girlymama

why i decided to buy a nook

Thanks so much for all of your votes this week on my Father's Day gift!! You voted overwhelmingly for an eReader and I agree - I think that was the best choice and I was leaning towards that. I've spent the last week or two researching eReaders and today I finally made a decision and went to Best Buy and bought the Nook.

There were several reasons I chose the Nook over the other eReaders on the market:

• Besides having the biggest bookstore by far (from which you can download wirelessly for free), the Nook has the best access to all kinds of content.
• It can display the EPUB format (so you can read FREE titles from your public library and from Google) as well as PDFs, photos, and MP3 audio files.
• I loved the LCD touchscreen along the bottom because, frankly, I'm a sucker for a touchscreen.
• Not only can you borrow books from the library, but on the Nook you can loan books to friends - legally - which you can't do on the Kindle.
• The Nook has games as well, like chess and Sudoku.
• The Sony Reader is nice, but in order to get the wireless feature you  have to buy the top-of-the-line model.
• The Nook also lets you read the entire eBook library for free, as well as sending you special coupons and discounts, when you're in a Barnes and Noble store. Bonus! We love Barnes and Noble!

I gave it to my husband and he was really surprised! (REALLY surprised!!) I was so excited that I started telling him how awesome the Nook was and why I picked it and he told me that maybe I should go work at Best Buy ;-) We're still loading it up with books and playing with it, but so far its awesome!!! Husband is loving his new gadget (now I just have to sneak it away from him so I can give it a try!)

disclosure: i received a gift card from best buy to buy a fathers day gift for my husband. i was not compensated financially for this post.

customer service serves a purpose

I confess I usually don't like talking to sales people very often. I tend to just say "Just looking!" and move on... even if I do have a question. I'd just rather pick out my own clothes thankyouverymuch. For big purchases, I tend to do a lot of my research online beforehand, reading reviews or polling my readers or something.

But I recently found myself at an event with the folks at Best Buy and, when encouraged to ask them questions, I found myself chatting with them about eReaders and computers. I was surprised at how helpful I found it. Even for products that I had done research on already, I was finding out really useful info I hadn't heard - one Best Buy employee was answering questions about Macs that the people in the Apple Store couldn't answer. (And they totally were able to follow my garbled tech-jargon "You know, that one computer with the thing? That does that really cool thing?")

Today I was in Best Buy in King of Prussia spending my gift card and I stopped by the computer section to drool over the pretty machines, I mean do research. (I'm on borrowed time with my computer, big time!) I ended up speaking with a very nice employee named Jack, who told me about the new desktop touchscreen computers I've been coveting. He ended up convincing me that the one I was originally thinking about buying was overpriced for what it offered and this other one - a cheaper one that I'd never considered - would be a much better match for what I would use it for. Seeing all the brands side-by-side with someone who knows about all of them was really helpful. And imagine someone telling you that the cheaper option was all you needed.

We'll still do lots of research online when we're making a big purchase, but I'm now convinced that actually going into a store and talking to someone who knows about the different options is totally worth it. 

disclosure: i received a gift card from Best Buy at the event i mentioned, which is what i was there to spend (hee hee!), but i was not compensated financially for this post.

dream fathers day gifts

We typically don't do gifts for Mother's Day and Father's Day. Actually, my husband and I rarely give each other gifts. We tend to 'do' things for anniversaries and birthdays. Like go to Hawaii or see a show or something. But if we did do a gift this year, I would be torn. There is some really cool stuff out there!!!

If I could, I would buy him:

The Nook: I really think that he would love a Nook. Everyone I know who has a Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader completely loves them and uses it all the time. Especially because he travels frequently, I think this would be great for him.
I've been researching the pros and cons of each. I've decided that if we do get an e-reader, we're getting  a Nook. I love that you can share books on it (whereas you can't with the Kindle). And it has free 3G wireless and wi-fi, so you can check e-mail and surf the web.
(Do NOT tell me to get an iPad instead. I know they are amazing, but they are too pricey to even daydream about!)

An Eye-Fi Memory Card: One thing I do that totally drives my husband up the wall is that I always forget to put the memory card back in the camera after I download pictures. I can't tell you how many times we've gone somewhere only to realize we forgot the memory card! So the Eye-Fi Memory Card wirelessly transfers photos and video from your camera to your computer or an online site when you walk in your front door. How amazing is that?
But maybe this would be more of a gift for me, since I'm the one who never remembers to upload pictures....

a Camcorder: We've never had a camcorder - just the one in our point-and-shoot digital camera. I've heard terrific things about the Flip Ultra-HD Camcorder, but I really am intrigued by Sony's bloggie H-D Digital Camcorder.
Do you have a camcorder? Do you get lots of use out of it or do you think they're becoming obsolete with the new digital cameras?

an iPod: Because he gave me his iPod when mine broke. (I know. Sweetness, right?) But I'm not sure. If he already has an iPhone, would he use an iPod?  He already has a pair of noise-canceling headphones for the plane that he LOVES... but the iPod Touch seems so cool because then he could play games and stuff.
What do you say, iPhone users? Do you still use your iPod or do you just use your iPhone for everything?

