October 5 2017

My New Helper is a Keeper

The image and title above may have already clued you in to what I am going to tell you about today. A few weeks ago, I was listening to one of Ann Kroeker’s Podcasts. She mentioned something I hadn’t yet heard of, Google Keep. Since I had no idea what it was, I asked Google, “Ok Google, What is Google Keep?” I got the following answer from Google:

“Google Keep is a note-taking service developed by Google. Launched on March 20, 2013, Google Keep is available on the web, and has mobile apps for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems.”

Thank you, Google. I went to YouTube and typed in Google Keep and watched a couple of tutorials and was immediately blown away by how powerful a tool this could be. I had to have it! Now! How had I not known about this? Thank you, Ann Kroeker, writing coach for sharing this tidbit! My life is forever changed because I listened to your podcast!

You can listen to it here in about ten minutes start to finish. If you’d rather read than listen, you can find the blog post here: Ep 112: My Best Writing Tools to Get More Done (at Home and on the Go)

I was very excited about all the possibilities, so I went to the Google Play Store and downloaded the Android version right away. I played with it some on my phone and couldn’t wait to get home and see the desktop version of it. It is very easy to use. The only problem I had was accidentally archiving a post when I didn’t mean to, but even that is easily undone.

In the few weeks since I began using the app on my Android phone and the online version on both my desktop and my Surface Pro 2, I have found it to be the one app I would not give up on my phone. Yes, it is that awesome! Did I mention it is FREE?

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Category: Bullet Journal, Learning, Organizing, Planning, Review, Writing | 1 Comment on My New Helper is a Keeper
September 15 2017

Day of Birth

Have you ever thought about what day of the week you were born on? Most of us don’t even know what day of the week that monumental occasion occurred on. I came across something lately that led me to find the following info. It turns out, in case you are wondering, I was born on Thursday. Here is what the site had to say about me:

Day Of Birth
Your Day of Birth is Thursday
  • You are wise, optimistic and highly understanding; you are respected a lot and attract plenty of attention wherever you go. You have leadership qualities and are likely to end up in high positions wherever you work and in society as well.
  • You work hard and carve your own path towards success. You like to lead an independent life.
  • You are very stubborn and will have difficulty in having many true friends in life because of your inability to accept healthy criticism. Also, you are very straightforward and do not think much before speaking which may offend people.
  • You are easily bored and always require something or the other to keep you occupied. You also love to travel a lot and cannot sit at one place for long.
  • You are well behaved and treat people with respect, however, if someone annoys you or mistreats you, you hold grudges and also think of taking revenge.
  • Though you are intelligent and conscientious, you have a somewhat unusual character and an irritable temperament that makes you difficult for others to cope with.

Source: http://www.dayofbirth.net/

As I read through this, I was stunned just how accurate it was. Obviously, not every little detail applies to me, but for the most part, this was fairly accurate. Maybe, like me, you don’t really know what day you were born on. So, just for fun, go to the website above where you can enter your birthdate and see how accurately they describe you.

This reminds me of the poem we all learned as children. There were several versions, but this one is the most familiar from my childhood. The poem dates back to the 1700s if not earlier.

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Now not to take any of this too seriously, but having checked what the poem and website have to say about several people we know pretty well, these seem to be about seventy-five percent accurate, give or take.

So, take a minute and have some fun with the day of the week you were born. Let us know in the comments how accurate these predictions were for you.

Let us know in the comments how accurate these predictions were for you.

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August 3 2017

Back To School $ Savers

When the month of July comes to an end, it can only mean one thing. It is time to take advantage of all those great back to school sales. Now, some of you may be saying to yourself that you don’t have school age children. That’s fine. There are some really great deals to be had if you watch the ads. We used to buy the limit when we found ten cent spiral notebooks or fifty cent filler paper and composition notebooks.

Glue is another one of those things they like to put on ridiculously low sales. I thought we would never use those four bottles of Elmer’s Glue All that I had gotten super cheap, but then a project would come up where paper mache was called for and then it was the glue to the rescue. You’ll be happy to shop from your personal stash of supplies that you got for pennies on the dollar instead of full price at the grocery or drug store in the middle of the night when your child comes to you in a panic because the project is due tomorrow and they forgot all about it until they were almost asleep.

