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!

So you want to rent a lens

There’s so many things that are out there in the world that we have no clue we can rent, until magically, it’s pointed out to us.

A designer gown for an incredible price? - Rent the Runway will let you.

A wedding gown, tuxedos, furniture, cars, kids.. you get the idea.

But did you know you can rent lenses? Professional luxury lens? and even the camera bodies too?? If you’re close to a reliable camera store, they’ll all be at your fingertips for what could be a very hefty price, but online! Online is where your selection goes beyond your wildest dreams.

When I was planning to go to Mexico, I wanted to make sure I had the easiest time with my camera as possible. My camera is already heavy enough, I didn’t want to bring my 5lb, break my arm zoom lens, plus another lens that will let me shoot close. No. I wanted one lens that would let me do it all. Zoom in. Zoom out without ever having to stop to switch it out for the ‘other one’ so I could get the shot I wanted.

I put it out there to a lot of professional photographers to find the ‘perfect vacation lens’ and though they all had their opinions, one made the most sense. The 24-105L series zoom lens. Now my next question to myself was: “where will I get it, and how can I pay the least amount of money for it?”

Though there are a lot of trusted reliable websites, I went with the best one for me. Lens Pro To Go. Not only did I get a great deal – 14 day rental for the price of 7!! But I also got to experience true customer service. Of course I had questions, which led me to call while I was placing the order, and they picked up right away. No automated voice, no press 1 for English, they answer and they’re funny. Or at least my guy was. Not to mention very patient and helpful.

After placing my order, they called me…and being the hyper skeptical, overly cautious person that I am, wasn’t prepared for their call. He asked me a series of questions, ranging from why I was renting the lens, to if I were a professional, to whether or not I have a blog/website so they can see the photos after.

Since I can be less than forthcoming at times, I wasn’t willing to give my blog and details and only supplied the necessities so he could complete my order. I have no doubt this is standard, but I was new to renting and I’m a private (information) person, so it was hard for me to give it all up.

I didn’t know what to expect when it arrived, but it came in a huge box. I dove into it and quickly understood why it was such a huge box. This massive hard cover case was inside.

Just seeing it was getting me happy and I loved the touch of the question on their sticker of who my favorite superhero is. Once I worked the {very difficult} snaps, I opened up to see the lens nestled nicely into thick thick padded foam. Plus a tootsie pop! Another fun detail that Lens Pro To Go adds to their rental.

I really liked that {while it was in the case} I didn’t have to worry about breaking the lens. Outside the case was another ballgame, but this case seemed indestructible.

I took it with me to Mexico and loved every minute with the lens. I had 5 days after to keep playing with it, and I was sad to see it go. I’ve always thought I wanted a 24-70mm lens, but now using this one, I’m thinking I know what I’ll be saving up for. It’s the perfect all around zoom when you only agree to bring one.

Its not as heavy as other zoom lenses, which is another reason why I chose it, but still after awhile (read: 8 hours) of the camera and lens together, the weight will catch up.. as evidenced by my vein beginning to pop out of my arm from holding it up.

And a reminder of the fantastic photos taken with it…

If you ever get the chance to rent a lens, check out Lens Pro To Go, they’re really great to work with and they provide everything for you to ship it right back. Whenever I get the itch to rent again, I’ll definitely be using them again.

Have you ever rented a lens before?

What’s the most obscure thing you’ve rented that we would be surprised that you can?


*they have no idea I wrote a review. All opinions are mine. I did this solely on my own because I had such a great experience with them and not many people know you can rent lenses!

Pin It Now!

Photo book fun with a how to for you!

Back in January, I jumped on a groupon for a Shutterfly photo book. I’m on this quest right now to put all our travels into their individual photo books and figured I’d make book number two with the groupon. My last photo book I made, through another website turned out to be dreadful. Taking 13 months to complete because their software (to me) was the worst I’d ever dealt with. So even though I was a little leery making them, I thought I’d give it a go with Shutterfly.

I’ve read a ton of reviews about their colors being completely off and doing some very funky effects to your photos without you knowing and having the books turn out horrible, so it made me even more cautious. I read a person’s tips about turning off the ‘vivid effect’ and planned to do that once I completed my book, and proceeded to fill the book with my photos.

