now every time we order from Amazon, the purchase goes on the card. We get reward points.
So, back to the Amazon order. I used the Amazon Visa credit card reward points I had accumulated, which were $18.10. That brought the cost of the outlet adapter with tax and shipping to $8.16. I placed the order after 11:00 last night.
At about 4:00 this afternoon it was delivered to my door.
And now my Kindle is charging away and was doing so while I sat in my recliner and read for an hour this afternoon. It's a rainy day, and my work was done.
My kindle and I are happy.
And I love Amazon!
It's raining in Seattle today. We won't see the sun, as we got to yesterday and other days this last week.
I guess it's fitting weather for the fall equinox, the day when the daylight and darkness are equal, the first day of autumn. There will be more sunny days, but they will no longer have the warmth of a summer day. For that we will have to wait many months now. Maybe that's why spring is so lovely here - to make it worth waiting for.
Thankfully, there are wonderful colors and occasions to anticipate as nature gets ready for winter here in the Pacific Northwest. Leaves are just beginning to color up, and the show should last into November. I'm thinking pumpkins. There's just something about that lovely orange color that makes it OK to replace the geraniums on the porch with those glowing globes.
Today we will be meeting up with Jill and the kids to do a house inspection on the home she hopes to buy. Her offer has been accepted. Now we see if the house needs more work than we anticipated. We are hopeful, but holding off on our excitement until the deal is done. It has been a long haul finding a home, with many disappointments along the way. Maybe today will mark a new beginning as well as an ending.
Several years ago Tom and I were on the Oregon Coast on the day of the equinox. The sun was shining. I recorded the sun going down on summer between the Twin Rocks.
Enjoy.
Good bye, summer. You have been lovely.
We've had rain, lots of it in short bursts, in the last two weeks, and everything has gone green again.
That means Tom has been out mowing the lawn regularly. And the moles have other yards to visit again, which helps us.
The vegetable garden has pretty much shut down, except for carrots and beets still in the ground, and tomatoes still coming on.
And there are still blowers to pick.
Tom has been taking geranium cuttings for plants for next year. This morning I cleaned up what is left of the display on the front porch.
Last weekend I took apart Irene's flower shop and emptied the shed, so that Tom could empty the greenhouse and start filling it up. Here are the geranium and plectranthus cuttings.
These are echeverias.
They have babies - off sets- and Tom has harvested them for starts for next year. The large pots will also come into the greenhouse over winter.
This afternoon is sunny and mild, and I found Tom working on edging the lawn.
I haven't done much outside in the yard for a while, except to go out and pick things. I am getting back to my exercise routine, and I'm trying to remove the extra pounds I added over the summer. I walk about 3.5 miles each day, plus a short walk after dinner. Soon that after dinner daylight will be gone. I'm also doing my physical therapy exercise routine.
While Tom was outside this week, I worked inside, getting the house work done, and getting to a few things on the "When I get around to it" list. I finally emailed my doctor and got a referral for the neuroscience department. I have been fighting sciatica caused by spondylolisthesis for a long time now. Now I am getting tingling down my leg and into my foot occasionally and there seems to be some fuzzy nerve stuff going on in one toe. I fear neuropathy, which caused my mother to lose feeling in her feet and hands. So I have an appointment with a neurology PA at the end of the month to see what the next steps are.
I also finally called tech support at Yamaha to see why my iPod Nano would no longer play on my receiver.
This happened before and I knew there was a fix for it. I had to be persistent with the tech support guy who wanted to "blame" my iPod or cable, but I finally got him to tell me how to re-set the receiver, and that did the trick. I wrote it down this time, in case it happens again.
This afternoon I took my camera out to see what's going on in my neglected garden.
Can you find the hummer on the fuchsia in the photo below?
And the chickadee on the sunflower? I was thrilled to see this. I actually successfully grew sunflowers that are producing seed for the birds!
Spiders are every where of course.
Old and new blooms on the same hydrangea.
Maybe I'll find some time to actually sit out here tomorrow, before the sun goes away again.
