Archive for the Category »Product Reviews «

Scrivener Saved My Life

09 Feb 2012 -

Sun and Rain

 

I understand that I am prone to the tiniest amount of over-dramatization. I recognize that by announcing how a writing program has saved my life, it just might be misconstrued by some as perhaps overstating my case…but they’d be wrong.

Scrivener has saved my life.

I have known about Scrivener for quite a while. I discovered it one night when I was randomly searching the internet in hopes that there was something that would tell me how, and what to write, and then possibly doing it all for me.

This is the same kind of behaviour as trying to diagnose myself by going to online self-help medical forums. I can scroll down all the symptoms, muttering, yes, yes, that’s me too, only to find that the ultimate prognosis is for Elephant-Manitis, or something equally non-applicable to my situation.

Plus when I read the users describing their Scrivener epiphanies, it really did sound a bit too good to be true. And you know what they say about that little axiom. Also, it was only available for Mac users, and at the time, I did not see a Mac in my future.

Flash forward to 2012, where a), I am now a Mac convert, and b), Scrivener Saved My Life.

How you may ask? I’m so glad you did.

I have chunks of text and writing and random bits of everything stuffed in to various files and folders. It is NOT cohesive. It follows no rhyme nor reason but it is all part of this project that I’ve been working on. It includes everything I did last year on the Humber course, memoir writing, fiction writing, stuff written from a ten-year old point of view, other chunks from an adult’s point of view, but all of it related to this overall idea I have about the aforementioned “project”.  There is sturm and drang, yin and yang and probably there is even peanut butter and jam.

How, pray tell, was I supposed to organize this into some semi-cohesive whole? I seriously considered printing absolutely everything, throwing it on the floor, highlighting bits, cutting chunks and moving it around, but there isn’t a floor big enough and the thought of all those trees dying on my behalf made me cringe.

Enter Scrivener. I can import my documents, compare and revise them, ‘stick’ little post-it notes on the side with to-do instructions for the next steps, ‘pin’ index cards to tops of piles of text to summarize what’s in the pile and generally sort and visualize what I’ve got.

This is only the start.

I am just beginning to figure out the program. In spite of how I’d really rather not learn another bunch of icons, commands and buttons,  it’s already helped me make more sense of what I’ve got and what to work on next.

Now if it would just write the damned thing. Clearly, it’s not perfect.

 

 

Category: Photos, Product Reviews, Writing  Tags: , , ,  4 Comments

SideStix on the Dragon’s Den

30 Nov 2011 -

 

Sarah Doherty

I’m not sure when I first met Sarah Doherty.

Maybe that’s because it sometimes feels like I’ve always known her.

Here’s the other thing…sometimes when I see a petite woman walking her dog or riding a bike somewhere in nearby Roberts Creek, I think, Hey, that’s Sarah!

You’d think I’d quit making this mistake because Sarah has one leg, and the women I sometimes mistake her for, have the usual two.

But if you know Sarah, you know what an easy mistake that is to make. She is not someone you would describe as anything less than very able and she is certainly not defined by her number of limbs, and so, when I see a brown-haired woman going for it, it makes me think of Sarah.

Among other things, she’s walked the Camino in Spain, ascended Mt. McKinley, hiked up Kilmanjaro…you know, just the usual things one does on crutches.

Sarah, along with her partner in life and business, Kerith Perreur-Lloyd, have created SideStix; innovative crutches that are ‘designed to go far’.  And tonight is their debut on the television show Dragon’s Den. If you’re in Canada, make sure you’re tuned in.

Kevin & I will be joining the SideStix team and all their supporters at the Buccanneer Pub in Sechelt for appys, drinks and the screening of the show. Sarah & Kerith taped this show months ago and have been sworn to secrecy ever since, so none of us have any idea how it will all end up.

But it really doesn’t matter what the result of the show is…either way they’re clearly the winners.

