Category Archives: Life

iPhone apps that make my life easier

My friend Kacie is thinking about getting a smart phone. She’s been asking me lots of questions about my iPhone, and she requested that I share some of my favorite apps here. Okay!

As someone who doesn’t talk on the phone a lot, I use it more for browsing the Internet and applications than I do for talking. If you’re like me and you’re not a big cell phone user, you might consider getting an iPod Touch instead. Having instant access to the Internet without wi-fi is a really convenient perk, but it’s not necessary if you don’t want to spend the extra money on your cell phone bill.

Here are the ways that the iPhone has made my life easier:

Maps

I am perpetually lost. I have a terrible sense of direction, and even when someone gives me explicit directions, it’s easy for me to get turned around anyway. Now that I have GPS on my iPhone, even if I take a wrong turn, I can map a new course to help me find my way back. The maps aren’t also completely accurate, but they’re usually accurate enough to help me find my way.

Scheduling

I’ve never been able to get it together enough to use a day planner. I always forget to enter appointments or lose the thing entirely. My iPhone calendar is the closest I’ve come to organizing various dates and appointments. I love that I can choose multiple times to alert myself, and because it’s my phone, I check it frequently enough to see when things are coming up.

Comparison shopping

Have you ever bought something for what you thought was a great price, and then kicked yourself later when you found it on sale for cheaper somewhere else? It seems that no matter how much comparison shopping you do beforehand, it’s easy to end up in this positive. I always do a quick search on my iPhone before I buy to make sure that no one else is selling it for cheaper right now.

Road trips

The iPhone has absolutely changed long car trips for us. We invested $30 in an FM transmitter that allows us to broadcast the iPhone through a radio station. In addition to letting us play music from my iPod library, it allows us to listen to episodes of This American Life on its incredible iPhone app and catch up on the news with the NPR News app. We used to burn a ton of CDs with music and podcasts before hitting the road, but now all we need is my tiny little iPhone.

Skype

I haven’t actually tested this yet, so I’ll have to follow when we get back from Europe, but I’m planning on using Skype to help us stay in touch with family while we’re out of the country. Roaming phone and data charges are incredibly expensive overseas. I plan to keep my phone on Airplane Mode while we’re out of the country. This basically turns it into an iPod Touch. I’ll still be able to connect to wi-fi where ever it’s available, which means we can use the Skype app to make phone calls at much cheaper rates. If we connect with other Skype users, it’s even free.

Online banking

Because we keep the bulk of our money in savings accounts, our checking account balance is typically pretty low. It’s really important that we keep up with transactions to make sure we’re not overspending. I often log into our checking account to make sure all of the bills are withdrawing as they should. I also use the Mint.com app occasionally to check our budget and see how we’re doing.

Fitness

The Couch to 5K app made training for my 5K a lot easier and more.

Social Networking

While it’s not the most productive use for a smart phone, connecting to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks where ever you are is a definite perk for smart phones. It makes waiting in a long line much more bearable, and it’s definitely fun to snap a picture and immediately upload it to Facebook or Flickr when I see something interesting.

Do you have a smart phone? What are your favorite ways to use it?

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post in any way by AT&T or Apple. But it sure would be nice if they sent me a new iMac. :)

Photo by chanc

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re
meant to be

For the past few days, this line from “All You Need is Love” has been my mantra. No matter how prepared you feel for each of life’s milestones, sometimes it can feel like you’re just not ready. I’ve known about what’s coming up in the next couple months for almost a year. I’ve planned for it, counted down, and prepared. Now that it’s here, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed.

It’s not that I’m not ready. I am ready. But I still feel like time sneaked up on me. It feels like just yesterday that we found out we’d be moving sooner than we thought. That was 6 months ago.

The past three years felt like an eternity as we lived through them, but now I’m looking back, and I can’t believe how quickly it seems to have whizzed by in hindsight.

And now we’re in the final countdown of our time here in North Carolina. We’re in the final countdown of this chapter of our lives.  Of course, nothing is happening exactly according to plan. It never does, though, does it? It’s not possible to plan for the unexpected, because you never know what life will throw at you.

I’ve spent 25 years trying to dictate the time line for everything. I’ve spent my whole life trying to anticipate the unexpected and plot everything out step by step. Now as we’re gearing up for the most hectic few months of our lives, I’m so tired of trying to control everything.

