Why I Love Twitter

I created a Twitter account on July 3. It was one of my "goals" during this mat leave - check it out, see what all the fuss is about. It's been almost three months now and I'm loving it.

Because of Twitter...

- I have discovered Real Food Connections. This is a local company that delivers local food to your door. It's absolutely fantastic. I simply check out their website to decide what I want, drop a quick email to Levi on Tuesday, he confirms the delivery time with me, and by Thursday or Friday I have my order. My favourite thing has been the Kitchen Variety Box. It comes with fresh baked bread, jam or honey, locally made cheese, and a variety of local fruits and veggies. I love that the contents of the box is a surprise each week, and I enjoy coming up with meals that work with what is in the box. I can't say enough good things about this service. Here is a pic of everything that was in this week's box. (There had been five pears but BB devoured one as soon as Levi was out the door. And there were a few more little tomatoes too, but BB got his hands on them and decided to play smoosh the tomato before I realized what he was doing!)

- I have discovered Andy Brown. They made a video for a contest, and as with all contests now, fans were being encouraged to vote for Andy Brown's video. After seeing references to the contest and video appear in my timeline a few times, I finally checked out the video. It's cute, and the song is catchy. My next step was downloading both of their albums from iTunes. I'm loving them, and we've listened to them so much that Baby Boy now says, "Andy Brown!" (okay, so he says, "AndaBra") when the songs begin to play. Check out the video (it won the contest, BTW!) I keep checking iTunes to see if this song is available there yet, but no such luck so far.

- I've met some nice people through the site (both online and in real life.) Being at home 24/7 most days with the kids, it's nice to have a bit of adult conversation, and doing it quickly (under 140 characters) and at my leisure (i.e. when everyone is happy) works for me.

- I actually voted this year! The only time I've ever voted in the past was the very first election that I was old enough to vote in. I was living in Saint John and going to college at the time--a very very long time ago. Hearing people talk about the election piqued my interest. I followed along a bit more closely than I have since I was in school. I've never received a Voter Information Card, and via Twitter I heard that you could vote early at the returning office. So last week I made a visit to the office, registered and voted at the same time. If voting early hadn't been an option, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

- After voting I checked out an awesome consignment shop next door to the returning office. (Okay, so Twitter isn't what tipped me off to this place, but if it weren't for Twitter, I wouldn't have been at the returning office, and I wouldn't have gone to the store.) It's called FairyTale Things and I was able to pick up some fantastic clothes for the kids for very little cash. All of the clothes were like new, and they also carry some Melissa & Doug toys. Another great thing about this store is that there's room to push a stroller in the store. I've been to The Children's Place at the mall with a stroller before, and continually got it stuck on the racks and on boxes, etc. That wouldn't happen here. They also have a little play table set up so that the children can play while you shop. It was so exiting to find a place like this so close to home! As long as they stay in the area, I'll be back. Frequently.

I just realized that three of the five examples of why I love Twitter have encouraged me to spend money. But on the plus side, at least I'm supporting the local economy.

**I just posted this and noticed that the video is wider than the column... it looks terrible, but I need sleep. One more bit of imperfection in my imperfect world. ;o)