A Straight Talk Plan

This post brought to you by Straight Talk. All opinions are 100% mine.

We had tried a couple low cost pre-paid cell phone services - before I settled on wanting to try Straight Talk - I wanted to try Straight Talk because the talk minutes and the text minutes were separate - Something the other companies combined - So with another company - if I bought 750 minutes - that included both talk and text - but with Straight Talk - on their $45 unlimited plan - I could get 1000 talk minutes Plus 1000 texts and 30 MB of web data - and using their unlimited plan I never used up either one - Then we decided to get rid of our landline - and go strictly with Straight Talk - I bought one of their Smart phones - The Nokia 6790 Surge - Its Great! I have to use the Unlimited Plan with it - which is ok since it’s our primary phone now - and everyone in the family will use it as some time - My wife has my old Straight Talk T401 phone which she can use the unlimited plan with - and that's all she needs - Around where we live - there is one small area out on the highway north of us that is a "dead zone" about a mile where normally we never got any bars - but with the Nokia Smart Phone I haven't had a problem - I really like that my kids can get a hold of me when I'm not home - and my mom knows best and she told me to never lock myself into any long term contracts and this company doesn't have that - I think it’s the best deal for the money - and we're actually saving some money by going with Straight Talk and getting rid of our land line!

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Straight Talk only uses reliable phone manufacturers like LG, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung and you get nationwide, reliable coverage. All 411 calls are included for no extra charge. Like I said, no surprise charges with this company!

It looks like Straight Talk has everything you need in a cell phone to be able to call a friend or family while saving money at the same time. With no surprise bills, no long term contracts and no credit checks!

Carbonite - Best PC or Mac Backup Software Program

This post brought to you by Carbonite. All opinions are 100% mine.

Computer storage devices such as hard drives are susceptible to crashes, which can put any important files that you have stored in danger of being wiped out. Though you can create backups of files and folders on other storage media, you can also use services such as Carbonite  online backup to create backups online, after which you can restore the backed-up files whenever you want.

Carbonite is a service that backs up the valuable data on your PC or Mac.  The service downloads a small program on your computer that sits in the system tray.  That program will back up most of your files automatically and anything you tell it to backup.  The program also constantly looks for new files to backup and updates to previously back-up files.  If you have, say, a spreadsheet backed up, and you make changes to it, the updated file will be backed up within minutes. Once your initial backup is complete (it can take days depending on how much needs to be backed up), subsequent backups take a few minutes or less. According to the Carbonite website, your data is stored at their datacenter and is encrypted for security. To access backed up files, you can get to your backup through My Computer. More than that, you can access the backed up files from your mobile phone, using the free Carbonite apps designed for the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry or Android smartphone. Other things you can do include the management of your own encryption key and the priority setting for choosing the files to be recovered first.

However, Carbonite online computer backup will charge you yearly to store your files on their servers.

Carbonite comes with a free 15 day trial.  After that, it costs $59 for one year, $118 for 2 years, and $177 for 3 years.  Even at one year at a time, that's still less than $5 a month.  That's a very reasonable price for such a valuable service. But now you can use the offer code “BLOGAD” to get your two free months with the purchase.

I encourage you to give Carbonite a try.  If you don't like it, just uninstall the program, and your data is deleted from the backup in 72 hours.  You don't have to give any credit card information until you're ready to purchase the service.

We are starting to learn about all grain brewing

Over the summer my roommate and I have produced around a dozen different beers. We started out with the basic canned kits and have moved onto trying more advanced techniques like using liquid yeast, liquid wort and flavouring with grains. We always have two or three batches on the go and demand is always exceeding supply! Along with our ongoing experimentation we are starting to learn about all grain brewing as a next step!

I’m very picky about bananas

I’m very picky about bananas. The banana can’t be too soft, too hard, or too green. I won’t eat it if it has brown spots. But I buy them when I see them and waste them.

Whenever I eat off a breakfast buffet, I always get one and eat it and it’s the best part of my breakfast.

I need to go pick a good one and eat it!

i promised myself i wouldn't buy any junk food.

To make things clear, i didn't stop eating completely. i promised myself i wouldn't buy any junk food. but if someone bought or offered it to me, i would eat it. as this rarely happens, i see no harm in eating it once in a while. well, buying and consuming junk food was a toughie especially during the times of craving. but i constantly reminded myself that.