So I’m taking it one day at a time and reminding myself that I’m right where I’m supposed to be — where ever that may be. I’m recognizing that all of the changes coming in the months ahead are good ones, even if they are stressful. Every curve ball that crosses our path is meant to be there. In the end, everything will work out exactly as it should.

We just need to get through the next few weeks, and then I can breathe again.

One month to go

After months of counting the days, we’re finally in the homestretch. We’re moving in about 32 days, and five days after that we’ll be boarding a plane to Europe!

I wish I could say the months have flown by quickly, but honestly? There were times when I felt like we’d never get here. My hope is that with everything that’s going on right now, the next few weeks will pass quickly.

I keep feeling like I should be doing something to prepare for Europe, but all of it is finished. There’s nothing left to do but pack our bags and board the plane.

Moving preparations are a completely different story. Oy.

I haven’t begun to pack. I haven’t even begun to purge. But my biggest problem right now is our apartment.

After posting on Craigslist twice, I’ve had two people show interest in subletting our apartment. After a week each of negotiating, waiting for applications, and crossing my fingers, they both backed out. Two weeks later, and I still don’t have a subletter.

Someone came to view it over the weekend, and she was very interested, but she said the price to renew once the subleasing contract is up was out of her range. Even though I dropped the rent slightly, she’ll have to pay full price if she chooses to stay here beyond the end of my lease. I’m hoping she’ll decide to take it, but I don’t know.

If she does want to move in, we’ll probably have to bump our move out day up a week to May 1. That means I won’t have the week off work I planned to use packing and preparing. I’m not ready to think about that yet, so I’ll just wait and see what happens.

Just four weeks to go before the next chapter begins! I’m just hoping they go smoothly.

Photo by mojodenbowsphotostudio

Turn off the lights to conserve energy & save money

This past Saturday, cities and households throughout the world observed Earth Hour. Once a year, families, businesses, and cities shut off the lights for one hour to raise awareness about energy conservation.

Tony and I observed the tradition with candles, an game of Battleship, and Jones Soda root beer, and it was actually a lot of fun. It reminded me of summer power outages when I was a kid when we suddenly had to find creative ways to entertain ourselves.

Shutting off the lights doesn’t just conserve energy, though. It also reduces energy costs and promotes quality time with family. Shutting off computers, televisions, and video games — even for an hour — is a great way to reconnect. All of the benefits made me wonder — why don’t we observe Earth hours more frequently?

Every year, my older sister and her family shut off the lights, eat canned foods, and enjoy an entire weekend with limited energy use. For them, the tradition is a chance to embrace simplicity. It’s also a reminder of how life would be without electricity.

If you’re trying to conserve energy and lower your electricity costs, consider a weekly or monthly “earth hour.” Stock up on candles and flashlight batteries, and plan a fun night with these power-free activities.

  • Play board games or cards.
  • Tell stories.
  • Read or write by candlelight.
  • Prepare a meal that doesn’t require electricity.

How did you observe Earth Hour?

I wasn’t even being chased

This morning I finally ran a 5K after four months of training.

My first accomplishment was actually getting to the race and starting. I was convinced that it was too soon, and that I wasn’t ready. I almost backed out at the last minute.

But I made it there, and I ran the race. I’m not going to lie to you — it was hard. Today wasn’t just my first race — it’s the longest I’ve ever run in my life. I’d never run longer than a mile and a half in one stretch.

When I came to mile 1, it felt like I’d already been running for an hour. I made the mistake of training indoors on a treadmill, and running outside was a whole different experience. My lungs were burning with the chilly morning air. My legs ached as they hit the hard concrete. Several times during the race, I wondered if I could actually finish. I considered stopped, cutting through, and walking back to the car without finishing. But I kept going.

I was hoping I’d get a second wind as I hit mile 3. Instead, I just felt exhausted. I wondered how I’d actually get over the finish line.

At that moment, you’ll never believe what song randomly started playing on my iPod shuffle: “Eye of the Tiger.” I almost couldn’t believe it myself. I was going to finish my first 5K to “Eye of the Tiger”? It was too perfect. So I picked up the pace, pushed myself a little further, and I crossed the finish line.

My goal was to finish the race in under 40 minutes. I came in at 41:35. That’s roughly a 13:45 minute mile. My fastest speed is about 12:30 minutes per mile, but considering the fact that I’ve never run a full three miles, I’m cutting myself some slack for endurance.

I may have been slow by a seasoned runner’s standards, but I still crossed the finish line feeling like Rocky.

