1. I’ve been paying WAYYYY TOO MUCH for my cell service.
Because Steve and I have never had more than one full-time income in all the time we’ve been married, I pride myself on being pretty smart with my money. Not cheap, exactly. But REALLY, REALLY careful. So when I found out about Republic Wireless’s ridiculously low prices (unlimited talk/text and data over wifi and Network 3G for $25 a month!!!) I was a little put out that I’d been paying Verizon $80 a month for our “dumb phones” for so long!
Republic Wireless is genius, because it uses VOIP (voice over internet–the same way you talk over Skype!) to make your phone run on the wi-fi you already have around. When you’re out and about, you use their cell network. The phone switches automatically between the two, and it means you can have SUPER CHEAP but still AWESOME cell service.
We switched over the day after my friend Melanie (hi Melanie!) tipped me off, and now we’ve been with them for about a month and a half. (So I guess I technically learned this in June and verified it in July?) And we’re thrilled. Quality has been great–better call quality than on our old Verizon service, good quality android phones, AND their customer service is fantastic. I submitted a help ticket one at 10:19pm, and–I KID YOU NOT–by 10:24pm there was an email in my inbox with a solution to my problem! I was super impressed.
Plus, it felt fantastic to finally cancel with Verizon. Because they were just the worst. 😉
2. Keeping my “Home Base Zone” clean makes me feel in control even when the rest of the house is craaaaazy.
So remember how I talked about my messy house and the book The House that Cleans Itself? One of the first chapters talks about figuring out your home base. It’s the place in the house that makes you feel like a total failure and completely at a loss when it is messy.
It is different from anyone–one woman in the book felt capable as long as the space under her bed was empty and tidy–but for me, it’s the kitchen. If the kitchen is a mess, I almost physically deflate when I walk into it.
So for the last week, I’ve been focusing on keeping the kitchen spic and span no matter what. And it has been surprisingly uplifting!
Your “home base” might not be the kitchen. Maybe its your master bedroom or the kids’ bathroom, or even the linen closet. I highly recommend figuring it out, and putting a little energy into keeping it extra tidy. You might find that it helps you feel less guilt when you choose to rest, read, or relax over doing yet more cleaning. 😉
3. How to make patterns!
I’ve been having so much fun learning new creative things on Skillshare. (You can get a free month through my referral link if you want to try it!) This month I took a short class on making hand-drawn patterns.
I started by sketching out the contents of a typical mom purse:
Then I cut & pasted it to create one tile that would match up when you lined it up end to end. (See how the brush is split into pieces now?)
Then I repeated it to become a pattern:
Isn’t that fun?
The class I took teaches you how to do it with just a photocopier, too, and shows you how you can use it to make your own wallpaper. It would be such a fun thing to do for a feature wall in a kid’s room!
4. You can learn some Spanish from watching subtitled TV.
image via The Telegraph
The hubs and I have been binge watching Grand Hotel (a.k.a. Gran Hotel) on Netflix for the past few weeks. It’s like Downton Abbey in Spanish but… better. Lots more stuff happening. Lots of people sneaking around corners and listening in on conversations. Some upstairs/downstairs romance. And tons of mysteries. We’re in the third season and only have two episodes left! Ah!
Oops–the point I was trying to make though, was that I’ve actually picked up a lot of Spanish phrases just from watching. We have the subtitles on, but after a while I started noticing when the spoken words were different from the translation. Kind of fun to pick up some new language skills from something entertaining. (Plus that means it’s been educational, right? 😉 )
5. How to get great quality prints at home.
I make printable cards and artwork for my etsy shop, so I found this article about how to get great quality prints at home really helpful.
6. Some things about indoor plants.
I’ve always wanted to try a little tree in our bedroom, but since I’ve kind of got a black thumb–OH MY GOSH! As I typed that I remembered I left a tiny succulent plant in the trunk of my van! Be right back!!!
Okay. I’m back. (The plant was fine!)
Anyway. I’m (obviously) terrible with plants, so I’ve been afraid to take the leap. But, here’s some good info if you’re considering plant-parenthood:
- A hilarious post from View Along the Way about how to keep a fiddle leaf fig tree alive.
- And Lowes guarantees their plants for a year! So if you kill one, you can take it back. Yay!
That’s it for this month, mama! Kind of a random smattering this time. What did you learn in July?
