Fire Convenient, but Not Necessary to Kindle My Love of Reading

For Christmas, my wonderful husband got me a Kindle Fire, among other things. Last year (2011), he had gotten me a Kindle for my birthday, and I was enjoying it more than I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, I still love holding an actual book in my hands, turning pages while I read, using a real bookmark to mark my spot, and closing up the book when I’ve made it to the end. I can’t do any of those things when reading on my Kindle, but I have still enjoyed the convenience the Kindle allows me.

As my kids starting getting the Kindle Fire for themselves, I was intrigued enough to want to upgrade, and thankfully my husband took care of that for me. Fortunately, Amazon doesn’t place a limit on the number of Kindles that can be registered to an account, because I currently have seven registered to my account – my original one, and then a Fire for Byron, Nic, Cody, Tiffany, Ashley, and, now, me. The great thing is that we can share books and apps.

For the most part, when it comes to apps, most of what has been applied to our account has been free apps. There is the occasional app that somebody will pay for, but even then, I don’t recall anybody paying more than $5 for an app. Often, we also choose free books. A lot of the books on our Cloud are classics, and I have chosen some free books as well. That’s not to say that on occasion one of us doesn’t buy a book just for the Kindle. The great thing about all these Kindles on one account is that whatever one person buys goes to the Cloud and is available for all of us. All we have to do is download it to our own device.

Now that I have the Kindle Fire, I’m quite happy. I’m not going to stop reading actual books that I can hold in my hands, but there are so many other things I can do with the Fire. I will use my Fire for reading books, but I also have several apps that I will enjoy. There are games, such as Scrabble, Unolingo, Tetris, Solitaire, Jewels Star, Logo Quiz, Words with Friends, Jeopardy, and The American Bible Challenge. I have apps for Pinterest, WordPress, and Facebook on there. Two other apps that I’m looking forward to using are the WWPP Calculator (Weight Watchers Points Plus) and Lose It! I’ll be revising my weight-loss goal for 2013, and I’m hoping the combination of these two apps will make achieving that goal a little easier for me.

There are many other things I could choose to do with my Kindle Fire, including adding music, videos, and pictures, but I’m not sure I will do that. I still use my iPod for listening to music. I don’t know that I want to watch videos on a 7-inch screen, and I have pictures on my iPod and my phone, so I’m just not sure if I’ll be moving pictures over to the Fire or not. There’s a tab for audiobooks, but I’ve never been fond of “listening” to a book, so I don’t see myself using that. I’m also not sure how often I’ll use the tab for the newsstand. The tab for docs may come in handy. I won’t upload a lot of documents to work with, but it will be handy for carrying around the file that has my booklist. Too often I’m in a bookstore and can’t remember if I have a certain book. Being able to access this list will make life much easier. I’m sure there will be times when I’ll have another document that it will be handy to have easy access to, and when that happens, I’ll simply move it to the Kindle. Finally, there is the web link, and I’m sure that when wi-fi is available and I don’t have the laptop handy, I will be using the web browser. I’m not sure how often that will be, but it’s nice to have it if I want it.

I’ve only had my Kindle Fire for five days, but I’m very grateful to my husband for getting it for me. I had used my old Kindle more than I thought I would in the year and a half that I’ve had it, and I imagine that I’ll use the Fire even more. A couple weeks ago, someone was talking to me and said that she had read her first actual book in over a year, and it seemed weird to her to be reading a book where she had to hold it and turn pages because over the year she had only been reading books on her Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. I have decided that I like the convenience of reading on the Kindle, but I still love to hold and read actual books. The great thing about this device is that it does not have to replace your books. It can complement them. As for me, I’ll use my Fire as much for the other apps as I will for reading, and I will still be reading actual books along the way.

A Good, Long Weekend

Today was my first “vacation” day from work, and while I haven’t done much of anything, I have enjoyed it very much. As I write, I’m actually trying to keep myself from falling into a nap zone. I’m having limited success with that, and it can be a little frustrating when you keep nodding off while you’re supposed to be doing something productive. At this point, though, it doesn’t matter that I’m writing while sitting on the bed. I’m pretty sure the recliner would have the same effect.

For my students, they were able to enjoy a four-day weekend. I had meetings to attend on Friday, so I only got to enjoy a three-day weekend, but I’ll take it. Saturday was spent at home, with the exception of a trip to the grocery store. I would have preferred to spend the entire day at home, but I hadn’t been grocery shopping in forever and it was a chore I could no longer put off. Sunday was spent at Mom and Dad’s, visiting with the family. It’s always a lot of fun when we all get together. Today, it was great to get to sleep in, and when I got up, I fixed some bacon and sausage and we went to Mom’s for brunch. After a couple hours there, it was back home, and I must admit, I’ve been pretty lazy. The most productive things I’ve accomplished so far today have been downloading a couple new games to my iPod and uploading some pictures and placing a Shutterfly order. Now, I’m trying to be productive and get this blog done.

