I'm APPsolutely in Love....

Remember that time when I said I'd NEVER get a smart phone because I'm too damned cheap and don't need to be that in touch with the world all the time and then a year or so later I bought an iPhone?

Yeah, that was funny wasn't it?

Remember that time when I said I wouldn't waste my money on an iPad because I have a perfectly good laptop that does everything I need it to do and, well, now my iPhone picks up the slack with apps.....

Yeah, so I bought an iPad mini a couple of weeks ago.

I did have an ulterior motive though.

We're getting iPads at school and I wanted to find good, fun apps for my class to use. And since I have my own built in 5 year old product tester I thought it would fun for him too.

The truth of the matter is, he spends more time playing Temple Run than anything educational. Oh, and I found out our school iPads come preloaded with apps...we don't get to download our own so all that testing was unnecessary.

But here's the thing. I'm in love with my iPad. And now I'm on the search for apps....apps meant for people like me. (anal, hyperorganized, and creative.)

I found one. It's called SnapRecipes. 

If you're anything like me you have piles of recipes torn out of magazines, recipe books with 4 or 5 pages marked and the rest going to waste, a binder full of handwritten recipes.....
The shelf above my microwave was starting to look like an episode of hoarders.

But with SnapRecipes I can store them all on my iPad with minimal work.

How minimal, you ask?

It's as simple as typing in the name of the recipe, clicking a few buttons to categorize your recipe and then snapping a picture of the recipe itself. 

But what about recipes you find online? you ask.....

Well you can store those to. Simply take a screenshot of the website.

Holy crap.....it's so easy!!

So here's the thing. I spent hours (not kidding....hours) looking at different apps to do this and most of the ones that you could use photos of your paper recipes on were either free but you could only store 20 recipes and then you had to buy a membership or paid apps but you had to buy credits for the amount of recipe photos you could store.

But SnapRecipes has no limit. And no membership fees. So it's the straight goods - $1.99 for the app and you're set.

You know what this means? This means I will no longer have the last 35 copies of Catelaine above my microwave. I will not have the Kraft What's Cooking magazine there. I will not have that giant binder of recipes with papers falling out and recipes smudged and crinkled and ripped.  I will never again print a recipe from a website.

And when I want to cook from a recipe....I'll pull out my iPad and start cooking.

~Bliss~

Daffodils

Last night my mom and I spent three hours out in front of our local WalMart selling daffodils for the Canadian Cancer Society.

This is the first time I have ever volunteered for anything. Ever.

Don't get me wrong, the Relay for Life is voluntary too but it's different, there's a pay off for me. I get to walk a survivor lap. I get to spend 12 hours with others celebrating, mourning and fighting.

But this was different.

I decided while I was in treatment that when I got better I would try to give back some how. I would do more. And now seemed like the right time. So I called the Canadian Cancer Society and said I wanted to volunteer and asked how I could help. Then, not wanting to stand around alone I recruited my mom to join me!

April is daffodil month . We wear daffodils to support those who are fighting cancer right now; to show them they are not alone.

Having been down that road it's important to know you're not alone. Because you feel so painfully alone often - even if you are surrounded by friends and family. It might seem like a trivial thing but seeing someone with a daffodil pin makes me happy to know that someone is remembering.

I learned a lot in my three hours.

Mothers with young children and older women give most often. Anyone who's lost a close family member or friend gives too and more importantly they want to share their story.

People will avoid making eye contact with you if they don't want to donate.

Some people feel truly terrible that they can't donate (because we live in a digital age in which many people just don't carry cash anymore. One lady joked that we should carry debit machines instead of coin boxes. This same lady went to a kiosk to get change so she could put $10 in my box.)

One man gave my mom $40. Yeah, $40! He was a new Canadian and had lost a grandparent to cancer in his home country (Transylvania - how cool is that?!)

I think the one that sticks out for me most though is that one man gave my mom 1 penny. He was homeless and that was all that he had to give.

A homeless man donating to charity. It's moment like that that move you.

I think we did well, between us both I think we raised well over $300 in our three hours. But more importantly it made me feel like I was giving back. It's good for the soul.