12

Gotta show off my lame-ness.  Happy triple dozen day!

I was at lunch, just for the record...

Growing iFamily and Samily

My husband's birthday was October 20th and so on October 14th, I set out to get him a birthday gift.  I knew the perfect gift:

The New iPad

Thanks to Best Buy and their 18-month no interest, same-as-cash payment plan, I was super wife this year.  The iPad came to a good home.  It joins a Mac Mini, a Macbook Pro, an iPod Touch, an iPhone 4, and 1 or 2 older, now unused Mac laptops (I think before they called them Macbooks...don't ask me...I'm not an Apple girl...).

He likes it.  :^)

Innocently enough, I thought I would check in on the new Samsung Galaxy S3, seeing as my Samsung Galaxy S1 was acting shady.  What happens next, is more than a coincidence.  Best Buy was having a ONE DAY ONLY sale on JUST THE S3 for HALF OFF.  50% off.  I only paid half price.  How could I say no???  They only had white and blue to pick from, so I went with Blue.


Pebble Blue.

And I slapped a case on it.  The least ridiculous one I could find at the time.

It came to a good Samily, too.  I've got my Samsung laptop, my Galaxy S1/Captivate, and the Impression.

This phone...wow.  I thought I loved my S1, but the S3 fills my heart even moreso.  I have only found one flaw so far...I can't transfer all of my files (read: games) from my S1 to my S3 due to reading incompatabilities.  This bummed me out at first, but I have decided to keep the S1 alive for my games.  ;^)  Other than this one con, I only have pros.

I can take screenshots.

Shot of my screen!  What a concept!

Yes, the iPhone has been on top of this for awhile now and I am so stoked that Android picked it up.  Through this screenshot, you can also see some other fancynesses I tout.  The bottom row is customizable on this one!  I got to put the text message program I use in that row rather than the stock one that sucks.  :^)  It's called GO SMS PRO and allows full customization of your text messages, but also lets you customize some other things on your phone like ringtones and led light colors for text messages - even different colors for certain texters (my husband's texts light up green, for example, so I know it was a text from him even if I missed the phone lighting up to tell me so).  I also brought over an app from S1 called "Elixir" to get as many icons as possible on my homescreen.  The "to-do" list app is called "Task List" that can keep several different lists running and display as a widget on your homescreen.  I always have a "to-do" list going and a "to get" list running.  Very handy to remind you of things you need to do every single time you check your phone and your grocery list is right on your phone...no more leaving it at home when you go to get stuff.  Boom.  Everything else is pretty standard, but I do want to plug SoundHound (the burnt orange stylized "S" on the lighter orange background) for being that "phone-a-friend" several times.  A song comes on the radio and you want to know its title or singer so you can buy it...hit that icon, it listens for a minute, then tells you.  Also a great argument ender.  ;^)  I mean...if you know anybody who argues about stuff like that...Oh, and another necessary app..."Apps Organizer."  It allows you to make folders to put all of your apps into categories so you can find them quicker.  I believe iPhone does this, too, and I learned about this app from my S1, but I thought it was still worth the mention.  And my final plug, I promise, is Cashflow.  It's my checkbook for several different accounts on my phone, so I keep track of the finances much better.  Also, it is only on my phone and doesn't take my financial info onto the Internet.  Oh, I lied.  DROPBOX.  I use this so much that I forgot about how amazing it is.  It is a storage folder on the internet that you can put files into and they are accessible from your phone, all of your home computers, and actually any computer with an internet connection.  It's your digital flash drive with no hardware.

Something I love that you can't get from my homescreen: incognito mode on internet searches.  You can hit a button when you open up your internet browser that means your searches won't be saved.  Your husband can't accidentally stumble upon the birthday present you were researching to buy for him.

