A New Smart Phone

(Troy, MO) Hi 50 Lo 37 -- I'm relaxing at my sister's this week. I'm excited about leaving on Friday to go to our son's house in O'Fallon, IL, about an hour away. I'll get to visit with Frank and Angie until Sunday when I fly back to Florida. And I'm looking forward to some "grandkid time" with Kyle and Kendall. :)

I've been crocheting hot pads to pass the time. I've made five so far. Here are a few of them.

I want to pass along some information about having a smart phone. I've had a Motorola Razr Android phone for over a year. For the last month it wouldn't hold a charge and would have to be plugged in several hours a day. Then recently it started getting really hot, and trying to make calls with a hot phone on my cheek was not good. Saturday while in Indiana I went to a Verizon store to find out what was wrong with it. The lady told me the battery was bulging, and it was warm even though it had been off for an hour. She said it was dangerous to turn it on, so I was without my phone. We have replacement coverage as part of our Verizon account, so I ordered a new replacement and it was shipped out Monday and arrived today (Tuesday) at noon. That's pretty speedy service! In the meantime, my sister still had the Sprint pay-as-you-go phone that my mom used, so I've been using that while I'm here because there's very little or no Verizon signal here.

When my phone arrived I headed to the Verizon store to have it activated and set up. I don't have enough signal here at the house to restore anything. The lady there wouldn't even turn my old phone on long enough to transfer anything off it. Fortunately I had already transferred the photos and important info to the PC. I did get a tip from her. Smart phones work better if you allow them to "rest" for at least an hour a week by turning them off. It doesn't have to be an hour all at one time, but at least 15 minutes at a time. She also said don't keep the phone plugged in for long periods of time. Keep it plugged in just long enough for a full charge, then unplug it. And she also said you should never talk on the phone while it's plugged in (although I'm not sure why). A bulging battery doesn't happen often, but leave it up to me to have it happen to MY phone. :(

I have my new phone and it's working fine. I'll get all my apps reloaded once I get to a location with a good signal. But at least I can now go back to texting, that's the biggest thing I missed. It's amazing how much you get used to a smart phone. It's my PC on the go.

Thanks for reading our blog.