More about Jitterbug

I used the Jitterbug this morning for the first time to call Great Call Customer Svc.  My old phone # had been ported to the new phone, but it wasn't showing up on the J'bug screen.  A feature of this phone is that when you open it your phone number is displayed across the top of the screen.  

For the third time I have called Customer Svc I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly everything was handled, as well as the friendliness of the agent on the other end of the call.  

At one point she asked me if I had another phone I could take her call on, and she called me on my land line and instructed me to close the J'Bug.  Then I opened the J'bug again and voila, the correct number was displayed.

One thing that became immediately apparent to me when I took the agent's call on my land line after speaking to her on the cell phone, was the quality of sound on the J'bug.  It was crystal clear and loud enough for me to hear perfectly with no distortion, no static.  My land line didn't seem as clear, although it still beats any other cell phone I've tried up to my new one.  I think I'm going to love it, if I can remember to keep it charged and turned on, and where I can find it.

Later I came in from working in the yard to find I had a new message on my voice mail.  I can use voice commands as well as the keys to make selections, delete, save, etc.  It is convenient to be able to say "Delete", "Yes", "No", etc., rather than have to look at the keys to make a selection.  I'm sure I'll be finding out more about this phone in the coming days, but so far I'd give it a Thumbs Up!  

So much for my dairy-free diet.  I just ran out to the store to pick up some half & half, and came home with a quart of half & half, a quart of whole milk, a package of Tillamook shredded cheddar, and a container of sour cream.  I've been out of sour cream and milk for several days and I think I can notice that I feel a little better, but I guess it borders on an addiction.  I've always liked sour cream but could pass it by - now I crave it.

Here are a couple of shots of the Jitterbug.  I've decided I'm not going to use it until they get my old telephone number switched to the J'bug.  I also decided I will keep my land line.  I had thought if I liked the new cell phone I might give up the home phone, but when I think about it I doubt there is a cell phone in existence that has the quality of sound that you can find in a good home phone.  Most everyone I know has a smart phone and I find that I can't hear as well, and the connection isn't as clear as when both parties are using regular phones.  This probably doesn't matter as much to a younger person, but when you age I think certain sounds are more difficult to decipher.  That's my experience at any rate, ao if it ever gets to the point I have to choose only one, I will keep my land line.

It rained pretty heavily overnight and there is probably more to come.  The rain just made more grass and weeds pop up.

I just realized this is the first day of spring.  I hope everyone is enjoying the tulips and daffodils.  I am sneezing my head off with all the pollen in the air. 

Jitterbugging along

The Jitterbug phone was delivered today.  It is a beautiful red phone, and is just perfect for me as far as size, weight, and number & control buttons are concerned.

I activated it online, which took some time but the prompts were simple and it wasn't difficult at all.  The only trouble is that when it was all activated it hadn't given me an opportunity to port my Tracfone number.  So I called Customer Service.  The tech told me what info I needed from my tracfone account in order to port the number, so I hung up to look for it and said I'd call back.  

I was worried because you get no paperwork or invoices with a tracfone - the only reason I could come up with any info at all is that I had added the last top-up online and had to sort of create an account/password while doing so.  I called J'Bug Customer Svc back and gave the info they needed, but it can take up to 3 days to switch the numbers I was told.  So for the next 3 days I have two cell phones and two different numbers!  Maybe I can mostly use the tracfone and get rid of some of that airtime.

I tried to call my friend in Ireland this morning using the tracfone, but the connection was so poor that I hung up and called back on the land line.  When I talked to her a few days ago the call was disconnected for some reason, so I was able to get news today that we didn't have time to discuss then.  One of my old boyfriends died; my hairdresser died; it seems a lot of folks I knew had passed away.  We discussed all the problems of Ireland in general, and her problems in particular, as well as my problems.  I think we talked for at least an hour!  I'm not making any decisions yet as to whether I will try to get there this fall.  The economic situation there is frightening, and I wonder what will happen with our own economy within the next year.  Everything is global and we can't live in a vacuum, so what happens in one part of the world affects us whether we like it or not. 

My d-i-l Meg stopped by with Liam today.  Any day I get to see a grandchild is a beautiful day.  And of course, I love seeing my children and their spouses too.  The grandchildren tug on my heart strings though.  

Some days nothing goes right

I'm having one of those days where I can't seem to accomplish anything.  I went out to pull a few weeds and was shocked to see that I now have more than I did yesterday.  The grass and weeds are outpacing me!  I was trying to keep from using harsh chemical weed killers, but I'm about to go get the strongest stuff they sell.

Then I decided to clean my oven, and couldn't get the damn childproof cap off the can of oven cleaner.  It is one of those you have to squeeze while pulling up on the cap.  I could never get the cap off.  That is a real complaint as a person gets older - my hands don't have the strength to deal with child proof caps.  On things like mouthwash I just don't screw the cap on tightly enough for it to catch.

While I'm griping I have to say that I'm getting really tired of Do-Wop music shows.  Public TV has a pledge week about once a month during which they feature special artists and shows.  They are pretty top heavy on Do-Wop in my estimation.  I don't think it was all that great the first time around, and maybe for a bit of nostalgia a few decades later it would be ok, but I think it's really overdone on PBS. Some of the artists can still sing, but others are terrible and there's no other word for it.

I'm going to stop while I'm ahead - just a minute ago I thought I lost my whole post, but luckily it had been saved in Draft.  I wanted to end with something on a positive note, but I think I'd better quit before anything else happens.