Anyway, that's a lot for now, so I'll let that all soak in.  ;^)

Unhealth Update

Since I last wrote, I have learned more.  I found out that during the first part of my sleep study (11pmish-2am) I stopped breathing more than 120 times per hour (I assume I was told correctly, although that seems crazy high) and I averaged not breathing for 18 seconds at a time, although once I didn't breathe for 59 seconds.  I had a thought so I crunched the math and confirmed my thought that I was NOT breathing more than I was breathing during that time (3600 seconds in an hour and I spent an average of 2160 not breathing...).  Is that even possible?  Doc also told me that "severe" sleep apnea is stopping breathing 30 or more times in an hour, so clearly my 120 meets that criterium.  My uncle had asked which kind of sleep apnea I had and was surprised to learn that I have both kinds - Central and Obstructive.  Not only is something physically blocking my airway (obstructive), but my brain is also not sending the right signals (central).  I'll have to research this some more and figure it out.  My doc ordered me in to get a CPAP machine ASAP  (CPAP-ASAP...ha), so I have an appointment tomorrow to pick one out.  After a long day of fighting with Indians yesterday, I also get to fork over some cash because I didn't play by their rules.  Just thought I'd throw that out there.  But I'm looking forward to getting the best night's sleep of my life tomorrow night.  Let's see if it can make up for the literal years I have missed.

My Unhealth Adventures

Thursday morning, I woke up, showered, and went to work.  Knowing I had a sleep study to attend that night (checking for sleep apnea), I read about how to prepare for it.  I was requested to shower "right before" coming in.  I got off work, showered, did a couple of other things, then headed out to my sleep study at 9 (had to report there by 9:30). 

I had been to the place before, and only saw about 2 or 3 beds.  To my surprise, I was instructed (by a very boisterous sign) to have a seat and wait for someone to come get me.  After being the last name called, I entered this Alice in Wondersleepland place and was put in about the 10th "bedroom" I saw.  I was hooked up with wires in my hair, on my face, in my nose, and even a couple on my legs that had to be fed through my shirt and shorts. 

We then tried out a couple of CPAP masks to pick the one that worked best for me, if I showed enough signs to need it by 2am.  Those things are terrifying at first, btw.  Totally took my breath away about the first 5 times.  And the ones that only cover your nose allow air to escape from your mouth when the machine is on, making it very hard to talk.  I had problems getting one single word out.  Very trippy. 

Anyway, she set those aside, shoved a set of tubes up my nose in addition to the wires already up there and then I'm left to relax and sleep. 




"Relaxed" and ready to sleep.




Excuse my fat, but I was pretty stoked that I decided to go ahead and shave my legs right before heading out!  They were checking for restless leg syndrome/night kicking.

 I'm a sleep roller.  If number of sleep turns were an Olympic maneuver, I'd get the gold for my quintuple lux, if we were to put a label on it.  I started on my back, rolled to my left side, attempted to go to stomach, but to no avail.  More sleep-inducing comfort.

Somehow, someway (Actually, just as I had predicted) I fell asleep.  I was additionally told that I fell asleep very quickly.  What a strange compliment, but I took it.  I woke up a couple of times to change positions or adjust my blanket coverage. 

At about 2am, my sleep technician (sandwoman?) came in the room and flipped the light on.  I asked if I met the criteria and was greeted with a nearly sadistic-sounding, "Oh yeah!"  We try on a nose-only CPAP mask.  I try for 5-10 minutes to fall asleep with it on, but it hurts my teeth.  It also took a few minutes to make sure it was set up correctly before I even tried to sleep...overall, it wasn't a good fit for me.  After air-speaking my technician's name 3 times (it sounded like half air/half talking and I couldn't speak any louder or more than one word), she came into my room and we swapped out for a full face mask (nose and mouth both covered).  After I got that bad boy on, I fell asleep rather quickly and don't think I woke up once.  In fact, the sleep technician said she came in the room at one point to adjust the mask and I didn't remember that at all!  Kinda freaked me out, really.  Someone was literally messing with my face and I didn't wake up.  *eeby jeebies*

I get booted at 6am (after detaching me and leaving glue/tape residue all over me) and head home.  I thought I would get a nap in before having to be at another dr appointment at 9am, but I wasn't able to.  And I had to shower for the 3rd time in 24 hours.

The 9am appointment is funny because I didn't even know what it was for before getting there.  And apparently still didn't know after reading what the doctor specialized in (I thought "endocrinology" meant something else...didn't figure out I was wrong until a few days later...thanks Mom...).  I don't think I made myself out to be too much of an idiot, but you never know, right?  Here, I learned that I am still in the running for having a syndrome that I thought another test ruled out.  We'll do a different kind of test to find out.  Awesome!  It was also here that Doctor played my favorite game "Let's look at you and say all the bad things we see!"  It turns out that I am a "big girl" (say that in an Indian <dot, not feather> accent) and I have bad acne.  How much did I pay you again?  Anyway, now I'm supposed to tell her how I'm going to lose weight.  Like, the exact plan.  Lady, if I were that exact of a planner, don't you think I wouldn't have gotten this big?  I said generic stuff and left feeling pretty down on myself.