Photo by Tony, who was so proud when I crossed the finish line that he actually got misty eyed. :)

Bad dog

Yesterday I had a very. important. phone call. An organization that I’ve wanted to work with for years is hiring for a position in Indianapolis that would be absolutely perfect for me, and they wanted to interview me.

I was on my way out of the office last night when the phone rang at 5:30 on the dot. On my drive home, I talked to the interviewer about the position and my qualifications. It seemed to be going great.

When I pulled into my parking lot, I stayed in the car to finish up the call. Things were wrapping up, and I was asking questions, when I looked up and saw my dog standing in the middle of the lawn by himself.

Howie. Wandering around off leash with Tony nowhere in sight.

I’ve always been overly paranoid about allowing dogs off leash. When I was a kid, my family had a dog named Bruno, a German shepherd mix, who we could not keep inside. The dog was constantly running away, and he was fast. My sister chased him down once in her car and clocked him at 40 miles per hour.

He would disappear for days at a time. I was a sensitive kid and a dog lover, so while my parents muttered under their breath about the damn dog and waited for the dog catcher to call — he knew Bruno by name — I tossed and turned for a lot of sleepless nights.

Because of Bruno, Howie has lived almost three years without ever wandering the world off leash. We take him to the dog park and let him run around in fenced areas, but that’s the extent of Howie’s experience with independence.

So there I am, on arguably one of the most important phone calls of my life, and my dog is wandering around the parking lot. Now I’ll admit, the sight of my dog off leash led to a slight overreaction.  After years of experience with a dog who ran, I expected Howie to turn and run, too. Running from us after escape was Bruno’s absolute favorite pastime. But Howie is about half Bruno’s size with absolutely no experience dodging cars, and our apartment is on a very busy road.

The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt my interview to start shouting at my dog like a crazy person. I fought the urge to chase him, afraid that he might decide it was a game and run from me.

When I got out of the car, Howie looked surprised to see me. He also looked like he had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. The hair on his back was standing up straight, and I assumed that as soon as he wandered outside he looked around, realized Tony and I were nowhere to be found, and didn’t really know what to do with himself.

I started snapping my fingers and pointing at the backseat like a maniac. Howie regarded me much like he does at the dog park. He sort of looked at me like, “Oh. Hey. Fancy meeting you here.” Then he took his time smelling the grass as he wandered over to me.

Typically when he does this I’m able to call him in a tone that he recognizes as very. serious. In this case, I was trying to have a very. important. conversation. So I continued to snap and attempted to communicate telepathically with my dog.

The whole time I’m thinking Tony has probably been murdered. Either that or he’s not home, and we’ve been robbed. I imagined myself walking back upstairs to find the door hanging open, everything we own scattered around our living room. How else could the dog have escaped a 900 square foot apartment on the third floor without anyone realizing it?

Howie finally wanders over to me, tail wagging, happy to see me. I reach out, grab his collar, and shove him into the backseat.

Throughout all of this, I tried to stay engaged with my interviewer. I was absolutely interested in every word of the conversation. Unfortunately, though, I’m sure I seemed distracted. How could I not? I was wrangling my dog, considering the possible murder of my husband, and picturing my apartment in shambles from a break-in.

We still have no idea how the dog escaped. Tony’s theory is that he left the door slightly ajar when he came home just minutes before I found Howie in the parking lot. He was opening windows in the apartment, and the door must have cracked open enough for Howie to wander out. What confuses me is that the door was closed when I came back upstairs. The only other explanation is that Howie has been studying magic.

The interview is over. I did my absolute best to stay engaged in the conversation despite the circumstances. All that I can do now is wait to hear back from them and hope the interviewer didn’t notice my distraction.

Losing the battle, winning the war

I write about this topic a. lot. It’s because after years of working on it, I still spend way too much time beating myself up when I have to let things go.

This week I announced that I’ll be updating this blog a little less frequently for the next few weeks as we head into the final weeks before our move. I put a lot of thought into the decision, and I know it’s the right thing to do if I want to maintain my to-do list and my sanity. But knowing it’s the right decision wasn’t enough to keep me from feeling defeated when Tuesday passed with Monday’s post on the homepage.

I’m running my first 5K this Saturday after months of training. The last week in February, my training was going really well. My times were up, my endurance was strong, and I felt like I would surely be ready by the end of March. Then I came down with a brutal cold in the second week of the month that kept me out of the gym for over a week. The endurance and speed that I worked so hard to build flew right out the window. My lungs are still recovering, and my body is still weak from what was a pretty nasty virus. This week I can barely make it a mile before I have to slow down and walk.

