While the rest of the country is cold, admittedly I’m enjoying the moderate weather in Phoenix, where we don’t have to worry about defroster settings on our cars or pipes freezing overnight. Being from the east coast, I do miss the cold every once in a while. So, when Jared, Ray and Allison came into town in late February, we did a 2-day trip up to Sedona, Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon.

While Laura was in town in February, she and I went to check out First Friday events in downtown (see thispost), went to some kind of delicious chocolate festival and walked around Bobby’s Rock at the base of the Echo Canyon trail at Camelback Mountain. We had our cameras and although it was too early for really nice light, I found a nice spot for some portraits of my good friend.

We checked out the Phoenix Art Museum and I especially enjoyed the lighting inside and outside. Below is the side-effect of something unofficially called “no flash corner.”

There’s also a cool exhibit I always have to go into when we go to the museum. It’s disorienting and very peaceful at the same time.

Andy and I weren’t able to get back out to Colorado to see her family and her baby until just a few weeks ago. If you’d like to meet him now (as opposed to whenever I work through photos from Feb-Nov and post them here!), Andy just shared his photos on his blog.

I’m one of those can’t be separated from my phone types. To be more precise, my iPhone and my Camelbak water bottle are usually both within arms reach. I’ve been contemplating jailbreaking my iPhone for a few weeks for a few reasons I consider to be worth it: I can stay logged in to run apps in the background (Pandora or the infamous Google Voice app, for example) while I use other features (like check email or answer a text.) I could use quick SMS texting to not even bother with switching between apps to answer a text. Also, I’d like to be able to customize my email and text sounds beyond what is currently offered since my husband and most of my friends have iPhones and nobody knows who’s getting the text or email when we hear it (since we all use “tri-tone” for texts and don’t have an option for email sounds.) And last on my short list but certainly not last on my list, is using the Google Voice app itself. Jailbreaking is easy and the newest version won’t brick your phone, and you can still sync to iTunes and buy things from the app store. Maybe I’ll really do it this coming weekend, I keep chickening out.

Maybe that’s because I really am otherwise very happy with my phone. Besides recording voicework, I hardly ever have to get out my laptop at home. I’m quite content to plug my iPhone into the nearest outlet and drain the battery with email, looking up recipes, youtube videos and playing games. I wanted to share some of my favorite apps, mostly time killers but they’re wonderful time killers.

1) Remote (free) – This is the most awesome yet simple thing I can do with my phone, and I love it. We have the audio inputs from our receiver hooked up to our Airport router, and our desktop mac is usually on. You can use this app to play music off your iTunes library from wherever you are in the house, and then by just changing the input on the receiver to Aux 2 or whatever it is, voila! Our entire library is accessible in our living room via our cell phones. Other friends with iPhones, once given access via a numerical password from the computer, can put in “requests” for music, since they can then also view the library. We can thumbs up or down their choices. I love it!!!

2) Shazam (free) – Hold it near the speaker and it’ll tell you what song is playing. Apple did a commercial featuring this app and I think most everyone must have it by now.

3) HeyWAY Pro (paid) – There’s no use in texting my husband when he’s somewhere along his commute, but trying to coordinate dinner and evening schedules calls upon this app. You send a request to someone to share their location, and with one button they can agree to do that. You then get a pretty accurate mini-google map and a ping on your phone once they’ve responded. Also, you can send out your location without being asked, and only send it to certain people (friends you’re meeting up with, etc). It doesn’t require a separate login/password, but allows you to add friends to your list only once they’ve confirmed via email on their phones. Pretty slick.

4) Defender Chronicles (paid) – This is not a productivity app, if you hadn’t already guessed. It’s a tower defense game and it’s awesome. I seriously love this game. When you have actual work to do, or an incoming call, it auto-saves wherever you left off when you close out of the app.

5) CatPaint (paid) – Don’t just blow this off as some stupid pointless app. It’s a wonderful, pointless app. Select any photo in your library, click to add resizable cats (and shake your phone to delete cats you’ve added.)

I present, Exhibit A, created to pass the time:

…and Exhibit B, to make a point:

Panthers 0wn Cardinals

Go back and add some cats to yesterday’s Thanksgiving festivities!

