Yes, I know. I do the whole Christmas with Your Insides thing and then here I am giving you some gift ideas. But hang in there with me.
These are things I actually own and use on a regular basis. They are USEFUL. They are not just stuff cluttering my space.
And here we go!
1. Amazon Kindle. I bought a Kindle back in late January/early February. I had crunched the numbers and decided it would be cheaper for me to purchase the Kindle and ebooks through it, rather than purchasing regular books. To date I have purchased 108 books (though I haven’t read all of them yet). Had I bought them as regular books, I would have spent $1153.51. With my Kindle, I ended up spending $809.39. That’s a savings of $344.12 on the books themselves. Now, of course, you have to take into account the purchase price of the Kindle. I paid full price (before they started reducing them) of $259.00. So, in the end, I still saved $85.12 this year and next year I won’t have to add in the cost of the Kindle at all. With the Kindles priced as they are now, at $139 and $189, you are definitely getting a great deal.
When I want to go away for the weekend, all of my books come with me in my Kindle. When I am waiting on appointments, I read my Kindle. There are services that I can use to read blogs on it. I use it several times a day, everyday.
2. Canon PowerShot SD960IS. This is my first digital camera. I didn’t have a camera beyond my cell phone camera for years But as I went deeper and deeper into blogging, I realized that I wanted to take better pictures and use them on my blog. I also knew that I needed to stay in a budget for a point and shoot.
Enter the Canon PowerShot SD960. It’s very intuitive and easy to use. My pictures are wonderful. I’m very happy with this camera. The battery lasts a long time and I have yet to have to clear the memory to make room for new pictures. I keep it in my purse so that I can take pictures whenever it strikes my fancy.
3. Motorola T215 Bluetooth Portable Car Speaker. Bluetooth headsets have never worked for me – and I have tried them ALL. I have spent hundreds of dollars, but no one can ever hear me on them. I had pretty much given up on the whole hands-free thing until I met this little beauty.
It looks like a garage door opener, but it’s actually a Bluetooth that you hang onto your visor in your car. You speak into it, you can hear your callers out of it – it’s perfect! It lasts forever on one battery charge. I am in love with it!
4. Motorola Droid II. Oh yeah, I love my Droid! This phone does everything but make me breakfast. I want to have baby Droids with it. I love the functionality and the tons of apps it has. I haven’t yet played with every single feature yet, but I find new things to love about it everyday. Because it’s Google technology, it works very well with your Gmail and Google Calendar.
I chose the Droid II because of the pullout keyboard. I’m so glad to have that. And if I don’t feel like typing, then I can just talk into the voice to text feature and it writes my texts for me.
5. Skylink SC-100 Security System Deluxe Kit. I’m not going to lie to you, kids; it’s getting desperate out there. With unemployment still incredibly high, people are turning to petty theft (or worse) to find items to sell to make some fast cash. We live in a well-to-do suburb here but break-ins have increased around us.
Bob used to sell security systems, so he knew what he wanted for our place. This Skylink system works very well for us. I know that I sleep easier at night knowing that this will go off as soon as the door connection is broken, giving us time to react as necessary. And most thieves are scared off by the sound and sight of an alarm system. You get used to arming it right away.
I have the old school Apple iPod classic that was so exciting when it came out with video. Remember that? No, because you were probably still in diapers. Oh well. Anyway, iPod, iTouch, iAnything really will get you a lot of thumbs ups Christmas morning.
I use my iPod everyday, although the battery is starting to be unhappy all of the time. I have transferred a lot of my music to my Droid II phone, but I have to admit, I have my eye on the iPod nano 16 GB in…orange. It’s cute and light and would be fun for workouts.
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