Lanterns & Longish Weekends

It figures that the first week of the year, the week I'm all gung-ho to jump back into blogging we had a big snowstorm. Which caused a power outage, followed by an even longer Internet outage which essentially put a halt on all blogging enthusiasm. 

Ironically I had planned to publish a post about how one of my intentions for the year is to do less multi-tasking and how I thought I might be able to manage life one thing at a time. As it turns out multi-tasking is a lot harder when there's no electricity. For starters it eliminates the option of watching TV along with anything else. And since I was 95% prepared and not 100% prepared my cellphone wasn't fully charged which eliminated the option of listening to music or Podcasts as I went about my afternoon and evening.

I found a book and blanket and cozied up on the couch and read for almost two hours without interruption. When supper time rolled around I made some guacamole and ate by lantern light without any background noise. Then I went back to reading until the power came on a little while later. I won't pretend I didn't leap up to charge my phone and make a hot cup of tea but I also didn't immediately turn on all the lights and fire up Netflix. I kept reading and being content just reading my book and enjoying the quiet. 

Shortly after that I realized that the power came on but the Internet did not. In fact it was gone from Thursday at 3:30-ish until Saturday afternoon at 3:30ish. I tried to enjoy it and I did pop in Friends DVDs to watch while I worked on my Project Life album but I seriously felt like I was disconnected. I wasn't totally disconnected, my phone was fully charged and I was using data to scroll through Twitter for the latest news and check in on Instagram but it sure felt that way.

It left me wondering if I should re-evaluate my plans to go an entire week without multi-tasking, a week is a long time when you're only doing one thing at a time. And it really left me wondering how I can incorporate some regularly scheduled technology breaks into my life. 

Sunday mornings or afternoons seem like the most logical time to implement some slow down time but then again so do Wednesday evenings. Maybe it should be a daily thing instead of a weekly thing, although I know that's not realistic. 

Do you have mandated technology breaks? I know I go long stretches without my phone or computer if I'm out and about but if I have an evening or day at home it's likely I'm going to be watching TV and texting and aimlessly browsing....possibly all at once and there's no way that can be a healthy habit!

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Ode to An iPhone

Yesterday  I updated my iPhone 4S to an iPhone 5S and after three years it seemed like an event worth documenting. Also, if you have any suggestions for new apps I should download let me know in the comments! I'm especially interested in photography apps and memory keeping to go along with next year's Project Life.

Dear iPhone,

We had a good run the two of us and while I will miss your bright lime green case I will not miss your recent refusal to update to the new iOS or send iMessages. Today though, let's focus on your successes in life. We've had many memorable moments during our last three and a half years together. 

More than anything thanks for helping me navigate my love life. You were an integral part of arranging the quintessential summer romance of 2013, the bizarre will they/won't they romance of 2014 and most importantly the beginnings of my relationship with J.. 

You were always there in a crisis ready to dial home and connect me with the answers to many of life's greatest questions. For example; "Mom how do I ____" or "Dad, there's a raging blizzard outside and my windshield wiper just broke." 

And during the camp season you accompanied me on many town trips and supported me through many crisis like where to buy Thickner in a small town. You also helped to document that time N. and I bought 120 lbs of potatoes and 60 litres of milk at Sobey's.

Thanks for keeping track of things when I was busy and group messages got a little out of hand because H., R. & I are a little co-dependant and sometimes you just need to send 99+ messages of the course of a few hours. You didn't judge though.

May you rest easy in the designated retired electronics drawer. 

Love,

Donna

Favourite Apps!

Today's topic is favourite apps. It's been a long time since I discovered a new app that I was really excited to use. I stick to the basic social media ones and every now and then I'll download a game only to delete in after a few weeks because I get bored.

Sleep Cycle

This app is the best 99 cents I've ever spent. The app store describes it as a "bio-alarm clock". You set the alarm before you go to sleep and it tracks your sleep patterns during the night. In the morning it wakes you during a half hour window when you're in your lightest sleep phase, which is supposed to help you feel better rested. I don't know how much real scientific value this app has but I'm hooked. It seems to be fairly accurate and I do notice a difference when I use it vs when I just set a regular alarm!

Instagram

I remember way back when I still had my BlackBerry and everyone else had made the switch to iPhones I couldn't for the life of me understand the point of Instagram. And then one day I was bored and installed it more so to creep on what other people were doing than to use it myself, but I got hooked. I refresh my feed probably every 15 minutes and I love just scrolling through people's photos. And sharing snapshots of my day. It's definitely my most used social media app and if you're not following me on Insta you should, I promise lots of photos of camp and cats! 

Snapchat gets an honourable mention, because it's fun but I still haven't figured out the actual point of it. If anyone has any insight please enlighten me.

Linking up with Faith, Allie & Juliette!

Dear Diary...

Via

Since I've started blogging again one thing I've struggled with is finding a balance between writing open, honest, genuine and interesting posts and while at the same time maintaining my own privacy and respecting the privacy of family & friends. Not to mention making all those great blogger connections! It's also really important to me to abide my confidentiality agreement that comes with my job. For the most part I think I'm finding my groove, some of it is instinct and other things I've picked up from other bloggers. I know what I'm comfortable sharing and if something feels like it's too much I go back and reword it before I hit publish.

The other day I came across a blog that totally blew me away as far as what they were sharing online...especially since I found the blog through a LinkedIn profile. I'm all for connecting and networking, if I blogged exclusively about summer camp or programming then I would totally have a link to my blog on my LinkedIn! But sometimes I blog about how much I love Vanilla Coke and Jesus. And sometimes I rant about being single. None of those things are particularly relevant to my professional life. When I clicked on the blog link I was expecting to read a blog full of interesting opinions and perspectives about volunteer work and experience working in non-profits, even a review blog would have made sense! Instead I spent an hour reading about relationship and friend drama. Exactly what employers look for when hiring, a person who airs their dirty laundry on the internet for all to see and makes no attempt to disguise themselves while doing it! Also featured was a photo of their drivers license complete with personal information!
Kind of blew my mind.

Like I said, I'm still figuring it out. Right now I don't have my Twitter connected to my blog (even though I do follow a few bloggers on Twitter), but it's something I've been considering lately. I already have a link to my Instagram and Pinterest, so I'm not entirely sure what the hold out is on Twitter. I still have those accounts locked because even though I accept 99.9% of Friend Requests there are still some I decline. I don't do it to be mean but if I don't recognize your name or can't easily identify you as a blogger or if it's clearly a spam account!

I think living with my parents inhibits my participating too, there are so many fun swaps and exchanges happening in the blog world, but I don't really want to explain to my parents why I'm getting packages from Florida. Heaven forbid somebody I know in real life start reading my blog! I've read about other bloggers' experiences with "coming out of the blogging closet" to their family and friends but I'm totally not there yet. Maybe someday, but not someday soon.

I don't really know where I was going with this post, it's just something I've been thinking about lately. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on things. How do you decide what to share on your blog or is it something you even think about? Do you have all your social media accounts connected to your blog, or separate accounts for the blog world and real life?