My Favorite Apps

Oh yes, I have an iPhone and I looove it.  Really, this is the most useful piece of technology I can think of.  It’s in close competition with my new MacBook Pro.  Sometimes I forget how useful it is, and I just play solitaire on it a lot, but then I need something and I remember to go look to see if “there’s an app for that.”  And usually there is.   So today I thought I’d share some of my faves here.  I do like to share them, and writing about them will allow me to further postpone the flurry of housecleaning that was underway until I took this break.  (Hence, if you think this is the most boring topic you can imagine, just come back in a few days and it’ll be something else.)

So without further adieu, here is my short list of some apps I especially like, sort of arranged in categories:

Photography: Camera Genius (zoom lens, the whole screen is the shoot button.) Color Splash (you take a color photo, make it black and white, then recolor only certain parts.) Photogene (Broad range of photo editing devices.) PhotoShare (This one beams a photo to another iPhone.) Klick (direct access to Flickr.) and of course, Flickr.

Budgeting: iXpenseit (This is so cool for watching how you spend money.  It’s my current best one.)

Productivity: Like I’m productive?  If I was productive I wouldn’t be doing this right now.  But, I do have one called Things.  It’s sort of a simple way of keeping track of projects and to-dos.  I always forget to use it – go figure – but it looked so good when I got it.  I think I am just challenged in this department.  I”ll probably start really using it any day now.

Weight Maintenance: Lose It!  This enables you to keep track of what you eat, and set a calories budget for the day as well as weight loss goals.  It also lets you look up the calories in the food you eat.  I’m better at inputting my money than my food, but this one has super potential.  (If you’re not me.)  Gym ABC is one that helps you set up a training program, right on your phone.  I will definitely be using both of these a lot.  Pretty soon.

Books and Music:  Shazam (Identifies music playing so you can find and buy it if you want.  It’s a little temperamental, but works well if you aren’t too far from the music.) Pandora (This one is sooo cool.  You just input an artist and it goes and finds a radio station that plays that music or other music like it.  And then your phone acts like a radio.)

Other:  Sunrise (this one tells at what time the sun will rise and set wherever you are.  Or you can input another location I think.  I like this cause I like to get to the river on time for the sunset, or a little early.  This helps me plan.)  App Gems (This one lists MacWorld’s current favorite apps.)  Solebon Solitaire. (A whole bunch of solitaire games.  Addicting.) Koi Pond (Novelty, it is what it says.  You touch the screen and water splashes quietly, the koi swim away.  I know, over the top.  I didn’t buy it but I do like it!)

Which brings me to the cost part.  They weren’t all free, and a couple actually cost $5.00.  But I’ve only done that twice.  The rest were $2.00 or less and most were free.  So, what are your favorite apps?

That ole’ man river, he just keeps movin’ along.

For the past several weeks, on Saturday and Sunday in the late afternoon I’ve had to go to the river to see the end of the day.  Something just pulls me out there.  And of course, my photographer self doesn’t think I’ve seen something unless I can look at it again later, which has produced a prodigous collection of sky shots.  Today I stood on the bank, watching the sky and the river moving by and I remembered that song, “Old Man River.”

I suddenly remembered, in a different way from before, about  the magic of a river.  The sameness of its movement; whether summer low or winter high, crashing rapids or placid meandering, it just keeps on moving.  Sun up, sun down, moon or no, it does the same thing all the time.  Sometimes in summer it seems to be benign, just a shallow current, its holes and snags hidden from sight.  Then sometimes in winter it rises up and takes over, breaking levees and taking homes, trees, animals and sometimes people with it.  Its power is undeniable in flood season.  And so captivating.  No matter its threat, one is drawn to see it, to see how high it is, whether it has taken over the road yet, whether this year it’ll be even higher than last.

In past years, I’ve spent a quite a bit of time on this and other rivers, but it’s been a long time on dry land for me now.  I always counted on my partner to put the canoe on the truck, to generate the motivation to get to the river.  I just packed a lunch and went.  Today as I watched that water determinedly, placidly moving along I wanted to go along with it. I felt landlocked, stranded on the shore.  I wanted to just gut up and follow the current.  That feeling is a parallel to other things in my life that I feel unable to do.  Maybe it’s time to shift that stuckness, just a little, just to see what could happen.

