Getting cozi with my calendar

For the last couple of years, I have been in a serious calendar conundrum.
I love the convenience of an online application to keep track of our schedule and appointments. But I also love paper.
It’s true! I love to doodle, add notes and mark things off. I also love being able to hang the calendar on the fridge or bulletin board for the whole family to see. I have tried using iCal or Google calendar, which both work great online. The problem is that when I go to print out a paper version, they are so, so, sooooo UNcute!
I can’t handle a blah, boring calendar. So for the last few years, I have been creating my own calendar with my own colors and my own fonts and printing it off to carry in my binder or hang on the fridge. This isn’t the greatest system, and it has seriously been driving me crazy. No person should spend as much time as I have thinking about the inefficiency of her calendar!

The problem was amplified a few weeks ago when my husband got a new iPhone. He has been a long time PC person, and I have been an Apple user since the invention of the computer. When his company forced him to make the switch, he wasn’t happy. And I was trying to convince him that his life would be perfect and simple once he got used to it. “Just turn it on and push the button!” I kept instructing.
A few hours later, he sent me a text. “I’m sure there is some simple way I can import the family calendar.”
“Umm. No. Remember the cute color coordinated calendar that hangs on the refrigerator and the bulletin board and various locations throughout our house? That IS your mobile calendar! I can print one out for you, and you can carry it anywhere you want to go.”
Well, at that moment, I knew I needed an upgrade!
That’s when the strangest thing happened. I logged on to Facebook and at that very moment, one of my FB friends had “liked” this web site called, Cozi. I didn’t know what it was, but I liked the logo. (I have been obsessed with logos the past three months, but that is a completely different story!) I clicked on the link just to examine the logo more closely, and it turns out, it’s an online calendar. I was convinced it HAD to be better than the other options I had tried. If it had a cute logo, then it HAD to have a cute printable version!

Well, it’s not perfect, but it’s cute enough. And I have to say that I am loving its features so far! I can:

• Access our family calendar through my desktop, phone or iPad. We have one family account so my husband can log in to see the most up-to-date info. (We don’t have to upload our calendars to “the cloud” or “share” our calendars. They are always there, up-to-date, all the time on all of our devices.
• Select a color for each member of our family to label each person’s events. The app gives me lots of options for assigning each person his or her “color.” Even though this is a super small thing, it’s huge to a color-loving calendar snob like me!
• Make shopping lists or to-do lists and assign them to various people. I can enter my shopping list and then my husband can access the list when he goes to the store. I like being able to check things off the list and keep old lists stored in my phone so that I can easily update the things that I buy frequently.
• Keep track of my meal plan. I have been using eMeals since the beginning of the year to plan out my meals and shopping lists. However, I’ve found that I usually don’t like a few of the meals, and I end up modifying my weekly menu. One complaint I have so far is that I can’t access the meal planner from my mobile device.
• Finally, the printable version of my monthly calendar is somewhat CUTE! I mean… it’s not quite as cute as it would be if I made if from scratch. But it’s cute enough!

So what about you? Do you use an online calendar system? Do you use a paper planner? Or some combination? I want to know. I really do!