The next day (Saturday) I decide to mow the backyard at like 1pm because I'm a moron.  Didn't realize we were scheduled for 100+ temperatures that day.  Actually, I think I didn't look because I knew it just had to be done.  The dogs were starting to have a hard time walking around.  My cell phone rings at about 1:15 and it's an idiot and wouldn't let me answer it.  This isn't the first time, nor I assume the last time that it teases me with phone calls.  I can see who is calling, but it won't let me use the touchscreen to answer it.  And the screen is the only way to answer.  I listen to the voicemail and it's the sleep study doc.  He leaves the office number to call back, but he had called on a different number.  I try to call both back, but to no avail.

On Tuesday (today), I am in the shower at 7:30am and my phone rings.  Obviously couldn't answer it.  A few minutes later, I hear my husband up.  Apparently, doc couldn't reach me so he called my husband...at 7:45am.  The morning after a holiday weekend.  By the way, I was planning on calling after I got to work...at 8:30am.  He tells my husband to have me call him after 1pm today.  At 10am, my work phone rings and flashes the number I know all-too-well at this point.  I pick it up and am greeted by a different doctor.  He somewhat fumbles around, mentioned that he "wanted to tell me the news by phone" and finally got to the point:  I have severe sleep apnea.  I stopped breathing over 120 times per hour.  The good news was that the CPAP mask returned my sleep to "normal," not just decreased my symptoms.  My doctor from Friday 9am had told me that weight loss gets rid of sleep apnea, so I asked this doctor if that was true.  He said not for my severity of sleep apnea.  The CPAP mask people will be contacting me soon.  I will need a machine to sleep presumably for the rest of my life.

I have so many conflicting thoughts over this.  I am relieved to have finally found something unusual about me.  A possible source of my constant tiredness.  A possible solution to what I was convinced was laziness, yet couldn't shake it.  That makes me excited to try it.  On the other hand, I detest the idea of requiring a machine in order to sleep.  Literally burst into tears when I think about it.  My husband is very very VERY supportive about all of this, but I can't help but feel like less of a woman for having to wear a Darth Vader-like mask to bed.  I've thought about how terrifying it would be to be falling to Sandmanland and in blinking one last time seeing this plastic monster next to you...and it's your wife.  But as I've been told, it's got to beat my snoring.  And this is Jon's view on it:  he just wants me to feel better.  I know it will help, and I know I will do it, but I just want to get it in the rearview mirror of life.  Yes, I will wear a mask to sleep and yes, I will sleep fantastic.  Let's just get this over with.

My favorite video right now

Tell me you're not smiling right now.

My Little Diddy At Work

Please ignore all typos as they were not mine. And I would have just put the link, but it doesn't seem to work outside of OU. Me, in a nutshell:



It'sa me! (Mario voice)



Imperfection

I hate that I continually fail at life, but all I can do is keep trying.  I often re-evaluate my life and see what changes need to happen.  That part is easy.  The actual change is the hard part.  I got a strange motivation that I wasn't looking for this morning at work.  On an evaluation, a trainer asked his class, "What will you do with the time you have been given?"  Most evaluation responses are job focused and rather short, so the sheer length of this one in particular caught my eye.  Then I read it: "I will help others, be the best husband and father I can be, and also have faith in my Lord.  I will learn from my struggles and others, and I will encourage myself and others to pray every day.  Learning my purpose is still ongoing, but I'm willing to take this time I have and listen, understand, and help."  I'm not the only person in the world that keeps failing and having to regroup.  Thank goodness.  I was so wrapped up in failing that I forgot what the "solution" would be - perfection.  If only I never screwed up again...that would be cool.  I needed a reminder today that I'm just human - wasn't sure if anybody else needed that reminder, too, so here it is, just in case.

Setting smaller, more attainable goals is my new goal.

I killed it today

*I woke up.
*I made breakfast (in a convenient, to-go style).
*I worked from 10-3.
*At 3pm, I came home, half fed the dogs, fed myself.
*Then I left for the tag agency.
*Forgot my purse...turned around....
*Then I re-left for the tag agency.
*There, I paid tag/tax/title for the Mini Cooper and I renewed the Mazda tag.  My quote from the dealership was about $150 shy of what the cost really was...letting that go....

