Life can be a little hectic as a parent, especially when you toss in a bunch of college courses and pregnancy brain and there are many products that have helped by adding some convenience! Let me start with the disclaimer that none of the product companies in this post have told me to say anything at all about their products and as a matter of fact, they probably have no idea I’m even endorsing them but I do it because I love them!

Recently, my husband called me while I was at a playdate and told me that he needed to borrow my car for an appointment while his was in the shop. I said that had no idea he had an appointment or would need my car to which he replied, “Well…it was in MY phone calendar.” I laughed and asked how that was supposed to help me. After this confusion of appointments, I asked my friends if there was some way to coordinate our schedules better for a busy man and a woman who doesn’t even remember what day of the week it is. A friend had suggested a free app called Cozi which would allow us to sync its calendar on our phones, tablets, PCs, and any other little electronic contraption with Internet capabilities. He can add his appointments and seconds later, it appears on my end. You can list who is involved in the event and the reminder can send to just that person(s). It also allows you to create a shopping list, meal calendar, journal, or send messages. I loved the app so much that I bought the Gold version because that allows you to view the calendar differently and remove the ads (as well as a birthday tracker and additional abilities to stream things to the whole family and share with friends). Here’s an example of my weekend from the Cozi app on my Android:

 

I was one of those people who had absolutely no interest in an electronic reading source. Paperback books were perfectly fine until they started to get the wear-and-tear of being around my house. Reading while I’m cooking or holding a fidgeting baby or Heaven forbid I put my book down for a few and turn my back, a child has eaten the whole thing. Trying to read before bed at night was also driving my exhausted husband crazy because I could barely see with my book light. Finally, a friend suggested that I look into the Nook because it had a backlight for night time reading and a bunch of other special features. I played around with it and liked the fact that I could carry it with me easily, share inspirational quotes that I came across in my reading, or utilize one of the many apps. Being mostly a half.com kind of gal, I was extremely put off at the cost of e-books and being unable to re-sell them after I was finished but then I found out that libraries lend out books so that helps. My library’s selection isn’t filled with the genres I tend to read so I recently started buying books as I go along. Having the Nook helps to increase the time I read since I can bring it with me and I recently downloaded the free Nook Android app so I can read on my phone while waiting at appointments or if my Nook is charging. The app on my phone is so convenient for reading on the fly:

 

I’ve got hobbies coming out of the wazoo and I just keep piling them on. For a few years, I’ve been into photo editing and designing my own stuff on the web. I kept this page simple because I love it! When I started looking into costs of popular photo editing software, my cheap tush just couldn’t bear it. A friend suggested a program called GIMP that functions similarly to the others but was completely free. There are really helpful tutorials all over the Internet to aid in learning your way around the program and it does nearly everything I need it to do to create and edit images with ease.

And these are just a few of the programs that I love!