I love my Iphone. It may even be an unhealthy obsession. I love the ease of having everything right there at my finger tips. I find that with my Iphone I don’t have the million little pieces of paper with important things written down on them floating in the depths of my purse. I snap pictures of things I want to remember: books to read, prices on an item to comparison shop later, gift ideas or things I want to make. My calendar is with me where ever I go and my favorite is google maps. All that being said, I also hate how distracting it can be, how tempting to just check in, take a quick peek at my e-mails rather than living in the moment and enjoying where I am and what I am doing. I try and limit my check ins to once in the morning and once in the afternoon and my phone does not ding when I get an e-mail. I really don’t want to later hear my son say, “yeah my mom is always on her phone.”

All that being said there are a few apps that are on the top of my list and I wonder if there are any out there that others can not live without.

Facebook, Pinterest, Hipstamatic and NPR are the four top apps that I use on a daily basis.

Facebook: I remember my little sister telling me about Facebook when she was in college. I resisted it for a long time. However, as my friends started having babies and posting their pictures there I couldn’t resist. I feel no particular need to have a million “friends” on Facebook. I enjoy seeing what a few select few from high school are doing now mostly out of curiosity, but for the most part my friends are my friends who I see on a daily or weekly basis.

Pinterest: I love cruising pinterest on my phone because it is less overwhelming than on my desktop, I like the one idea at a time format that it pulls through my phone. Being a visual person I respond well to pinning rather than using my bookmarks bar to save ideas. In less than a year I have gone back and referenced more off of pinterest than I think I ever have my bookmarks bar.

Hipstamatic: I love 99% of my photos that come out of hipstamatic. I keep thinking I should also learn Instagram which is also on my phone but I just haven’t gone there, don’t have the time and feel so content with the pictures I snap with Hipstamatic that I just keep going back to it. My one beef is that what you see in the viewfinder is not exactly what you get when you see your print. As someone who very carefully composing images and rarely has to crop post production this is the one thing that makes me a little batty. (side note: the banner picture is a Hipstamatic picture. They are rainbow bricks my son colored one day with the babysitter. I came home from a particularly taxing session with the grief counselor to find a sweet message from our son telling us how much he loves us written in chalk, the chalk rainbow and him dancing with a pinwheel in the front yard. It was one of those moments that lifted my spirit despite the grief I feel over the loss of our infant daughter. One of these days I will take the time to maybe re-shoot it, or pick a different picture all together since it is not super crisp but for now it stays as a reminder to me to cherish the gifts that are in front of you.)

NPR: This app is a bit of a surprise to me but what I love about it is that I can get my news whenever I have time and I can skip over stories that I am not interested in. My favorite is Car Talk. Click and clack make me laugh out loud. I look forward each week to hear the updated podcast. When our daughter was in the CICU at Seattle Children’s Hospital I would often listen to them as I pumped for her in the tiny pumping closet. It was a small bright spot in a horrific situation and a way for me to emotionally let go for a brief time.

Other apps that I use less often but love include: Seattle Public Library in conjunction with Over Drive for listening to books on instant download, My fitness Pal- I should use more but admittedly don’t. IncrediBooth- Super fun especially when my son and I are killing time while waiting. Spider Solitare- I am not a big one to play games on my phone but I do like classics including tetris and will sometimes decompress with a game.

Apps my son likes: I Write Words, Angry Birds, Anything by duck duck mooseBugs and Buttons, Dirt Movers, Monkey Preschool Lunch Box

Do you have a favorite app that I should try out or one that my son who will be five in September will like? As I was scrolling through I noticed that many of the apps like dirt movers are much too easy for him now.