Because I failed miserably the first time I went live on Instagram, and had to search the internet, just to find out that there was no way to recover my Instagram Live if I didn’t click on the Save button before posting it… But I did find that I could do a screen record, as long as it was still in the 24 hours that my Live stayed… well… live. So… I made a video to share with others who may run into the same issue that I did.
Hopefully this will help you before you do your first Instagram Live…. or in case you made the same mistake I made, hopefully it’ll help you learn how you can still save a copy with a workaround. Below is my second live on Instagram, I did click the Save button before I posted it, and it did save to my phone, so I was able to upload it to YouTube. 🙂
And I use this video editor to crop out anything outside of the screen that I’m trying to capture.
And if you didn’t know…. IGTV is pretty awesome. It allows you to upload videos between 1 and 10 minutes… you know how you can only load 1 minute clips to your posts on Instagram or in your Stories??? Well… with IGTV you can post a longer video, then you can share a clip of your video as a post on your feed, and you can also share the clip to your story so that people can click on it and it will take them to your longer video. I thought it was pretty fabulous when I learned I could take longer videos and not have to crop out only my favorite minute.
Day 2 we got to start our day with a nice hot shower in our friend’s house before we headed on to Utah to visit Ryan’s sister and her family. When we got out to the RV to take off, we realized that the refrigerator had turned off at some point during the night and the food wasn’t as cold as it should have been. Apparently the battery runs out of power, so my aunt, who has her own trailer, and was giving us lessons as we went along, told us we could switch to propane when we dry camped to keep the fridge cold if we weren’t keeping the generator on all night. So… we started doing that (when we remembered).
Speaking of generator, we also learned that you can’t power the generator on with a dead battery, so you had to start the RV first, then power on the generator if you were going to use it while driving. Another thing, you have to have the generator on while driving if you want to run the A/C in the back of the RV. So many things to learn!
So we made our first stop of the day in St George at a Sinclairs (one of those Dinosaur gas stations) to gas up, and made lunch and ate it while we filled up, and I’m sure Ryan cleaned the windshield as well, that was his third job (1 – Driving, 2 – Getting Gas, 3 – Cleaning the windshield). One app we used almost every single day of the trip to find the least expensive gas, that was nearest to us, was Gas Buddy, I HIGHLY recommend you get that for any road trip. We set it to Diesel so that it would only consider gas stations that had diesel, then you could open the station and see what type of amenities they had. Most of the time we just needed gas, but sometimes we needed to dump and fill up with water.
Then we got back on the road and started heading up the grade toward Alpine, Utah when the thermostat got really hot, the little alarm (a different one) made noise and said we were overheating, and the engine slowed way down. We pulled over on the side of the 15 and called AAA. If you don’t have AAA, you should get it, we have the Premier membership, and it allows for one 200 mile tow a year for each cardholder, which has absolutely saved us in our personal cars, like the time we were moving here and Ryan’s car broke down hours from our new home, and we got it towed for Free! So, we found out from our friend Mike that there’s Premier RV for when you are in an RV, and you need to add it on a couple months before you trip, so we did, and it sure came in handy when we broke down on the second day of our trip! Thank you, Mike!!!
While we were hanging out on the side of the freeway for hours, the kids got to play with puzzles, color some of their favorite characters, and just hang out watching movies. We found out most repair shops are closed over the weekend, and since it was almost 5 pm on a Friday we may have to wait until Monday to get a diagnosis.
The first company AAA sent out was Bracken’s Auto Tech. Austin came out in his tow truck with some coolant to see if filling that up would get us up and running again. After he filled up the coolant, we tried driving the RV again, the temp had gone down, but within 30 seconds of driving, the heat went all the way back up and the engine slowed back down. He realized all the coolant shot right out and went onto the ground, so it was going to need more than just a refill. He thought we may have to get an Uber to get me and the kids to wherever the RV would be towed since they don’t usually have room for 2 adults and 3 car seats in a tow truck, but I had a friend in St George, also named Austin who had volunteered to come pick us up if we needed a ride.