Category: Photos, Product Reviews  Tags: , , , , ,  4 Comments

Repent of Your Sticky Skins

10 Nov 2011 -

My Sticky Skin iPhone

Should I blame my crow-like love of all things shiny and gaudy on the austere religion of my childhood?

Is my fascination with icons, glow-in-the-dark Virgin Marys, Christ of the Highway statues, neon Shivas, hot pink big-bellied Buddhas and all of the tackiest shiny religious kitsch due to the Mennonite world of plain pews, no stained glass, no messy crucifixes and no musical accompaniment aside from the very upright piano?

Do I love the flamboyant colours of Latin America & the kaleidoscopic mess of India because it contrasts so dramatically from all that button-downed, Just Say No To Everything-ness?

Growing up, we were told that plain was better. (What on earth were those Catholics thinking with all those saints and statues?)

Long after my mother had died, and once I was well into my forties, my father told me that Mom had caused a bit of a stir by wearing a daring shade of darkish lipstick. Truly.

The 60s didn’t reach Mission City until the early 70s. But when those hippies hit town, and the Jesus Freak movement landed in our church, it knocked some of the stuffiness right out of the separate entrances for the men and women.

There were guitars and drums!  Raised arms and clapping in time to the beat!

But the last time I went to my childhood church, the pastor asked the audience (it seemed we were no longer a congregation) to “…give a round of applause for the production people.” Wow. It used to be that someone got up and sang – for the Glory of God -and then sat down. You didn’t clap and you certainly did NOT thank the production people.

That was years ago. Maybe it’s changed. I never went back to find out.

I am aware of the hypocrisy of my position. I may not attend church, but I want it all to stay as pure and simple as my childhood version that I no longer believe in. Yes. I know. That’s rather crazy.

But it doesn’t really matter whether I go or not. The Mennonite thing is bred into my bones. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Plain black is still my go-to colour for most of clothing. And when Kevin and I bought our iPhones, he chose white and I chose black. No sin of pride or vanity for me. No. No. NO!

Recently I received an email asking me if I’d like to try some new Sticky Skins for my iPhone. Sticky what?

I went on the Sticky Skins website. The Colours! The Designs! Interchangeable Covers!  I picked the cover that looked rather hallucinogenic. I loved it on sight when it arrived in the mail. It slid on, with nary a bubble or crease.

I’ve had it on my phone for a couple of weeks now. It looks as good now as it did when I first put it on. No peeling edges, just bright happy colours that look like they’ve always there. It makes me smile each time I look at it, even though I know that underneath all that flash and colour, it’s just a plain ol’ Mennonite-black.

Now I am suffering from the sin of pride. Because my iPhone is definitely, and rather defiantly, wearing the equivalent of a bright red, and very sexy, lipstick.

I don’t think they should call them Sticky Skins.

I think these devilish candy-covers should be called Sticky Sins.

 

 

Category: Musings, Photos, Product Reviews  Tags: ,  6 Comments

The Ground Beneath My Feet

04 Nov 2011 -

Glowing Feet

I love the feeling of my bare feet when they sink ever-so-slightly into heavy wet sand at the shoreline of the ocean.

You know how you feel like your feet are fully supported exactly where they’re at?

You feel so firmly grounded that the rest of your body stacks solidly on top of that wonderfully rooted foundation.

Kind of like having a really good friend who accepts you just how you are…quirks and all.

Yesterday, I was reminded of that warm happy-beach feeling as I stood on the FootBalance machine in the Salomon West Vancouver store. Manager, Scott Winston, directed me as to where to place my bare feet on the imaging glass, and, in less than ten-minutes, I was inserting brand new custom insoles in to my shoes.

I’ve been wearing orthotics for years, but our recent hike in Wales pretty much destroyed what was left of my best pair. They’ve been held together by manky medical tape and have weird dips and rips ever since; not very attractive and I’m not so sure that they’re doing much good any more.

But I’ve been putting off going back to my podiatrist because I know the bill will be over $300.00 for a new pair.

Well. You can imagine how my frugal Mennonite heart burst into hymns of praise when I received an email asking me to please do a review on these custom foot beds. Well…Hello! Count me in. And Amen.

