Learning Lessons the Hard Way

We have learned a couple invaluable lessons in the last four or five days in regard to data plans, hotspots, and use of the internet.  Basically, we ran out of data with the plan we had.  (Notice past tense.)  Then we decided to upgrade our plan to what we thought we could live on/with.  When we did, instead of being pro-rated from the time we changed, it ended up being retroactive to the beginning of the last billing period.  We lost 3GB of available data, we were throttled back to dial up speed, and ended up paying for it for the whole month instead of a partial month.  These wireless plans are tricky if you don’t read the fine print.  Lesson learned.  

That is why there has been a long hiatus in blog postings.  We couldn’t even get Google to open the page to write a post because the speed was so slow!  Today we start the new month of data and we have made a few concessions as to how we will use the data and try not to run out again.  What a pain that was!  One thing we think will help will be to write the blog entry in the word processing app and then copy and paste into the blog and then close it right back up.  Same thing for long emails.  We will go to the library at least once a week and download things we need and back up all the devices.  We shall see how that goes over the next 30 days.  If we are still having issues then we will have to rethink the purchase of the local WIFI.  

So, what’s happened in the last few days?  Not a whole lot.  We are starting to get into a routine for laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping, etc.  Roger has started going to the wood shop every afternoon while I am at exercise class.  I’ve been working on the last of the Christmas presents and doing some reading.  I walk the dog in the mornings.  (I’ve been taking  the short route  which is about 1.7 miles and my back handles it nicely.  Today I decided to try the long route which is just over 2 miles.  My back was talking pretty loudly to me by the time I returned.)   Sunday afternoons they have an ice cream social - two scoops and a cookie for a dollar but you have to be “social” and sit with others and visit.  Always a catch! 

Saturday we went to Casa Grande and had lunch with our friends the Morlans to celebrate my 70th birthday.  We did some shopping - got the other two chairs for the patio set that we couldn’t get into the back of the truck last time.  It was a long day.  We were gone five hours and poor Maggie was just beside herself with excitement when we got back.   Today we had lunch out and got groceries - that alone was a two hour chunk out of the day.   

Tomorrow is the book group meeting and I’ll go try it out and see what sorts of reading the group prefers.  

Thursday there will be a pot luck at 3pm.  The park is furnishing the turkey and gravy and the rest is up to the residents.  From the sign up sheet it looks like everyone who is here will be going.  I keep thinking about the last time we went to a Thanksgiving Day pot luck I caught a really nasty cold.  

The weather has been fantastic and the sunsets spectacular.  We did have a very windy day yesterday, and Maggie and I got caught in two walls of blowing sand on our walk.  We both had to have a bath after we got back to get all the sand off of us!  It was pretty ugly.   Tonight the sunset was brilliant red with just a sliver of the rising moon showing.  Unbelievably beautiful.  

Hopefully I’ll be back to regular postings - probably every other day unless something exciting happens or I have a great photo to share.