Please never ask any questions about this picture.  It is evil in a way I can never explain with words.

*I then delived the new real tag to Jon at TU.
*Then it was haircut time!!!

So loooooong!

Kinda diggin' it!



-Side note: OMG photos are killing me tonight!!!!!!  I am about to strangle you, Blogger!!!

*After haircut, I went grocery shopping and got some good deals and pretty much stocked the kitchen.



*Then I came home.

*Then, it was 6pm.  Boom.

*Doing laundry and other like fun stuff now!





Fiscal Responsibility

Sounds like a fun post, right?!?!  YEAH!  This one isn't going to go too deep, so don't freak on me.  Jon and I are in debt.  You know, like about 90% of the other people we know.  We have "use anywhere" credit cards, store credit cards, and everybody's favorite: student loans.  Over the past few months we have been a little tight, so I have been making a whole lot of "minimum payments."  These help chisel away at the debt, but it's a very slow, painful process.  I have been watching my credit score nose dive as we had to put other things on these cards, even though I always (and I do mean always) pay them on time and at least the minimum amount.  --I use Credit Karma to track only one of my scores (of the 3), but it seems to have all of my activity on it.--  Jon did a side job recently that paid him in one lump sum and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with part of it.  So we actually completely paid off one "use anywhere" card (Even though it wasn't a huge amount) and you will not believe what this did to my credit score...it went up FIFTY-TWO POINTS.  52.  It went from "fair" to "good."  Whoa.  I was not expecting that much of a jump, but I was ecstatic!  Jon was pretty impressed, too. 

For the record, Credit Karma said it liked the fact that our total credit card utilization went down by 6%.  I didn't realize what a huge factor that was.  We also learned that they don't like maxed our credit cards, either.  I don't remember if that is technically 90 or 95% of your credit limit, but it's one of those...just a heads up.  They also don't like multiple "hard" inquiries (unlike the "soft" inquiries they use to obtain your score) in a small time span.

Anyway, I wanted to remind everybody about the boring side of Christmas and life and let you know what a simple action can do for you in the long run.  If you get any Christmas bonuses, you might think about taking a bigger bite out of that mountain of debt to help you out in the long run.  Merry early Christmas!

Some strange things

Now for a regular post, it seems...about strange things....but of course...

Phone
After lamenting my woes on FB about my phone being broken, a friend commented on it asking if it was under a year old because it would still be under warranty.  Hmmm...well, yes, yes it was (is). Long story short, I got a new Captivate after AT&T verified that the old one was indeed a paperweight now.  !!  It was a really big pain to get it back to even CLOSE to the way I had it (and I'm still trying to get it all correct), but it reminded me (or maybe taught me) how useful my little handy dandy gadget is and how important it is to keep it running smoothly.

Mailbox
This past Saturday, Jon and I were laying in bed, trying to pretend that we should get out of it when all of a sudden there was a crash outside.  Some Middle-Eastern man hopped our curb and ran over our mailbox.  In his Corolla.  Not much damage to the mailbox...mucho damage to the car.  He said he was either trying to help his wife with something or trying to keep her from doing something.  Pictures:

Creepin' a pic through a window.  Jon has already straightened the pole as much as possible and is now checking for damage on the car.

White paint

Very strange stuff.  The guy offered to come back and fix it, to which Jon replied, "No thanks."

Winter decor
I had to do some shopping the other night for household items and I wound up in the Christmas section.  I have been feeling like our front door is awfully bare, but I don't like wreaths.  I don't really know why.  Maybe because I'm not really keen on circles.  Either way, I stumbled upon this and decided to spruce up our front door:

I think it's cute.  And very festive how it says "No soliciting" above it.  ;^)

Irony

So, my fancy schmancy Samsung Captivate Smartphone is out of service for now.  It only has one problem - the screen is not responsive to my touch.  And it's a touchscreen phone only...I am uncertain as to where I will go from here.  I am currently using my Samsung Impression that I had before the Captivate.  The irony?  I partially chose the Impression because it also has a slider full qwerty keyboard and I was paranoid that my screen would stop working eventually.............Good thing I upgraded to the fully touchscreen-operated smartphone...