"i've gone this far! why consume it now and ruin all the days that i haven't consumed it and having to start all over again?"

it was also easy for me to stop because i went through the fasting month of ramadhan. this certainly helped big time as i couldn't eat from sunrise til sunset.

Cake w/ ANTS!

I made a great old-fashioned sweet cream cake Friday night and delved right into it. I had to wrap it with foil and left it on the cooling rack over the double sink. So when I got up the next morning, the dam ants had found it and were just working their little tails off to get as much of it that they could carry to their house before I discovered them. Those little buggers work fast. I think I saw two larger ants, must have been the sergeant and lieutenant, scooting around and nudging the workers to work faster. These guys must have gone to management school they were so proficient at their nose bumps and nudges. So I wrapped the thing back up, ants and all and tossed the remaining cake into the trash can. Let 'em die in there, that would be fewer I'd have to hunt down and execute and surely they'd be dying happy.

I put some Terro Ant Killer out and the remaining battalion came hurrying out and started scarfing up the nice sweet nectar they thought they were getting. After the morning and most of the afternoon, I didn't see them thinning out enough to suit me so I got out the big gun and used a can of Raid for flying insects on them and down toward their house. Didn't take very long then. None of 'em were left or they were afraid to show their faces again for a while. Two or three ventured out again later; don't know how they missed the initial deluge, so I zapped them too. It's been over 24 hours now so I felt I was fairly safe to try for another cake.

And it is one of the best-tasting melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake I've ever made. I made a butter cream cocoa frosting and one bite will make you want to leave your spouse and come and camp outside my doorstep just to beg for another cake like it. I swear this is true!!!

When you're in your kitchen and have things to do (like want to eat your cake but can't because ants have adopted it), what do you do? Toss it? Give it to the dog or cat? Trust me, the dog would have dug in. Not so much the cat as she's not into sweets.

Oh, and the cake is ¾ gone now and I did share with the neighbor.

I make my own hamburgers at home

I have noticed that here, when people talk about hamburgers, they all are speaking about a fast food chain or another or about patties that you buy already made.

Two days ago, I went to my daughter´s home for lunch. My eldest granddaughter announced that her BF was coming for a late lunch after the university.

There were no more steaks at the house so she went and bought a couple of ready made hamburgers. I noticed they were more expensive than a real steak and I would not vouch for its contents.

I make my own hamburgers at home and season them in different ways so they don´t always taste the same. I even grind the meat at home many times because I can do it with cheap meat in sale and prepare it taking away the fat and trimming it. Some of the unwanted meat I boil a long time with herbs and make good broths.

Do you make your own hamburgers? If you don´t, is it because you don´t like the homemade ones or for lack of time? Share!

My son and daughter just loves the straight talk phone so much!

This post brought to you by Straight Talk. All opinions are 100% mine.

Hi, my son and daughter just loves the straight talk phone so much that they have actually took real good care of these phones more than any other phone they ever had, I was shocked. The minutes are not so bad, it ranges from $35 to $45 unlimited plan of text, talk, and access to the web.

The straight talk phone also lets them access the mobile web even when they don't have any minutes left on the straight talk phone. This is the best because they don’t worry me as much to get them some minutes. The second best thing about the straight talk is the service, which I love because we live out in the country area where most pre-paid phones don't get service. The straight talk is the best because my son and daughter get plenty of service anywhere they go, it really is the best for the pay as you go and I would personally suggest the straight talk to anyone who is willing to go with this plan instead of a contract phone.

When it comes to Straight talk everything is fine, no falling astray here.  There are no contracts, no surprise bills and no credit checks either. There is no activation fee, reactivation or even termination fee. If you only need to text a friend, call a friend, or access the web, then you only need to pay the unlimited monthly service of only $45. The $45 a month plan is ideal for heavy phone users for it includes unlimited talk, unlimited text and internet access. You would have everything you need for half the price of your usual telephone bill. Even your children would say that mom knows best if they learn that having a Straight Talk phone is still within your monthly budget.

Listen to what Scott Canterbury has to say, he loves Straight Talk, hook, line and sinker. You can also check out the video below if you’re not completely sold!

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