Art and Music

(Clancy Callahan and Tom Barrett playing music at the opening of Clancy’s mom, Cathy Eide’s exhibition  of paintings.)

The other night I went to see Cathy Eide’s art opening at Cafe Flo.  I was interested to see what she paints, and was really excited to hear Clancy sing.  I’ve known her since she was very young and never knew until this week that she sings.  Tom played and sang with her, and it was a fun night.  Clancy’s voice is rich and rollicking and her songs are fun.  For me they were evocative of a time many years go when I was married to a jug band musician, and used to sing along with him sometimes.  She and Tom sang the same songs he did, and did it ever take me back.  Back to a time when I thought the music could carry us along, through rocky and slow times.  As long as we could sing through it we’d be okay.  The music was a leveler of sorts.  He didn’t seem to feel the same way about it, because he walked away without a backward glance a couple of years into the deal.  After the child was born.  Twenty years later music carried me through some hard times.  As long as I could sing I didn’t cry because the singing touched the same place inside.  Although I’ll admit there were some times I cried and sang at the same time.  Not satisfying to sing while crying, but it couldn’t be helped.  Sometimes the singing won out over the crying, however and I felt great comfort when that happened.  Somewhere along the line, in the past fifteen or so, I forgot about the music.  How did I do that?  How could I forget the music?

Today I went to an Open Studios tour, to three different yards and art shows.  There were quilts, paintings, ceramics, glass, beads, gourds, fountains and metal gates.  Wonderful back yards and studios.  I used to quilt.  I poured my passion there, combining strong vibrant colors with deep black and then hand quilting them with black and shiny gold thread.  The touch of the fabric, the colors and the sculpting of it with my needle and thread filled my heart.  I was disappointed every time I finished one.  But there was always one more to begin.  For a while I had a studio upstairs where I could work in peace, yet could still see and hear my children below in the yard.  I worked then, but my job didn’t satisfy my need for creativity so I did that outside of my work.  Once I became a teacher I used so much creativity in my work that I faded out of quiltmaking.  I haven’t finished one since I became a teacher.  For a long time that was okay with me.  I was doing other things, writing and making little mandalas on black paper.  I still kept it going, often with my students.  I believe that to write well you need to activate both sides of the brain, and that meant doing an art project before writing a essay.  It seemed to work well for my students and me.

Times have changed again.  For the past three or so years my job has not been especially creative for a variety of reasons.  I seem to have quit doing any art and I barely even listen to music any more.  Only recently have I begun to sing again.  I take pictures now and have begun to regain my vision.  Today’s tour of studios and backyards has inspired me to step it up a notch.  Not sure yet what that means.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, you’ll have to excuse me.  I need to go put some music on and clean my house.

On Redreaming

I just finished a book by Adriana Trigiani called Milk Glass Moon. It is the sort of page turner of a book that reminds me of a Hallmark movie.  Completely engaging, yet not especially edgy.  I’m not going to shout to everyone that it is a must read, but I enjoyed it.  The reason I mention it is that there was a concept in there that has kind of stuck in my head today.  That is the idea of redreaming.  This is presented as what you do when you reach your dreams.  You don’t stop and think you have arrived, you must redream.  Dream another one.

What I’ve been thinking about this is that sometimes when you don’t reach your dream you need to stop and redream as well.  I tend to be a rather nonspecific dreamer.  I have vague ideas of what I want to do or be, but seldom allow myself to be very specific about it.  Then I am distracted pretty easily, leaving me with only a sort of wisp of a dream.  Academically I know that if you wish to reach your dreams you must know what they are.  The Law of Attraction works best if you can be specific about what you are attracting.  Yet in practice, I seem to avoid actually forming a picture of my dream.  Being specific about my dreams, forming an idea of exactly what I want is a lot of work.  It means I have to make it happen.  So I just go with the flow.

For the past couple of years this is what I did in my work.  I went along with what was offered, and did as I was asked to the best of my ability.  I knew what I was doing wasn’t really what I would ever dream of doing, but I felt that if I did these things they would eventually lead to something I could feel passionate about.  It was kind of like paying my karmic dues, I guess.  I left what I was passionate about to go do something I only felt okay about, believing that in time I would return to my passion but on a different level.