Samsung Impression 1
Samsung Captivate 0
Tabitha 0

Possibly the most random post ever

Today I was switching over the month on our dry erase calendar and I realized something: SEPTember is the 9th month of the year and OCTober is the 10th.  That's stupid.  Sept = 7 and Oct = 8.  Now, I realize that these were probably the original 7th and 8th months of the year when the calendar was created, but no one thought to carry that over?  That's stupid.  That would be like the game of Uno evolving into its main objective being about 3 cards.  What in the world?

Alright, so now that we covered that, I would like to go into my early anniversary present my husband got me:

Yay!  Now I can add programs onto my netbook that only come on CD!  This also meant that I got to move all of my old pictures from CDs on which I had them stored to my external hard drive.  I used to burn my pictures to CD and saved them all in a CD holder thing....then I moved from the apartment and it got packed away 2 years ago.  About a year and a half ago I got an external hard drive, then about a year ago I got a netbook and just about a week ago I found the CDs.  And yesterday I got this CD drive, so now it all comes together!

And now, I believe I am going to close out by showing off some of my random pictures as of late.  I always seem to be finding strange things in my world.

Desktop battery is low

White Belt Ninja

Every morning with Phaux

Faulty kitchen curtain

Did fate just want to make sure one of us got the message?  Which one of us?

And that last picture reminds me - I actually got a firm talkin'-to about my "attitude" at work and was told to smile more and take life less serious.  I could spin off into a whole 'nother post about yesterday and how <sarcasm> awesome </sarcasm> it was, but this is a public blog, so I will keep things cheery and happy.  Or at least not tell stories where a person reading it could know I am talking badly about them.  Fair enough?

And one last nugget of randomocity - I was rounding up the dogs to come upstairs when my father-in-law started telling me about the movie we let them borrow last night (we haven't seen it yet).  After about a minute, I realized that Phaux had misplaced himself.  Where did I find him?  In the cat litter box.  Ingesting, not digesting.  WHY DO THEY DO THAT?!?!??!?!

Basking in his victory

Being a good girl.

Makin' mayonnaise.

Yeah, you read that right.  Mother-in-law and I MADE mayo today...out of necessity...well, we thought.  There's no reason to give you the details on why we made the mayo, but I thought I might share my findings with you.  To make 2 cups of mayo, you need: 2 cups of some oil (we used olive oil), 2 egg YOLKS (not whites, surprisingly), and then a pinch and dash of these - dry mustard (never heard of until today...), salt, cayenne, paprika, vinegar, and water.  And maybe I'm forgetting some other stuff - not sure.  With ours, we didn't have cayenne so we used hot Louisiana Hot Sauce, and I'm pretty sure we used more olive oil than we were supposed to and we actually added another egg and all 3 egg whites.  So, ours wasn't perfect, but it was pretty clear what it was supposed to be.  And after all of this, we didn't eat the potato salad tonight (why we made the mayo), so we could have just bought some in town.  Hilarious!

Additionally, I worked a little more on the site today, adding a few more tags and working on getting the pictures from webs onto here.  Baby steps!  After tomorrow, Jon will have been at the new job for a week, so maybe I'll weigh in a bit about that.  Goodnight!

Blogger...again/more (2)

Yeah, I just can't stay away, can I???  haha....  Old Webs posts are all transferred over and I feel like I'm closer to where I want to be with this blog.  I won't release it to the world until it is just where I want it.  I don't want to look like a noob or anything, do I?!?  hahahahaha  Anyway, I am going to bed.  I am exhausted and this week could quite possibly kill me.  Check for more updates...

-Mrs. Kreilaus  (I think I am going to stop signing off on these since my username is right below here - just thought I'd use it one more time...)

Blogger...again/more

Ugh.  Still transferring over old posts from Webs.  After transferring about 20, I realized that my new posts had the wrong time stamp on them.  I assumed this was probably just a "time zone" setting and searched to fix it.  Well, I changed the timestamp time zone to central and wouldn't you know, it changed all of my backdated posts as well...which were correct already.  I started off trying to fix this tonight, but I grew tired of it.  So, if you are that picky about my timestamps in my old posts, you can...well, go jump off a bridge...to put it nicely.  :^)  It's been a lazy weekend, hence me working on here.  After I get it the way I want it, you should start seeing less behind-the-scened posts.  Sorry for the construction in the meantime!