Thankfully, next AAA sent out All Ways Towing to get us towed to Amen Diesel (they were actually opened on Saturdays). The driver of the first tow truck was Hunter, he came with an extended cab tow truck to pick us up, and they sent a separate tow truck to pick up the RV. So my friend Austin got to stay at work once he knew we were taken care of. Thank you for the offer, Austin! Hunter knew we were trying to pack some bags in case we would be without the RV for the weekend, and he had fun keeping the kids entertained. Once the RV tow truck arrived and they got it loaded up, Hunter drove us to Denny’s where Ryan unloaded me, the 3 kids, the 2 car seats (1 with a sleeping child) and the bags, while he headed to Amen Diesel to get the 3rd car seat with Hunter.
We spent 3 hours at Denny’s eating dinner and waiting for Ryan’s sister, Jen, to arrive from Alpine to pick us up for the night and drive us back to her house. Everyone at Denny’s was super nice, especially our server, Jake, who was always on top of things and made great recommendations! It made the wait go by much faster.
It was a long day, and we actually ran out of data on our phone one day prior to the start of our unlimited month… Boo… While at a rest stop on the way up to Alpine, Ryan called Verizon to see if they would waive the $15 overage fee, and rather than waive the fee, they told us about an offer we had on our account for being long time customers, where rather than paying the extra $30 for one month of unlimited data, they could offer us unlimited data for $2 extra a month… every month! And they would prorate it to the current month, so not only did they waive the $15 fee, and not bill us $30 extra for July, they billed us $2 for the month for June so we didn’t have an overage, and now we have unlimited data for only $2 a month, rather than $30 a month. So that $45 we would have spent, will not buy us almost 2 years worth of unlimited data. Auntie Jen was singing the Daniel Tiger song about when something seems bad ,turn it around, and find something good, but the kids didn’t hear it. And when we walked out of the rest stop bathroom, Bobby started singing it… so… the break down, and the running out of data, actually turned into something good.
So, it was a long, exhausting day, but… we scored on the Verizon offer, and we got to sleep in a super comfy bed, in a dark dark room, and wake up the next morning to spend time with the family.
Tips for Day 2:
Get AAA if you own a car.
Get AAA Premier RV if you own, or are going to be using an RV.
Get Gas Buddy for any road trip… or even if you just randomly choose where you get your gas in town. We usually go to Costco because it’s generally the cheapest in town. Speaking of Costco, upgrade to the Executive membership if you don’t already have it, it pays for itself. If you don’t make enough back in the rewards to cover the price difference between the regular and executive membership, they’ll refund you the difference!
Verizon is pretty awesome…. sure we didn’t have service in some locations, but overall, we had pretty good service as we went through 16 states. And that unlimited offer came at the perfect time, it even allowed me to jump on a company Zoom and and watch it live, rather than calling in and just listening to it (did you know you can call into zooms when you don’t have data/wifi?)
If you are ever break down in Cedar City, Utah call All Ways Towing or Bracken Auto Tech, they are both awesome! And if you want a place to eat and hang out for a few hours… Denny’s is the place to go!
One of my friends on Facebook posted in one of the local Mom’s play groups about this website that had work from home jobs. One of those jobs that I saw, that looked really cool was Userfeel.com I had seen a page like this before, but when I tried to apply for the job, it said they weren’t hiring in my area… which I thought was a little weird, since it’s a remote job, and I’m not sure why they wouldn’t hire in my “area”. They didn’t specify which “area” I was in either, but maybe they just don’t hire people in California. Something to note is that they aren’t actually hiring you as an employee, they are hiring you are an independent contractor, so you do need to save for tax time on your own.
However, Userfeel.com did not have this “area” notice when I went to their website. So, I was pretty excited that I could get signed up. After you submit your information, they send you a confirmation email to verify your email address. After you verify your email address, they send you another email for the next step, to take the qualification test. The qualification test is to make sure you can do the job.
