Basic Snapchat Instructions

Yesterday was Friday. My mom and I ran over and picked up Cosette around 9am because her mama needed a break and we always love a little extra Cosy time! I posted a half dozen videos of her singing and playing with her Anna and Elsa dolls on Snapchat and then saved them to Facebook (since they go away after 24 hours on Snapchat). Her sweet little singing voice just melts my heart!

We broke out the chalk markers and decorated the door to my porch. She did pretty good for awhile but then she wanted to see what green tastes like... oops! She's so funny... she knows she's not supposed to put anything in her mouth that isn't food and she pretty much understands what is and isn't food at this point. Still... the urge to taste things is so strong in a toddler that she will go to put it in her mouth and if her dad says, "Cosy..." she pulls it out of her mouth right away and gets this pitiful little guilty look.

We played with my makeup brushes... and had a carpet picnic... and then we all went to Goodwill to find Jamie a "villager" costume for Beauty and the Beast. Busy morning but lots of fun!

This morning I got up and finished taping off the rest of the bathroom that needed to be painted and got a good bit of it painted. My mom came in and finished it and it's all quite lovely. I'm doing a mermaid theme so I searched online for a shower curtain but I'm not finding anything that fits what I have in mind. It's either super juvenile, like The Little Mermaid from Disney or it's a topless very adult looking mermaid. I want something in between. And we still need to get the new light wired as I am having to use a lamp for lighting in the bathroom. But we're getting there. Just getting it painted feel like such a huge step.

I've done way too much this week and my body is reminding me that I've gone past my limitations. All of it fun, all of it worth the pain (except for the part where the freezer fell on my head... )... but I'm feeling it from my head to my toes tonight. I love the cold weather because it's so well suited to wrapping up in warm cozy things and just resting. I'm going to take advantage of that for the rest of the weekend!

I did want to mention that I am posting a lot of stuff on Snapchat. Some of it is just silly photos but some of it is narrative, sort of a video blog. I mentioned giving a little instruction on how to do Snapchat but I'm not sure I'm familiar enough to really do it justice. Here's what I can tell  you that will hopefully get you started: search for the app - it's free. Download it like you would any app that you add. Create an account for yourself. Choose "add friends" and you can search for my name - HGant5 (original, right?) and add me. From the main screen if you swipe to the left - to get to the screen on the right - under stories you will see "recent updates" and if I've done something in the last 24 hours, you will see it there. Just click on it and you can see my latest story.

The thing I'm enjoying most is using filters and it was the hardest for me to figure out. When you're in the main screen you will see whatever your camera is seeing. In the far upper right corner is a little rectangle with arrows around it and a smiley face in the middle. If you touch that, the perception of your camera will change from looking out to looking back at you. Once your face is visible, touch the screen in the middle of your face. A bunch of lines will come across your face and a series of circles will appear beside the big circle in the bottom center of the screen. You can swipe from left to right and move different filters into the main circle to change the filter on your face. There are some main ones that are always there (like the deer with Cosy at the the start of this blog entry) and special ones that are only there for a day or two. If you want to take a picture of yourself, briefly touch the big circle in the bottom center. If you want to take a video with the filter, hold your finger in the center. Videos are only up to ten seconds, which is why when you watch a story it switches so quickly.

Once you've taken a "snap" or a video you will have options in the upper right to add text, color and stickers to your picture or video. You can swipe to the right to add other filters that change the shading of the photo and add details like time and temperature. You can save it to your memories or add it to your story on the bottom left or... if you don't like it, just click the x in the upper left to delete it.

THERE are tons of other bells and whistles with the app that I am still figuring out but those are the basics of getting started, viewing stories and creating your own photos and videos with filters. I hope this helps! I'm such a newbie myself but I really do enjoy it and it's so easy to post there! If all else fails, just search for a youtube video on how to do it. That's my default learning process for everything these days. Let me know if you create an account so I can follow you!

Little Kitty is insisting on sitting where the laptop is so I'm going to close. Hope your weekend is going well! Love and hugs, y'all!