I have a boulder sized project-block in my life right now… so large I don’t even know how structure a sentence that will encompass all of my frustration. I’ve started no less than three posts in the last week to no avail… So I’m going for the next best thing here.

Avoidance.

Instead I’m going to admit that I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. 50% of that decision was to reward myself for paying off all of my credit card debt, and the other 50% came from the fact that MysteryMan was going to disown me if he heard “Let me see your iPhone” come out of my mouth one more time.

Because, you know my life won’t be complete until my brain has a direct link to google where I can get all of my questions answered immediately– and they are legion– so I settled for the next best thing.

And it really is the next best thing. I have found free apps that cater to almost all of my neuroses… which is just freaking amazing and since I don’t have anything better to talk about I’m going to share them.

Free App Favs

iHandy Level: I mean, a level on my phone? You knew I’d go for that one right. If only it had a built in combination air-nailer and drill press, my life would be complete.

WordPress: Now I can update this website directly from my phone without going through the browser. It could not be any easier, and it almost replaces my need for Twitter, but not quite.

TwitterFon: Quick twitter updates, plus everything else you’d like in a Twitter app. And did I mention? It’s free.

Beer Brands: MysteryMan and his homebrewing experiments have turned me into more of a beer connoisseur than I ever thought I would be. I constantly walk into unfamiliar bars, stare blankly at the beer list, and finally ask… are any of those Wheat beers? (Which are currently my fav, and I’m quite taken with 312, by the way.) This app allows you to search by type or by name and mark your faves. If only it could make recommendations based on my current faves… what more could I ask?

Lose it!: I gained back 8 of the 10 pounds I lost during the weight loss challege last year, and things needed to be got under control. This is free, easy, handy, and I lost two pounds in the last week.

AroundMe: I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before that I’m a little neurotic about making “loops” when I go places. I specifically plan errands to make a nice loop from one point to the next and back home without any backtracking. I have no idea why I do this, but it’s the same nerosis that makes it impossible for me to “redo” work. I loath it to a degree that I cannot express… and I would rather sit in a room with a thousand nails scratching down chalkboards than have to backtrack in order to get something done. Similarly when I have to go out of my way for something I’m always like… is there anything else I can do around here to make this worth my while. Enter the perfect app… I can search by a number of categories based on my current location or any other one I pick. Just perfect.

Magic 8 Ball: I reduced the stress in my life by half by leaving all of my important decisions up to this app. (I just asked it “Should I go to bed now?” and it said “Outlook good”… that’s promising, but I’m still going to finish this post.)

I know there are a zillion good apps out there you can buy… but I like to see how much I can get for free first. Any other iPhone users out there, leave your free favs in the comments so I can check them out.

Which brings us to…

Bloggie things I Love

1.) Self-hosted WordPress: I started blogging in 2004 on Xanga, did a brief stint on Blogger, then let WordPress host DIYdiva for about a year until I got ambitious and started hosting it myself. What I love about WordPress is that it’s open-source. Best blogging tools I’ve every used, a ton of customizability (is that a word? it’s getting late) even for low to mid tech people, and it’s constantly being improved.

2.) Go Daddy: Let me just say this, the Go Daddy website drives me flipping insane. Can we say “simplify please”, I swear I nearly have a seisure everytime I go there to log in. However. It works GREAT in conjunction with wordpress. In fact, I’ve been putting off upgrading to the newest version of WP for some time, because it takes me 4 uninterruped hours at the computer to figure out how I even set this site up in the first place (it was sheer determination and not an ounce of technology skills). But in order to get my WP app to work I had to update, so I snooped around on Go Daddy for all of 5 minutes before I found out that 3 clicks and they updated the damn thing for me. Could. Not. Be. Easier. If you’re going self-hosted but you’re not overly tech-savy… definitely the way to go.