It was easy. If you’ve never used Shutterfly, that’s one thing I have to tell you. Its unbelievably easy to do. But once I was completely done; had added over 100 photos to the 44 pages, I went to find that ‘vivid effect’ and couldn’t find it. anywhere! Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and jumped on their online chat to ask for help.

That’s when she told me that if I wanted to remove the vivid effect, I had to start all over. I was getting upset. All that work, and I had to start from the beginning again. For 45 minutes we went back and forth as she slowly..and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y walked me through each and every step. I’m sure I tested her patience with asking the same question 3 times over, but I wanted to be absolutely sure I understood what I was supposed to do so I could have a perfect photo book.

And I do.

But what I find interesting is they don’t advertise that they apply this vivid effect and even more, that they make it rather difficult to remove it too. They hide it, if you will. I don’t know why they think its something you should have or would want, but I’m going to show you how to remove it from all of your photos you want to put in an album so that you can be sure you’ll have the photos you want the way you want.

Step 1 - go into the photo album you’ll be using to put in your photo book and “select all”. All your photos will have the rim around them, as shown.

Step 2 – Click on “edit” and click on “Apply effect”.

Step 3 – make sure it shows that all photos (in my case, all 201) in your photo album are there and click “don’t apply automatic corrections to picture”. Once checked, click “Apply this effect”.

Step 4 – Are you sure? YES! its like they want to trick you into thinking you’re applying an effect, but you aren’t.

Step 5 – sit there and wait for it to remove the effect from every image. Keep the popup up, otherwise it will stop the process.

Step 6 – you can now go into the photo books tab and begin to create your photo book!!

I’m particular about my images. Even though I took these photos during my point and shoot days, I still valued the way they looked and didn’t want them to be altered in any way and I truly am pleased by the end result of my Shutterfly photo book.

We drove across the country, and I am so happy I have it all in this one album to show our trip from California to Virginia.

My groupon only allowed hardcover and normal photo paper, but I didn’t mind because the quality turned out great.

I have so many more to make and I can’t wait to have a stack full of photo books to look through for years and years to come!

If you choose to use Shutterfly, make sure you do those steps before you start your album, otherwise you’ll end up like me and have to do it all over again and we don’t want that.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. If you have any questions about this, email me or comment and I’ll be happy to help you!

in no way was I compensated for this post. Heck, they have no clue.. I simply love my book and wanted to share so everyone can be aware of that silly ‘vivid effect’ and how to remove it to make a perfect album you’ll love.

 

PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSSIE!! Love you friend!!

Pin It Now!

All in the name of research!

I had to do it. I just had to! There was no other way of knowing for sure what it really was. And did I mention I was peer pressured into doing it?

My friend who’s a farmer’s daughter said it was ok…

and then said, she called the cops on me.
and to listen for the sirens…

But she said she was always taught, if you only take what you're going to eat RIGHT now, you're all good.

Then she mentioned how in Bible times they left the outer parts of the fields for the gleaners

then she quoted Starsky and Hutch and said, ‘DO IT! DO IT…DO IT!!!

And so I did.

I nervously picked a piece of fruit off a tree in an orchard to figure out what it really was. All in the name of research, my friends! …yes that can also be called stealing…tomato tomah-to

After cleaning it up, taking it outside and letting it model for me, my friend and I put our cell phone heads together and figured out what it was!

Journey with me.
This skin’s all worn and rough from the wind…


It’s all bumpy. Not smooth at all… the anticipation is killing me!


Ta-da!! It’s yellow inside! Say wha????


I find it ironic I chose my yellow knife for this…me thinks I was onto something.
Me also thinks it was because I didn’t want my blue one to clash w/the pretty outside.


And the verdict is………..

the Flavorich Pluot!

This website proves it. for the record, a friend of mine told me days ago it was a pluot but we wanted to be 100% sure. (thanks friend. I’ll listen to you from now on and not the one that doubted you and told me to steal…)

So there you have it, folks! Not a blueberry, grape, blue ball or persimmon, but none other than a PLUOT! A very tasty pluot, I might add.

Oh yeah, it was delicious!

Pin It Now!