Dinner on Patrick's Day

I had a wonderful evening and a delicious dinner last night.  We ate at a big long table set up outside and later moved over to the fire pit where the burning logs felt so good.  Of course it's usually constant laughs when I'm with this group.

I managed to get some pictures of the kids and me, but the adults were too spread out to try to get them into a picture.  Of course, you can't get 5 kids to look at a camera at the same time, but we tried.

Here I am with Joe's girls:

And here are the kids at the table:

You almost definitely need to click for an enlarged photo - it seems the old blogger loaded the photos differently, and now they seem to be much smaller.  Maybe it's just me.

We had corned beef, cabbage and potatos and it was a really tasty meal.  Makes me want to go out and buy the ingredients and fix some for myself, but I know I'd be eating it for a long time.  Just maybe ....

I guess I've been away from Ireland for a long time and have forgotten the taste of Guinness.  I had two bottles of it last night and it was delicious!  Normally I just drink it while in Ireland - it tastes much different and better there, no doubt because they don't have to pasteurize all the goodness out of it.  But the two bottles tasted pretty good, at that.  In the earlier part of the evening I had two Guinness and one Miller High Life, plus a drop or two of the best whiskey I've ever tasted in my life, and I'm not normally a bourbon drinker.  It took my breath away it was so good.  

Steve found it and became interested because the name of it is the same as my mother's maiden name - Willett.  The distillery is in Bardstown, KY, so he asked me if there was any relation with our Willetts in southwestern KY.  I contacted my brother who has worked geneaology with me over the years and he sent me what he had on this family.  I can't remember for sure but think I'm the 2nd cousin 4X removed from the original distiller.  (You would have to either be a genealogist or come from a small town in a rural area where it's good to know exact relationships for this to mean much to you.) 

Today has been lazy for me, more so than most of them.  I should get back to pulling weeds before the rains start up this coming week.  I lean over while pulling them, because it is so hard to get back up if I get down on my knees.  There just ain't no easy way!     

Wearin' O' the Green

I don't celebrate many holidays anymore, but I'm going to Steve & Meg's for an Irish dinner tonight.  Once a month my 3 Sacramento kids take a turn hosting a dinner, usually with a theme which is kept secret until the others arrive.

I found a short sleeve green shirt, not exactly Irish looking but it will pass for green.  I even dug out my green shamrock earrings, and was surprised to find the pair intact.  With all the moving around I've done over the years, and with the fact that I only wear them once a year, it is surprising that they were in my jewelry box.  I plan to take my camera along although I rarely take pictures now.  The vision just isn't good enough these days to snap a decent shot.

I made a trip to the Farmers market this morning and brought back some real goodies.  I'll eat well this week and will enjoy the veggies, especially the asparagus.

So I'm off in a few minutes to fight the freeway traffic.  If I can drive it during the commute, I surely can do it on a Saturday evening.  As my friend and landlady back in Ireland would say, "Lord guard us and save us."


 

Update on new cell phone

My Tracfone expires at the end of today and my new Jitterbug phone hasn't arrived, so I called GreatCall (The Jitterbug company) to find out what they could tell me.  A great customer service person checked with UPS and said the phone won't arrive until next Tuesday.  I explained my dilemma with the expiration of the Tracfone and said I would just have to order more minutes to extend the service.  He asked if it was expensive, and I told him I thought the cheapest top up card was $20.  He offered to pay half - giving me a $10 credit on my first bill.  I agreed and thought it was a generous offer.

I decided to see if I could buy the top up online, and believe it or not they have a $10 option available online only - 30 minutes + 30 lifetime double minutes, and 30 service days.  Perfect, except that now I have waaaay more minutes than I'll ever be able to use.  I'm not complaining though.

I think I'm going to like the Jitterbug - especially if I can hear well.  Everything I've read and heard points to the fact that the quality of sound is excellent.  That's the main reason I keep looking for a cell phone I can talk on and hear the person on the other end as well as understand what they are saying.  I've had problems with AT&T, Verizon, and Tracfone in this regard, so Jitterbug may be the answer.  I'm starting the day off in a positive manner, for sure.

About the possibility of a trip to Ireland later this year, I will have to see what develops.  I bought a phone card this morning and called a good friend in Ireland, a German ex pat who I knew would give me the straight on happenings there.  Things are not so good in Ireland and elsewhere due to the bailout of Greece, and the Irish are going through some bad times.  Not many tourists and not many jobs to be found.  That doesn't make for pleasantness among people no matter where it is.  (By the way, I called using a few of my Tracfone minutes, and would have talked longer but the line went dead.  According to my friend, they have been having a lot of power outages this year.) 

I may decide to go, but won't stay anything like 6 weeks or more.  Maybe three weeks would do it.  In the past the pubs opened in the morning (and yes, served tea and coffee among other beverages) and it was the place to meet friends, socialize, get the latest news and gossip, and in general to take part in the life there.  Now many pubs have closed or only open during the evenings, and I've already done most of the sightseeing I care to do.  So I will just wait and see what happens, both here in the U.S. as well as in Europe.

I should get back to my weed pulling and spraying.  I sure made a mess on the kitchen countertop trying to mix a cup of salt into a gallon of vinegar, and then pour it into my spray bottle.  Getting the salt to dissolve was the first problem, and then pouring it was the second.  I even used a funnel but still splashed it everywhere.  Then when I had used the contents of the spray bottle, came in to fill it again and - spilled it again!