I’ve spent considerable time today working on a backlog of photos I’d had sitting on my laptop for months. I used to be so much better about this, posting pics from trips and friends’ visits within a week or so of when it happened. So without further delay, here’s part one of my photo update! This is from when my good friend Laura came to Phoenix to visit for a weekend. Andy had left for the Southern Short Course photojournalism workshop that weekend and it allowed for a lot more girl time. We didn’t stay up late braiding each other’s hair and eating Twizzlers like we did in high school, but nothing beats time with awesome people who you’ve known so long they’re just family.

I don’t remember anything specific about the movie Renaissance Man, aside from the fact that we were watching part of it during high school history class and I don’t think it really tied into anything being taught in the class. And I’m pretty sure Robin Williams was in it. I did, however, take away the idea of a Renaissance Man… and I liked it, and at that moment I thought it’d be a good thing to strive for.

My friend Jill, a multi-talented photographer/crafter/amazing cook/gracious party host, wanted someone to take gardening classes with her. When my family lived in upstate New York, my pastry chef-turned-Realtor dad grew vegetables in a huge 30×50ft garden, and also had probably 20-30 fruit trees in a large orchard AND we had several flower beds on our 3+ acres, all beautiful and blooming and producing so much we had to give it away. While that’s a great example of what can be done in more ideal growing conditions, it also stands as a great example of what amazing and productive things can be done in your spare time. At this point, after gardening classes with Jill, Andy and I have a compost bin in our patio/yard space and somewhat less vague plans than a few months ago on how and what and when to plant in this tiny space to be able to enjoy homegrown vegetables in the desert.

It’s easy to lead a more well-rounded life when things are going well with your relationships, your job, your finances and all the other big determining factors of life. When one or more of those areas are suffering, that’s when it’s a struggle to find the energy to do more than just exist in your own life. That’s when I think it’s most important to push and fill your time with something enjoyable and give yourself something to look forward to, to help through those down times. I know I’m lucky to be in the radio industry and to never have been laid off, to have a freelance career that continues to grow even in a down economy, and to live in Phoenix and be on the positive side of a mortgage in a city ridden with foreclosures. I have a great husband, wonderful friends, a career and job I enjoy, pets I love and hobbies I can delve into and share with friends. I expect myself to live that Renaissance woman life in times like this.

I hope to share some of these interests on this blog. Moreso, I hope to get back in touch with a lot of the things I enjoy and use this blog to help me remember to do that. I have half a closet, several drawers and boxes full of hobbies I’ve set aside and seldom visited. I don’t know that I’ll be cross-stitching or quilting or doing any still-life drawings this week, but I hope to bring more of my hobbies out of storage and enjoy them in the time I certainly can make in my day. Being a voice over talent is an enjoyable part of my day, but there’s more to life than how you make your living.

I’ve started a few other blog updates but those grew into their own full topics having nothing to do with what I wanted to update this week. So, those are on hold for later and here’s the planned updates!

For anyone who’s a friend of mine on facebook, you’ve been witness to my emotional meltdown over the ethics of keeping a lost pet once you believe you may have actually found the owner. Long story short, it’s all worked out in the best interest of the kitten. It appears that the kitten we found was never lost, but abandoned for whatever reason. Therefor, we’re giving a home to a kitten who would have a) died because she had no idea what to do outside, like avoiding cars, or the much stronger more savvy feral cats in the neighborhood, b) possibly gone back to the possible original owner (out of his own guilt?) just to be dumped outside again (see option a). I’m not getting into his reasons or actions, or totally un-pet-owner-ish conversation we had (and I’d contacted him again to discuss getting her back to him, and he never called me back), but the gist is I think he contacted me to see that whoever found the kitten was going to provide a good pet situation, one he wasn’t willing or able to provide anymore. And we’ve got a real charmer on our hands in this kitten. She gets along with our other cats, she loves on us, she is healthy and playful and so much fun. It’s been over 4 years since I’ve had a kitten in the house and I forgot about the non-stop energy level!

This is where I would be a crazy cat lady if I was single. She is now our 4th cat. However, we had 4 cats before, and had to put down my sweet little kitty Ninja in February 2008 for a terminal, incurable medical condition. It feels good to know that we’re giving this kitten a good home and she’s giving us so much in return. As my dad said when I told him the news about the kitten, “well at least you’re married.” He used to tell me, when I was single with 3 cats, that no man would in his right mind would date or marry a woman with 3 cats. Well, Andy came along with his cat Oops, and everyone was accepted and nobody had to be adopted out and… well it worked out better than expected. :) Crazy cat ladies just have to find guys who have/love cats.

