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.

Inquiring Minds Work Overtime

It just hit me a few minutes ago that today is March 29, which means – and this is not a newsflash – that March is almost over. I was trying to decide what to write, and when it hit me that today is March 29, I was a little relieved because that means that two days from now, I’ll have something to write about, as I give my monthly update on my progress toward keeping my resolutions for the year. However, that didn’t really help me too awfully much with coming up with something for today. Ultimately, I decided I’d share a few puzzling questions I have.

First, why is it that when I play Words with Friends or Scrabble on my iPod, I get the crappiest letters? Whoever I’m playing with (a friend if it’s Words with Friends, the computer if it’s Scrabble on the iPod) always seems to come up with the coolest words, and I’m left wondering how’d they get those great letters. I’ll end up with something like 3 I’s, an O, U, Z, X, and Y, all the obscure letters. I’m left scratching my head, just trying to figure out any word I can make. Once I finally figure out a word, then I spend a few more minutes trying to see if I can find a better word. I usually don’t have much luck with that. I’d like to have a few games where I can get the good letters.

Second, how many people will be arrested in Lexington Saturday night for either excessive celebration or excessive mourning? I already blogged about how I think it’s stupid to burn a couch to celebrate. Apparently the Lexington police have decided to agree with me, as they have been issuing warnings all week that extra cameras will be put in place on streets where fans are expected to congregate and that those who set fires or do anything else that is breaking the law will be arrested. The cameras will help with this since they’ll be able to go back and watch and easily identify perpetrators. Of course, I’m really hoping UK pulls out that victory. Even more than that, though, I’m hoping that everybody who decides to celebrate will use some common sense and that no one gets injured.

Third, why don’t I use the crock pot more often? I know, none of you can answer that one for me, but today was one of those days when I decided to use the crock pot. On a normal day, if I don’t have to do anything after work, I can be home between 3:15 and 3:30. On days like today, though, I didn’t get home until after 5. It was very nice to be able to come in from work and not have to spend an hour cooking. All I had to do was spoon supper out of the crock pot and eat. This is definitely something I should do more of.

I do realize that none of these questions are anywhere near the Top Ten of the Most Important Questions in the World, but we don’t always have to be so serious, do we?