My favorites

Do you have a favorite app? Or 5? 10? I’m not really an apps girl… I’ve seen iPhones that have 100 or more apps, all categorized, and where 10 do the exact same thing and it boggles my mind. I can’t have that many on there, I start to feel overwhelmed and cluttered and if I see I haven’t touched it in awhile, I’ll take it off my phone, but there are those rare few that I have that I can’t live without.

I feel like you don’t know about these and I have to share the wealth. Get you in the know. Bring you into my little ‘best app’ circle, so you can nod your head and agree with me.


From the one that I’m loving most:

~ Viber
By far the most exciting app I have. Why? Because its free. (always a great thing) but more than that, it lets me talk to friends around the world for free. I text my friend in Germany all day long and never think twice about it. Friend in Peru? Same thing! We can call each other too, all through the app and have it be free. Such a beautiful thing. It works for everyone anywhere, US to US too, so you don’t need an international friend to get it…but it never hurts to have one. ;)

~ My Consultant
If you have your own business, this is a great app to use for tallying the customer’s totals. It let’s you add everything up with tax and shipping included which keeps you accurate. I use this all the time while at my parties.

~ Wells Fargo
one reason and one reason only… mobile depositing. best.thing.ever.

~ My Cycles
Definitely a ‘girly stuff’ app to have, but I love this app. It tracks everything, every month, so I can be prepared. I enter in my issues for that day, all the symptoms, it saves it and gives me an idea of what I’ll be expecting for next month. I’ve had this app for 2 years now and have found in incredibly accurate, and recommend it to all.


{there’s another app alongside it that I’ve covered but that I use daily. It’s great for women, whether after giving birth, or in general.. if you want to know, I’ll email you the name of it, but since the creator didn’t think of the best name for it, I don’t want it on my blog}

And then a lot of my photo apps. The ones I use the most are:
~ Diptic
a great collage app that gives you several different options and funky designs. It costs, but it’s worth the .99 cents.

~ Pic Stitch is the free collage app.

~ TimerCam is great for those selfies you don’t want people to know are selfies. Prop it up. Set the timer. And run to the other end of the room… oh, someone took my picture…

~ Whitagram is for those photos you don’t want to get crunched in the Instagram app. It’ll keep the dimension of your landscape photo allowing everything you took to be in the IG picture. This might be why you’re seeing a lot of shrunken IG photos these days.

The most recent app I’ve gotten (just last night actually) is the InstaCC app. I’m not quite sure I like it. It forces you to sign in via IG and will only pull your IG photos. Originally, I thought it would pull from my photo album, which I thought would be great to fill a picture for every day of the calendar that I took, however it will only post the ones you put on IG and it will only allow you to ‘save’ the calendar, by putting it on IG… something I didn’t want to do. I just wanted to save it in my camera roll, but since it wouldn’t let me, I took a screen shot of it instead.

Take that, InstaCC!

But the concept, I thought was pretty neat. They also have fun screen skins for the background. So it has potential, if you’re a heavy daily IG user…which you can see, I am not. (this was a heavier month for me).

So those are the most used (and favorite) apps I have currently.

What are apps you can’t live without or just plain love using? No listing the typical (ie. IG, FB, Twitter, Pinterest..), I want unique apps that you’ve found that are your hidden gems.

Happy May Day!!!

Pin It Now!

The soothing sounds of soundtracks

I’m a big advocate for soundtracks. They have the ability to excite you, make you cry, dance, give you chills and what can be most important; sooth and relax you.

I grew up with soundtracks. Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera to start and as I got older, I got into the movies; Forest Gump, Titanic, Chicago… to name a few.

Even in college, the guys were heavy into Star Wars I, and I can’t even tell you how many times we listened to that soundtrack in their dorm room or on our way to Denny’s.

Once I started working for the prison system, as I’ve mentioned before, I had a very difficult time with sleep. I’d either lie there with anxiety knowing I had to start my Monday the next morning, or lie there afraid someone had broken into my house and played out every scenario of that happening. Or what was sometimes even worse, having really bad nightmares that would wake me up drenched in sweat with my heart pounding so hard it would just stop.

When nights became too much for my head to handle, I would grab my cd player and put in my favorite soundtrack; Meet Joe Black. The only soundtrack that had the ability to sooth me to sleep. Sometimes it would take only a few tracks, sometimes it would take the entire cd, but in time, I’d drift off to sleep.

To this day, its still one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. Even as I write this, I’m listening to it picturing where we are in the movie. And that’s what’s so great about soundtracks! If you’ve seen the movie enough, you can play the entire scene in your head as you listen. There’ll be times I’ll pause in what I’m doing to play it out in my head and a little smile will appear because as always, its one of my favorite parts.


Every soundtrack evokes a different emotion in me. When I’m needing to decompress from the day, I’ll play my ‘soundtracks' playlist that begins with Pride and Prejudice, followed by Meet Joe Black and then Pearl Harbor. It continues on to others, but these are my top 3 favorites to have me unwind. If I’m feeling more upbeat, I’ll listen to Chicago and sing along or {when I had it} Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I plan to always have soundtracks in my life. I think its very important for my {future} kids to appreciate the finer music. The symphonies and feeling the emotion in every note they make. To sit back and close their eyes as they soak in the sounds, being able to pick out the cellos and clarinets, the violins and flutes. Feeling the beat…

I can certainly go on and on about it, that’s how passionate I am about beautiful music. What also gives me a huge appreciation for it is watching how the composer made the music. G-man and I one night, awhile back, watched a documentary on the Rocky movies. In it, they talked about the music. In the very first movie, they had such a low budget, they filmed primarily in the middle of the night or at dawn. That’s why you see so many morning shots. They had to because they didn’t have a permit to shoot in the city as it was too expensive.

