iPhone, where were you all along?

You guys, I have a problem.  I'm in love my phone.  I've become one of those people who goes to a bar, and plays with my phone all night.  Yep.. I'm that girl I made fun of less than a month ago.  But, i just can't stop.

 

My answer to the battery life problem I had?  I carry the charger in my purse.

 

I've downloaded every App that I made fun of in comercials as being "something i can do on the blackberry for free with google".  Because, as I discovered, those apps are free... and actually work like a charm.

 

 

 

In other news, This weekend was both good and bad.  It was Chickfest which was... okay.  Usually it's my favorite time of year, and I have a blast, but this year, it just reminded me that I still don't have any close friends here, and I spent a lot of the day throwing myself a pity party and sitting in dark rooms instead of going outside.  because I'm lame, and apparently emo.

 

However, i did get to see my brother and his girlfriend.  And we went bowling with one of my cousins.  So, that was fun.

Well, I did it.

I took a big plunge and bought an iPhone.  I went to the apple store and inquired about the return policy.  I have 30 days to decide if I prefer the iPhone, or a blackberry on verizon.  But let me tell you, the iPhone is winning in all sorts of big ways.  I love it.  I love the tabbed web browser.  I love the App Store (and the big heaping pile of free games that come in it).  I love the way sms is set up.

But, I miss Blackberry messenger.  I miss the gtalk app (apparently, there isn't one for the iPhone).  I miss the battery life.

 

Now, admitadley, I've been playing with my iPhone pretty much all day.  I've downloaded no less than 5 Apps this morning, and had the mail "fetch" (oh yea, and I miss pushed gmail) set to "every 15 minutes".  I've looked on websites, played games, and found nearby restraunts.  But I still think I should have more than 35% of my battery left after that.

 

Maybe once I can keep my hands off of it for longer than 30 minutes the battery life will fall into place.

 

Or perhaps when i sync it with iTunes?  No joke, this is a reall life quote from the "genius" at the Apple store: "You have to sync it to your computer at least twice a week, because that's how it sleeps."  it was all I could do to not laugh so hard i peed my pants.

iPhone vs. Blackberry

So, the time has come for me to finally leave my parent's "family plan" and venture off into the world of paying for my own cell phone again.

Now, I have been a faithful blackberry user for a little over 3 years now.  Beyond that, I have been with Verizon for almost 10 years.

Recently, Boyfriend's company has decided to give a go at producing Apps for the iPhone, which resulted in him getting a free, (they're even paying the bill!) iPhone.  I was fine and happy with blackberry until I played with this baby.  The internet works more seamlessly, the User Interface is 20 times more intuitive, paid apps start at 99 cents (for blackberry, the cheapest paid apps are $2.99), typing on that particular keypad even seems easier than on my curve (especially with the acrylic nails, since i can't accidentally push surrounding keys with my nails), and more useful  (sometimes even cheaper, or free-er) versions of many of the apps made for blackberry.

But there are still downsides, like gmail not being pushed to the phone, the lack of MMS, and most notably, AT&T's network.

I'm craving a touch screen phone, but I really don't like the SurePress Technology that the storm has to offer.  I also have serious doubts about leaving Verizon's network (especially knowing that 90% of my friends and family can be reached without using my minutes.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I ask of you, what do you suggest?  Any tips?  Any AT&T users reading my ramblings?  I'm truly at a loss as to what I should do.

Okay, back to bloggy goodness.

Okay, show.

I am back, and better.

This weekend I accomplished some wedding tasks.

1) Friday and Saturday, I completed the design of and goccoed the printed parts of my save the dates.  This is a blog for another day, after they have been fully completed, and sent out.  I don't want to ruin any surprizes for those who will get them in the mail.  I will say this, the design was painstaking for me.  I cried more than once over not being able to find "the perfect font".  I doubted my vision repeatedly, and cried again when several of my ideas refused to translate to the Gocco method.  But in the end, I am SO HAPPY with the result.

2) Sunday, I booked a Photographer!  Jenn Ocken (http://jenn.ockenphotography.com/).  I had met with her last week, but the price tag left me wanting to think about it further, in the end, i was able to make it work within my budget, and I seriously LOVE her.  She was at a "How to plan a Wedding in a Weekend" siminar that I went to on Sunday, and ran up to me, gave me a great big hug and said "I'm so excited you came!" So i signed the contract and will send over a deposit via pay-pal this week.

 

In other news, I'm desperate to go home in lieu of working right now (not that blogging, and creating excell spreadhseets to keep track of wedding planning constitutes much work... but, you know).  Just 5 more hours, and then i'll be set free till tomorrow.

I have been a bad blogger.

I have put up posts over the past few weeks, then almost immediatley removed them.

I'm having some trouble latley.  My anxiey seems like it's worse than it has ever been.  I'm going crazy trying to iron out details I want for this wedding.  And, I hate my job.

yep.  that's about it.

I got a special package this weekend to cheer me up.

It was my print gocco! After I unpacked everything that came with it, i decided to lay out the contents to take some pictures.

After that, i got so excited flashing my first image, that I forgot to take pictures, but i did eventually get a shot of my VERY FIRST print:

I think i messed up the flashing.  Either there wasn't enough carbon in the print, or I pulled the print off of the screen too soon.  Either way I like the distressed look it ended up giving me.

Eventually, my kitchen table looked like this:

I got some shots of the actual printing:

 

 

I know that i wasted a lot of precious space on the screen, but i was just so excited to use the gocco, that i didn't even care.

I even decided to emboss some of them to see how it would turn out, here's the inking with the embossing powder unheated:

and here it is after the embossing tool did it's work:

 

It's hard to tell, but it's very shiny, and raised, I'm not sure how I like it though for the invitations.  The edges aren't as crisp as i hoped they would be, and sometimes the embossing powder gets blown away and creates random shiny bumps.  I think I'm actually not going to heat emboss any of the invites or save the dates.  Maybe I can at least try it on one first.

So, now I have a stack of plain thank you cards.  I wont use these for the wedding, because this is just the generic "thank you" text that comes with the machine (they include several sheets of graphics that you can image.)

Today I've been working on the save the date, invite, and rsvp designns using my 30 day trial of adobe indesign (so, I guess I should finish them in the next month... )

So, about my "i just can't" moment.

I was raised in a house where our animals were put on the same level as humans.  When I was a kid, our cat had it's own bedroom.  My brother's pet snake now even has it's own room.  Loosing Sheeba was as if I suddenly lost a best friend.  She was the perfect combination of companion dog and hunting dog, and it was a big loss for the whole family.  She was 13 years old.  And one of the sweetest dogs in the world. 

I've been at a loss of words as to how to talk about what this means to me.  I feel like people will think it's somehow silly for me to be this broken up about a dog, when there are human lives lost everyday.  But, damnit, she was important to me.  She was a great pal to my tiny dog Charlie,

I miss her.