Online Surveys & Market Research

the excuses. i have so many.

So I disappeared off the blogoshere last week. My bad. I have several very valid excuses, if you'd like to hear them:

1. My kids decided to start waking up one hour earlier in the morning for no apparent reason except perhaps just being mean. And Colin has started waking up at night again, which is deeping my already unhealthy relationship with my coffeepot.
2. My in-laws arrived from India  on Tuesday. (No thanks to British Airways which is on strike and volcanos acting up. Their flight got changed at the last minute so we learned they were arriving on Tuesday, but we didn't know what flight or what airline, but thankfully, we practically tripped over my father-in-law as we walked into the Philadelphia airport! A miracle if I ever saw one!) But we're trying to catch up with them and having people in the house makes for a busier schedule.
3. So along with having my in-laws staying here, preschool ended last week. PRESCHOOL ENDED LAST WEEK. So my productivity has taken a major nosedive, as I no longer have 3 sweet hours of the day when no one is talking to me, asking for snacks, or needing me to untangle toys that are somehow stuck in their hair.
4. I'm suddenly swamped with design jobs. Which is good (Work!! Yay!) and bad (Sleep? Fat chance!). I'll be shutting down my design queue inthe middle of June for a few weeks, so if you're itchin' for a bog redesign, let me know.
5. It was like 110 degrees last week in Philly. And the week before, we had the heat on. At this rate, we'll probably skip fall alltogether and go directly into winter at the end of June.  What the heck, Mother Nature? Am I the only one who is completely unmotivated to do anything except drink frozen cocktails when its really hot out?

Anyway, in the mean time, I redesigned my blog! What do you think? 

i can do this

I have such a crazy week here. I'm just bracing for it!

• LOTS of design work to finish by Friday. (Not that I'm complaining about that.)
• Phone calls to make and emails to return.
• I need to go to the store, but I'm not sure when I'll manage to go...
• Unexpected car repairs (AGAIN) so we're trying to figure out transportation.
• The house is a disaster (I'm not just saying that. ) and I have a mountain of laundry.
• Ellie has half days Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. That helps. (SIGH)
• We have lots of unusual extra things, like a birthday, parent/teacher conferences, a mortgage refinancing and doctors appointments.
• We're leaving for Ohio on Friday for a week.

Anyway, posting will be light this week!
As will sleep.
Starbucks gift cards are welcome, if you have one you want to share :-)

In other news, Gracie, Colin and I were on TV this morning:
 
Gracie now thinks she is a TV star. She asked if I wanted her autograph. We've created a monster!!

i just stopped in for a few things

and look:

I literally stopped in for soap and toilet paper. But they were having a killer sale! Really!

• See those pillows? They had a package of two feather pillows for $6! 
• See the display right behind the cart? Kids t-shirts for 75 cents and hoodies for $1.50! Colin is good for the summer!
• Valentines Day stuff was 75% off, so we got some sweet stuff for the goodie bags for Ellie's birthday party.
• Target carries groceries now and its about to snow, so like a good Philadelphian I needed to pick up a few things to help me ride out the storm. Because one can't possibly make it through a storm without necessities like Doritos and Coke Zero. (I'm the very embodiment of healthy eating, aren't I? I bought healthy things too!)
• The dollar section had awesome stickers! We love stickers! And they're only $1!

Do you like how I can totally justify that overstuffed shopping cart? I'm not the only one this happens to, right? What store is your downfall?

turning over the same old leaf

Has anyone else made the exact same resolutions they made last year again?

No? Just me?

Every year I want to do the same things. Generally they are some combination of eating healthier, exercising, getting more organized, waking up earlier, reading my Bible/praying more... stuff like that. (So, basically I usually resolve to do things I should have been doing already.  Ahem.)

Going along with this trend, Husband and I decided that we will start waking up at 6am Monday morning. We used to do this, but slacked off majorly in the fall, due to Colin not sleeping for approximately 3 months. (Remember that?) And then we were crazy busy at Christmas, then we were both sick, taking turns getting up with this kids while whoever was sicker got to sleep until the NyQuil wore off. Its not like we're sleeping in until 10 am... but many days we were getting up with this kids at 7-ish and racing to catch the bus at 8.

