Call it a cure for the birthday blues

So, I turned the big 2-8 last month. My birthday happened to fall on a particularly bad day at work…well, good and bad. Good, because my cute coworkers pinked up my desk and gave me a 3:00 cupcake party (thanks, team!). Bad, because it happened to be a day full of serious drama and my email box was flooded, and I mean FLOODED, with not-so-happy messages. Also bad because this was the first birthday of my life that I didn’t spend with my family. Since Mom is going through chemo, we have to be careful about her being around sickies, and yes, I was sick. Fabulous.

Here I am ten years ago on the big 18! I always have ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. It's a must!

And ten years before that, on birthday #8! Mom always threw me the best parties. :)

Needless to say, I was feeling a bit woe-is-me that day. After the work day I had, I was ready to call off my birthday date with my cute hubby. But he wouldn’t have it, and I’m so glad. He dragged me to the mall (one of my favorite places), where we had sushi (one of my favorite eats) and shopped (one of my favorite activities). Guess what we ended up getting as my birfday surprise? A new iPhone! YEEEEEHAW!

We’ve wanted iPhones forever, but we haven’t been too excited about switching to AT&T. Well, we’ve finally given in, and I’m SO glad. I love it…and the AT&T seems better than it was when we were on it three years ago. Not great, but better.

One of my fav things about my fancy new phone is the aps. Have you heard of these things? They’re little programs that you can get through iTunes to use on your phone. (You can also get these for the iPod Touch.)

A few of my favorite aps:

FACEBOOK: Now I can keep up with my FB life from anywhere.

SHAZAM: This may be my favorite ap. It will identify songs for you that are playing. So, if I’m in the mall and I hear a song I like playing on the speaker, I put the Shazam to work. Not only will it tell me the name of the song, but it will also file away the information for me. Sweet!

SCOOPS: My buddy Brady told me about this one. It’s a game where you try and stack ice cream scoops on your cone without catching the falling veggies. Buyer beware: this one is addictive and oh so fun!

WHITE NOISE: My good friend Jennafer turned me on to this one. It has all of these calming sounds, complete with a timer, so you can set a sound to play at bedtime and time it turn off after a certain amount of time. I’m not kidding you, I use this about every night now. It helps drown out Cor’s snoring. My favorite: the thunder. It’s surprisingly soothing.

PACMAN: Need I say more?

PANDORA: Pandora Radio is an A-for-awesome site on the web that allows you to create completely customizable radio stations. And with this ap I can have it on my phone, too. There’s no charge, and the music is rockin’.

Are you into aps? What are your favorites? I’m always looking for new goodies to add to my list.

My birthday may have started out rough, but you could definitely call me happy by the time it wrapped up. Thanks, Bear, for bringing the happy back to the birthday. I love you!