In 6 days, this blog will be 5 years old! It’s not a real occasion, but who cares. I wanna have a party! I twittered about this blog party idea, and Katy suggested I have a “blarty,” so BLARTY it is! More details to follow. What do you think a blarty should include? I have to start planning!
Here’s where it all began: Welcome.
Ginny asked me about my favorite iPhone apps this morning. I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d just share my answer to her in a blog post. Thanks for the inspiration, Ginny. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while!
There are many more I love and have on my Mac at home for when I feel like adding stuff back, but I don’t like more than 4 pages of apps at any given time. More than that, and I can’t find anything. My main rule for myself is to keep the stuff I use most on page one. Page Two is for Camera Apps, Audio Apps, and Reading Apps. Page Four is for Games and Entertainment Stuff (TV/Movies). Page Three is all the other Utilities I use.
That’s my iPhone way. Everyone’s is different, but mine makes me superhappy.
When I was a little kid, riding bikes was my very favorite thing to do. I lived in a neighborhood full of kids, and I loved the freedom and the speed I had available to me. It was a safer time, so as long as I was back before dark, I was free to go where I wanted.
My ex-husband is very athletic, and cycling is his sport. Before he moved to the states (he’s English), he did a lot of road biking, but living in Atlanta and Bloomington, Indiana, there were a lot of excellent off-road trails available. I ended up getting a mountain bike of my own, which I used while we were married. Since the marriage ended, I haven’t been on the bike at all. I’ve moved many times, but I always knew I’d get the bike working again. This week, I finally got around to doing just that. My apartment isn’t in a great starting place for bike rides, but my new office is. For a grand total of $120, the nice guys at Flythe Cyclery got my old bike working again. The bike is living at my office instead of at my apartment, so when I’m downtown, I can get wherever I need to go so much more easily.
I picked up my bike Friday night and brought it to its new home. Saturday morning was my first outing. It was a pretty ideal time, since Raleigh was a wasteland (most people were traveling for the 4th of July). I simply went from my office to Helios, had breakfast, then went back to my office. Not a huge adventure, but it let me know that (1) the bike works (2) Helios isn’t very far away and (3) Lane is a handy street for me. From that adventure, I could already tell that being on a bike is going to help a lot with my sense of direction, which is something I desperately need.
Today was adventure #2. My friend Clara met me at my office with her bike. She’s got all the gear, clipless pedals, the whole deal. She looks like a real pro. Lately, she’s been riding with our friend Joe who’s a SERIOUS road cyclist. The other day when we hung out, she’s just gone 32 miles. I wanted to go for a real ride, but not a JOE ride! We ended up going all over the place. I kind of wish I’d gotten one of those Map My Ride apps for the iPhone so I could say how far we’d gone and where we actually traveled. All I know is that we were out for a full hour, and I saw a lot of corners of Raleigh I’d never seen before AND… I didn’t pass out. While I have been suffering from a low-grade migraine all day, I did make it. The nausea did begin to get a little bad near the end, but it was only annoying, not inhibitory. Overall, I had an awesome time, and I can’t wait to go out again. While I’m really happy Clara is heading to St John’s soon, I’m bummed she won’t be around for lots of rides. Being out there with someone else really keeps me going further than I would alone.
Anyway, I’m just thrilled to have a working bike back in my life. I hope to use it a lot.
Click the picture to see the big version.
After a VERY long month, the decorating/furnishing of my office is complete. The entire checklist has been checked. The last few things were the plants, the bottom-up blinds, the wood-specific office chair wheels, and last but of COURSE not least, the therapist chair (which arrived Sunday).
I used to always use Autostitch for panos, but they don’t make it for Mac. Instead, I used Calico. This was my first time using it, and so I just have the trial version. I cloned out some (but not all) of the little ads all over the picture. After I stitched all 18 pictures together, I used Transform/Warp in Photoshop to fill out the gaps in the corners. Lots of artifacts of the process all over the place… and of course the office looks WAY bigger than it actually is. But you get the idea. This is where I work. It’s mine. I don’t work for anyone anymore but myself.
It’s what I’ve wanted for years, and now I have it, and it seems like it’s going to work! Thanks so much to all of you who helped me this month. I could never have done it without you. (You know who you are, and I’ll thank you all personally again and again… I’ve got your back whenever you next need it.)
Soon, I will have an Open House, and I hope my friends stop in to say hello! Maybe August First Friday. I still have lots of businessy stuff to do, and I’d like to celebrate one more time when all that junk is done.
Running into Sho Nuff is always entertaining. I was at The Borough on Friday having dinner with my friends John, Hugh, and Ian (and later Emily) when he showed up. He was on fire that night! (John, I can’t believe you didn’t mention him!! :P)
Learning about love from Sho Nuff:
