Tag: iPhone

Maternity Looks Good, iPhone Aesthetic, Deadlines, and Encouragement

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized14 Comments

Good morning! I just wanted to share some of Katy’s maternity pics. They turned out so pretty.

The dress is pretty too. She is getting big with baby! And can you believe it is about 6 to 7 weeks til term? She could go early as well. So we will be grandparents soon. The due date is January 19th. I have an idea. Now that you all have seen the pics and know the due date. Give me your best guess as to the date our little grandson will be born? Put the date below in the comment section. We will see who gets the closest.

I just love this dress. I love that color. I love greens, blues, turquoise. But that is the prettiest color. She wears a hat well. Love these and just had to share.

Our Christmas Tree

Snapped a pic of our main Christmas Tree for you. It went up fairly quickly this weekend. I loved having George put ornaments on the tree with me. There are a lot of ornaments and it’s always special to have someone helping to put them on the tree. Mostly it’s been me as decorating was more my forte, but Christmas trees were meant to be decorated together. More fun that way.

Maisy Update

She continues to improve. She continues to eat, drink water, and yesterday’s perk was that she was more alert. This morning when I put her on the floor, her tail perked up and she ran to the front door. That was new. She’s normally moving slowly and often in a medicated “stare”. She had to go! Our nights we have been getting more sleep with her on the meds as she is tapped out. That has been nice as we’ve needed the rest. I’ve thanked and praised God for her turn around and continued improvement. I knew I loved her. I didn’t realize how much I guess. But her near loss has torn me up. And the last few days I have gained hope that she will be on the mend or at least with us a bit longer. Don’t stop praying. God hears our prayers. There are so many of us pulling for her and he saw my tears. He is the Great Physician and the Great Vet too! I give Him the praise. I’m also proud of Maisy for being tough and determined. I’m proud of George and I for being determined to get the pills down her. One person would not have been able to do it. I also am proud of you all for your kind words of comfort as you know I have been just terrorized watching her be so sick.

She ate a lot more this morning too when we got up, so her quantity of eating is increasing.

My iPhone Wallpaper/Background

Here’s what the background looks like. I posted some free backgrounds on yesterday’s post if you want to download. I love the pine trees. I have my most used apps on the front page.

Here is my 2nd page.

The third or fourth pages don’t matter so much. I hardly ever need anything from there. lol

My phone has been slow yesterday. I don’t know if it is APPLE or if it’s just that I have too much on there. I probably need to go through and do a cleaning out. Audible for example probably needs to be deleted of some books.

Diary of Yesterday

It was a payroll day. The day was good for the most part. I was rushing a bit because I knew that I had to pack up and take a lot to my car for working from home today. As well I had a lot more added to my day to get stuff done I couldn’t do at home. And to prepare and gather the work that I would be working on today such as tax files and such.

Well usually payroll days are quiet. I had more interruptions yesterday I think that I normally would have in a week. I usually don’t get any calls anymore so I’m not complaining really. Most people e-mail. But I had a lot of things to rise up end of Monday and early yesterday that took away from the payroll time. Just people waiting til the 11th— or 14th hour in some cases telling me things that are needed or involving the payroll that I’m currently doing. A bit later and the train would have pulled from the station, but it delayed things. So I did w/o taking a proper lunch and of course the work day spilled into me staying past the time most everyone else had left. I ate at my desk for lunch though and kept chugging down the track and that saved a few minutes.

I try to train people to get me things on time and I ALWAYS let them know when they are late because people need to be told that – otherwise you’ll be getting payroll things after payroll is done for the prior week payroll. And what am I saying – that still happens every week. Still………..I keep reminding. Some don’t like it when you ask for things on time, but I guess that is on them. We have a right to try and get things done on time right?

I think I’m turning into George. He turns everything into a song! And well so did I yesterday.

OK so you know Chicago’s song – “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” I keep humming that line in my head, LOL LOL LOL

Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care (care about time)
If so I can’t imagine why (no, no)
We’ve all got time enough to cry And I was walking down the street one day (people runnin’ everywhere)
Being pushed and shoved by people (don’t know where to go)
Trying to beat the clock, oh, no I just don’t know (don’t know where I am)
I don’t know, I don’t know, oh (don’t have time to think past the last mile)
(Have no time to look around) And I said, yes I said (run around and think why)

Well it’s not the proper lyrics to match the exact situation but that one line is. I keep singing it like this?

Does anybody really know what a deadline is?

