If you follow me on twitter, you got to see a little bit of the Saga of the Lost Watch earlier this week. I'm going to walk you through an abridged version of my search for the watch, because it happens pretty much monthly, with some item of importance:

Step 1: Mention to my husband last week that I can't find an iPod cable ANYWHERE, and how am I supposed to listen to music if I can't charge my iPod? I know we have at least 3 iPod cables, so where did they all go?

Step 2: Realize I haven't worn my watch in a few days, and haven't seen it in the normal places I usually put it when I take it off.

Step 3: Ignore the Hitchhiker's Guide and panic.

So I start the search. First, look in the obvious places again - desk, no. Nightstand, no. End table, no. Secondarily obvious places: desk, no. By the kitchen sink, no. On the kitchen island, no. In the bathroom, no.

On to the increasingly weird places: in the video game basket: no watch, but hey! An iPod cable! In the fish tank stand, no. In the dresser drawers that haven't been opened in years, no. Fridge, no. Laundry baskets, no. Desk again, no. Baskets on the desk, no. Drawer unit sitting by the desk, no.

Really weird places: In the ottomans, no. In the carrying case that came with my phone that was in my bathroom drawer: no watch, but, guess what - another iPod cable!

On a hunch, back to the desk for the fourth time, to sort through each individual piece of paper on the desktop.

Yeah. It was there. The whole time. Hiding oh-so-craftily under a 4x6 photo.

First of all I am going to hold out my hand and you can all virtually slap it. I forgot both days last week to blog. I am a bad, bad, extra bad girl. My days just got away from me since I was playing catch up from my Mother's Day weekend trip to visit family in Mississippi.

It all started with a trip to the grocery store for some fruity pebbles and somehow ended up with enough stuff to make Spinach, Feta Pasta, frozen pizza, and two boxes of Chocolate Popsicles.

On the phone with Jenny, I say "I should never shop hungry and depressed. I mean really who needs TWO boxes of Popsicles?"

To which Jenny replies "I've been craving cookie cake. But I don't have any reason for one. I saw one at the store last week and have been thinking about it ever since."

"Get one anyway."

"But you need an occasion. The only one is my cousin Katie's graduation and that's in Louisiana. I can't do that."

"Well, my Katie is graduating from preschool next week. We can have a cookie cake for her graduation."

"Congratulations, Katie. You graduated and Mommy and I had a cookie cake and cheese fries without you."

"Exactly. We should totally do it. Then we don't have to share. It's the perfect plan."

So let's all have desserts to celebrate Katie's graduation. Just don't tell her because she might be mad since we aren't going to share.

Labels: Family, Me want Cookies

So as you may have deduced from my post about my sisters' birthday presents, I got an iPad for my birthday. In fact, I'm posting on it right now. So that takes care of the first FAQ: yes, the keyboard is easy to use.

As for why I ended up getting one? Well, the pros on this post won out.

So far, most of the apps I've downloaded have been at least worthwhile if not great. There have only been a few duds in the bunch.

From great to not-so:

Alice in Wonderland: Love it! I started out with the free Lite version and enjoyed it so much I shelled out the $9.99 for the full book (well, shelled out part of a gift card, but still). It's an interactive pop-up book, and I feel like it's something Lewis Carroll himself would have thoroughly enjoyed, particularly the disappearing Cheshire Cat.

Pandora: Never had tried it out on the computer, so I was pleasantly surprised. I'm really enjoying seeing what it comes up with as matches for my favorite musicians. (Free)

iBooks: The interface is unbelievable, and so easy and fun to use. I hope they expand the store soon, because it's a little thin right now, but I'm enjoying reading what books I can find. (Free)

Kindle: My less-favorite of the two e-reader interfaces, but the store is much, much more extensive, and the book prices are more reasonable overall. It does offer the options of white-on-black or sepia pages, which is nice if you prefer those to black-on-white for reading. (Free)

Smule Magic Piano: My favorite time-waster and kid-occupier. I don't know why it's so fascinating, but go search YouTube for "cat with an iPad" and see for yourself. I love the Guitar Hero-style songbook feature that makes it actually sound like I know how to play, too. ($1.99,I think)

NPR: Pretty straightforward... News and the ability to search for and listen to any public radio station. Worth more than the $0.00 I paid for it.

