13.11.3

Because I have been sharing my favorite online tools lately, I am just going to share them everyone. Easy, right? My tech gadgets that I carry around with me are:

- Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet
- HTC Rezound
- HTC Thunderbolt
- Nikon D40
- Nintendo 3DS XL
- Gateway LT2022u (old, but works wonderfully) that dual boots Peppermint and Windows 7.

- Pocket One of my favorite methods of queueing things for later, Pocket is awesome. I have a bunch of recipes on IFTTT.com (I will link this later) that make it easy to catch up with my reading articles that I don't always catch myself.
- IFTT - This is a tool to essentially queue things, save images, send SMS reminders, things like that. You can also browse other recipes people have made and customize them for yourself. My favorite recipes are instagram picture save to dropbox, XKCD to my email, random articles from National Geograpic and Wikipedia to my Pocket, and more.
- Slice - I order a lot, so I have an obsessive issue about tracking my packages. Introduced to me by my wonderful friend Mandy, Slice is a nifty tracker, because it imports tracking info from my email. Say Woot sends me a shipping notification... Slice imports it, with the item information and the tracking number, and auto updates on my phone for me. The downside is that if you pay for something online (like a Pandora sub), it will try and track that too. But hey, take a few seconds, delete it, and enjoy the rest of the service.
- Podbay - Podbay on my phone and tablet is how I feed my horrible podcast addiction. Mainly Welcome to Night Vale, and a few others. Clean running, simple, and not a space hog because it doesn't download them.
- Spotify - Spotify is hands down my favorite thing for music, and it has been for a couple years now. Sharing playlists, collaborating on them, and streaming or downloading for offline play makes this the gem of my app collection. I fork over for premium on this, because I have enough devices that I don't like being limited.
- Run Keeper - I have loved Run Keeper for a couple years now, and having a FitBit linked to it makes it so much better. GPS tracking on your runs/hikes/walks, saved maps with your stats, and more.
- Fitbit - After seeing my friends with their FitBits, I caved and got a pink Zip one. The integration with Run Keeper is fantastic, and it usually motivates me to get off my ass more. Usually.
- Relax M.P. - I use this almost every night. I set a timer for 3 hours, put on a combo of rain, ocean, storm, and other noises, and it puts me right to sleep. You can also use it as an alarm, but I use it solely to drift off to sleep. For an alarm, I use...
- Sleep as Android - The multiple, customisable alarms make it perfect for me. Workday alarms, random reminder alarms, and weekend reminder alarms. I don't feel like I miss much. And the alarm I use to wake up gradually gets louder. They also have captcha alarms and math alarms, if that's your thing. You can track your sleep patterns with it, but I always forget to set it, so I don't use that feature.
- Tweetcaster - Simply because I can zip key words and phrases. And because it's clean.

13.09.08

Running with music is my one true happiness. I might be tired, I might feel under the weather, but fuck it, I'm still going to run. If you don't run, let me explain how running is. Do you drive fast late at night on empty roads with music blaring? That is akin to running, for me at least. You have to be aware of what's going on around you, either way, but you can lose yourself to the music and the asphalt. My mile splits are in the back of my mind, I'm weaving around walkers (the price I pay for running by the beach), but pretty much everything else shuts off. Unless I get lazy, and I slow down. Once I slow down, my mind speeds back up, and I either pick up the pace or I ruin my run. I'm either up early in the morning or late at night to run, thanks to the heat. And while I don't dread my runs, I do have to push myself to go. I have to shut down my video game, put down my book, roll my lazy ass out of bed, and go. And once I get about five minutes in, I'm so fucking happy to be doing it. I get back to my car dripping sweat, thankful to sit down for a few minutes. But always, always glad I went out and actually ran. Here are my top 5 running songs at the moment...

13.07.28

I had to stop, and take a breather from the madness that is my life this weekend. With birthday parties, work, family stuff, and social gatherings, I just wasn't making enough time for myself. And I hit my wall. The wall where you stop and realize that you are so exhausted that you might actually throw up. You are in a loop of never ending interaction. So for now, I am stepping away from things for a bit. I will still be around a night or two a week. But that's about it. I need to re-center myself. I need to find quiet time to enjoy writing again. I need to get back to running on a regular schedule, meditating, and learning when to say no. Trying to trick myself into thinking I am not an introvert has done nothing for me but exhaust me. Pushing myself does nothing for me, and I need to remember that. So in actuality, this is not so much a goodbye note, as a love letter to the important people in my life. This is my promise that I will feel so much better, and actually be myself again once I get myself to a better place. So, thank you to those of you who look out for me and keep me together. I love you, and you know I will keep in contact.

13.06.04

I have fallen in love with many things in the last year or so. I have gained a love for hitting that wall when I am running, taking a deep breath, and pushing past it. I have fallen in love with my brand new tan lines. I have fallen in love with my spot, where I always have cake and beer. I have fallen in love, all over again, with Magic the Gathering. With Dungeons and Dragons. I've made new friends, I've learned to stay out til bars close, I've learned to wander home at 4am exhausted. I can go out without makeup on, and feel like I look pretty. I will wander around the beach in bikini. I appreciate my smile lines more. It's the little things, I guess.

13.05.19

One of the things I love about living in this gorgeous state is that I am minutes away from the beach. When I feel the need to avoid the world, I drive off to a secluded little section of the beach that is almost always empty. As a result, I am darker. My hair is lighter. There is a large amount of sand in my car. There are t-shirts strewn about the back seat. If you've been in my car, you know I could care less if it is pristine, so none of this bothers me. It is the perfect spot to hide away from everyone and everything.

I could whine about being exhausted, or emotionally drained, but I won't. I have good people around me, and that makes all the difference. I have good music. I have the beach. I have friends who refuse to let me dip into some emo sinkhole. That's all you can really ask for. I rolled very high on the people I love being there for me stat.

13.03.31

My life, it seems, has somehow ended up being akin to a trip to Disneyland. I want to get fast passes for all the good things, but realize that sometimes I just have to be patient and wait.

I took my last dose of antibiotics for pneumonia today. It is nice to be be able to breathe like a normal person again. And not a minute too soon, because if I thought work was hectic before, this week will be insanity.

Patiently waiting for the 17th for the arrival of my sister, who will be here for two weeks. So many things I want to take her too, and so many people that I want her to meet. I don't think I will be able to introduce her to everyone, sadly.

As I prepare for the busiest April I've seen in the last few years, I just need to remember to be calm, keep focused, and keep in mind that things will happen whether I worry about them or not.

13.03.23

Pneumonia has to be one of the worst illnesses you can contract. If the antibiotics don't kill me from their horrible side effects, I should be better by the middle of this coming week. I'm pretty much camped out in bed with, well, you can see from the picture. Sadly enough, thanks to the antibiotics and codeine cough syrup, most of this stuff ends up shoved to one side of my bed as I curl up with my electric blanket and sleep. Thank you to my wonderful Mandy for the Sam Pink book, and my wonderful Marc for the great movies (not pictured). So my cat, my books, my electronics, and I are all camped out in a bed full of blankets and pillows. Hooray.