Remember Telephones Made of Two Cans and a Piece of String?

TV tag?  Turquoise princess phones hanging on the kitchen wall with a long, curly cord attached?

Me, too.

Times certainly have changed, haven’t they?

And some of us are slower to keep up with change than others.

I, for one, didn’t get an answering machine back in the day until a gaggle of friends, tired of having trouble reaching me, chided me long enough.

Did you get an answering machine right away?  Do you bundle up to wait in line all night for the latest iPhone?

Great for you!

I’m just not one of those folks (though I admit I awoke once in the middle of the night to snag a Wii for my younger son, honoring his deep Santa Clause desire for the new gaming system).

So this summer, when I was playing with words, I came up with a line something like, I don’t need a Smart phone.  I’m smart enough.

Then in November while I was getting my hair cut, my hairdresser raved about the Intuit Go Payment she could attach to her iPad to take credit payments with ease.

She continued chatting, imagining its uses for me when I’m out and about with Joy on Your Shoulders ™ radiant creations.

That got my prehistoric technological wheels spinning.

If I bought a Smart phone and could get Intuit Go Payment up and running by the weekend ahead, I’d be able to offer J.O.Y.S. Open House customers a wider option for payment.

Interesting….

And since I’m doing my best to live into new habits and behaviors all the time, I moved pretty quickly to get that going. Two trips to Verizon plus some internet research turned me into the happy owner of one Android Bionic 4GLTE with an Intuit Go Payment doohickey to plug into the headphone jack within two days.

The Universe saw me go for it, and my phone rang.  A woman from a Unity church in Colorado wanted to place an order.  Presto.  I took her charge card over the phone.  Very cool.

At the Open House, I used the Go Payment gizmo, too, and it worked wonderfully, and again at the UpLevel Your Life conference in Atlanta early in December.

I’d become a portable store!!

But THE COOLEST aspect of owning my new Smart phone occurred Christmas Eve when my 26-year-old son realized I’d joined his iPhone generation.

He asked if I’d like him to install a scrabble-type game (Words with Friends by Zynga) onto my phone, so we could play together.

I didn’t hesitate.

Y E S   (Triple word Score of 36!)

So with my son back  in Chicago at law school and me inspiring joy in the mountains of western North Carolina and beyond, we’ve got some intermittent gaming going on to challenge our brains.  Sweet.

Kind of like those cans on strings, only smarter.

Are you an early adopter of new technology to frequently bring yourself lots of joy?  Are you a late bloomer like me who’s resistant to change and then loves getting with the program?