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personal growth

How I Met My Fiance on eHarmony & A $100 Visa Gift Card Giveaway

February 14, 2012 · 78 comments

After the whole cancer thing, I knew I wanted a family of my own, and it was time to get serious about finding the right person to start that family with. I finished my treatment in July 2010, and by late August I was considering my online dating options. I’m an introvert, but I’ve had years and years of practice talking to people online. Forums, blogs, and social media are easy and fun for me so it seemed like a natural step to apply those experiences to dating.

I debated and debated about which service was right for me and when I should sign up.

At the time, I had about half an inch of post-chemo hair and was still really uncomfortable with having my picture taken. I knew I needed a recent picture to get started. I couldn’t post only pre-chemo long haired shots and then shock someone the first time I met them in person with short, short hair. I had a hair appointment scheduled for late September and planned on having my mom take a new head shot for me after getting my hair done. But then one slow Friday afternoon, I was surfing the internet at work and noticed an ad for a Labor Day weekend special where you could try eHarmony for free and not only see who your matches were but also start communicating with them.

I love algorithms and smart technology so eHarmony’s technique appealed to me, and a free weekend sounded like a pretty good reason to start then (even though I didn’t think my hair was ready yet), so I spent the rest of the afternoon filling out the questionnaire. Saturday morning, bright and early, I had my mom take a new head shot, got my profile completed, and started browsing my matches and going through the ice breaker questions with anyone who looked appealing. I liked the process enough that come Monday and the end of the weekend freebie, I decided to sign up for a 3 month subscription.

I figured that at the end of 3 months I could try another service if eHarmony wasn’t right for me. Little did I know how right it was going to be. eHarmony sent me about 10 new matches to peruse per day even though I had my preferences set very tightly to men within a few years of my own age, taller than me (which means taller than 6′, and those tall guys aren’t all that abundant), and who lived within 25 miles of me.

September 12th, 9 days after I initially signed up for eHarmony after browsing about 100 profiles, one of my matches was Stewart. We started communicating with each other via eHarmony’s guided communication: eHarmony starts with multiple choice questions you can ask each other, then moves on to short answer, and then moves on to an open stage that’s similar to email without having to give out your email address. It gently eases you into talking to your matches which is particularly awesome if you’re not sure what you should say. I only reached that final, open stage of communication with two people, Stewart being one of them.

Stewart and I moved onto talking on the phone and then met for lunch about 2 weeks after we were first matched. We talked for hours about everything from World of Warcraft to dogs (I had dogs on the brain after that conversation and got Lucky within a week). We continued to see each other each weekend and then a few times a week, and by mid-November we were already talking about if it was crazy or not to be thinking we would get married (note that my 3 month eHarmony subscription had not even run out at this point).

We knew Stewart was about to be transferred to another location for work (which could have taken him anywhere in the country), and we didn’t want to rush into a long distance relationship so we waited his transfer out. In January we found out he was being placed to work in Palo Alto (the closest possible option in the entire country to my home), and that stroke of good fortune sealed the deal—we got engaged later that month. We are currently planning our August wedding.

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How to Borrow a Kindle Book from the Public Library

January 14, 2012 · 5 comments

The other day I was at the library and I noticed they had a “petting zoo” set up so patrons could play with all the different options for ereaders. I love the library but even more I love reading books on my iPad so being able to read library books on my iPad is a dream come true for me. Ask your librarian if your library has ebook borrowing options or visit your library’s website to figure out what is available to your community.

My library is a part of the Northern California Digital Library powered by Overdrive. Overdrive seems to be the most popular service powering digital libraries so if your library also uses Overdrive this is how you borrow Kindle books.

  1. Log in to the Overdrive website. My library has it set up so that all I need to do is enter my library card number, I didn’t need to do anything else to set up an account.
  2. Search the catalog for a book you’d like to read. I can search either via the Overdrive interface or via my library’s complete online catalog which provides a direct link to the book in the Overdrive catalog if it’s available digitally as well. This is what a search result looks like:

