5 Apps That I Can't Live Without

I use my iPhone for everything. EVERYTHING. I don’t just use it to text or check Facebook or take pictures. I use it to stay organized in basically every area of my life from work to parenting to home organization.

At least once a day, I tell someone about an app I love and what it does. Usually, I am met with shock that they didn’t know this perfect app existed and excitement over what it could do for them.

Then I have to spell said app about five times as they download it on the spot.

I know it seems like technology often makes our lives more complicated but, in my experience, if you can stop being intimidated and stay confident through a learning curve, these apps can make your life much, much easier.

Evernote

This is my digital brain. Every note, every article, every blog post idea, every school calendar, every event plan, every vacation itinerary. It ALL goes here. 

In fact, Evernote is really MUCH more than an app. There is an online version, a desktop version, an iPad app, and iPhone app. They all sync, which means all the information we gather on a daily basis is available to us where ever we are.

Amazing.

Now, you cannot be intimidated. This is a powerful program but it can do as much or as little as you want. All you have to do is start using it! Here’s an a great article to give you an idea of what it can do.

Moment Garden

How often as a mom do you think “I need to write this down!”? If you’re like me, a lot. A funny quote, a silly dance, a great question. Kids are full of those little moments we all want to capture.

Now… how often do you actually record those moments?

For a long time, I would post them to Facebook or in a random notebook or in my journal. Then, I realized I would have no way of actually keeping all these digital and analog snippets of my children’s childhood. 

Then, I found Moment Garden. Now, all those little moments are in one – secure – place. I can email a moment. Upload a Facebook status or a photo. Each boy has their own “garden” and members of my family get email alerts when I post.

I absolutely love it.

Grocery iQ

Shared grocery lists, people! Meaning I notice we’ve run out of eggs and my husband knows this when we stops at the store on his way home!!

Do I REALLY need to say anything else?!?

Twist

UPDATE: Sadly, Twist is defunct but WAZE has this capability now! 

Listen, kids make you run late. It’s just the reality. They are slow. They can’t tie their own shoes. They’re lollygaggers is what I’m trying to say. 

Add in traffic of any kind and you’ve got a situation.

Twist is a fantastic app that let’s people know you are on your way. Meeting a play group? Send a twist to the group – don’t worry they don’t need the app! – and Twist will track your GPS and give them updates about when you will arrive.

I love it for when we travel. My mom ALWAYS wants us to text her when we arrive and I ALWAYS forget. Now, I just send twists to all our parents and move on!

This American Life

Some apps keep your organized. Some apps keep you sane.

Let Ira Glass save your from toddler conversation and entertain, educate, and enlighten you in the process. 

BONUS: Not every mom needs this app, but if you are a blogger or work in social media then sign up for Buffer and let it change. your. life. I am obsessed!

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4 Lessons I’ve Learned As A Work-At-Home Mom

I never planned on being a work-at-home mom.

In 2009, I left my job as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill to move back to my hometown of Paducah, Kentucky, and raise a family (and somehow convinced my husband to go with me). I was seven months pregnant with my first son and assumed I would return to work after he was born. Since I had a law degree and the accompanying debt to pay off, the next logical step was to take the bar exam, which I did…when my son was two months old.

Now, if you have any experience with the bar exam and are good at math, you know I started studying when he was only about a week old. Since studying for the bar exam is a full time job, thus began my career as a work-at-home mom. I would spend hours on the couch with my son propped up on a breastfeeding pillow as I learned the rules of evidence.

Despite the Boppy’s contributions, caring for a newborn and studying for the bar exam were not exactly complimentary tasks and I failed the exam. This was my first lesson as a work-at-home mom. Know your limits. Sure, I passed the most difficult portion of the exam (just sayin’) but a few points shy is still a few points shy. Everyone told me I was taking on too much but I didn’t listen.

As a WAHM, it can feel like everything is within your control. There’s no clocking in or clocking out, no managers, and it’s tempting to squeeze in more tasks, more work, more clients. However, I have had to learn over and over again that just because I can doesn’t mean I should. In fact, if I ever get a tattoo, that’s what it will say.

I wonder now what would have happened if I’d passed. Would I have begun looking for jobs immediately? Would I have found a full time legal gig? I’m not sure. I knew I wanted to be home with my son but couldn’t imagine how I could make that happen.

Instead, I took a couple of months off before taking the exam again in February. Those months were the only time when being a mom was my only job. While I remember those times with my son fondly, I needed more. I was dragging a six month old who could barely sit up to music lessons and spending inordinate amounts of time on planning his first birthday just so I had something – anything – to do.

Hence, my second lesson as a work-at-home mom. Don’t feel guilty about wanting to work. Being home with your kids is an incredible gift, but if it’s not enough for you that’s ok. In the beginning, I felt tremendous guilt about wanting to work. Wasn’t this what I wanted? I knew I didn’t want to be away from him so why was being with him ALL the time so hard? Finally I learned that I’m happier when I have somewhere to channel my energy and money to contribute to the family. And despite all media messages to the contrary, my happiness matters.

By the time the second bar exam rolled around, I had stumbled into a part-time teaching gig at our local community college. I got to leave the house a couple hours a week but could do all the prep work required for my course from home, usually during naptime. In the beginning, my grandmother would watch my son while I taught but eventually I discovered Mommy’s Day Out.