Does anybody really care?

Gotta add a little humor in one’s day to keep the humor buttons pushed and to smile instead of scowl. I’m the one trying to beat the clock here! Oh well, it’s just my self taught work ethics trying to come out. Standard work standard time every time. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I have to try and remember that. No one is perfect. But we all could do better. I think it’s wrong to just accept poor performance. If something needs to improve for next time – let’s do it. If something is wrong let’s fix it. I don’t really think that is asking too much. Personally or professionally in life. We’ll never get better if we accept that it is ok to sub perform. Then we’ll always sub perform.

So end of day I’m boxing, packing, and trying to figure out how the monitor is going to work as last time I think I had a different cord or maybe even another monitor. I can’t remember. But I asked a kind coworker how it would work. And he showed me which cord. He asked why I was having to box things up and why if it’s so much trouble wouldn’t I just stay in the office during remote week like other managers. I explained I had requested to do so but despite that request, I was on the schedule to be off. And so I would comply. I told him no one really knew what all it involved and probably didn’t mind that I would have to carry so much back and forth – after all it’s me doing the carrying – but I’d try to comply with their wishes even so.

Anyway George helped me get the monitor upstairs and then I brought my purse, work bag, laptop case, and box of work and supplies for today’s needs. I think I spouted off that my 58 year old self was a bit old for this much wagging stuff around every other days and something about that not being the norm or we’d have to do something else! But for a week I’m trying to comply. Lord willing and I don’t pull a muscle.

I will pack it all up today and take it back tomorrow. Probably even the monitor b/c I think I will really miss having the monitor Thurs. Then pack it up and back home Friday. It’s a LOT of trouble. But it is cool to get to work from home. Or is it? I think we are back on our normal schedule next week.

Once home I returned messages. One from my sister, one from my neighbor, and caught up on a few things here. George fixed Chinese tacos, we watched Below Deck, which to me is not very good this season. I was struggling to stay awake. We had to give Maisy meds in TWO sessions. The big liver pill is every evening and it’s a huge one. We had to break it up last night into little pieces as she fought us on it. And then before bed we had to give her the rest of the meds.

Cuddles and Snuggles

Maisy, Since she has been sick she cuddles more. Or is at least within reach. She used to be within reach for only the first few minutes of bedtime. I sing to her every night and tell her how pretty she is and how God gave her to me and that I love her. And when I begin to drift off she moves off into the middle of the bottom of the bed. But the last couple of nights in particular she has remained within my petting distance and even against my legs. It’s been good for both of us while she is so ill to be within touching distance. She licked my hand last night after I sang to her. She hadn’t been doing that while she’s been sick. So I cherished that even though I really can’t stand for a dog to lick! lol

Encouragement

So, all that said, we ALL need some encouragement. Life is hard. Each day has such a struggle it seems – whether it be within ourselves, with others, or both. Or whether it just be life’s circumstances – a pandemic, a sick fur baby, aging parents, estranged relatives, having to stay apart from people you love, missing your friends and family, and daily stresses. We are all struggling or fighting some battle. We are ALL on EDGE. Reach out and encourage someone today. This is the first lesson of my Happiness audio by Max Lucado “Happiness Happens”.

I chose this audio because I let everything frustrate me. I start the day with a smile and a pep in my step but by mid morning most days, I’ve been tested and tried. How does a persona like mine make it in the world? You have high expectations of trying to make the world better and people look at you like you have a third eye? LOL. I just shake my head and spout a few words and go on to the next frustration factor. As said, it’s NOT wrong to try and make things better. So we keep trying, we keep encouraging. I have to push through my frustrations and try to find the positive side. We have to hold our negative thoughts captive before they get air time. While carrying monitors and boxes out the door during a Pandemic it’s easy to spout off! I want to encourage others, but I will say that even the encourager needs encouragement some days.

One thing I love is that each day starts anew! Let’s try again! And here we go. Life is good this morning, let’s keep it going!