Those who know me in real life, like my sisters for example, know that I am NOT a morning person. Never have been. Functioning before 7am is very difficult for me. My husband learned soon after we were married that I am not very sociable until I have had a shower and at least one cup of coffee. Having kids has forced me to function on very little sleep, but I still do not naturally wake up easily.

So... getting out of bed today was brutal. But we did it!! We had that First Day of a New Resolution energy going for us. And a lot of coffee.

Tomorrow is probably going to be rough. More coffee.
Wednesday will be rougher. Maybe I can sneak in a nap.
Thursday will probably suck. I'll be falling asleep in the carpool line.
And Friday is going to be brutal. You may not want to cross me that day. Just a head's up.

We'll see what happens next week.

revenge is sweet

Last week, my husband went to Florida. So I may or may not have gotten several snarky telephone calls about how gorgeous and sunny it was, how he wasn't wearing a jacket, blah blah blah.

Where did he have to go this week?

Montana.

Nice.

*****

My Christmas shopping is officially done!!! (Don't be too impressed - our first mini- Christmas is tomorrow, so I'm actually not done that early!)
I went to the King of Prussia Mall yesterday (for non-Philly folks, its one of the biggest malls in America). Its my own fault - I hate going to the mall at Christmas and I've been putting it off. So I bit the bullet.
After discovering that sometimes the mess your children make eating lunch is the car is not worth the time saved letting them eat in the car, I found a parking spot in the next zip code, wrestled a squirming, screaming Colin in his stroller and gave him a lollipop to keep him quiet, gave whiny Gracie a lollipop to keep her quiet and charged in.
The mall itself wasn't too bad, it was the stupid parking lot! It took me fifteen minutes to find a parking spot... and over half an hour to get out of the parking lot!! GRRRR.
But I'm done shopping! For awhile!

*****

So I tried my new Dyson (the D14) and... I hated it. I KNOW, right?! It was supposed to be super amazing!  But was super heavy and hard to maneuver. So I went online and decided to try the DC25 instead. Kohls let me return the first one (Love Kohls!) and I picked up the D25. And I LOVE IT!! LOVE IT LOVE IT!!! It has ruined me for other vacuums.
And let me share the conversation I had with my husband while we were putting the D25 together:
"Well, I was going to get you a Christmas present, but now you have your Dyson."
"WHAT? A vacuum cleaner does NOT count as a Christmas present!"
"A vacuum cleaner doesn't. But this isn't a vacuum cleaner. Its a Dyson."
Not sure I can argue with that one...

*****

Oh, don't forget to enter all of my giveaways this week!

K'NEX 400-piece tub and Sesame Street Collection Building Set
YoBaby gift set

speaking of christmas music...

You've heard of Amazon's 25 Days of Free with a free Christmas song available every day?

I highly recommend:

Joy to the World, Casting Crowns

Silent Night, Sixpence None the Richer

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Jars of Clay

I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day, Casting Crowns

O Holy Night, Mark Harris

Personally, I might spring for these whole albums.....

Peace On Earth by Casting Crowns

Christmas Songs by Jars of Clay

let it begin.

The next two weeks are going to be crazy busy. And by "crazy busy" I mean: "Let's see just how many activities can we possibly cram into a two week period." 

Seriously, we have everything from the Husband's Company Christmas Party to dentist appointments to ballet recitals to business trips to Holiday Extravaganzas. And did I mention Eliza Grace Design is taking Christmas card orders? Because I didn't have enough to do this season ;-)

So if posting is a little light - or exceptionally spaz-tastic - I apologize!!! 

*****

This Thursday is another Try This carnival. This month's theme? Christmas Cookies, of course!! Post your favorite cookie recipe - inspire the rest of us to bake up a storm! AND I'll be giving away an adorable Christmas cookie cutter gift set from Ann Clark!

*****

I am definitely too old to stay up all night. Even though our epic Black Friday shopping adventure was Thursday night - THURSDAY - I am STILL feeling it! FOUR days later! No more all-nighters for me, thank you. College was MUCH too long ago for that!

So, in protest to my Black Friday shopping adventures, I've been shopping online. And can I just say how much I heart Amazon? I cleaned up on their Cyber Monday Deals! Oh, Amazon, you had me at "free shipping!"

Speaking of Cyber Monday, I've collected a bunch of coupon codes for you over on Girlymama Reviews.

*****

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I love Christmas shopping. Love Christmas shopping!! Buying people presents is so much fun.  Shopping is so much fun, but buying people gifts is so, sooo much fun. I just wish I had a bigger budget - because I could totally go nuts.
If I could, I'd buy my husband season tickets to the Philadelphia Union.
What is your dream gift that you'd love to give?