A Whole New Internet. Sort Of.

Happy July! (A tiny bit late.)

I am driving down the interstate right now, typing this on my computer. (CHROME BOOK WOO HOOO!) Which is connected to a wifi signal, being broadcast from an app on Mark's phone. My phone is plugged into the chromebook, so that I can upload pictures from my camera roll to this post. Aaaaaaand we are feeling a little techy-smug right about now.

Yay internet!

Okay so I have been wanting to post about all the things that are making my internet feel like a whole new place in the last several weeks. (Even aside from today's episode of insterstate blogging.) Besides the new chromebook, which is proving every bit as awesome as I had hoped (and I will post about that too at some point), look at these other new shiny things!

Feedly. Like everyone else, I went into a mourning state when Google announced they were killing Reader. I definitely cried real tears. Every night for a week. This is not an exaggeration for the purposes of making a point, I ACTUALLY CRIED. (I might have had pms.)

Probably a full 75% of what I read on the internet (news, friends' blogs, churchy articles, comics, recipes, photo streams) came via my Google Reader, and I wasn't sure what would happen to my cherished internet reading habit when it went away. Would whatever I replaced Reader with be as good? Good enough that I would actually use it? I am here to say YES and YES.

Feedly is where it's at, y'all.

Full disclosure about my uninformed opinion: I didn't try any other options. Feedly was the first thing I tried, mostly because the phone app is just beautiful. Yes, I am that person.

See? Beautiful.

So I synced up my Google Reader (this was back when it was still active and I had that option, #RIPgooglereader) and it imported everything I was already following, and grouped it into my same categories. Lovely.

And then I played around with the features, and y'all! It does so much! So many helpful things! It walked me through how to do some "spring cleaning" and remove feeds that don't update any more. I can save display settings for each category (or individual feed) based on the type of content coming through -- to view just a list of titles, or a title with thumbnail, or a few opening sentences, or a grid of large pictures, or the whole post itself. This is a customization feature I didn't know I wanted, and now I love it. Oh and also it has an option to be all Furman purpley in the background. Yes please!

So after playing around with it and using it for several weeks, I kinda think... *whisper* I like it better than Google Reader. (Heretic! Burn me at the stake!)

Screen grab of Feedly. See all those blogs I am fully caught up on? YEAH. THAT.

My one complaint about it so far is that my email button doesn't work on my computer, so if I want to send a post to someone, I have to just open gmail and copy/insert the link to the post itself. Google Reader was way better in that it could send the entirety of the post (with pics) right from where I was reading it. (Feedly does this just fine on my phone and on my chromebook. I'm not sure what's happening on my computer but I'm not ready to blame Feedly for it just yet.)

So, Feedly. If you consume as much internet writing as I do, you want it.

Falcon Pro. Okay if you think I lost my sh!t when they killed Google Reader, you should have seen me the day they killed the TweetDeck phone app. The thing is, I love twitter, and I really love it on my phone. (Tweetdeck still exists as a chrome extension, which I use on both computers as often as I want twitter on a computer, which is... not often.) So to replace Tweetdeck on my phone, I had been through several twitter apps, including Echofon, Hootsuite, and Twitter's own app (which... why so terrible, Twitter?) and I couldn't find one that did everything Tweedeck did for me, and as smoothly.

Here is what I wanted: to be able to control more than one account (and set different notification settings for each of them) mute certain users or hashtags, save lists and hashtags I do want to follow, see full conversations connected to a tweet (including history AND @-replies; so many apps do one but not the other, why why why), and have my own tweets and starred favs no more than a couple taps away. Asking too much? APPARENTLY SO.

(Those of you who aren't on twitter just curled into the fetal position and vommed a little. If you even are still reading, good job.)

So after reading a crap ton of reviews and asking a million people what they used/liked/didn't like, and installing/uninstalling several apps and their various boosters on my phone, I eventually got to Falcon Pro. It has a dumb logo and a dumb name and it seems to have a cult following among people who are, well... odd. And I say that without any judgement because all those odd birds were right: this app is great.

It does all the stuff I said I wanted, plus a few other things I didn't know I wanted but now can't live without -- MOST NOTABLY, it opens its own mini browser when you tap a tweet, so you can read a linked article right there in the app! No more opening other pages to read! THIS INCLUDES INSTAGRAM PICTURES. I would honestly have used it forever ago, just for that mini-browser feature alone. Totally worth the $2 I paid. Or, $1.68 or whatever random price it was. (See? Odd.)

Also, it has a dark screen. Which is a dumb thing, but I liked it about Tweetdeck and I like it here too. It saves battery! And is easier on my eyes when I am lying in the dark trying to twitter myself to drowsiness. Yes, that is a thing. I promise.

