My Much-Needed Mom's Day Out



 I spend a lot of time at home while everyone else in my family goes to school and work. Most days I don't mind staying at home, in fact, I enjoy it.  But every once in awhile, there comes a day where I have to get out of the house or I will drown myself in a cupcake. Recently I had one of those days,  so I slapped my laptop shut, put on a little lipstick and out the door I skipped for a Mom's Day Out.  Here are pictures documenting the day I gave to myself as a treat.



I started my Mom's Day Out with a nice skinny vanilla latte...a treat I don't indulge in often. Then I headed to my favourite cupcake store to pick up some 'cakes to thrill and delight my palate. Also in case I wanted to drown myself in them. {see paragraph #1} Because, you know, if you are going to drown yourself in cupcakes...they should be fresh and good and have lots of frosting. Just sayin'. My next stop was at the craft store to pick up pretty ribbon for creative projects I have on the go.

My next destination was one of the largest malls in North America, which is only 15 minutes from my home, West Edmonton Mall. I was a very good girl there. I only browsed the eye candy at some of my favourite stores...Anthropologie, Spring Shoes and Williams Sonoma.

 

And I had a little look-sie at all the hot  trends in home décor at Pottery Barn & Chapters and a few other stores....another favourite window shopping activity.

 

 

When all the browsing and drooling was finished, I  treated myself to a nice quiet lunch for one...fresh tuna nachos and a strawberry & lime drink.

Recently, the kind people at Nokia contacted me and asked if I would try out the Nokia Lumia 620. I said yes and I captured my whole Mom's Day Out in the pictures above using this amazing smart phone. I had a lot of fun with it!  Here are some of the things I love about the Nokia Lumia 620:

 

#1~Personalize It. The Nokia Lumia 620 offers a fun design that is lightweight and feels good in the hand...I really like how it fits nicely in my pocket too. It comes with seven different exchangeable shells and the start screen can be customized so that users can adapt the look of their phone to their own taste and style. The first thing I did was to make it up Ang-nam style. Oh yeah. Pink is my favorite colour....looking at it makes me happy, so I made my start screen pink. The Nokia home screen is set up with' tiles' that swipe vertically so you can see apps and features. You can 'pin' any app to the screen for easy access. The tiles can also be made into 1 of 3 sizes and  they slot together for an amazingly organized look. I chose to make my most commonly used apps into the largest tile size, and my lesser used apps into the smallest size.

#2~Price Point. This phone has all of the features of a premium device including the ability to mulit-task, stream in HD, share at super-fast speeds, and sunlight readability enhancements & more...all for the amazing price of $250 new or with Telus for $0 for a 2 year term on any rate plan. This is an amazing price. {I know because my teen has lost/damaged her non-Nokia phone on more than one occasion and we have paid hundreds of dollars to fix/replace it.}

#3~City Lens.The Nokia 620 has an amazing feature called  City Lens. This feature allows one the ability to hold up the phone and scan the local surroundings to bring up points of interest, shops, restaurants and destinations. I held up the phone to do a quick scan at West Ed Mall and I quickly got a list of all of the restaurant choices....of which there were many. I love this feature! I think it is brilliant and would be so amazing for travelling.

#4~Kid's Corner Feature. One feature that sets the Nokia device apart from other similar phones is a feature that any Mom of young children would love...Kid's Corner. Do you sometimes give your phone to your child to play with as a distraction while, say, waiting in the doctor's office or having a conversation with a friend? Kid's Corner is like a folder where all of the kids apps can be stored, and it is locked with a password. This means that when you give the phone to your child, they can only play in Kid's Corner. The beauty of it for you is that you can rest assured that when you get the phone back,  you won't have contacts erased, or phone calls made to who-knows-where locations.

#5~Smart Shoot. This is a terrific feature that allows you to create a single, perfect shot from a collection of pictures. This is important when you are trying to get that one family or group shot with a lot of different facial expressions to contend with. It even allows you to removed unwanted objects and clutter from the background of the picture.
#6~Cinemagraph Lens.  Another fun feature is the cinemagraph lens which can add simple animation to still photographs. Just snap a picture and pick the spots you want to animate. Then post the moving image on Facebook or other social networks to get everyone laughing. I did this with a picture of my son, and he loved it and showed it to all his friends!

I had a wonderful Mom's Day Out, and I came home feeling much better than I did when I left the house. It was a great little vacation away from the normal routines and activities in my house that sometimes feel a little hum-drum to me. And I have to say that having the Nokia Lumia 620 along with me was fun too! {In case anyone follows me on twitter, I tweeted all about my day and you can find it under #NokiaSpring on Twitter.}


{Disclosure-I am participating in the Nokia Easter Break blog tour by enCompass Media on behalf of Nokia. I received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion.}