With the music, generally they’re given weeks (if I remember correctly) to watch the movie and play the music in their studio repeatedly, along with a large budget but right before doing their first run through, the composer was pulled aside, told the budget was slashed to virtually nothing and without telling the musicians, started the recording and had them play every song for the entire movie.

They played every song once. That’s it. What you hear in the movie was their very first run through. Now if you watch that movie again, {which if you’re anything like me, you’re forced happy to watch it every time it comes on} I’d imagine your appreciation for it all will increase. Maybe its just me thinking its cool. But I can’t help it, I do.

I know I’m not alone in liking soundtracks, so what kind do you listen to?

What are your favorites and your go to’s?

Any that fall in line with Pride and Prejudice and Meet Joe Black? I would love recommendations on similar ones to add to my collection.

Happy Friday and weekend everyone. Oh and that’s my very first collage so go easy on me with how simple it is.

Pin It Now!

Decorate me happy

The day has arrived for all to see if my decorations really are as great as I made them out to be or if they fell flat.

I will let you be the judge. The ever so kind and sweet judge.

Is it weird I took 200 pictures of my decorations over a course of 4 days? Yes?? Well, forget I said that then… I would decorate, stand back, adjust and be satisfied…then the next day I would change things around, stand back, adjust and be newly satisfied….only to change it all around again the next day.

Well friends, I’ve banned myself from changing things again. Although, I want to add lights but this idea came post-banning...so therefore, no lights will be added. And I want to make an ornament wreath (yes, you heard me correctly) as my centerpiece on my dining table, but knowing me, I doubt I’ll actually do it. Who knows though.

So without further ado…oh but before I do, let me state that I’m not colorblind. I’m well aware of the colors of blue I’m sporting. My goal was to use Christmas decorations I already had without buying any new this year and this is what I came up with.

Every year, my parents would get us kids an ornament that represented us from the year. I love this tradition and plan on continuing it for my future, which is why you see the F-18. I got that for G-man one Christmas and wrote his info on it just like his own jet, when he flew. I tilted it up to make it look like its taking off. (I’m corny, I know)

I hung ornaments from the ceiling this year and love how it turned out. However, as each day passed, I found I kept changing how it looked. I never realized before starting just how much they needed to look grounded to look good.


They looked a lot worse before I put the wreath up, but you can see how they look lost without anything around them. It worked to a point with the garland framing it but it stopped short on each side of the tv and just seemed awkward.

I finally decided to pin up both sides and prefer this the most. I think if I hung lights around the windows it might complete it but the ban and all. I’m enjoying the simplicity of this anyhow.

My modest entry. {my dad built that bench for me, by the way}

Now for my dining room. I was gifted with these lead crystal champagne flutes awhile back and until I get to properly use them, they work perfectly as a part of my decorations, I think.




After hanging the ornaments, I strung extra ribbon through them to have them drape down.

Now you’ve seen my happy decorations. I also have all the beautiful Christmas cards displayed on one of my walls so I can continue to see them and smile.

Have I mentioned I love this time of year? I love Christmas and the beauty of it all. The warmth, love, and {mostly} happy attitudes.

Pin It Now!

Aw man, now I'm uncomfortable

I don't respond in the most mature way when I think a guy may like me when the feelings aren't reciprocated. Even if he doesn't but I feel like his 'friendly liking' is more than it should be.

I'll get all awkward, distant and avoidy. (it's a word, promise)

Example:
My college friend K was my then boyfriend's (or the guy I dated for 4 lame months) dorm roommate. K was great with the girls, in the way of a girl's boy bff. One night we laid on the chapel floor under the pews for 5 hours talking...about the roommate and everything else under the sun. That's just how he was.

He invited me to see Phantom of the Opera with him and his parents in San Francisco. I went and had a great time. A little awkward, especially when his nephews thought we should "be a couple" and said so at dinner, but his parents are great and I was happy to go.

Over the years I'd go visit, he and the guys would come and stay with me, and we talked on the phone all the time... then we were on the phone while I was driving one night and I got super uncomfortable because he was wanting me to come visit him. Nothing out of the ordinary but (this is where my not so mature self comes in) I didn't like the idea anymore...

I was going through the mountains at the time and had taken the wrong turn and was lost so I was making excuses for not responding to the 'come visit me' offer when I lost reception and dropped the call.

...I never called him back. That was 6 years ago. <mature? a little...>

I still think about him. We have mutual friends, but am happy we don't talk anymore.

That brings us to today.

There is a guy that I feel is "friendly". Maybe it's just how he is, like K was, but being around him more and more is making me more and more uncomfortable. So I'm beginning to get avoidy. (again, it. is. a. word)

I could be completely wrong about it all! I'm really bad at picking up when a guy likes me, usually until it's too late. But I think I've been seeing "signs" and I don't know what to do.

Every time I explain to G-man a friendship I've established with a guy (usually a co-worker) and the dinners we'd go on and the topics we'd have, blah blah blah... G-man would say, 'he likes you.'

I always make a face at him and say, 'ewww, no he doesn't.'

And he insists it's obvious to him and rattles off 5 or more reasons why he SEES the guy who I say is just my friend  in fact has feelings for me.

Who knows! I do know that I am a pro at making things awkward. It's my specialty...don't you agree??

Have I now made YOU uncomfortable?

((and can we please note my gray hairs in this picture?? They've now tripled since then.))

I was able to explain to G-man this story in great detail and he believes this guy has a little crush on me. eek! Still hoping not...

Hopefully this image can be extracted from your brain enough to have a fabulous and enjoyable weekend!

Pin It Now!