BBC: Similar deal, nice layout, also free.

NYT Editors' Choice: Really nice free app that gives several of the day's top stories in a clean, easy to use format.

Netflix: I'm pretty much Netflix's bitch, so I'll use and love just about anything they put out. That said, the Netflix iPad app is not the most intuitive or least buggy thing in the world. The app itself, on startup, takes you to a page with a scrolling list of your most recently viewed items and scrolling lists of recommended items. You might notice what's left off there: the basis of all Netflix activity, the queue. In order to get to your queue, you have to click on a tab which takes you to a webpage. And if you want to even think about watching a movie or episode of a TV show you've already seen? Prepare to spend 20 minutes figuring out how to get it to let you do that (Hint: it involves the "More Info" button). My final problem is that the streaming itself frequently slows down or stops altogether - I suspect it has to do with the close timing of introducing the service in the Wii and then the iPad coming out, and too many users overloading the system. All that said, though, I still prefer it to trying to use TV network players with commercials, and watch it all the time. It just has room for improvement.

The only dud I've found (well, there was one other I deleted, but I can't even remember what it was now) is Zinio. I had high hopes for this magazine reader, and it does look super slick, but to be honest, the free trial magazines annoyed me so much I ended up deleting the whole app. When you first open the library, it shows you these three free trial magazines. Cool, right. So I click on one. And it takes like 5 minutes to download because it has so much fancy interactive crap, but I poke around it for a minute to see what it's like. Then I want to delete the trials so they're not taking up all that space. Turns out the only way to delete them is to download them all completely first. Then you hit delete, then they go back to still being the same image of the cover that was there when you opened the library. See, you can never really delete a magazine in Zinio. Even if you never asked for Car & Driver, and never wanted Car & Driver, and would really rather it not be the first thing in your library, ready to start a 5-minute download any time you accidentally brush it with the heel of your hand on your way to Martha Stewart Living. So, for now, no Zinio for me. (Free, if you don't mind accidental huge downloads of Car & Driver and Mac World)

So I have been bitching politely requesting that we redo the landscaping in our yard forever. However, not being a fan of manual labor and not being very knowledgable about plant related things I wanted to hire a professional. We finally got the funds to do so and the transformation is pretty great. See for yourself!

BEFORE: boring, builder landscaping with zero color or personality.

AFTER: color, flowers, and personality!

When I was a little girl I always pictured my dream house to be yellow with a red front door and lots of pretty flowers. I think I got pretty close!

We planted yellow and purple bushes (i know the fancy names but I don't feel like trying to spell them right) and knock out roses.

The yellow roses stared blooming today but the red are a little behind.

Mark and I had a battle over the hanging baskets. Clearly I won.

Now we can sit on the porch, rock in our rockers, and yell "GET OFF MY BRAND NEW LAWN!" at the neighbor kids. AHHH, Suburbia.

So I am a little late to the party with my opinion on the late night show down but I just got a chance to sit down and watch Conan O'Brian's interview on 60 Minutes.

My sisters just blow me away sometimes.

So this weekend was my birthday, and I had a kick-ass birthday party with my family and best bitches and lots of Beatles Rock Band. And my sisters! Like, ok, you know those families you hear about where they have, like, "everybody make presents for each other for Christmas" rules, and nobody's allowed to buy anything, and you totally feel sorry for them, because how much does that have to totally suck?

Um, if that were my family? Which I'm kind of thinking it should be? You'd want to be adopted by us. Because check this out!

So one of my sisters apparently collaborated with my husband (because no way did she come up with this in like one night, because it's completely awesome) and made this completely amazing iPad case:


This is handmade! I mean, it fits like a glove, and has pockets on both sides for earbuds and charging cords and whatever, and it's padded, and has super-soft fleecy fabric inside to protect the screen - the detailing is just to die for (that buttonhole actually does lie straight... I just set it down wonky when I was taking the picture) - and how great is that fabric? AND she put handles on it so I can carry it by itself, but they're little enough that I can throw the whole thing in a bigger bag. So great!

And then my OTHER sister, the baking one, made this:



Check out that cute poodle! (It's an apron, by the way - I didn't take a picture of the full length because the poodle's so adorable.) I mean, seriously - is this an argument for a family etsy store, or what?

Labels: Family