It didn’t work out like that.  Without spending a lot of time on details, suffice to say that I returned to my original passion but different.  Way different, and it has been extremely difficult.  I’ve often been grouchy about it, have felt completely powerless and overly cynical.  I quit doing almost everything that nurtures me.  No exercise to speak of, not drinking enough water or eating right or even sleeping enough.  Sounds self-destructive, doesn’t it?  It has been, I now realize.

One thing that has brought me joy in the past months is photography.  I’ve learned to see things in different ways, and have grown more and more confident about myself in this realm.  I’m no competition for Ansel or Dorothea, mind, but I am happy when I’m behind the camera or playing with the shots I’ve taken, and that’s enough for me.  It is a start towards redreaming my life.  Seeing things differently on the physical plane may just create the habit of seeing other things in a new way.  I’m open to that idea, and plan to start some redreaming.  Only this time, I will practice being a little more specific.

Seeing through different eyes.

This year I took on the challenge of taking a photo a day.  It sounded fun enough, no big deal, as I usually have my camera with me.  It is turning out to be such an interesting experiment already, after only 24 days.  First of all, there is the actually remembering to take a shot every day.  I read in the challenge a suggestion that you make sure to take a shot every morning, just so you’ll have something to fall back on if nothing fantastic comes up later in the day.  That is an excellent piece of advice.  At least three times I’ve gotten close to bedtime and had to punt.  One night I took a shot of my gas fire.  Boring.  My hand.  The neighbor’s Christmas lights when I was deathly ill (That one turned out fine.).  So there is that.

There are two other things that are happening that I’m so enjoying, however.  One is that I’m beginning to see things in a different way.  Through different eyes, if you will.`For example, yesterday I was walking through the Farmer’s Market with a friend and spotted the vignette above.  The strong vertical symetry of the sugar cane, with the leafy greens and round turnips and pumpkins behind.  And the red bucket.  As we were walking I casually said, “Oh, there’s a good shot.”  I snapped it and we kept on going with barely a pause in the conversation.  As she shopped for greens I shopped for photos.  Generally I don’t shop for food and shoot photos at the same time.  I have to do one thing and then the other, it seems.  My shopping bag gets too heavy and unwieldy to try to do both.  Not that I’d put the camera down and shop without it, but I’m just saying.

The other thing that is happening is that I’m interacting differently with people.  I’ll ask if they will be my photo of the day, and so far they always want to be.  They pose, laugh, seem to feel special.  Other times people teach me things about my camera or about taking photos and I’m learning to be a better photographer technically as well.  I learned a long time ago that to be a good photographer who gets the great shots of people one must be bold, which isn’t my strongest thing.  This photo challenge is helping me grow in that area.  I like it.  A lot!

A Photo a Day

Keeps me interested and sane.  Well, I think it will.  I recently learned of a Flick’r group called 365/2009, in which participants agree to take a photo everyday of the year.  Evidently they will be posting them at that group site on Flick’r.  I love the idea of doing this, but not so much the daily posting.  I already post photos in another group on Fridays and really enjoy doing that, seeing everyone’s photos and commenting on them.  It’s kind of like the photos are blog posts and we all get commenting practice with them.  I will just post mine to a set on my own Flick’r page and probably skip the big group posting.

Anyway, I am excited about deciding what the photo of the day will be each day.  It’s like a different way of looking at the day.  Since this is only January 4, I can give you my examples so far without killing you with boredom.  Let’s see, here is January 1:

I took it at the annual Polar Bear Swim, which was so much fun to observe, that it was the focus of my day.  I took lots of photos of this event.

January 2 I hadn’t decided yet to do this photo a day thing, and didn’t take a single shot that day.  So I included this one which is typical even though it didn’t happen exactly on January 2:

The funny thing is, these Mackers are both playing games on the Webkinz site.  They look so involved.

On January 3 I went to the Farmer’s Market and decided that my friend Bobbi’s coffee cart would be my photo of the day.  I like this one a lot.  I think we should all walk around every day with red umbrellas over our heads.  The red does wonders for the complexion:

Today is a friend’s birthday.  Trea is 33 today and likes lots of celebration of her special day, so I decided she’d be the photo of the day.  We met for breakfast and I took this stunner:

She thought a sexy pose in front of her bowl of menudo was a good idea.  I won’t argue, I think she looks pretty cool.

Okay, I promise not to do this every week.  But I do want to say how excited I am about taking on this project.  It’s like mandatory careful looking at the day.  It will be fun to see what shape it takes over the next months.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for checking in.  Take care of yourself.