-Mrs. Kreilaus

The big move...well, url-wise

In coming to Blogger, I didn't want to just lose all of my posts from webs.com because they are an online diary for me.  So, tonight, somewhat against my will, I decided to see if the move would be easy or oh-so painful.  Turns out, it's pretty easy.  So, that's what I'm working on.  They will all have the tag "webs" and I am able to back date them, so I am putting them in the order they were written - by date AND time.  I also keep wanting to blog more, but everytime I look at this site, I see so much work and I usually don't have much time to do it.  I plan to get the site how I want it, delete the webs site and keep this one up more.  Good?

-Mrs. Kreilaus

Fine, you win, Blogger.

As some or all of you may know, I had another blog/website that I eventually came to dislike.  Add in the fact that I pretty much rendered it useless, and here we are.  I needed a new site.  Everyone and their dog have a blogspot.com blog.  I HATE following the crowd.  But it seems that this does a lot more than I thought it did when I originally passed it over for the other website.  I am going to go explore.  Catch you on the flipside.

-Mrs. Kreilaus

Babies and Technology (Completely Unrelated)

Babies: I took Friday off from work and Jon and I met up with Price, Sarah, and Baby David. This was the first time we'd met him. 5 months old. Then, after that, I took Jon to work and went to hang out with Shelby and her 1 month old Kingston. About a week ago, we learned that Joe and Miranda have the green light and have completed the adoption hoops course for a baby due any day now. And of course we all know that our nephew Dillon is set to have a baby sometime this year, too, making Jon and I Great Uncle and Great Aunt. I've only been doing this Aunt thing for about a year and a half now...wish I could have gotten some more practice in before moving into the Great realm! Oh, and Lyndsey is due to come to Oklahoma around the 1st of April, so I'll get to play with 10 month old Beckham then. WAVE O' BABIES!

Technology: A computer guru coworker of mine told me awhile back that Android 2.2 (FROYO) had been released and kept asking me if I had gotten on my phone yet. I kept trying and trying, but it kept telling me that I didn't have any updates available. Finally, a couple of days ago, I got a text telling me about it and gave me a link to go to. Well, that night, the link wasn't working. Of course not. Duh. So, I get it to work the next day and it was telling me that I was going to have to down FROYO onto my computer and then put it on my phone. Well, I had tried downloading directly to my phone the night I got the text message, but it, once again, told me I didn't have any updates available. Anyway, On Saturday (yes, while at work), I did the hoops jump and got it downloaded to my phone. It doesn't seem like too big of a change, but I'm still kinda new at it, so who knows. I don't really like its style, though...I would prefer a more streamlined look. Then yesterday (yes, at work again...) the same computer guru coworker tells me about a neat new feature on Facebook that I hadn't seen yet. He says something about maybe needing to have the new IE for it to work. So I get on Microsoft's website today and sure enough, there's an Internet Explorer 9 out and I have 8. Annoying. So, I download 9 after reading a little bit about it (Okay, so I read about it as I was downloading...so sue me...). It was talking about a streamlined format and putting the focus back on webpages. Yay...that sounds great. I thought 8 was a little cluttered looking and clunky leaving a very small window to view a webpage on my netbook. I get it downloaded, restarted my computer and fired up IE9. Ummm....there's an address/search bar (which they were making a big deal about, but Delli - my 2004 Dell Inspiron - had a combined address/search bar.....?), a tab showing the page I'm on, a home button, a favorites button, and a settings button....that's it. Now, I'm going to have to give you a little history here for you to understand how this made me feel. I've always been a "favorites" kind of girl. I even have folders in my favorites folder...that's how I roll. That is, until IE 8 came out on my Windows 7 netbook and introduced me to the favorites bar. Cute little mini-icons all sat at the top of my window reminding me to go check out my favorite sites. LOVED it. I was up to 20+ mini-icons and still had room for more. They were all my banking shortcuts, sites I go to once every few months, sites I go to once every few minutes, and everything in between. This devil IE 9 seemed to have eaten them. All of them. I didn't think to write them all down in case they disappeared. I frantically clicked the settings button...no favorites bar option. I then began to go to the more popular ones and "pin" them to my task bar at the bottom. It wasn't going well. Then, I realized that there was a lot of blank space at the top of the window and remembered that I'm on a PC...with the "right button o' magic". LUCKILY, I was able to add the favorites bar, but it was not easy to find it (I literally had to click on nothing...). So, I'm still a little jumpy after that, but I think this is going to work well. :^)

Well, I seem to be fighting a headache, so I'm going to go. Maybe I'll update more later today. See ya!

