I Do Love a Good Gadget

It's 9:15am here deep-in-the-heart-o-Texas. We start school at 9:00am. I wake everyone up at 8:00am. They all get up and get dressed and then get to watch some tv or whatever else they want to do until 8:30am when breakfast is served. Everyone eats, thanks me for the wonderful breakfast, brushes their teeth and eagerly prepare to start their schoolwork. Really. I'm not kidding. It says that on my schedule!

However, here it is now 9:18am and the only one awake, dressed and fed is the 5 year old...because he likes to get up early and invade my private, quiet time with the house to myself.

The girl is sleeping because she has been sick and I decided not to wake her, but to let her rest and get better. The boys are asleep because when I came home from my knitting group last night, the husband was asleep in the recliner, and the boys were playing Call of Duty--Modern Warfare on the PS3....WAY past their bedtime. The 5 year old and I have gone in to wake them up twice so far, but to no avail. On the one hand, this is frustrating...on the other hand, I'm free to write this post...so I'm not trying all that hard to get them up at the moment. Most of the country isn't even having school today because of all the snow. So really, is it fair that we should have to have school just because we live in a place where the sun is shining and it's quickly approaching 50 degrees outside? Even in Dallas they aren't starting school until 10:00am. I think 10:00am is a lovely time to start school today, so 10:00am it is!

So, back to the original purpose of this post--I Do Love a Good Gadget. A couple of years ago, thanks to a generous gift from one of my husband's clients, I received a lovely iPod Nano with Nike Plus that totally transformed my then-running, now-walking life. I was able to listen to my favorite music, or even audiobooks while I got my daily exercise all while my mileage and speed were being tracked and recorded online for my future knowledge and use. It was by far my favorite gadget of all time, and it still holds a very special place in my heart.

However, there is a new contender.

It has long been my theory that the people who need the most recent technology are those who can never afford it, while those who have the funds to purchase all the new wonders don't really need them. For example, flat screen tvs. Those of us who live in tiny houses with way too many people in them, could most certainly use a lovely flat screen tv that hangs on the wall and doesn't take up much needed square footage on the floor. However, the only people that can afford these modern technological marvels are those who have large houses and possibly even an entire media rooms to put one in. You see my point?

I have felt the same way about all the new hand held reading devices on the market today, like the Kindle and the Nook. For those of us with absolutely NO bookshelves in our homes, and no where to put one if we had it, who also happen to love books, this is the best invention EVER! However, even though the prices have started to drop in recent months, they are still a bit in the pricey range.

Enter the smartphone app.

Several months ago, Amazon released a FREE Kindle app for the Android phone. Did I mention that it was FREE????? I couldn't download that thing fast enough! And then I started reading...and reading, and reading, and reading! Basically, no matter where I am, I have a book to read, and believe me--unless I'm in a place where I could be knitting--I'm reading, baby! I even used it way out in the middle of nowhere to download a book to read to David while on a fishing trip with the family. He got bored and wanted to come and sit in the shade with me. I searched the Kindle store from my phone, found a FREE book of classic children's fairy tales, downloaded it within seconds and began reading to my boy!

I currently have one Diana Galbaldon novel, A Daily Devotional from Oswald Chambers, an Andy Andrews book for teens that my boys are reading for school, and my favorite--Lisa McKay's book "You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes" all on my Kindle ready for reading whenever I want...no bookshelf required.

So how about you, do you love gadgets too, what is your current favorite?