Mid-Week Update and Tips on Setting up Your iPhone Home Page with the IOS 14 Update

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized5 Comments

Ahhhhh how good it is to sit and sip coffee and blog. The payroll is over for the week and now the concentration shifts as always to taxes. I do still have a few payroll things left over for today though – cutting manual checks for those new hires with no direct deposits until their pay cards are assigned, and stuffing our Nashville plant’s checks, but then onward to taxes. It’s Month End and Quarter End now that I’ve closed the last payroll of the month so I’ll be doing the monthly paid withholding taxes and then I will file the withholding returns for all states, our reconciliation report, and then our unemployment returns for all states. Then I can breathe easy again until January. January is going to be a wild card all the way around. I’ll be gone for about a week in a surprise moment when Katy has the baby. So I’ll be planning to get those 45 to 50 hours in at other times during the month which means working weekends and/or extremely long days to be able to get the work done. This is ever present in my mind as the time approaches. We normally hibernate during January. So I think February will become my new hibernation month. No one plan AnYthInG for Feb 2021!

This week the sleep has been good. George put a ring in his nose that is meant to help snoring. I think he may be using nose strips as well. It has cut down the sound to a tenth of what it was. He feels so bad. I hate to tell him that it’s the snoring – sometimes it’s not. But often it is what keeps me from sleep and waking me up. I’ve encouraged him to seek a sleep center and get study done. Someone at work told me now that they give you the equipment to do the study at home and they have a monitor that sends them the information ongoing. He seems to think he doesn’t need it. I chuckled inside when he said it, because yes he does. I know he has sleep apnea because there’s time I want to punch him to wake him up when he pauses to breathe. It’s not good for your heart or brain to not get the proper oxygen during sleep. He says he does not feel bad during the day but I can tell a difference in that he needs to go to bed earlier and gets tired quicker and often gets sleepy mid day or while driving.

I got the picture in that I ordered from Amazon that came over from China on a slow boat (lol). It was NOT any quality at all to it and not as expected.

This was the pic. But it was rolled up on a canvas and not on a canvas board like this. And it was a horrible screen print job. So I’ll not be using that. I’m returning it so it’ll go back on a slow boat from the US. I noticed it had a disclaimer that said “some colors may be muted” or something like that and I thought that was probably a disclaimer for a defect, making it seem like it is ok because they mentioned it. LOL. Well no, it’s not ok. It’s not pretty like the picture so it’s not worthy of hanging it on my wall. The purpose was to have something pretty on the wall not some muted imitation of beauty that looks like ants made a home on it and drove their little cars around on it making race tracks grooves all around it. lol

So enhhhhhhhhh – strike out! I do want something with those colors though. I will wait and go to hobby lobby and the price has to be right.

IOS 14 Decorating the Home Screen with Widgets

I’ve been so excited this week to upgrade to the IOS 14.

Here is my screen update – well that is screen 1. These are the ones I use most on a quick whim.

Free Background – Snag it if you Want it!

Here is the background I created in Canva if you wanted to steal it. I like it as it’s kindof a muted fall color. At first I thought it was too busy as a background but it grew on me as I added my widgets.

Now a lot of people change out their app covers. Such as these examples which someone else made on Canva free for others to use.

I was going to do that too as that is just as cool as my neighbor’s homegrown cucumbers! But – there is a few flaws with that.

A Few Flaws with using the App Covers (A different Photo on each App)

  1. You use the Short Cut screen to set it up and so when you click on it – it will go to the Short Cut Screen before it jumps to the app so there’s a delay. Yeah it’s a second delay but it’s annoying to have it go to a screen before it brings up the camera or facebook or whatever app it is. For me that’s annoying.
  2. When the next season arrives or you want a different look you have to go through decorating your app covers again or just live with the wrong colors.
  3. It takes a little minute to set them up – easy -but you probably need to watch the YouTube before you do it. And to do that every time you change your “theme” will be a bit time consuming in an already busy world. However, it looks really cool.

Here is my page 2 (swiping from right to left) on my iPhone.

There are stackable widgets called “smart stack” that change at various times of the day. It will display news, photos, itunes, and other things throughout the day. I also have a photos widget (above) that shows various photos (that I’ve selected as favorites). I love it. I’ll probably still change things around some. You can set some widgets as a Quote. You can use the Reminders app and create other lists as well and even use it to list a quote.

This is my screen on the left side – when I swipe from left to right. The upper part I put a stackable widget and I allowed the suggestion widget which is the most used apps. Or probably the most recent apps b/c some of those I’ve not used often! Then I have the regular widgets below that I’d already set up as just a “daily review” (traffic, weather, news, Bible verse, # visitors on wordpress and so forth).

So exciting stuff. If you have an iphone and are wanting to decorate your phone here’s my advice below.

