Geeky

Down Before Christmas.

by theresa on December 22, 2011

So it’s the 22nd and here’s where I am:

  • Huz and I went to my 32-week appointment yesterday where my doc scolded me for gaining 8 pounds since my last visit and we found out that Baby Girl is still head up. The weight gain basically happened the same way in my first pregnancy (in fact, I gained a shitload of weight much earlier) and I tried explaining to my doc that maybe I just gain weight when I’m pregnant, but I still came away from the appointment feeling bad. Also, trying not to freak out about this baby being head up, since there’s still plenty of time for her to flip over, but my doc suggested seeing an acupuncturist or chiropractor, to which Huz and my mom both replied, “Your doctor is a quack” (though not in front of my doctor, of course). I’m trying to find anything else I can do to get her to flip over naturally — walking, sexing, downward facing dog, anything — but…
  • Promptly after we got home from our appointment, I started feeling like total garbage. I believe this was a result of sharing a few sips from Huz’s coffee cup and I’m catching what started with Hugga last week and made the rounds in our house. Last time I went to the hospital with a fever, they kept me for three damn days, so I’m just trying to sweat it out at home with regular strength (read: what’s-the-point) Tylenol and lots of water and juice. This is so stupid. I had to change my tank top a few minutes ago because it was drenched in sweat. Ugh.
  • I started a little early with the baking and made some White Chocolate Peppermint Brownies from Real Simple, per Huz’s request, a few days ago. They turned out pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

ANYWAY, I neglected to mention that we got my mom an iPad for Christmas and we let her open the gift early (the day she got here) so she could get familiar with the thing before she went back to the east coast. She’s in love. I’d take a picture to show just how much she’s in love, but she hates having pictures taken unless she’s got her full face of makeup on.

This conversion to Mac products started a few years ago when she took back my old iPod when I upgraded, then we got her to ditch her Blackberry when we got her an iPhone 3GS two summers ago, then her jillionth Windows laptop needed another major repair and we hooked her up with a MacBook instead. Now she’s fully a Mac convert.

I’ve had to set her up through all of this, and while I’m generally super impatient when it comes to guiding people or through technology or having people guide me (I get a mild crackhead tick whenever I watch even Huz messing with my computer), helping her with her various tech issues has been leaps and bounds easier with her on a Mac. If only because she can just hop on iChat 3,000 miles away and either Huz or I can fix her problem for her. Also, I generally don’t have to worry about her downloading viruses or crap slowing down too easily.

The only thing mad frustrating about converting my mom to the whole Mac experience has been the syncing, what is arguably the easiest thing about going full Mac. The problem with my mom is that when she can’t remember a password, instead of using the “Reset Password” option, she opens up a whole new free email account and registers anew with whatever site she forgot her password to. And yet, amazingly, she remembers the passwords to all 15,000 email accounts she has stored on her iPhone. I don’t even want to think about how many iTunes purchases she lost just because she couldn’t remember her password.

Relatedly, she had steadfastly refused to use at least just one account to sync all of her contacts and calendars to, until we had to restore her iPhone to factory settings and she basically lost all of her data. While my mom is thankfully more tech savvy than the next grandma, it drives me nuts that she can be so curmudgeonly about learning a tiny new habit or new software even when I explain to her that it’ll save her loads of time. I wanted to get her onto the whole 1Password suite, so she’d only have to remember one password, but then trying to explain to her how it works and showing her how to back up and sync often just seems like a huge hassle. So whatever. She’ll continue to use her own system for remembering all the jillion other passwords she uses, and I’ll just store her iTunes and iCloud passwords over here.

So anyway, I didn’t really set her up with much except fixed up her syncing and gifted her Pages, which seems to be enough for now. Outside of getting her passwords straight and a couple of really simple questions, this has probably been the easiest conversion for her so far. All I had to do was tell her to use it like an iPhone and she hasn’t really had many questions since. She has a Mac to sync it to, but I think in the future, she’ll just go on her many business trips and grandkid visits with the iPad.

But I am hoping to use this iPad to get her to adopt better tech habits, like a better password storing system, more frequent syncing, etc.

Other than that, I’m done with my shopping and totally ready for Christmas!

{ 3 comments }

The Binder.

by theresa on October 17, 2011

The family binder is a new thing in our household.

First, a few notes on who we are as a family, in case you didn’t know. WE ARE ENTIRELY DIGITAL. We share calendars in iCal, set up automatic bill-pay, and have PageOnce set up to email me whenever a new bill is due. I realize we are completely fucked in the event of a zombie apocalypse or some other disaster that wipes out every power grid in the United States, but if that were to happen then I guess I wouldn’t really give a shit about paying the Verizon bill on time.

ANYWAY, I can barely stay on top of chores that keep the house actually running. There’s just no way I can be trusted with paper notes or any organization system that requires any amount of discipline and regular devotion (ahem, GTD). I may be learning how to get better organized, but to start it off with administrative tasks is a waste of time. I may as well never learn.

All of that is to say that I don’t expect to ever use my family binder as a way to actually keep our schedule, the way it’s traditionally written about in the blogosphere. Granted, it’s an incredible way to keep your entire family schedule and ethos in one convenient place (yes, I did buy this ebook and it’s been very helpful), but I’m not kidding myself about how much I’ll even bother using it.

I’m sharing my system today, but keep in mind, it’s not going to look the same as another woman who can actually stay on top of dry-erase calendars and a Filofax. I’m trying out the printable organizer primarily to hash out ideas for projects and quickly scribble out a bunch of notes in a big space. I’m finding it’s also a good place to hang onto scraps of paper related to those projects — stuff like receipts, recipes, etc.