On to other things that end unpredictably… like attempting to grow stuff other than cactus in the desert. Yup, my east coast friends on here, it can be done, lots of people make it work and with the help of some gardening classes with my friend Jill through the Phoenix Permaculture Guild, I plan to have a little garden growing this fall. We live in a townhouse in central Phoenix, so we’re not talking about much space to grow stuff… but it’s certainly enough for a beginning gardener with a short attention span. I have a more detailed post on the plans and progress coming up.

The other thing on my mind is getting away for a vacation. As much as I love Phoenix and have adjusted to the heat, it’s great to get out of town and go somewhere else. We’re going back home to Raleigh soon for a few days. Out of the oven, into the smothering humidity. It’s not much of a vacation to go home and ‘make the rounds’ with so many people but it’s always great to see everyone. There’s never enough time to coordinate lunch or coffee with everyone while we’re there but since this is our 2nd trip back this year I hope to catch up with some friends I didn’t get to see in May. I’m also looking into a long weekend in Colorado Springs with another longtime friend next month. Those visits tend to be more laid back, and I’m excited to meet her new baby boy. But really, I’d like to go somewhere we haven’t been before, and somewhere we don’t know anyone or aren’t staying with anyone, and just go explore and hang out. Any suggestions? I’ve accumulated enough points on Southwest for a free ticket and it’s burning a hole in my rapid rewards account!

I’m totally a list person. I love lists, they help me feel like I’m making progress when I’m tackling something big, and they help me not forget things when there’s a lot of moving parts. It’s been a little while since I’ve checked in with my goals list. In April I’d posted “36 in 365,” a list of goals to work towards within the next year. Here’s a partial update on where I am making some headway…

3. edit new commercial and animation demos

I’ve compiled and edited a new commercial demo. There was some material from my old demo that I felt was still very representative of my sound and range so I kept those in the mix. I find it really helpful to send my demo out to a few people for reviews before I commit to it. The voiceover community is very helpful if you’re willing to ask for help. My friends found a few things that could be improved upon and I feel more confident that I’m representing myself well with this mostly new material. I also have my imaging demo online, with voicework I do for a station in Tucson. I think nailing down 2 audiobook demos is next on the demo production list, but it feels good to have a new commercial demo put together.

6. stick to a realistic workout routine that fits my lifestyle (ongoing, check in every 2 months)

OK, oops, I forgot to check in back in June. :) However, since making this post, I’ve been more consistently working out 3 days a week. I’ve been thrown off a few weeks here or there with friends and family in town, but I’d definitely say it’s my routine. Isn’t that always the hardest part, building the routine and sticking with it?

15. learn how to use Photojunction —AND—

28. create parents’ albums with our wedding photos using Photojunction

15 – My husband Andy and I own and run a bi-coastal photography business, de L’oeil Photography, which primarily shoots weddings, family portraits and things of that nature. As part of the post-process, sometimes the newlyweds will budget for an album or a coffeetable book. Photojunction is the industry standard for book layouts, and it would be very helpful to our workflow if both of us knew our way around it. I attended an online seminar and spent some time creating page layouts until I felt comfortable with the program. One of my minors in college was in graphic design, so it reminded me of my time with InDesign or Quark, except more user-friendly.

28 – Andy led the charge on putting together a parent album of our wedding photos. We gave one away the other week and it seemed the bring back the joy of the day for them.

29. learn a new craft or take an old hobby up a notch

This one deserves a nod to our friends Michael and Jill, who have recently started a new delicious blog if you’re into frozen treats. I had their homemade mexican chocolate ice cream this Spring and went head over heels about the idea based on their results. The control over what I can put in homemade frozen desserts fits my leaner, greener way of approaching food preparation. Basically, it boils down to that I read labels and try to keep crap out of my body, like partially-hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, extra chemicals for color or preservatives that for the most part you don’t need if you can instead buy fresh or make from scratch. For a few years I’ve made our own bread in a breadmaker to get away from junky additives. Now, I’ve learned how to make our own sorbets (wow, that’s like half sugar – only made it twice) and my more typical treat: gelato. The favorite so far is blueberry-raspberry-pineapple. Yesterday I made my first attempt with lemon-lime gelato and found that that I’ll need to add less water and more sugar than my other recipes. It’s a delicious bit of trial and error, and definitely a new hobby others can appreciate!

Another round of updates coming later this week, including trips to not-so-faraway lands, how I’m not technically a crazy cat lady (even though we just picked up a stray) and my plans to grow stuff other than cactus in a 4ft x 8ft garden in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.