Falcon Pro: HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Oh! And I didn't want this post to be super long or too boring but since I have already failed at the latter I will keep going and risk the former as well, so --

Pocket. My other other new (to me) internet thing is called Pocket, which saves articles or links to be read later. I have a Pocket button in my browser on the computer, and it is listed as one of my "share" options in my phone -- "add to Pocket."

It syncs between devices, so you can save stuff to read from anywhere, and go back and read it from anywhere. Even offline! This has saved me from cluttering my email with links I send to myself to read, which means I can now see my real emails AND REPLY TO THEM, so... that's a win.

In my perfect internet world, I wish Feedly had some sort of Pocket integration so I could get all those things right alongside the sites I already subscribe to, but... that doesn't exist yet. (They didn't ask me.) (They should have. They always should.)

Um okay I think I am finally out of things to say about this. Oh and sorry for all the actual photos of my phone. I don't think there's a way to easily do screen grabs on Androids (if you know, please tell me!)...

*Sigh* ... And right when I was feeling techy-smug.

And Then the Oven Caught On Fire

So I was very busy over on twitter last night (and in my text thread, even less delicately) bitching about the exhaustion of having to make food for people every few hours every day of my whole life, because I am a terrible person was inexplicably cranky for no reason:

I have had a lovely day, I really have. But I am so sick of thinking about how/when/what to feed people that I could scream.
— Erin Goettsch (@ebum1101) June 27, 2013

(An ongoing woe, not just today. "Who eats next? What will I feed them?" is a line of thinking I cannot EVER escape from and I'm OVER IT.)
— Erin Goettsch (@ebum1101) June 27, 2013

Yes, I am a full-time caregiver who is frustrated by people needing food and beverage. Yes I hear myself. I will save you the eye roll.
— Erin Goettsch (@ebum1101) June 27, 2013

And even though the twitterverse was actually sort of kind and validating (it isn't just me! everyone hates this! the never-endingness really is exhausting!), I managed to suck it up and make a dinner plan and was working on cooking it, when the oven caught on fire.

Wait wait let me say it again because I think you missed it. MY OVEN CAUGHT ON FIRE.

!!!!!

I preheated it, and then I heard a pop, and when I looked behind me the oven seemed... oddly bright. BECAUSE IT WAS ON FIRE.

I guess the heating mechanism ignited somehow. Because of grease on it? Because it is old? Because twitter bitching and karma and Jesus and something? I don't know. But it was on fire.

Oddly we never really panicked. The flames were small and totally contained in the oven, so Mark and I sort of chatted about what we should do, before we did anything. (Some of you are out there rolling your eyes at us and nodding knowingly.)

We tried turning off the oven and when it didn't die down on it own (haaa die down, in a super hot oven, we are cute), Mark busted out the fire extinguisher. Which we keep on the counter. Because amongst other adorable nerdy qualities, he puffy-heart loves safety rules. (And today I say, thank goodness.)

But even after two attempts with the fire extinguisher (yes, yes, I did take a picture on the second go), it still wouldn't quite die down, so then we did get totally nervous. Mostly about the gas line to the stove right above it. Yiiiiiikes.

Also we had cut the power to the house, and the alarm was going off, so between the noise and the dark and the sight/smell of smoke and extinguisher chemicals everywhere, we suddenly had two terrified crying children peering at us through the stair bannister.

Anyway after take three with the extinguisher, the flames were gone, and our biggest problems were the sobbing children and the layer of extinguisher foam/powder covering everything, and when I say everything I mean everything. We did a crap top of laundry, scrubbed out the cracks in the couch, washed every counter and wall and dish (of course I had left all manner of cabinets and things open, including the microwave, right now my mom is thinking CLASSIC ERIN), swept and mopped and swept and mopped, repeat times inifinity. And just when you think you have it all, you realize you have to clean out inside your toaster. Oh and mop again. And oh for the love, clean off that bottle of wine, stat.

(The kids calmed down. Nathan's Rex, who got caught in the extinguisher crossfire, emerged from the washing machine unscathed and unsmelly. But the cleaning will be in process for some time. Mark actually vacuumed out the oven a bit today. In case you didn't know that's a thing husbands do after kitchen fires. Apparently.)

The important thing is we're all safe, what could have been a disaster was very not, and Anneliese thinks Daddy is a firefighter now. Oh and also we got chinese takeout for dinner.

Loud and clear, universe. Loud and clear.

If I could Make an Internet PSA

My internet friends are super cool and I love them all to bunches (especially you YES YOU). And they're totally worth making a little PSA to help them with their online habits. So, here are some issues I would tackle if I could ever make said PSA:

1.) Stop tweeting your protected instagrams. The only people who can see it are your instagram followers. Who will see it ALREADY, because they follow you THERE.

2.) Y'all, we have got to talk about the difference in phase and faze. Your kid is going through a phase. If your kid takes something in stride, he was not fazed. You look dumb. Stop that.