I can’t believe how late into the evening it already is. Trav, Ashley, Mady, and Cody will be heading back to Lexington soon. Nic doesn’t have class until Wednesday, so she gets to stay until tomorrow evening. We still need to figure out what supper will be, maybe a new recipe since August wasn’t real productive in that area. I have one or two things that I’m debating about whether to do before going back to work tomorrow. Right now, it’s not looking like they’ll get done, but that’s OK; they don’t have to be finished tonight. And I’ve spent another weekend and not done any reading. Hopefully, I will be able to do some reading later. I’m going to have to if I plan to reach that goal.

One of the big things I’ve got to figure out is getting into some sort of after-school routine this week that will allow me to do all the things I want to do. I need a little bit of time to work on household chores, a little bit to do work stuff, a little bit to do writing stuff, and a little bit to read. Sounds easy enough, until you consider that I only have about six workable hours after school each day to get these things done. I’ve been trying to think about how to work out a schedule, and I guess I’ll just have to jot something down and then work at tweaking it until I get it the way I want it. Part of the problem is I don’t like having all my time scheduled, but I don’t really know another way around that.

It’s already September, and I still have a lot I want to accomplish for the year, and to do that, I’m going to have to buckle down and get it done. I have time to do it, but I may have to work on my motivation, which is a little harder to do after working all day and then hitting the recliner. I do know that any chores around the house that need to be done must be done before I hit the recliner, otherwise, they won’t get done that day. The problem with hitting the recliner is that I may as well schedule in some nap time because the recliner has a way of putting me to sleep, and I’ve discovered once I start nodding off, I may as well stop fighting it and take that 15-minute power nap. Sometimes, though, it ends up being a 60-minute power nap.

For now, though, it’s time to figure out what supper will be and enjoy the remaining few hours of my day off. It’s been a pretty restful weekend, and it’s nice to have a short work week ahead. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I will have my routine figured out so I can accomplish some reading and writing goals before the end of the year.

All Packed and Ready to Go

We’re still waiting for my granddaughter to arrive. I have my packing done, so when Trav calls, I can just load the stuff into the car and head to Lexington. After I packed, though, I had to make a list (you all know how fond I am of lists) so I wouldn’t forget to take anything with me. After I made the list, it hit me, yet again, how much things have changed since I gave birth to my children.

I’ve already looked at what seems like a bazillion new gadgets for babies, things that would’ve made things much easier 25 years ago when Byron was born. And the interesting thing is that when I had Byron, my mom pointed out all the things I had that made things easier for me than they had been for her. I suppose that’s just the way of things, but even 25 years ago when Byron was born, I looked at all the conveniences I had for taking care of that baby boy, and I wondered how in the world anybody had been able to take care of a baby in previous centuries. I guess it just comes down to the fact you do what you have to do with what you have, but let’s just say, I’m glad I was having my children in the 20th century.

When I think back about packing to go to the hospital when I had my kids, it was really quite simple. Basically all that was needed was a  suitcase of clothes for me, a couple outfits and a few gadgets for the baby. Then I look at the list I just made, those “essential” things I have to take when I head to Lexington. Obviously, there is a suitcase of clothes for me and Jimmy, and there is the toiletry bag (the one I keep packed so it’s ready to go at a moment’s notice for whatever situation may arise). Since we’ll likely be spending a night or two at Trav’s, there is the air mattress so we aren’t sleeping on the floor. After that, though, it’s just the fun stuff that, sad as it may be, have become essential items for a trip – the cell phone, the laptop, the iPod, the digital camera and the Sony Handycam, the Kindle, and, of course, chargers for all those gadgets.

The rapid pace of technological developments blows my mind anyway. As soon as a product hits the market, it’s already out-of-date. My current list includes things I never would have thought possible 25 years ago when Byron was born. I can’t even begin to imagine what we will have by the time my granddaughter is ready to become a mother.

It is what it is, though. We rely heavily on these technological gizmos, and that won’t change. As more products are developed and marketed, we’ll become even more dependent on them. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, but that’s a blog for another day. For now, I’ll be passing my day using those various devices to get things accomplished (I am still working on getting things ready for school to start, wondering how I ever managed to get anything done before I had the laptop) and waiting for my granddaughter to arrive. I have the list on the nightstand, so I’m ready to go, as long as in my excitement I don’t forget to check the list.