    (If a book you’d like to read is not currently available, it’s search result will have an option to “Place a hold” rather than “Add to BookBag”. When you place a hold, you’ll get an email as soon as it’s available to add to your bookbag and then you’d proceed through the rest of the tutorial in the same manner.)
  3. Click “Add to BookBag” which will take you to this screen:
  4. Continue to add other books of your choosing (my library allows up to 8 ebooks checked out a time for up to 3 weeks each). Once you’re ready to checkout click the “Proceed to Checkout” link:
  5. Use the “Lending period” drop down box to select how long you’d like to have the book for. I always go for the 3 week maximum. Then click the “Confirm Check Out” button:
  6. Make sure you have a Kindle or appropriate app downloaded before you proceed. I use the Kindle for iPad app. Then click the “Get for Kindle” button which will take you over to Amazon.com:
  7. In the green box in the upper right hand corner, select the device you want your library ebook sent to (I make sure my iPad is selected) and then click the yellow “Get Library Book” button:

Read your library ebook and enjoy! Kindle books (at least via the Northern California Digital Library) automatically return themselves when they are due (which is another dream come true).

But let’s say you’ve already got the maximum 8 books checked out and you want to return one you already read so you can get another.

  1. Navigate to Amazon.com > Your Account > Manage Your Kindle:
  2. Click the “Actions” drop down button next to the item you’d like to return. Select the “Return this book” link. Then press “yes” to return the book and clear up a slot to borrow another.

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Link Love: Evernote, Growth and Goal Setting, and Your Information Diet

January 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Lately I’ve been reading up on Evernote:

Letting my morbid curiosity get the best of me with other people’s New Years resolutions and goal setting strategies:

And changing how I read my emails and social media to make sure I’m consuming quality over quantity:

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8 Personal Statistic Tracking Tools

January 2, 2012 · 4 comments

I love reading people’s “by the numbers” end of the year lists and seeing their goals for the new year. Here are my favorite stat tracking tools that you can use to figure out what your numbers are and find out where you stand for 2012.

  1. Fitbit is a feature rich pedometer that also measures qualities of sleep. With the app and on the website, you can also track what you’ve eaten, how much water you’re consuming, and other daily activities. Read my complete review here.
  2. Runkeeper is an iPhone app that uses GPS to track distance and speed while you’re out walking or doing other forms of distance activity. You can also manually enter treadmill or elliptical activities. One of my favorite aspects of Runkeeper is that it tracks personal best distances per activity over days, weeks, and months. I mainly use Runkeeper as a supplement to my Fitbit data and as a way to measure more distance traveled while out walking my dog for entry into the Fitbit website.
  3. Dailymile doesn’t have any tracking features significantly different from what I get through Fitbit and Runkeeper, but I do like their visualizations and the lifetime stats. I started using it at the beginning of December and have burned 13.56 donuts walking, jogging, and ellipticalling so far. I also like the concept of getting in a “daily mile” even if I don’t do any other exercise for the day.
  4. Foursquare tracks where you’ve been every time you use the phone app to “check in” while out and about. I’m a bigger fan of the personal history aspect than I am of the social networking. Read my complete review here.
  5. RescueTime is a little app that runs in the background on your computer and tracks what apps and websites you spend your time using. It charts your data by your most used apps and websites and by productivity and helps you visualize how you are using your time while on the computer.
  6. Mint.com tracks your money. It aggregates all of your financial data and automatically generates complete pictures of net worth, net income, and spending.
  7. Goodreads tracks your reading. Tell it what books you want to read, what books you’ve already read, how many books you want to read per year, and rate the books you’ve already read for recommendations on more you’d like. Read my complete review here.
  8. 750 Words is a private journaling website that I particularly like because it collects statistics on your writing style, frequency, and analyzes your words for emotion, concerns, and mindset.

What tracking tools do you use?

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Set Your Browser Home Page to a Random Wikipedia Page

December 28, 2011 · 1 comment

I’m currently listening to the audiobook of The Art of Non-Conformity (while I walk my dog, while I drive around doing my errands – I’ve found audiobooks are a really awesome way to mix it up a bit when you get bored of all 9502 songs on your iPod) and I’m just in love with one of the tips in the book.

There’s a section where he talks about an “alternative graduate school experience” and one of the to do items for it is to set your browser homepage to a random Wikipedia article using this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Then every time you open your browser you’ll be taken to a random page, you can read it (or you’ll probably just glance or skim it) and learn a little something new.

I’m also currently a little bit obsessed with The Art of Non-Conformity blog and recommend you check it out.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you order through my link I’ll get a small commission that’ll help me pay my hosting fees. I’m currently listening to this audiobook (I got it free from my local public library) and truly recommend it.

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