Once upon a time, I didn’t have much of an interest in technology. By technology, I mean things like MP3 players, ipods, tablet computers, HDTV, shoot, even Facebook would fit in line there. I avoided Facebook as long as I could, but it has not taken me long to embrace it as the social tool it can be. It’s a great place to set up events like meetings or parties and such- I love it for keeping in communication with the various groups of people I’m associated with, and I absolutely love being able to use it to keep up with family who lives all over the planet. Nothing like checking in to Facebook and seeing that my brother-in-law has been in Japan while on his tour of duty, or seeing that a cousin has just run in the Chicago or Boston Marathon (depending on the cousin, of course).
What I didn’t expect that I would come to love and embrace though, was my iPod, which was a recent acquisition- a gift from my sister. I happily accepted it, had her show me how to turn it on, and then tucked in my pocket, thinking that I’d simply been given a fancy-schmancy MP3 player. Something that I would use, but wouldn’t use too often. Boy, was I wrong!! Within a week, I found that I could not be separated from this silly iPod. I think the calendar was my first discovery. Between the kids we have 19 dance classes to keep straight, a digital calendar was SUCH an improvement over the sheets of paper I would pull out and rifle through every day. And then I discovered the apps.
Oh, my favorite new word: App. I had no idea, I truly was ignorant about all the way these little pieces of the digital age could enhance my life. Here are a few examples in my everyday.
We are insanely busy, and I’m often making lists in my head as I drive. In the past, I would hand an 8 year old boy a pen and piece of paper and ask him to make a grocery list and he groans and moans and hates every minute of it. Now, I can hand him my iPod with the free grocery store app and ask him to make a shopping list. I dictate to him, and he happily punches it in. And THEN when we get to the store, he mans the list, checking everything off as we add it to the basket. I can’t tell you how much this is a time-saver for me. It sounds simple, but wow, it’s great. And when we’re out and I think of that one item I want to remember, I can add it to the list for the next time we shop too.
Here’s a great example! Recipes. I have recipes saved all over the internet at various sites. I can never remember which recipe is at which site, and sifting through them can take a long time- time I don’t really have. Well, with another free app called Pepperplate, I can sync all those recipes to my iPod into one handy database. It does take a few minutes of time, but when I’m at the computer, I can go to, say, Epicurious and add my entire recipe box there to my Pepperplate account. The next time I turn on my Pepperplate app from the iPod, it syncs up, and all those recipes are now on my iPod. All my favorites from around the web, now in one place. On the rare occasion that Pepperplate does not support a recipe website (my Recipe Trove, for example), it takes just a few extra seconds to cut and paste, and I can put those recipes on there too.
Having the recipes on my iPod is so amazing too. These days, much of my grocery shopping is done on the fly. I plan to stop at the store, see what’s on sale, and plan dinner from there. The iPod apps make this so much easier. I can walk into a store and see that pork loin is on sale. Then I can go to one of my cooking apps like Pepperplate and look for my recipes that call for pork and pick one. Right there, while I’m at the store, so I can pick up anything else I need. Again, a huge time-saver for these busy, busy days.
Another one that I’ve been using consistently is MyFitnessPal- which also has an online version (and you can use the online or app version interchangeably). Right around my birthday in August I had a quick cholesterol check done at my doctor’s office. The results that came back were not what I expected. My numbers were a little high. Not high enough to be alarming, but high enough to pay attention and do something about it. So a few days later I synced up MyFitnessPal, and what a difference that has made in my diet these last few weeks. It tracks your food and exercise, so you can see the calories you’re consuming and expending. When I put in what I’m eating throughout the day it shows how many calories I have left for the day, so I can make wise choices. And along with that, there have been days where I have not consumed enough calories, and it tells me that too- warning me that too few calories can cause my body to go into starvation mode, and can cause organ troubles/failures as well as weight gain instead of loss. After three weeks of tracking what I was eating, I was successfully down 5 pounds already.
Anyway, I just wanted to share a few notes about different tools I have embraced to enhance my life and help me be able to keep it on track. I am so crazy busy here with homeschooling and dance and church, that if I didn’t have the calendar and recipe and menu planning apps, I think I’d be going out of my mind. I’ve added a new category for apps that I like. I hope I can find some really good cooking ones in the near future to add to it and share with you.