Howdy, all.

Well, we survived The Great Move of 2014. Remember last time I moved, and it was January, and I said we’re never moving in the winter again? Yeah.

It actually wasn’t too bad. Jeff worked his buns off in the weeks leading up to the move, so when we packed up in Le Mars everything was already ready to go in the garage. It didn’t take us too long to pack it all into the trailer and head to South Dakota. Of course when I say “us” I mean mostly my father-in-law and brother-in-law and husband because I got my packing privileges revoked. I blame high school. Everyone was super into Tetris and I didn’t see the draw, and my Tetris-like packing skills have suffered ever since. At one point my brother-in-law actually re-packed something I packed, so I gave up and cleaned out the fridge. Stick with what you know, and all that.

I’m proud to say that we actually have a few things hung on the walls and the new house is really coming along. I only had one complete meltdown that I didn’t like the new house because I miss the old house and blah blah blah, and I’m pretty sure I was having a stroke or something because I love the house and it’s so cute. Something about it just seems like a house where adults would live. I feel super adult-y. I’ll share photos soon!

In the meantime, I wanted to share some things I’m loving lately. You know I love posts like this.

Spotify

I know, late to the party, whatever, it’s the best. Have I mentioned that I’m actually considering paying for the subscription so I can play it on my phone? Because I am. And yes I know you can get Pandora for free but Spotify is better! I’m sorry!

Wunderlist

I’ve had this app for a while and I’m a big fan, but then I made Jeff get it and now it’s the greatest thing. We can share lists, even though I have an iPhone and he has not an iPhone. We each have/share each other’s wish lists, which is THE HANDIEST with Christmas coming up, and we get pinged when the other adds stuff to lists, or makes a comment. We also share a House Wishlist, which is basically every little project we’ve thought would be neat for the house.

I’ve got a couple lists, including a Work list, a Mad Photo list, a blog post ideas list…etc. So yes, you can make lists (AND I LOVE LISTS), but it’s way different from the regular iPhone Notes app because you can include so much more information. If you’re sharing a list, you can assign an item to a certain person, add due dates, reminders, subtasks, and make comments and notes. I can write that I want a Kelly Moore bag for Christmas, and then in the “Notes” section add the exact link to the one I want. YOU ARE WELCOME JEFF.

But seriously, I love this app. I know we’re hardly using it to its full potential. It’d probably be a great app for a small team or business, too, AND IT’S FREE. Perhaps I should have lead with that. It’s free. Go get it now.

Anything by Liane Moriarty

Last year while on the Peschong family summer vacation, I read The Husband’s Secret at the same time as three of my sisters-in-law. All of us were like !!!!! ???? !!!!! reading this book. It is good. I’ve also read What Alice Forgot, Three Wishes, and Big Little Lies. Big Little Lies is honestly one of the top 3 books I’ve ever read, if not the top-tippy-toppest. One of the last weekends we were in Le Mars moving, I stayed up late Friday reading, woke up on Saturday, and stayed in bed until 11 finishing the book. E-LEV-EN. When I got to THE PART (you know it – every Moriarty book has one) I actually said, “Whuu…? **GASSSSSSP!!!!**” No exaggeration. Audible. Gasp. So so so good. Everything by her is fabulous.

Unroll.me

I can’t remember if I’ve told ya’ll about this before but this service has changed my email. It is the best. If you’re like me and subscribe to way too much stuff because DEALS and FEAR OF MISSING OUT ON DEALS and other things, you’ll love it. You tell unroll.me what you want to keep in your inbox, unsubscribe to, or “roll up.” The items that are “rolled up” all end up in one aggregated email that gets sent to you once a day. That email has all those emails in it. Make sense? So instead of 37 emails from LinkedIn.com, loft.com, jcrewfactoryoutlet.com, whatever.com, you get one email with everything that you can quickly scan. And all the important emails (like our student loan payment e-receipts and water bills and all that really fun adult stuff) can still stay in your inbox if you want it to. This is seriously the difference between me waking up to 100 emails and me waking up to 10 emails. Hallelujah.

This Butter Dish from Anthro

Because I love it and I left my super cute butter dish in Le Mars during the move. SAD FACE. Also this one has handles and Jeff has made a VERY CLEAR point that he wants a butter dish with handles. Eye. Roll.

IFTTT.com

This can do five billion things so sorry for rambling BUT IT’S THE COOLEST. If you are managing any sort of social media presence, it’s a must. It can also be totally useful outside of that, but that’s mostly what I use it for. IFTTT stands for If This Then That, which is a service where you create virtual “recipes” to basically “put the Internet to work for you.” One of my faves is a SUPER basic one that bypasses Twitter cards and sends Instagram posts direct to Twitter.

Breaking that down: you know when you Tweet directly from Insta, and the photo doesn’t show up right in Twitter? It just shows a link, right? It didn’t used to be this way, but since Instagram was purchased by Facebook, and Facebook is in this perpetual battle with Twitter, those images are no longer native. (If you’ve noticed, Vines ARE native because Vine is owned by Twitter. If you think this sounds like a playground battle from elementary school, YOU’RE RIGHT.)

ANYWAY because social media is often so visual this can be a huge bummer, ESPECIALLY for those of us who work in a visual field (hello, photography). So, whenever I post something Mad Photo related on Insta, or whenever I’m working on any of the other social media profiles I manage on Instagram, all I have to do is use a certain hashtag and that sends a signal to start this “recipe” and send the ‘Gram to Twitter WITH the photo built into the Twitter card; no lame link!

So yes, there are nerdy social media things you can do, but you can also use it for other things that make life easier. You can get emails from new posts from any Craigslist search; get notified when new iPhone 6 Plus cases get released on Amazon.com; tell your phone to turn off silent when you get home (SERIOUSLY); set your iPhone to vibrate when it connects to your work WiFi, AND SO MUCH MORE. IFTTT.com makes me feel like a wizard and I love it.

Oh! I also use it to upload all of the photos on my iPhone camera roll to my Dropbox account whenever I connect to WiFi, so my photos are always backed up. I’m constantly running out of storage space, so this is great.

Are you using IFTTT? Or Unroll.me? Do you like my butter dish? 😉

Happy FriYAY!