Making Memories in Sweetwater

Last Sunday, Jimmy, Nic, and I ventured to Sweetwater, TN, to spend the week with my brother and my nephew. My sister-in-law and my other nephew were going to a youth conference in Daytona, and my brother needed somebody to babysit while he continued to work during the week. The result? I ended up with an unplanned vacation, a week away to relax and not worry about anything. It was a great week.

After our nightmare on I-75 South on Jellico Mountain when we made our anniversary trip to Pigeon Forge, we found a detour and used that to head south. The detour did add some time to the trip, however, unlike in March when we spent over two hours on Jellico, moving six miles in two hours, I didn’t mind the extra time from the detour because at least we were always moving at a regular, normal rate of speed. Since I-75 North on Jellico isn’t really a problem, we didn’t use the detour coming home, but we did get a look at the slow, snail-like traffic heading south, and it actually brought back horrific flashbacks of our trip in March. I was thankful we chose to take the detour on that Sunday afternoon when we headed south. If any of you are going to be heading south and will be using I-75 through Jellico, I strongly recommend that you use the Internet and find a detour. Your trip will go smoother and you will still be sane when you arrive at your destination.

My nephew is almost ten, so it’s not like babysitting him was a lot of real work. He slept in, so I didn’t have to get up until between 9 and 10 each morning. I fed him breakfast and lunch. He played video games and watched TV, and every day, he chose a movie for us to watch after lunch: Monday – Toy Story 3, Tuesday – Shrek 2, Wednesday – Hoodwinked, Thursday – Ice Age, and Friday – Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I hadn’t seen Toy Story 3 yet. I kept putting it off. Everybody who had seen it and who knew me told me I would cry, so I had been avoiding it. As we watched the movie, the closer it got to the end, he kept watching. I’m proud of myself. I didn’t bawl, but he did notice that I did get teary-eyed. But I have a question. Really, who completely empties their kids’ rooms when they leave for college? Do they not plan for the kid to come home on weekends? Or Thanksgiving, Christmas, or summer breaks? It was totally unrealistic for Andy and his mother to be standing in a completely empty room, just because he was going off to college. My kids still have plenty of their stuff in their rooms, and they still use those rooms. Had the ending portrayed a more realistic point of view, I may have bawled. Since it didn’t, teary-eyed will have to do.

When we watched Hoodwinked, I told him I really liked that movie because it was a great illustration of point of view. We then started talking about things “literary,” which he did not enjoy. He pointed out that it was summer and we didn’t need to talk about school stuff during the summer. I told him I had let some of my students watch the movie and they had to do assignments based on the literary elements in the movie, and he thought that was awful. And he really wasn’t happy when I pointed out that all movies had things literary in them. From that point on, when I attempted to talk about things literary (which he called something like “literee” the first time he said it), he would cover his ears to let me know he didn’t want to hear it.

And later, he broke my heart. He did start by telling me he hated to break the news to me, but grammar stuff and English stuff were his least favorite things in school. Poor kid. My heart healed a little when he said that his favorite subject was history. I am, after all, a history minor, so even if he doesn’t like both my passions, at least he’s fond of one of them, so that’s something. The poor kid even tried to play games on my iPod, but he pointed out that all my games except for Fruit Ninja were grammar or word games, and he just wasn’t interested in those. He did become quite good at Fruit Ninja, though.

While he played, I accomplished a few things. One day, I got quite a bit done on my project. Another, I organized all the folders on my jump drive and fixed my blank calendars to get ready for the 2012-13 school year. I also found a couple great ideas that I’ll use for my classes this fall. During the rest of the time, I read a book and half of another. My AP kids will be thrilled to hear that I’m going to see if our librarian can get me a class set of the one I read so that they can also have the pleasure of reading it.

I’m not an NBA fan. I enjoyed watching Brandon play high school and college ball. I enjoy watching my niece Kayla play basketball. I enjoy watching the UK men’s team play ball. Other than, I’m not much for basketball. My nephew, however, watches a lot of different sports, and seems to have a favorite team for nearly all of them. Given that, we watched the NBA Finals games. His favorite team is the Heat, and his favorite player is Lebron, so Thursday night, he got to stay up late to watch the game, and it was fun to see him so excited that his team won the championship.

Even though for the most part, we just hung out at the house, the week flew by. We had a great, relaxing time while in Tennessee, but as with any traveling, there’s always the long drive home. I love to travel, but when it’s time to go home, I’m just ready to be home. By that time, there are two signs that make me extremely happy. The first is the big blue and white one that says, “Welcome to Kentucky.” About 2 1/2 to 3 hours later, I see the other, a smaller green one that says, “Breathitt County.” Regardless of what’s wrong with Breathitt County (and really, don’t all places have their problems?), it is home, and I’m always happy to return to it.