Supplies

1 binder ($5.99)
1 set of dividers ($2.99)
1 box of sheet protectors ($12.79)
1 three hole punch ($5.99)
Grand Total: $27.76

I ordered this stuff from Staples, but you can most certainly find cheaper binders (I should’ve looked in Target first) and the sheet protectors really aren’t necessary. They’re good at hanging onto those scraps of paper, but they obscure the dividers, and it’s gets to be a pain in the ass taking the pages out each time you want to jot something down. Still good if you’re prone to spills, I guess, but it’s probably easier to just hole punch the printables.

To be honest, if you already have most of this stuff left over from your college days, then to put the planner together should be absolutely free. Plus, it’s completely customizable.

My System and the Printables I’m Using

I’ve got 8 tabs: Projects, Monthly, Weekly, Food, Money, Writing, Info, and Blanks. Not all of them are actually being used right now.

I’m tracking two projects in the binder at current: Hugga’s birthday party and the chore list for Fall and Winter. Most of my important notes on Hugga’s party are on Evernote, but I’ve found the Party Planning Worksheet on MommyTracked to be really helpful in just jotting down the details that aren’t fully baked yet. I’m using the Fall and Winter Chore Checklists from Organized Home to track all the things that need to get done before Baby gets here and mostly to make myself feel better about crossing stuff off.

Like I said, I’m not using the binder to actually stay on schedule. Right now, my Monthly tab holds calendars from Organized Home with some notes I wouldn’t normally put on my iCal. For example, when to buy and start defrosting our Thanksgiving turkey, because I’ve got a score to settle.

Outside of my work calendar, I don’t really utilize daily or weekly planners because, to be honest, my life really isn’t poppin off like that. I’m a work-at-home mom with a kid in preschool, and there isn’t anywhere crazy I need to shuttle to on a weekly basis. Still, I printed out some of the weekly planners (again, from Organized Home), and am currently using one set just to try to encourage a weekly routine. If I remember to do the laundry on Sundays and Wednesdays, I won’t want to kill myself when I have a thousand mounds of crap to fold. If I sit down and actually do a weekly meal planning on Monday, I won’t have to scramble every afternoon at 4 PM. I’ve only had this for less than a week so I can’t say how effective it is just yet, but I’m pretty close to being caught up on laundry, so there’s that.

My Food tab holds a few blanks of various menu planners, so they’re at my disposal every Monday. I’ve been using the menu planner at The Project Girl for the past few months whenever I remember to do it and have been really happy with it so far, but MommyTracked also has a pretty cool Eat Sheet that I might start using as well. I also have a few recipes tucked away in here from friends and Real Simple.

Writing has a blog calendar from Living Locurto, which I haven’t started using yet because I’m not on a regular enough schedule, but it’s very pretty.

The Info section theoretically should have stuff like important phone numbers or whatever, but right now only holds my “Mom With A Mission” worksheet from the Life as a Mom ebook. It’s kind of a corny but necessary reminder of my priorities, something to tell me that it’s okay to let the dishes pile up over a week if I spent more time de-stressing, or playing with the little one, or working on something creative.

Like I said, I’m not claiming this system is any good. I’ve just tailored it to my own needs and capabilities, since I lose handwritten notes all the time and I hate making admin tasks any more complicated than they need to be. If you’re interested in starting one and you need a completely different system of printables, you might find the following completely free resources handy:

Also, feel free to follow my Gettin Paperrrrr board on Pinterest where I’m collecting links to other free printables!

{ 7 comments }

The iPhone 4s Non-Event.

by theresa on October 5, 2011

Y’all know I’m not a tech blogger by any means, but some friends have asked me my opinions on the iPhone4s, since we’re kind of the Apple family, so here’s a little ditty for what I gathered from yesterday’s event.

I love it for sure — I think it’s a fine update and I don’t really understand the outrage from the regular people (i.e., non tech-blogger/Apple fanboy) crowd. Siri looks fucking amazing, and if I were ballin and not currently pregnant with another mouth to feed, I’d get it for the camera bump and world phone capability alone. But the circumstances being what they are, I won’t be upgrading on launch day. I was hoping Huz would — he was really impressed with the specs (which I read to him from Engadget’s liveblog as he played Dead Island) and immediately fell in love — but the truth is we’re still recovering from our huge trip, birthdays, and anniversary. Oh yeah, and did I mention this kid I’m incubating?

That being said, I’m entirely confident the iPhone 4 with the iOS 5 bump will hold me over. I still totally love my iPhone 4 and have absolutely zero interest in switching platforms. I don’t want a bigger screen, and I’m still pretty happy with the specs.

I know I’m a self-professed Apple fangirl, but I’m seriously not understanding all the disappointment just because the thing isn’t called the iPhone 5, or because it doesn’t look different enough from the iPhone 4. I don’t want a bigger screen, and because it already eliminated the need to carry separate devices, I don’t really care if it’s smaller. It’s still a great phone and, as far as I’m concerned, iOS is still an incredible platform. What’s with all the beef?

Edit: In the middle of writing this post, Huz sent me a text that Steve Jobs had passed away. I’ve only been an Apple user for about four years, and I never met the man myself, but I do actually consider him someone who has helped put food on my family’s table and given my family tremendous opportunities in a very real way. He was an incredible, fascinating person who brought us the future (a wonderful version of it), and I’m so sad — surprised at how sad, really — to hear of his passing. He has made some incredible contributions, and I’m grateful to have seen those contributions in my own lifetime. Rest in peace, Steve.

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