The 5 Best Apps for Relaxation Time - Coffee & Conversation

We all need to relax on a regular basis.

How you relax and how I relax may be very different.

Today I'm thinking of resting on the couch with my iPad.

So I thought I would share my 5 favourite apps for when I want to sit down and forget about everything around me and relax with my iPad.

Let's have that look then at my choice for the 5 Best Relaxation Apps on the iPad.  

The ones I want to use when I'm relaxing.



Wordfeud      FREE

This is the GAME app I am on it every day.
So easy to dip in and out of for a quick game or relax for a while playing all the opponents you want to just before bedtime.

Of course as with most apps there is an option to pay to get rid of ads but they never really bother me at all.

It is very similar to scrabble and we are all familiar with that well-know game.

I actually wrote about this one individually in another post The Best Game on my iPad





Battleships     FREE

There are many battleship apps but the one I use is called  SeaBattle by Conceptis

It has many sets of free games and then also Regular new free games but also in-app purchases if you want to binge play.

The joy of it is you can replay the games over and over again because you can undo them and start again - after you have forgotten them of course.

So even if you do buy some sets of games you get plenty of use out of them for years.

Pic-a-Pix      FREE

I have enjoyed the game of Hanjie for many years in book form and still have more Hanjie books to use but although I do prefer the game using pencil and paper there are times when it is handy to have it on the iPad as well.

There are different varieties of names for this type of puzzle but it originated as the Japanese Hanjie so I am still used to calling it that no matter what it says on the app.

So if you are a spacial, logic or number puzzeler then give it a go it is so relaxing even though you do have to work your mind at the same time.

This one is made by the same company as the Battleships one above.

Spotify      FREE

The first one in this list that is not a game.
Easy convenient way to listen to music that you like where and when you like.
My husband used it so much he decided to get a paying account but I'm still on the free one and happy using it.

NoteMaster   FREE

This is note app as is obvious from the name.

It is colourful with the choice of different themes to work in.
Notes can be categorised and the test is easily bolded and resized etc.

I like the look of it and the ease of use of it and the ease of storing and syncing the notes.
Plus you can very easily add pictures at the start and end of any note plus anywhere within the note that you want.

You can see from the pic above that I have a lot of categories and a lot of notes.


I hope you enjoy relaxing with some apps on your iPad or any tablet because these apps or similar ones can also be got on android.

The 5 Best Organising Apps

I love to try to get organised in everything I do but I'm not saying I always manage it completely.

However I really do want this year to be my best organising year in our home and other aspects of life and to help me in this I will definitely be using

My iPad is like my diary, filo fax, novel, organiser, all rolled into one and a lot more.

It goes everywhere with me and when I'm at the computer it is sitting beside it.

There are certain apps which just have to be on the first screen of the iPad and on the dock at the bottom so that I can easily open them quickly.

These would include what I consider to be the 5 best organising apps I have.

Of course if you know me any way well you will know that I like free things and all but one of these 5 apps are free.

These 5 apps keep my everyday organised, just exactly as I want it.

Spark   by   Readdle
     FREE
They have a phrase "Love your email again".
This is exactly what happened - I did fall in love with dealing with my emails again.
You really have a look at this because it has a Smart box thing for sorting out your emails as they arrive but also it senses where you will probably want to file your emails and it just looks good.






Google Keep   by   Google
     FREE  
Great for short notes, lists, messages, I use it regularly.
So easy to slip in and out for quick note and easy to add photo.
My husband and I use it for those things we need to remind each other about "buying on the way home" or things we need to "find a day to do around the house" etc. plus keep short notes for easy access later.
Syncs great to android phone and sharing with other people and you can colour code everything.






Documents    by   Readdle 
     FREE
My favourite place to download files and Pdfs to.
Quick and easy to find and open and read through my files again.
I can move files around easily and it can deal with pictures too.







Doc Scan    by    Ifunplay
     FREE
I no longer use the scanner on my printer this is just far handier, in fact I haven't even bothered to link up my new laptop to scanning software for my printer.
If is called a PDF scanner but you have the option to save as a picture too.  Printing from it and sharing from it are simple.







Things 3   by   Culture Code
     PAID
I use it every day,  and in so many different ways.
It's a ToDo app plus so much more.
You can organise everything with this app, make all your lists, have deadlines, make projects, decide when to start work on something and check things off, have repeating todos plus have notes on your todos plus more and more.

Are you looking for the 5 best organising apps for every part of your life?

I have choice between them all and within each one so to me they are ideal for all I want to do and not hard to learn to use  -  definitely the 5 best organising apps for me!

What's on our Bookshelves? - Coffee & Conversation.

Do you enjoy reading?

        Do you have a lot of books?