-Mrs. Kreilaus

Still learning DROID...and some other stuff, too...

DROID:
Wow. There is seriously so much to learn with smartphones these days. Just like iPhone, there is an app for nearly everything. Some are worthless; some are necessary; some are great until the company updates them; some have one single feature that makes them different from the next guy's app for that.

Facebook app for Droid created by Facebook is crap. At least, as far as I'm concerned. If I click "Photos," I want to see other people's, not mine. If I want to see mine, I will go to my profile. You know, like the real site. This was either already on the phone when I got it or I downloaded it because it was at the top of the list. I suffered on it for a few days (maybe even a week or so) until I found the Facebook app for Droid created by DROID. It is soooo close to the real site, yet in a tiny format for me to zoom around on it. It's perfect for me. And that's when I learned that not all apps are created equal.

I downloaded a mag flashlight app for my phone and it was a cute little app that shined like a flashlight so I could see in the dark. Then they "updated" it and it stopped being cute. My mag flashlight with a power button was now gone with a grey square in the place of the button. Uninstalled. Found a new flashlight app that lets me choose the flashlight color, has multiple other effect (like spiral and disco ball...), and the entire screen is one bright color. So far so good.

I also learned that the Android Market and iStore differ. I heard a lot about a game called "Angry Birds" and decided to try it out. Man, it was (is) awesome. I'm still trying to conquer that dern game...anywho...I introduced it to my husband. Of course he downloaded it, too, and loved it. However, his download was a trial version and he had to pay a buck to get the full version. I was able to download the full version for free and even found a booster pack thing for it, too. For free.

Sticky notes. I usually keep a running list of A) Things to do and B) Items to get/buy. Of course I want to keep these lists on my phone! I downloaded a cute little sticky note app and things were going pretty well. Well, this was when I had one list on my home screen....my "GET" list. Then I added my "DO" list.....things got sketchy. Since they were in the same app, anytime you clicked either list, it merely brought up the last list you had up! I don't need to go to my "DO" list if I click on my "GET" list....duh! So, the hunt was on today for a new sticky note app. Things I wanted out of it: able to post on my home screen, just posts title - not entire list, clicking on home screen list will take me directly to that list - not just app, customization would be nice, nice format. I seriously tried about 10 different versions before finding mine. And it seems a little overboard for what I need (why would you need a "paint" note where you draw on the screen?), but I got all of the other things I wanted out of it. Hopefully another update won't wipe it out....

App organizer. When you get your phone, your service provider will stick a lot of crap apps on there that you can't get rid of just so you get curious and try them. What can you do about this? Well, you can get an app organizer. I tried 2 and both worked great at putting your apps into categories (including a folder for all the apps you don't use!!!! - I call mine "zzzzzz"!), so you could find them easier and get "rid" of the ones you'll never use. There was also an app called "folder organizer", but I think this was for the more advanced user and I don't qualify for that just yet...

Soundboards. Want a collection of soundclips from Family Guy? There's probably an app for that. From Mario World? Oh yeah, there's an app for that (got it!). Do these really serve a purpose? No, not really. But the Mario one actually let me set some ringtones/notification sounds to it, so that was kinda helpful...and super fun. I get a coin everytime I get an e-mail. :^)

Games. Some suck. As usual. Some are really well made. You just kinda gotta weed through them and see. And some games that everyone loves, you will hate. It happens.

PDAnet. If you haven't heard about this little jewel, you should look into it. It allows your computer to steal intarwebs from your phone. Some phone companies will even block this app when you try to get it through them. Easy fix...just take your SIM card out (or maybe just switch to wi-fi mode) and search for it from another internet source. Do be aware that this uses up A LOT of your data package, so maybe shouldn't be used all the time, but it's good for a jam. (Computers just process a lot faster than phones and the keyboards are much more typable.)

Widgets. Widgets go on your homescreen and are like little shortcuts to where you want to be. Make sure you notice how often they are pulling data from the internet, though, because if it's a lot, then you're gonna be missing your battery pretty quickly.

