ICal, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways...

This week, as those of you who visit our blog on a regular basis have discovered, is about scheduling. I love a beautiful organizer and look forward to the summer months when the stores fill with the new mid-season planners. I have always been a mid-season planner. Why? I am a school teacher. My brain thinks August to August, not January to January. So, I peruse the tables laden with planners of every style, color, size and even shape. There is one for everyone - the art lover might choose between a cover of Monet's Waterlilies or Renoir's Starry Night with pages of various artists' works tucked in between months. The writer might appreciate the Moleskin planners like the notebooks popularized by Hemingway and his contemporary writers. A busy mom has an assortment of planners to choose from that all insure that this is the one that will change their hectic life to one of pure sublimity. There are the office planners, the traditional three-ring leather numbers, the inspirational, the ... well, in short, there's one for everyone, even the young girls' now have planners by American Girl to organize their middle school lives. So, I always find two or three that I love and often times, I purchase more than one to try them out and see which feels best and works best with my life. I have a few right now. It is embarrassing, but I digress.

Enter iCal - iCal with its youthful, practical, tech savvy coolness. That's right. You read correctly. I love the feel, look and beauty of a real life planner, but I am having a love affair with iCal. It had me at its color calendar feature. And I fell head over heels, in love.

Oh how do I love thee, iCal? Let me count the ways.

1. iCal understands me. The colored calendars. I have a lot going on over here in Blyn. I have a lot of different areas of our lives from home life to Matt's work/school schedule to church responsibilities to homeschooling. I need them to work together, but I also need to be able to separate them. And often, there is a lot of detail in our daily homeschooling schedule that doesn't need to be stuffed into the same daily home calendar. It could get messy. I can make five different calendar in 5 different colors and then combine them when I want to and not when I don't.


2. iCal follows me wherever I go. That is right. I sit at my beautiful computer and spend quality time entering all my info, all Matt's schedules, Gracie's classes, family visits, and all of Buster and Lilly's meds and vet visits. Then, I click a button and share it with Matt and anyone who cares and then I connect it with my iphone. And wherever I go, there it is. It is kind of sweet if you know what I mean.

3. iCal is so pretty. Yes, pretty. I love color. Love it. I color coordinate my closet, my socks, my file folders are NEVER brown. I love color. So, naturally, the color feature that shows each calendar in its own color is really eye candy for me. Really.

4. I can give iCal a to-do list. That's right a to-do list. I write out my lists of things to do that come from my bedside stationary (see other entry) and the really big ones that are looming over my month and type them in. There they are to remind me about my month and I get little reminders.

5. iCal communicates well. Communication is the way to my heart and iCal communicates. Reminders. I can set alarms in iCal to gently remind me of an appointment, an important item, or a call to make. How sweet of iCal to take the time to communicate.

6. iCal isn't jealous. I have my daily planner that I scribble all over and love to hold, but iCal waits for me at home and when I am ready I enter all the important stuff and then I print, share, and can see whether things conflict from Matt's schedule to Gracie's to mine. And when I am satisfied that all is well in the world I click share and print.

I love it. It works for me. It may not work for everyone. We all have our own types. iCal is one of mine.