I have 5 bookcases in my study:

• 1 completely full of Christian novels; 
• another has Christian novels, devotionals and Bible Study books;
• the third has bibles, commentaries, biographies and my Agatha Christie collection (Heron Books); 
• the fourth has language books, photo albums, map books and my hoard of books to use for the Sunday School Curriculum for Church;
• the last one has the rest of my non-Christian novels by various authors but quite a few of Nelson DeMille, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Brad Melizer, Linwood Barclay & Lee Child.

We have lived in 8 different houses since we got married and each time we move we have all these books to pack up and then find the right places in the next home for the bookshelves.  

We keep saying that one day we should be thinking of downsizing so where will we put the books then?  

If they were all available as ebooks would we throw them out and buy them as ebooks? 

I know I would be tempted to keep my nice matching Agatha Christie novels at least as I really am enjoying sitting in the sun room with my hardback copies of these as I read through them all in Chronological Order and then review them here on the blog.

My husband and I read a lot of the same books, just as we watch a lot of the same TV series and this was always very handy when it came to travelling as we took the books we both wanted to read and shared them instead of each packing our own.  

Now of course it is so much handier to just carry our iPads and Kindles and we don't have to spend time beforehand deciding on the joint book list.

The only problem now is that not all the Christian novels we would like to collect are in ebook form.

We also find that those which are available as ebooks are very expensive compared to other novels.

However I do like to keep an eye out through Twitter and Facebook for any indication of free offers on ebooks or reduced prices and swiftly go on Amazon to snap them up.
One way is to try HERE

The great thing about ebooks (apart from the fact that they are easy to carry around in the kindle or iPad) is the fact that you don't need extra bookshelves to store them in, well not real ones anyway.

"Is a book in your hand better than an ebook?"

My oldest son says a book in your hand is so much better than an ebook.
He is worse than us as he has a full wall of his apartment lined with books from floor to ceiling, plus another bookshelf on the wall beside this, then some boxes of books under his bed and of course we must not forget the several boxes of books he still has in our house under the snooker table.

This is like the Daddy.......Chips? question I mentioned in a previous post.

Books........Ebooks?     Which is it to be?

If you are interested in some recommendations for your book shelves - here are some of my favourites:

The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope Stokes

The Presence by Davis Bunn

The Panther by Nelson DeMille

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

One of the Best Ways I Stay Organised - Organising

Today I thought I would share 1 of my favourite apps for keeping me organised in all aspects of my life but very much so in the home situation.

I am very much a

"what's the best free app for this situation?"

type of gal


so most of the apps I have are free.


However the one I am going to talk about today is not.


This is what happened......

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who went on a journey to a far off land and returned to his beautiful princess with a precious gift (which at that particular time she did not realize she wanted).

But because of the personality of the handsome Prince, he insisted that his Princess do something immediately he had given her the gift.

He told her she had to buy something to add to the gift.


Ok so the handsome Prince was my husband Fred and I'm his beautiful Princess.

He had gone to America on business and returned with an iPad for me.

( yes it really was a present just for me and even though he said later we were meant to share it, that was too late because I had completely fallen in love with it by then and he had to get his own)

As soon as we set it up he said we had to buy a certain app for it because he had heard it was very good and knew I would want to use it.

Of course I knew nothing about apps at this stage and certainly did not know you could get free ones so I did as he said ( yes I'm an obedient Princess too)





And this is the app we bought

Things     PAID
I use this app every day and I use it in various ways.

At this point I would like to state that I am not being compensated or sponsored in any way for this post about the Things App - I just wanted to tell you about one of the ways I stay organized.

UPDATE:    The app is now called   THINGS 3  and  looks slightly different to the pics below but it is even better than before.

Firstly I use the Today feature in the listing to see all the things that I should do each day or that need to be done soon and today might be the best opportunity to do them.

So everyday I keep checking off in this list hoping that someday I will do everything that falls for that day - not happened ever yet!


Any time I want to add a todo item I can either just leave it without a due date so that it just appears in my today list all the time until it is completed or sits in my Next list.

If I choose a due date I can also pick how many days before that date I want it to appear in my today list coming up to the date.

Then there is the great scheduling feature where I can schedule something for a particular day.
Not only for a particular day but I can also have it as a recurring todo ie. every week, every month, every year, every 9 days even.

There is a section for Projects as well and depending on what you want to do you can adapt the project feature to suit you.

There are also Areas that you can place your todos in.

For the Home I have some areas as you can see above like housework, and the odd project but I also use some of the other areas like daily, weekly, monthly.

I love the way I can keep track of when things need paid or need to be cleaned or need to be bought like birthday cards, presents and especially coming up to Christmas I utilize the Projects section for different lists.

