The. Best. Calendar. Ever.

I'm an admitted calendar fanatic.  My Franklin Planner was about the closest thing to a Bible that I carried with me everywhere.  When I got my first smart phone, I never thought I would stop using paper.  I LIKE paper.  I found I didn't move readily to the phone calendar but I did start using Outlook at work and the Google calendar at home.  And syncing them all.  To my phone.  

But something was missing.  I was keeping a calendar at work.  A calendar at home of all our appointments, birthdays, etc.  Then I had the school assignment calendar for the kids with all their homeschooling stuff.  And a to-do list.  And a shopping list.  

I was sure with all these apps available for my iMac, iPad and iPhone that surely there had to be one that would combine all this stuff for me, right?  For six months I would try this one or that one.  Some had features I really liked such as those that would provide a link to a map when I included an address for an appointment.  Some showed my friend's birthday's from FaceBook and the time of the sunrise and sunset along with current temperature.  Some were only for the iPhone and didn't have a companion app for the iMac.  Others were just for iPad.  

I found myself returned to the Google calendar and figured out they also had a task list I could incorporate.  That was nice but still left holes in my ideal.

Early in the summer I had been invited to try the Beta version of a "homeschool calendar".  I sort of blew it off after signing up because I just couldn't imagine that a homeschool calendar could do what I wanted it to do.  Then near the end of summer, I got the message that my trial period was going to expire and maybe I should give it a try before they start charging for it.  Charging?  It was good enough that they thought they could charge for it?  Hmmm.

Well wasn't I surprised to find that this homeschool calendar called "Homeschool Planet" actually could do just about everything I wanted!

I could schedule chores for each kid to repeat on whatever schedule I wanted.  I could schedule all their assignments and if they didn't mark them done, I could tell the calendar to move EVERYTHING forward a day or just add that one to the next day. I could schedule things for the "day" or at a specific time.  I could COLOR CODE everyone!!! (My inner geek sings when I can color code).  They have a grocery list widget that I can send to myself via text or to hubby :).  There's also a to do widget with texting or emailing capabilities.  I can print the day, week, or month.  And it's all pretty intuitive and easy to use.  That's a bonus.

I was a bit concerned because there are also things that it can't do.  It can't sync with my Google calendar.  That almost killed the deal for me.  I could live without all the kid's assignments on my iPhone but my appointments and meetings???  Would I really have  to try to log into the website from my iPhone to view the calendar?  Well for now, yes.  They have promised me they are working on a Google sync and it's a priority so for now, my schedule remains on Google calendar.  They also promise me they are working on an iPhone app.  That would make me very happy.  Sync my Google calendar and give me a simple iPhone app - oh yeah baby.  Calendar heaven.