So my friend, even if you really don’t see yourself using these supplies, consider getting the super cheap ones and donate them to the local elementary school. There will always be students who don’t have the proper supplies and these often end up being purchased by the underpaid teacher. Often times an organization will put together themed baskets for a fundraiser silent auction. There is almost always a basket of school supplies. You can also make a coloring basket with twenty-five cent sale boxes of crayons and dollar store coloring books. The same idea can work with colored pencils and adult coloring books. Perhaps some erasable ink pens and crossword puzzle books would make another nice basket. A nursing home might have some residents who would love to have coloring books and crayons in the activities room for the residents to use. A homeless shelter would most likely be happy to take those unused school supplies off your hands. You may have to think outside the crayon box, but I’m quite sure you will be able to either put the supplies to use in your home or office and if not, then there are countless numbers of places that would be happy to have your few dollars worth of supplies.

Once school is in full swing, maybe September or October, keep your eyes open for clearance sales. We have gotten some wire shelves meant for inside school lockers, notebooks, binders, label makers and all sorts of great stuff that rarely goes on those super low sales at unheard of prices. Many of the things you might use to decorate a dorm room or send your college student off with will be on sale then too. Think about things like twin sized sheet sets, blankets, organizing bins, cork and dry erase boards and that sort of thing. Not typical school supplies, but very useful in many places that are not college dorm rooms or student apartments.

So, have I gotten you motivated to at least look at the sales flyers with a more careful eye to savings even if you don’t have students at your house?

Feel free to tell us about the best deals you have found on “school supplies” in the comments below.

Category: Learning, Money Saving | 1 Comment on Back To School $ Savers
July 27 2017

My Secrets to a Long Happy Marriage

Yesterday was mine and Hubby’s wedding anniversary. We celebrate being married for 31 years by going out to eat. Now some of you may wonder what it takes to stay married to the same person for so many years. I’m not sure IU am an expert or anything, but I will share some of my thoughts on what makes our marriage work or what makes it different from the relationships of many of the younger set I have met.

When we got married in 1986, we had known each other for almost four years and dated each other exclusively for the entire time. It might be of note that when we met, I was sixteen and hubby was nineteen. No, we weren’t high school sweethearts. I was still in high school, but hubby was in college. Back in those days, education was the top priority for both of us, so much of the time we spent together was spent doing our homework. Some of the time was spent in my family’s home and some was spent in hubby’s family’s home. On the days we didn’t see each other, we often talked on the phone. Now mind you, this was well before the cell phone and pager days, heck it was even before the cordless phone days. If you wanted privacy while you were on the phone, you better hope you were home alone.

Hubby used to be a bug man when I first met him. While I was at marching band practice during the summer or after school, he would often stop by and sit on the sidelines and watch us practice. Since he was supposed to be working and was really just on his way from one place to another, it was understood that he couldn’t stay long, but it meant a lot that he went out of his way to stop by and watch for a few minutes once in a while. He would also come to all of my performances and often pitched in to help move band equipment and his help was greatly appreciated by the other band supporters.

Because he was three years older than me, both our mothers were concerned about him being a bad influence on me. I was afraid one set of parents or the other would object and tell us we couldn’t see each other anymore, so I made sure that my grades were as high as possible. All the homework time paid off because My semester grades for the last two years of high school were straight A’s. Nobody was going to use my grades as a reason for us to stop dating. Apparently, hubby had not been one to do much homework before he met me, so the fact that we spent so much time doing homework must have improved his grades some too. Hubby and his parents came to my high school graduation. Because of hubby’s influence, I graduated 8th in my class from high school. Continue reading

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May 14 2017

Weekly Bullet Journal Spreads

It is time to share more of my Bullet Journal with all of you. Currently, I am about to finish with Week 19 in my bullet journal. I have learned a few things about what does and doesn’t work for me in the 18 weeks I have completed so far. The biggest thing I learned was what size boxes work for me. In the January Flip Through, you will notice there were only 2 weeks where I used the narrower boxes for each day in my weekly spread. Well, in truth, I knew after the first week I didn’t like that narrow size, but when I was drawing out week 2, I messed up and drew the skinny boxes before I caught myself, so I suffered through a second week with them. You will notice some subtle changes from week to week in the photos below, but the box layout is very consistent. I keep it that way because it works. Some days you will notice not much gets written in, while other days are pretty jam-packed.

Week 7 was the first week I tried using stickers to determine the theme. These are free stickers, recycled by cutting them off the free address labels that seem to show up from time to time in my mailbox. I never could use up all the addresses but the stickers to the left seemed too nice to throw away. So I have long made a habit of cutting them off and saving them. The hearts seemed like an obvious choice for the week. Continue reading

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