Mommy’s Day Out is part-time daycare provided by local churches in our area. My kids go from 9am to 2pm on Tuesday and Thursdays for $15 a day per child. This was my third lesson as a work-at-home mom. Mine your resources.I know Mommy’s Day Out isn’t an option everywhere. To this I say, MOVE! (Kidding…sort of.)

Neither of my kids are in school yet so I have used all manner of childcare over the past few years. My kids go to Mommy’s Day Out. My kids go to preschool. I trade childcare with other SAHMs or WAHMs. My husband takes the boys to lunch while I go to a meeting or I ask for help from family members with flexible schedules. I’ve done it all in search of the holy grail of the WAHM – child-free time.

My teaching gig allowed me enough time and space to put off finding a full-time job until after the birth of my second son. By then, I had co-founded Salt & Nectar with a former law school classmate who was also looking for a career that allowed her the flexibility to be home with her son. As my family grew so did the blog and before I knew it I had a whole new career in social media.

I still teach and my friends and family always jokingly ask how many jobs I currently have. I’ve added social media consulting, web design, and my new personal blog bluegrass redhead to the mix – as well as volunteering for local charities.

I currently work anywhere from 10-20 hours a week. With both of my boys in preschool and becoming increasingly independent, I’ve found a great balance between work and play.

Which is why I’ve decided to try for baby #3!

I know! I’m crazy right? But this is the fourth and final lesson I’ve learned as a work-at-home mom. Time expands when it is work you love. I’ve always heard people explain that your heart expands when you add another child to your family. You think you can’t love the second one as much as you love your firstborn but you do. Your capacity to love and care and embrace grows right along with your family.

I think the same is true of work. I LOVE what I do. I love sharing my stories and connecting with people. I love making people smile or making people think ormaking someone’s life a little bit easier. Because I love my work so much, I find the time to do it. I stay up late or get up early or type out a post on the playground.

I don’t do it all perfectly. Sometimes I miss out on a project I really wanted. Sometimes my kids watch the iPad more than they should. Sometimes I feel overworked, overwhelmed, and over tired but that’s ok.

Because as a work-at-home mom – as a human being – I’m not looking for a perfect life, I’m just looking for a happy one.

This post originally appeared on The Happiest Home. 

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I never wanted church

In 2009, I convinced my husband to leave our fancy six-figure lives in Washington, DC, and move back to my hometown of Paducah, KY. Well, convinced is a strong word. I got pregnant and then told him me and the baby were moving to Paducah and he was welcome to join us.

A decade before I had loaded up my cherry red Oldsmobile Cutlass and headed away for college convinced I was leaving the town of my birth forever. My dreams were too big to be contained inside a town few people could pronounce.

Now, here I was ten years later hungering for the small town life I had left behind. I wanted to be near my family. I wanted my husband to be home by 5. I wanted mortgage payments that didn’t shock the conscience.

What I never wanted was church.

I was raised in church. It was an experience that was not entirely bad but left me on the brink of adulthood feeling less than. Instead of being equipped to handle all that life threw my way, I felt like no matter what I did I just wasn’t good enough. Any doubts planted in college fell on fertile ground and by the time I graduated I was telling anyone that would listen I was done with religion.

Everything changed when I had my son. During all the pregnancy planning, I thought I had prepared for every situation. I had the carseat installed weeks in advance. I took CPR classes and read book after book on infant care. And yet I was completely caught off guard when my husband looked at me one evening and said, “Shouldn’t we start going to church?”

At first my response was no. Nothing had changed. I still had doubts. I still had anger. Why would I expose my son to that?

Of course, overtime my feelings changed. My husband convinced me not all churches are created equal and pointed out he had none of the issues I did despite growing up in church. I began to notice that many of the families in our social circle – families who shared our values and priorities – all attended the same church.

So, I began attending church for my son. Thinking that it would be a nice Sunday routine to expose him to another worldview, I never expected that three years later I would be standing in front of my family being confirmed into a faith I thought I had left behind.

Now, church is not just a place we go but a community to which we belong.

I realize that we are the young family so many churches are hungry to attract – involved members of the community with time and resources to dedicate to the church. I’ve had clergy from other churches ask me what brought us back to the fold and I can sense an interest beyond my personal story.

I wish I had an answer for them.

Unfortunately, there was no church program that got us in the door. We weren’t drawn in by any slick brochure or fancy website. In the end, it was exactly what Erin wrote about in her last post. It was community that got to the alter at Grace Episcopal Church and community that has kept us coming back week after week.

It was the community of young parents like us – friends we knew from play dates or preschool that kept inviting us to church again and again. It was the community of intelligent and thoughtful people who welcomed my doubts and made it clear that questions were not only accepted but welcome. It was the community of loving and compassionate hearts who made room at the table for people very different from us and went searching for tables beyond their own that needed food.

It was also a willingness in my own journey to cross the threshold of church once more. No amount of invitations or welcoming messages would have gotten me through those doors before I was ready.

Not surprisingly, like almost everything else involving religion, the answer is complicated. Much like faith itself, my journey back to church was a little bit of timing, a whole lot of love, and enough grace to cross the finish line.

This post originally appeared on Irrerevin. 

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