You can see my Christmas List by Names below and then when I click on each name I have my Notes within that one for the ideas I have for their gifts.

Another thing I find very helpful is keeping track of the food in the house especially in the freezer.

As I put something away I note it in my Next list with the date I need to use it by and how many days in advance of this that I want to be notified by.

Then I use the Tags feature so that any time I want to check up or plan ahead about meals I simply go into the Next list and filter it by my choice of tag which would be food in this case and it will bring up all the food in different cupboards and fridge and freezer and the date it is due by.

I can refine this even further because I have tags in for each of the cupboards and fridge and freezer so can turn up just the contents of one of these at a time too.

Other tags can be centred around time, priority, or any kind of category you can think of.

I can also order everything by due date as well.

Most of my home life can be ordered by this app but I do love to use other list apps too.

One way to help stay organised

Definitely FUNWORK  because anything on the Ipad is funwork to me and didn't I say it involved lists and lists and lists and you know I LOVE LISTS

The Best Game on my iPad

I have always loved puzzles, whether word puzzles or number puzzles and can easily sit forgetting the time why I work through one and then decide that I have enough time to tackle another puzzle and then another ......

Wordfeud 

by Bertheussen IT

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wordfeud/id428312806?mt=8

I am on this app almost every day.


       I play around 20 people at a time and enjoy the challenge of beating someone who previously beat me.

      
        Now this doesn't mean I am constantly playing because you have the time limit of 72 hours between turns so that gives you time to think about the best word to play and not rush into it, or to have a break for a day or two from a game.

      One of the people I play regularly is a lady who suddenly didn't play one of her turns for almost the 72 hours and then apologised for the delay explaining that she had just had a baby.  I love the fact that she still wants to continue the game in her little breaks from looking after the baby and finds it relaxing.

Well I think this proves that I am not the only puzzle addict!

I tried to get all the family to play me but only succeeded in having games against my oldest son but he doesn't play every day.  The rest just probably don't want me to beat them all the time.


  

So at some time most days you can find me on this app (very similar to scrabble) trying to puzzle my way through my letters and get the highest score I can or at least find the best word arrangements to get a good score in each turn to make sure I beat my opponents.

One time I had a really good long word and manage the whopping great score of 152 in one game, never to be beaten or matched since.  I just wish I had had a screenshot of that game.

Mustn't forget to mention that it's a free app too!

It's a 5 stars from me.

Do you have it?

You can check out my comments on another app at  One of the Ways I Stay Organised

Do You Think the Kids Will Like It? - Coffee & Conversation

Our son's wedding was a few months away, so for me the big question was

What will I wear?

Ok so I hope you read parts one & two  -  if not 

                                           click here for WHAT WILL I WEAR????

              and then on to 

                          Will I Like it?    and then head back here again.

 ........ Fred (my husband) liked it too.
               "So are you getting it now?"  he asked.

"Do you think the kids will like it?" I ask.

"Of course they will" he replied.

          "How do you know?"  is my next question.

                    "They are bound to like it, it's lovely" he said.

The solution?

                          TAKE A PICTURE!

            

and that's what we do, thank goodness for iPads and coffee shops with Wifi.

Fred took a picture of me standing in the changing room and we headed over to a nearby Costa Coffee (having taken the outfit off and left it behind the sales desk with a very understanding set of shop assistants).

Now you might wonder why I deliberately mention that we went to Costa Coffee.

The answer is because I am not fond of Starbucks and also Costa Coffee have the greatest lemon and poppyseed muffin which I just adore but have been missing out on since trying to lose weight. One of those muffins has as many calories as my full dinner would have.

So we get the coffee (and tea for Fred) and a muffin which Fred says we have to share so that it isn't too many calories for me - isn't he so considerate?  No really, I'm not being sarcastic here because Fred will tell you himself that he is not a muffin eater.

Then connected to Wifi we email the picture to both Linda (South Korea) and Jonathan (Leeds) and start messaging them to make sure they look at their email.

During the time it took to eat the muffin we had a group message conversation with both kids and they encouraged me to go back and buy the outfit.

            But  

"Do you think Daniel & Suzie will like it too?"  I ask

                                        "YES!" is the joint reply

So we head back and buy the outfit.

A few days later we are with Daniel getting the suits for the guys for the wedding and I show him the outfit, he likes it.  Later that evening I see Suzie and show her the picture and she likes it so all is well.

Or rather would be well when I would go to the seamstress and get that little alteration done because (back to where we started) 

I am petite 

and the dress is regular fitting so I needed the straps shortened.

So I had my outfit, and it wouldn't clash with the bridesmaids.

                          And the wedding is 4 weeks exactly from today!

                      It wasn't such a hard task after all, sure it wasn't?