Week 4: Oh App-y Day

WIPdown

As expected, stalled WIPs did not get whupped in time for the end of WIPdown 2011. My only WIP is my Laminaria – see next section…

StashDown / Lacealong2012 / 12in12

My cake of Ivy Brambles Romantica Merino Lace now weighs 82g – indicating a whole 79m has been knit in the last week. Not exactly meeting my 40m/day target. I don’t know what happened to me in the past week but I seem to have recovered from the lace-knitting addiction I had last week. I had less opportunities to knit during the past week, but even when I sat down to knit I spent the time messing on my phone.

See, I upgraded to iOS5 on Monday after putting it off for months. This opened up the possibility of acquiring some apps that required a higher iOS.

Gems from the Web

I love my Apps, I do!

I start my day by being woken with Sleep Cycle Alarm. In theory, it tracks where you are in your sleep cycle and starts to wake you when you are in a light phase. I’ve only been using it for the past week and most days I’m actually woken by our youngest coming into the room before the alarm is due to go off.

Then I kick off my day with my Home Routines app, which I learned about through to Viola. It’s a handy little app for listing daily or weekly routines and I get a kick out of giving myself a gold star when I’ve done the task.

When I get into work I have another Home Routines list, borrowing a few ideas from Fly Lady. As you may know, I switched to working Mornings-only last August. This gives me only 3.5 (or so) hours to get things done.

Through HabitHacker.com I came accross the concept of “Eat That Frog” based on Mark Twains observations that a) “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.” and b) “If you have to eat a frog, don’t look at it for too long.” From Fly Lady and HabitHacker I’ve got familiar with using a timer to stay focussed. Fly Lady and HabitHacker work with very short time-periods – 15 or 11 minute intervals – which are appropriate for housework. For sitting and focussing on eating a frog-like task I have found the Pomodoro Technique works for me. I even have an app for the tomato-esque kitchen timer!

With the help of Real Time information from Dublin Bus, I can keep working right down to the wire. I am well practiced in running for the bus at the last minute and I’ve only been caught out once or twice.

When I get home – assuming its Monday, Tuesday or Thursday – I run in the door, change into running gear and head out for a run. If I’m focussed I have enough time to fit in a 5 mile run i.e. 50 minutes – all recorded on my Nike+ GPS app.

Then I shower and walk up to the school to start my other jobs: mother and housemaid. I use the Notes app that comes with the iPhone to get my head around how the day pans out.

As you can see, if I’m lucky I have about an hour to sit down and do some knitting/ crochet every evening. Then it’s off to bed to have my sleep cycle recorded with Sleep Cycle Alarm.

I haven’t found much by way of Knitting/ crochet apps. A lot of people bemoan the fact that there isn’t a Ravelry app. My work-around for this is to set up a folder of bookmarks for the pages on Ravelry that I like to go to more often. It’s not an app but it’s a quick way to get around.

I’d be interested in hearing if you have any app recommendations.

Twilting

I spent most of last Sunday working on a block for a quilt. I’m quite pleased with how it’s coming together. When I have a bit more done I’ll do a more detailed post on it all. Promise!