And yes, even though they’re free to me, I am telling you the truth here…they feel pretty darned good.

Would my podiatrist approve? I’m guessing not. His orthotics are designed to correct my feet, whereas these are meant to support my feet.

If we are still going with that aforementioned metaphor of a friend…I prefer these. The corrective orthotics were pretty hard and unforgiving. I prefer the support. As they’re also priced at $80.00/pair, they make me happy on a whole other level (see above reference to frugality).

These Footbalance inserts are much cushier than my old insoles, and sitting here on my sofa at the end of this fabulous Friday, my feet are feeling pretty fine. The real test will be a good hike. Not a Welsh 300-kilometer hike, but striding along a dirt trail will be a good test (and I’ll be doing exactly that next week when I’m up on the Sunshine Coast).

Meanwhile, my only criticism is that when I take off my shoes, the inserts look tres sportif with my shoe size emblazoned in white (does the 42 have to be written quite that large??) along with the big white letters of Footbalance.

I know branding is king, but I’d prefer a discreet basic black insert so that when I slip off my shoes, it looks a little less athletic. Probably most people will be using these in runners or hiking boots, so it wouldn’t matter…it’s not much of a complaint, because when the shoes are on my feet…I feel like I’m walking on clouds.

Vancouver Clouds

 

 

 

 

Category: Photos, Product Reviews  Tags: , , ,  6 Comments

Living the Lush Happy Hippy Life

24 Feb 2011 -

close up of primulas in snow

We had a short little snow flurry yesterday. It came and was gone  in the space of a couple of hours. But oh my, it was so beautiful for that little period of time.

Snow illuminated every trees’ skeleton, frosted each bud and highlighted everything with a fierce white. It made me think it might be nice to live somewhere with a winter that lives up to the mythological hype of what a true Canadian winter is supposed to look like.  There is no question that we’re Winter WannaBe’s here on the Wet Coast.

But it was in the midst of all that winterness that a package arrived from FedEx. For moi? Indeed, it was a plain brown box with some LUSH Fresh Handmade Products for review. I opened that box of sunshine and got blasted with all things tropical and citrusy.

This morning I gave a few of them a blog drive…the Sexy Peel soap was gorgeous. Bright clean smells of orange and lemon and a real smooth feel after I rinsed. You know how some soaps feel like you’ve been scrubbed a titch too squeaky clean after it’s over? Not so with Sexy Peel. It’s a keeper, especially with such a great name.

My other blog was with the Happy Hippy Shower Gel. I’m wondering if they targeted me with that one because of the hippy-dippy vibe here on the Sunshine Coast. We are a bit of an odd bunch on this piece of British Columbia’s mainland.

Maybe it’s because you can only get here by ferry or float-plane and it makes us feel like we’re on a little island-out-of-time. Or perhaps it’s because you can’t push that ol’ Go West Young Man frontier mentality much further (unless you count Vancouver Island). Though that wild west mindset might help explain the general populace’s predilection toward wearing Birkenstocks or gumboots as all-occasion footwear.

All I know is that the Happy Hippy shower gel smelled great and includes bergamot oil (one of my favourite smells), frankincense oil (another fave) and grapefruit…They’re just lucky I didn’t drink it. It foamed up great, which is, alas, no doubt due to the sodium laureth sulfate.

Are we dooming ourselves with our addiction to bubbles? Would I like it if it didn’t foam? Probably not. Still, I’m not sure, what to say or do about the old SLS thing. There is still so much debate about it all.

What I do know is that I put on my Moroccan mitts that we bought in Marrakesh a few years ago, squirted a little Happy Hippy on each palm, scrubbed myself pink and felt positively exuberant and oh-so-OHM-ready for my Sun Salutations at Yoga by the Sea...because of course…that’s what Happy Hippies do.

Category: Events, Musings, Photos, Product Reviews, Writing  Tags: , ,  4 Comments
« Previous Entries