3.) If your kid is five years old, you don't need hyphens to say that. You only need hypens if you're making it an adjective, like saying you have a five-year-old kid. Stop that too.

4.) I can't believe I still have to say this in 2013, but turn off captcha for your blog comments. It's why you don't get any comments. True story. 

*4a.) (Helpful tip: if you're worried about spam, just enable comment moderation for anything over, say, a week old, which will be the VAST MAJORITY of your posts, and will therefore cut down on the VAST MAJORITY of your spam.)

5.) Turn your iphone camera the other way FTLOG.

Hm my PSA might be a little snarky. I mean it out of love. If we can just stop with that protected instagram tweets thing, I can make peace with the rest. Love you all. Smooches.

(In other news, I might or might not be full of first world problems.)

Dino Dig: A Story in Tweets

If you're not hanging out with me on twitter (I'm very busy over there, being slack at blogging) then you're missing out on gems of adorable stories like this one:
_____

@ebum1101 5:48pm Nathan just found a flat rock in the yard and is insisting it's part of the head of a paralophosaurus.

@ebum1101 5:49pm (I cannot tell if he's pretending or convinced. Either way, his sisters are now searching for the rest of the bones to assemble the fossil.)

@ebum1101 5:55pm Excavating that fossil LIKE A BOSS.

@ebum1101 5:58pm He doesn't have any brushes so he's scraping with a piece of mulch. As one does, when one finds a paralophosaurus in the front yard.

@ebum1101 6:44pm (I probably didn't have to google it to see if that was even a real dinosaur.) (Ahem.)

@ebum1101 10:54pm Just went to kiss my sleeping babies and saw that Nathan is sleeping with that rock* he dug up yesterday. *part of a paralophosaurus fossil

@ebum1101 10:55pm Sleeping with it. In his bed. On his pillow. A ROCK.

_____

So the moral of the story is, be on twitter or you might miss the day when we really do find a dinosaur skeleton.

Pins and Circles and Tweets

Because I wasn't addicted enough to the internet already, and I'm clearly in the market for more time-sucking online {shakes head}, I've been killing some waiting-for-baby days (read: naptime, per my usual) playing around with new internetty things!  Fun!

First I got re-hooked on Pinterest.  It's a cool place to bookmark (pin, if you will... that's right, I'm down with the lingy-loo) stuff you find online and want to remember or share with others.  Recipes, organization, ideas for travel or reading or your house or kiddie activities, whatever.  It saves them on these virtual bulletin boards with pretty pictures and your thoughts or ideas, and a link back to the original place you found it.  You know I love a good old fashioned list, but pinned pictures are a way more attractive and fun way to save ideas.

(I confess that in a former life I was a magazine-ripper.  If I saw something I liked in a magazine and wanted to remember it, I'd tear out the page and keep it... somewhere.  Binders, pockets, stuck in other books, floating around the bottom of  my purse.  You get the idea.  It might or might not have made me look like a crazy person a few times.  Pinterest is way better for this kind of habit.)

So I had been on it before with a junkmail email, but somehow I messed up that account and started over with my real email, and now it's way better since people can find and follow me, and I them, so it's also got a social media slant.  Which totally works out in my favor.  Because of Pinterest, my internet soul mate Erin saw that I loved this beautiful white and floral purple letter, and made me one (!!) to hang over Sprout's crib.

(No, Sprout's name does not start with an A.  Yes, the correct letter Erin made and texted me pictures of is even more beautiful than this and I can't wait to get it in the mail tomorrow.)

It's also where I'm storing the link for this oh-so-sweet (but way too expensive) print of Hattie for Anneliese's room, for whenever I decide it's worth the splurge.  (Hattie is real!  She's a character!  She's holding an elephant!  I almost fainted when I saw it.  Must. Remember.)

And it's also where I found and re-pinned the idea for cement molded stepping stones with kids' feetprint in them.  Do one per kid each year, and eventually you have a sweet path of baby and kiddie feet through your backyard.  Awesome.

Anyway, Pinterest.  You should be doing it.  It's my new favorite corner of the internet.

Then I got an invite for google+ ... but, um... I don't get it?  I think I'm usually pretty social-media savvy, but g+ makes me feel dumb.  I have yet to share anything on there because I don't understand how to share with which groups circles.  I'll figure it out, I just haven't spent much time on it yet.  Sometimes I think google just invents products and tools to remind us that they rule the world and we will always be inferior.  Remember when it was just a search engine? Yeah, that.

And this week, I finally joined the twitter revolution.  Like facebook, I resisted a long time, but eventually I have to cave and be part of it.  It's a little overwhelming (so many tweets! how could you possibly read them all?  why would you want to?) but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  Mostly my biggest frustration is I don't know who to follow (suggestions, please!) or how to find people I know. So if you're on twitter, tell me! (And I'm @eringoettsch if you're looking for me.)

Find me!  Follow me!  Let's be internet friends!