My difficult runs aren’t a product of laziness, and I can’t control it. Still I can’t help but my kick myself as I consider the strong possibility that I won’t reach my goal on Saturday. I may not be able to run all 3 miles without walking, and my time will likely be much slower than I hoped.

I know I’m not alone in this endless struggle to convince myself that obstacles are not necessarily failures. I know that you can lose the battle without losing the war, but I still have trouble getting over even the smallest of defeats.

I think a lot of women (and men for that matter) waste too much energy beating themselves up instead of building themselves up. Unfortunately, I’m proof that recognizing the problem isn’t enough to solve it. I can tell myself over and over that it’s okay to take a step back, the important thing is to keep going. Yet I still end up here — beating myself up for obstacles that I can’t control and feeling defeated prematurely. Of course, that attitude isn’t very motivating, and I end up sabotaging myself with negativity in the end.

It’s a vicious cycle that I hope to someday overcome. In the meantime, I just have to keep reminding myself that each setback makes me stronger, brings me one step closer to my goals, and teaches me a valuable lesson in how not to get there.

Photo by kaneda99

Boxed in

The image you’re about to see may disturb you. Viewing this image is not recommended for people sensitive to clutter, disorganization, and mess. Potential side effects include headache, shortness or breath, difficulty concentrating, and severe writer’s block. View at your own risk.

This is the current state of my guest room and, consequently, the current state of my brain:

Somewhere under this pile of boxes and junk there is a bed and a desk and even a floor. Sadly, you can’t see any of that.

This mess has been accumulating for the past six months. At Christmas, new things left a lot of our old stuff homeless. Of course, I should have been getting rid of things then. But a funny thing happens when I know a move is coming. I start putting things off.

“I’ll be going through everything in a few months when we’re packing. I’ll deal with this then.”

Clutter began to accumulate a little at a time. A few boxes here; a pile of books there. We couldn’t decide whether we should sell our old TV, give it to Goodwill, or bring it with us — into the guest room it went. We  bought a used TV, and it was shipped to us in its original packaging. We thought it would be nice to keep the box so we could pack the TV in it when we move — into the guest room that went. A co-worker kindly gave us a trunk load of good moving boxes. I’m sure you see where this is going.

Now this room haunts my nightmares. I just keep closing the door tight, trying to pretend that mess isn’t there. Unfortunately, it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem, though. The guest room is ground zero, but there are tiny little catastrophe zones throughout our apartment. Closets, drawers, cupboards, shelves — all piled with junk I’ll have to sort and pack.

We’re moving in about 6 weeks. During my least anxious times, I tell myself that’s plenty of time. But then I open that guest room door, and I’m reminded of just how much I have to do.

What I mean to say is I have a lot on my mind right now, and a to-do list that’s a mile long. I do most of my writing on the weekends, and unfortunately that’s also the only time I can focus on decluttering, packing, and planning. My brain looks a lot like that room right now, and sorting out the mess to find inspiration is becoming harder and harder. Something has to give.

Since I started this blog almost two years ago, I’ve updated most weekdays. For the next 6 weeks, I will likely be posting every other day. I don’t plan to disappear for days or weeks at a time, but cutting down a little will help my sanity immensely.

I can’t guarantee that this will be the last time I whine. Please be patient with me as I attempt to navigate a lot of stress.

How are you doing? I’m happy to join your pity party if you’d like to whine a little. :)

Instant comfort

Whether I’m feeling sick or I’ve just come home after a particularly tough day at work, the first thing I do is kick off my shoes and slip into a pair of cozy fleece socks and slippers. They have the power to instantly comfort me.

Every year at Christmas, Tony gets me a new pair of cozy socks or two, so I’ve built up quite a collection. They’re particularly comforting in the winter. But even in the summer time, my feet always seem to be cold in the evenings, so I wear them year round.

There’s nothing special about the slippers. You can get similar pairs at Target or Wal-Mart for under $10. This is probably the fifth or sixth pair of similar, plain old fuzzy slippers I’ve had since college. I’ve had these for over a year now, so it’s time to replace them.

On road trips I always leave them out of my luggage so I can put them on during the drive. They’re the most comfortable thing I own, and sometimes I wish it was socially acceptable to wear them in public.

This is one of four favorite things I’ll be posting about this week. If you’d like to share your favorite things, leave a comment or send me a link to your blog post.