Advice for Decorating Home Screen with IOS 14 on iPhone

  1. Make sure your update has downloaded.
  2. Google some examples of what others have done so you can get some ideas as to what you CAN do.
  3. Pick a theme color you like and have in mind what colors you want to work with.
  4. Find a background along the colors of your decided theme and set it as your wallpaper on your Home Screen. Backgrounds are everywhere. Use a photo, take one yourself, make one on Canva app, find one on Google Images – lots of options. Textures and designs are good. But apple has a couple of new ones and you can just use theirs.
  5. An extra tid bit on backgrounds: Some like a combination of light and dark so they can put the dark apps on the lighter section and the lighter apps on the darker section.
  6. Download the Color Widgets app and the Widgetsmith App as those give you the best options for setting up some cool widgets on your screens in various sizes, fonts, and colors.
  7. Use YouTube to look up how to set your home page in IOS 14 and you will see numerous instructions on how to add various widgets such as the ones I mentioned in #6 above. Google will work too if you like the written instructions instead of seeing it. You can also see YouTubes about setting up the app covers if you want to go that far. Also there are other updates that came with IOS 14 – you can YouTube those too. I’m finding YouTube so valuable as far as How To’s and All Abouts!

Gotta go to work and get started on my punch list there, but hope you have a great day! Hope you found today’s entry helpful if you have the iPhone and it’s update. It’s fun to create and especially something you use every day. I love to decorate my world! What kind of phone of phone do you have? iPhone? Have you done the update? If you don’t have an iPhone, why do you like the one you have. I’m an Apple gal now. But I like hearing others views on their favorites! Let me know!

Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com

Excited about IOS 14 on iPhone and a Crab Boil!

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized6 Comments

Yesterday went by so fast! I ended up spending the morning working on some techy projects as you can see from the previous post. Made some improvements to links and accesses to the YouTube videos so you can easily find, view, like, and subscribe to the videos now.

It wasn’t until bedtime that I discovered IOS 14 was actually available this whole time sitting in my Settings and waiting. Usually it gives a red notification alert. I was waiting for that alert and trying to be patient.

I am excited to set up my home screen. How cruel I’ve been to myself to download it on a Sunday night and get up and have to go to work the next morning! Geez! I just want to organize my phone all day! 😉

Before you get upset – those that don’t like change. My phone was exactly the way it was before the update. But the options are there to change and reorganize to the new way if you want it.

When you DO download it, just know that it has some really good explanations that actually STAY ON your phone in a section called “See What’s new in IOS”. Before it always disappeared after you read it. But best of all you can search on YouTube “How to Set Up IOS 14 Home Screen” and there are lots of quick videos showing you how to do it and giving you some examples. I love YOU Tube, it helps so much in almost everything I do to be able to understand anything anymore.

Crab Boil for Two

So we had a crab boil last night. I set up the table in the sunroom as it has a metal table and put a plastic type table cloth and then parchment paper across that for easy clean up.

We had crab, shrimp, cajun sausage, corn, potatoes, and slaw.

And of course we ate on the plastic fish plates which we have had for years – as a fun dinner time plate and we use them for picnics sometimes. Mainly we use them for pizza night, which is rare these days. But yeah, what a GREAT dinner. Filling but in a good way. Most of it healthy. Maybe not the sausage so much. Maybe not so much butter but it was so good.

Now it is the work day and I must prep and get out the door. It was a great weekend. Never enough time to do what I want to do. And it’ll be a busy week for me this week. I have quarter end once this payroll is finished. I have all month to get through it but, will probably need to work a bit longer each day to accomplish it. And I am also cooking two nights this week. Another grocery run is probably going to happen as we need Fresh Pet. Kroger was out of what we use. I forget what else is on the list but working on my iphone is one of them.

Well, I need to wrap it up and head out. Ya’ll have a fabulous day. Once I get my iphone set up I’ll do screen shots so you can see it. I wish I could just be geeky all day long, work on videos, iphone set ups, do email, blog, learn how to use my camera, learn how to use YouTube and study more on making videos. Boy I could tear up a day on my own just to do all these things.

But off to work we go so people can get paid. Not a bad thing to do at all as I love what I do. Lucky to get to be happy anywhere. Except for when I get locked out and can’t do anything! Ya’ll have a good day.

Are you getting any fall temps where you are? We are and it feels so good. Highs in 70’s and lows 50’s. I think it jumps back up to 80’s but it will be back and forth for a while. Have to plan when to get down the fall clothes. I’m ready for flannel PJ pants and long sleeves.

Have a great week!