I wish more decision flowcharts, having to do with money, started with “Can you afford it?” I think that would take A LOT of the guess work out of purchases.
Provided by Mint.com
On a side note, can I just say how much I love WordPress? Between the spam blockers and the ability to preview your post before posting – it’s really a great blogging tool. Thank goodness I followed MT here!
My Nook was delivered yesterday! I’m so excited about it – its
everything I was expecting and I’m excited to buy books for it. On
Tuesday night we drove to a Barnes & Nobles about thirty miles away in
order to get a cover for it (our B&N didn’t have cases, just a
display) and I’m really happy with the one I choose. It was between
the brown one and a red one. The red one was nice, but I was looking
for low-key.
I should has it by Thursday night!!!!
[sent from mobile]Well, my vacation is over – all ten days in a blink of an eye. This was the first vacation that I’ve taken since Evy was born and it was a bit of an eye opener. The biggest difference is that we couldn’t simply drop everything – we had to maintain some kind of schedule and that kind of sucked. I was looking for that…vegetation period I’ve always had with vacations. But, no use crying over split milk – this is parenthood and I wanted it!
Tuesday we tried to go to Disneyland – but we were silly in thinking we were the only ones on vacation. The park was packed and we ended up leaving after three rides and a stroll around California Adventure. A big part was that I really wasn’t feeling “it”. I was initially excited to get out of the house just with Paul (we’d left Evy with my parents) but once we were going I didn’t feel like talking much and I felt really “blah”. Such a waste 
I also really missed Evy! Seeing so many cute cuddly kids at Disneyland while mine was at home was killing me. But the fact is that we can’t ride hardly any rides unless we take someone with us, which we couldn’t this time. Luckily, we got out of paying for parking because their credit card machine was down so I didn’t feel that obligated to stay and make our $14 count. Unluckily, we hit traffic on the way home and after three hours of stop-and-go with our manual transmission we were pooped.
Thanksgiving went, in my opinion, REALLY well. My parents ended up coming as well, we all met at my sisters, and other than the kids making us start a little later than we’d like it was all amazing. Food was great, best candied yams I’ve had in awhile. I should have taken some with us, but I was so stuffed I had no eye for food as we were packing up the left overs.
My sister decorated for Christmas over the weekend and it’s made me want to decorate as well. Last year we didn’t decorate because we were moving ON Christmas Eve, and then Paul & I both got this really nasty stomach flu. The last time we did a live tree the mess was tremendous, so I think this year we’re going to take a look at the artificial ones. However, if the price is too much then we’ll probably do a live one and then take advantages of after Christmas sales in thought of NEXT year.
My Nook ships today!!!
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this – but the Nook is taking gadget
prone readers by storm this Christmas. The pre-orders sold out within
the first two weeks and now if you pre-order you wont get it until the
first or second week in January. I ordered mine in time, and it’ll
still be shipped on Monday.
Some new things have come to light in regards to the Nook.
A) You can only lend a book once – IN THE LIFETIME OF THE BOOK. NotWell, maybe. At this time, I do not own an eReader of any sort. Scratch that: I own an iPhone which can act as an eReader since both Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes & Noble have eReader applications. Recently I downloaded the Amazon app and also purchased Sabriel by Garth Nix – my first purchased (as in, not free – not as in stolen) eBook.
I’ve never really been interested in a Kindle – for a few reasons.
1) Cost: The fact that I have to pay (when first released) $300 for a device to read a book – and then pay $10+ per best seller is outrageous. If I went online to Amazon I usually get a best seller hardcover for $10 and a mass-market for $7.99 or less. The bottom line is, I wouldn’t be able to bargain shop at all of a specific title.
2) Title availability: Not all books are available in eBook format, older – mainly mass-market – books in particular. So I wouldn’t be able to use it fully. I’d have to start building a library of new books or highly recognized classics. Case in point – I love Julie Garwood but none of her books, other than the most recent, are in eBook format. See-sawing between formats is not fun.
3) All my eggs in one basket: If I wanted to lend a book, that’s in eBook form, I’d have to lend my eReader. No fun!
4) The look: eReaders look boring. Its a gadget and I want it to look cool. Sorry
However, Barnes & Noble recently released their own eReader called the Nook. The introduction price is $260, it looks more appealing than the Kindle, is smaller, and has a lot of expanded services because it’s from Barnes & Noble and they have physical stores. Plus, they have a “lending” technology which’ll let me lend a book to any other B&N eReader software – such as other iPhones/iPods. Now, while a lot of my issues from the above list have not been addressed, this new eReader for Barnes & Noble makes me want to use my once-a-year frivolous spending on something specific and not just random stuff I find.
Frustrating though, they’re already lying to me about what is available. I know for sure that B&N does not have The Hunger Games or Catching Fire as an eBook but look at this image!
LIES!
My immediate family has begun celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve, and I really enjoy it. This year, while starting a bit stressfully because of moving, was really wonderful. Paul's parents came down this year and that made my parents house nice and crowded and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves. Everyone was there by two in the afternoon or so and after refreshments and visiting we had a tastey chili homemade chili dinner complete with cornbread! It was so yummy – a bit spicy too so I was sporting chapstick lips for the rest of the night 
Gift giving was stress free and simple this year, with the focus being on my nephew. My parents love to give him the best creativity-inducing gifts and this year was all about an art easel with all the trimmings. My sister stated that the play-do would stay in the containers for awhile longer because the last batch given to Zeke ended up being smooshed into carpet or partly digested. He's just not old enough to grab the concept on that. From the rest of the family he got a LeapFrog Clickstart My First Computer. Generally I wouldn't have even considered this at his age, but he sits on his daddy's lap while he plays WoW sometimes and he's really interested in the keys and the mouse and stuff. My sister usually just lets him mess around, but he's found out how to open internet browsers and whatnot so its just not practical anymore. He's really enjoying it and it's introducing him to numbers & letters and stuff which is important.
Not that any gift is better than another, but I have to report that my parents gave Paul and I a wonderful gift – a digital video camera! They really did wonderfully because it was just what I was looking for – so far as flash based and not disc or drive based – and it's very simple to use with great results. I was shocked because they're pretty expensive and as I said Christmas this year was going to be simple and stress-free, especially financially. But I'm just so excited to know that we'll be able to video tape everything now once Evy comes and it's not another thing I'll need to budget for
So Christmas on Eve was really nice this year and I hope that next year is just as wonderful
Merry Christmas Voxers! Did everyone have a good one? I hope so
Mine has been great! We've been on schedule with our moving – which has made me VERY happy – and Christmas Eve at my parents was a swimming success. I'll post more about both later – I just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays
Oh, and what's the picture of Junior for? Well he made it abundantly clear, as I sat on the floor packing our last *available* box, that I'd neglected him for too long. He's gently & purring-ly preventing me from moving anymore for awhile. I submitted. What can I say? I'm weak to his charming demands 
That's right – our leasing application was approved!
It's all working out so well too! For some kind of tax purposes, the owners of the house need someone in there before the end of the year – so they've asked us to move in on December 24th. Normally, we wouldn't be able to do that because of the cost – however in exchange they're deducting the eight days that we're moving in early from our January rent! So not only do we get in sooner but we also get in for a more manageable price!
I know some of you guys are thinking, "Oh my gosh – why would anyone be excited for moving on Christmas Eve?", and to that I say – I'm not just anyone.
Really, this is all such a blessing. I remember that in my last post about moving I was so disheartened and I felt like this would never happen and now I realize that God was just waiting for the right time to send the right place our way