So, what’s the job? It is right up my alley! You have to have a computer with a microphone because you open up their recording software that records your screen and your microphone and they give you a set of tasks so that you can “test” out websites and give your honest feedback. I am a data analyst by day, and I personally love testing things to make sure they work right. When they don’t, I like to figure out what could be wrong, then pass the information back to the developers so they can fix it and get it back to me for testing. With Userfeel you go to the website they direct you to, and follow the instructions. My test was actually looking at Enterprise, the rental car company, and trying to schedule a car rental. As you are going through the tasks, you also speak out loud your thoughts on the process, the website, anything that you notice. As you complete the tasks, you mark it as complete and go onto the next task, until you are done and it uploads the video with your voice back to Userfeel and they can pass it along to their clients for feedback, so they can make sure they are providing the best user experience to their own customers.
The cool thing… you actually get paid to do this!
And you can do it when you have free time. You, of course, need to find a quiet spot in your home, so that you can focus, and they can hear your voice clearly in the recording, but… you can pick and choose when you want to work. I, personally, just passed my certification test, so I haven’t done any real tests yet, and haven’t gotten paid yet. But, I am looking forward to getting my first email with a real test so I can give this a go.
We have definitely been tightening our budget at home, so it will be nice to be able to add some extra income without having to leave the house to do it. I do work 30 hours a week as a data analyst, and also take care of my almost 2 and almost 4 year old, while my hubby is at work, and my oldest is at school, so… it doesn’t leave for a lot of free time, but that’s the nice thing about this, you do it on YOUR time, and you don’t have to get dressed and head out of your home to do it.
I can definitely say that my memory used to be better prior to having kids..
But… I was pretty sure I charged my Fitbit Blaze on Sunday, and on Monday I saw the low battery indicator, but my phone didn’t alert me (via notification from the Fitbit app or getting an email reminder) that my battery was low. I put my Fitbit on the charger, and thought I was good to go.
But on Tuesday it was low battery again… I know for SURE I charged it on Monday because our painter was here and moved my charger (I LOVE my new charger, you don’t have to pop your Fitbit out of your band to charge it) to another plug while he painted the butler pantry area. So I charged it yet again… and was bummed since I was doing a lot of house cleaning and missed out on all those steps, but remembered when I was pushing the kids and didn’t know what time it was, so I ran in to get it and it was a full battery.
So today is Wednesday and my battery is almost dead again and it hasn’t even been 24 hours… I had to push the kids on the swings today without tracking my arm workout… pushing kids on a swing, especially when they want to be pushed everytime they swing backwards is a workout for sure. Oh and if you are like me and don’t really dig the silicone bands on your Fitbit Blaze, you can always buy a replacement, I love the flower one I bought, and I’m not getting the irritation on my wrist anymore that I used to get with the silicone bands. It’s pretty and it is nicer to my skin. Win win!
This time I did a search and found one lady said she figured out why her battery was dying so soon, once she realized she had switched phones the week prior. So I opened my app and sure enough it last synced 9/23, which was 10 days ago… So, I’m assuming mine is having the same problem hers was having and has been trying to connect to my phone and isn’t able to connect, so it’s draining the battery. I charged my Fitbit this morning. I’m still trying to figure out why it can’t sync (though, that’s right about the time I ordered this new bluetooth headset to make it easier for me to be hands free while on the go with the kids all the time, so… maybe I have too many things connected to my bluetooth on my phone…).
I love my Fitbit, especially when it’s actually synced up to my phone and I can see texts coming in, or a phone call when I forgot my phone in the other room. You can’t respond to texts or take calls on your Fitbit Blaze, but just knowing I have a call or text coming in, so I can find my phone and respond to people, especially when I’m trying to keep up with my kids and my job is definitely a nice thing to have.
Oh and if your Fitbit isn’t tracking your steps accurately, make sure your check your wrist placement setting☝️
I was finally able to sync my Fitbit to my phone today, and it got me all caught up on the last 10 days of sleep. I guess I haven’t been checking how well I’ve been sleeping. Also, if you have ever wondered why you are getting basic sleep details, instead of the sleep stages, it’s probably because you had a low battery so it can’t track as well.
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