Ringtone makers. Upon stumbling on this, I got super excited. I could finally make all of *my* songs ringtones! However, it seems that none of the free ones will work with Windows Media Player files, so my really really cool songs are still full length - and un-ringtonable. :^(

Banking apps. Pretty self-explanatory. It's always handy to zoom on your phone and check your balance before buying that cheeseburger. I just wish there were one app to rule them...I'm in a multi-banking family.

There you go...just some DROID I've learned.

OTHER STUFF:
Today was a strange, yet productive day. I managed to run our 4 loads of laundry, clean the bathroom, shower, semi-clean the dogs, proofread a paper (twice), search through all of our movies and rearrange some, talk to my boss about closing lessons this week, sweep upstairs, change contact lenses, and rearrange our bedroom (in a way). Of course it helped to know that this giant snowstorm system is coming our way and we may be out of power for the rest of the week. Definitely don't want any laundry to do! Yesterday was "beautiful", but beautiful days in the middle of Winter tick me off. I would rather save them and actually have a Spring season instead of one week of nice weather before turning either Winter-cold or Summer-hot again. I realized (or probably just re-realized) that Oklahoma only has 2 real seasons: Summer and Winter. Spring and Fall are about a month long spread in between the two. Football season is Oklahoma's third yearly season. Either way, me, the dogs, and the family enjoyed the nice day yesterday and the only household thing I got done was paying bills. Oh well. It was one more thing off the list. Oh! And I trimmed Lyka's foot hair (and Phaux's front 2 paws) and cut Lyka's nails. I learned a better way to cut the nails and was able to get them down to a decent level again. I was so mad at myself for not doing that sooner and not letting her nails get so out of hand (bu-dum-bump-chee!).

So, in conclusion, I heart my phone still and I've been busy, yet productive recently. Yay!

-Mrs. Kreilaus

DROID

After some soul searching and deep thoughts, I got a new cell phone.







Backstory: The ol' Impression was missing alarms and not giving me messages intermittently, so I decided after a year and 4 months, it was time to leave Impression behind for a newer, more awesomer phone. A month or more ago I swung by AT&T to look at the phones that were out at that time. I like the style of the Impression and it was overall a good phone. These made me want to stick to Samsung. Well, actually, I tend to stick to brands when I find one I like or at least one I can move around on with ease. So, when I was in there, the new Samsung Focus with Windows 7 was there. And it was shiny and unlike any other phone I had ever seen. I went over and fiddled with it. Boy, it was cool-looking. There was also an Android-based (Droid) Samsung on the other side of the display that I acknowledged, but I really coveted the Focus. I was only window-shopping that day, so I left empty-handed and with a Focus-sized hole in my heart. I began to research on the Internet in the days that followed.






It's important to point out here that I always looked down upon Droids. I hate the commercials; in fact, they kinda creep me out. And I hated the attitude of the people that got the first wave - so high and mighty. Alas, I began to read up on the two. Most reviews about the Focus were good, but it was so new that there weren't a whole lot of apps for it yet. Plus, many of the reviews LOVED how it synced with Outlook, Excel, etc. Ummm...I don't use Outlook...well, except at work....but it does not come home with me. I use Gmail. Droids are made by Google. Maybe Droids would make more sense. And then I started to morph the Focus-shaped hole in my heart to a Captivate-shaped hole. One final trip to AT&T would solidify this. I picked up both phones and I honestly couldn't get the Windows phone to do anything magical past the first *beautiful* tiled screen. And I wasn't sure how all of those tiles worked. As I tried to fiddle, I remember this was the exact path I took with it last time, but it was so new and cool that I had just tried to convince myself that I would learn it. Over at the Samsung Captivate (Droid), I was whipping around like crazy. I could already do many cool and fun things with it just by playing with it on the display. After a long conversation with a salesperson who actually owned one himself, the choice was clear: Samsung Captivate powered by Android. Here's my current little Samsung family: Samsung N150 Plus netbook, Impression on the left, and the new Captivate on the right.

I love it so much. Now, I'm not one of those people that's going to pretend it's the same level as iPhone. Mainly because I don't Apple and I don't know what the iPhone is capable of. But I am pleased as punch with this new phone and really enjoying it. It is lightyears beyond the Impression, yet with the comforts of Samsung that I know and love. Love my new "toy"!!!




-Mrs. Kreilaus