Phew! What a week. I think I'm going to need some time to get my summer schedule ironed to see where regular blog posts will appear. I actually meant for this to post on Tuesday, but I've just been so tired. My body just needs to adjust to the whole going to bed early/waking up at 6 routine. Once it does though, I should be all set. Today is my day off so I slept in (until 9 whoohoo) and need to do some things around the house. Here was my week through pictures. Note: I've only done up to last Tuesday and will hopefully have this present week to post on next Tuesday. Just bear with me.
A) New package from ELF. Always love new makeup. B) Having some down time to actually paint my nails. C) Finishing getting ready for the Red Hot Chili Pepper's concert with my rock star eyes. D) The less glamorous side of being Carly B.; throwing away weeds 'n' things at the local garden dump.
A) Celebrating Mother's Day early with Julie and ice cream cake from Maggie Moo's. B) Dress worn to visit the g-ma on Mother's Day in Chambersburg, PA. C) BIGGEST NEWS EVER!!!!! While visiting my grandparents, I told them about my new obsession with records and my grandfather just happens to have an extra portable turntable that he just gave to me!!! He also gave me a whole bunch of his old records to play on it. I am seriously in heaven. I'll probably do a whole post on it soon because I'm so excited. Seriously!? Simon & Garfunkel originals??? D) Katie and I breaking it down to our new obsession Big Time Rush. It is true. There are times when we definitely have questionable taste in music.
Hope everyone had a wonderful week and a wonderful Mother's Day. I've got some more posts lined up that I need to work on today, but then I should be back on track.
So for some reason tonight I'm on this really big "I love my Nook" kick. Austin came over to hang out and for some reason, I convinced her to dive head first into the e-reader pond. We're both pretty avid readers and I'm just so excited that I thought I would write this little post. I've been reading a bunch lately and have been living in book heaven. I'm working on doing reviews on them soon (spoiler: I might have read a book that's title rhymes with Schmifty Dades of Prey and will be unfortunately talking about it soon because I seriously don't get it).
My little book corner
I've always loved reading, and when these e-readers started to become popular, I vowed that I would never fall under their spell. I liked the feel of the paper of books too much to think of them as just another digitized phenomenon. To be fair, I stuck to my old school guns and lived in my happy. little, paper world for some time. And then I decided to study abroad in London. As my trip started to get closer, I started having a dilemma. I wanted to bring books to read (and I knew I was taking a lit class and would need novels), but I didn't want to waste weight with packing books. So for Chanukah I asked my Dad and Julie for a Nook so I could carry a library in my purse. I know there's a lot of hoopla over which is better: Kindle of Nook. I'm just going to weigh in my opinions on to why I choose the Barnes and Noble enterprise over Amazon (warning: these are just my opinions and I'm going to be honest, some of them are pretty superficial). So here we go.
Since I really just wanted something I could read from, I knew I wanted the simplest of the simplest. No color. No special apps I could buy. I already have an iPhone with the Nook app, but I wanted something bigger and not so harsh on my eyes. The model I have is the Nook: Simple Touch. I know they just came out with the option for a GlowLight, but when I got mine; this option wasn't available. Even if it was, I think I would still stick with the cheapest.
On the surface the Simple Touch and Amazon's simplest version of the Kindle appear to be similar. They each have a 6 inch reading screen. Each have built in WiFi. Each can download books in seconds, and each can "check out" books from their public library (although this is newer for Kindle). Yada yada yada. But here's the thing. At $79 the Kindle comes with ads. I know these aren't that annoying and are easily ignorable, but there's something about my reading experience where I don't want advertisements thrust in my face whenever I turn it on. You can buy the Kindle without such ads, but that'll cost you $109. The Nook Simple Touch usually costs $99 (they're having a Mother's Day special where the Simple Touch is now $79 which is a nice little deal). This isn't that much of a difference price-wise, but the Simple Touch has a fully useable TOUCHSCREEN. That's just awesome and it's super handy. It might not be as big of a deal to others, but I just thought it was a nice bonus where you get a little more technology for your money.
Now Amazon offers the Kindle Touch which has the missing touchscreen. The version with ads is priced the same as the Simple Touch at $99 and the version without the pop-ups is $139. Again, it came down to price for me. I'd rather spend the 30 or so dollars I saved on a cute cover for my Nook. The only real advantage I find to the Kindle Touch is that it apparently can hold 3,000 titles whereas the Simple Touch holds 1,000. I think if I eventually get to that level of book ownage, I can solve this "problem" when I get there. You can always delete books or save them on your computer when needed so this doesn't seem that brag-worthy.
And for the superficial part. I prefer the look of the Nook to the Kindle. There. I'm judging fake books by their covers. The Nook is slightly wider and squatter and "feel"s more like a book. It's more curved on the edges and has a softer appearance. Again, it's silly, but it's something I took into consideration. I mean if I'm going to be handling this thing, I'd better like its face.
So there you have it. For me it came down to price and feel for the machine. I also feel that Amazon has the "every necessity" market covered (did you know you could buy food through Amazon?) so I feel like I still have to support my large, chain book store. Ha. I still love the feel of an actual book in my hands, and I relish in entering family-owned book stores or used book fairs. I just find the e-books to be an easy, quick, and sometimes cheaper way of acquiring new literature.
My Nana and Pop-pop have a Nook and a Kindle respectively and each have their own opinions as well. Apparently my Pop-pop prefers the Kindle since it has a lot of his science magazines and sci-fi novels he likes whereas Nana prefers pure fiction and mystery. So it really is to each his own. Whichever machine you get, it's going to be amazing. It's been such a great experience for me and was truly a lifesaver while traveling. So do you have any opinions about the great Nook/Kindle debate? I'd be glad to hear your thoughts! Either way, I'm under the opinion that either company's upper scale models like the Nook Tablet of Kindle Fire are sort of unnecessary. Why wouldn't you just get an iPad? I know it's cheaper, but it just seems rather silly to have a paper book that had games on it as well. I just can't quite wrap my head around the idea.
See! I told you that you wouldn't have to wait another week to hear from me. Ever since I got back I seem to have been very determined to actually do something with me time. I've always been a sort of lazy procrastinator to put it mildly. My first morning back, I woke up at 6 am and immediately started doing laundry and organizing my luggage. Along this resolve, I've decided to take at least one picture every day. So far this week, I've been successful. I also decided to get back on Instagram (my name's framedpersonality if you want to follow along!) and have been having a lot of fun looking back at my week through various little pictures. I usually don't do the most exciting things, but that's my life and I feel we need to document the little things to get some retrospect. So I think I'll do a good job at keeping this up and you can look forward to more crappy iPhone photos in the future!
A) It's almost summer time, which means my crafty bones are shaking. I'll let you know if this actually gets started/finished. (has anyone out there attempted punch needle and if so, any pointers?) B) Owl met a new friend in Austin's car C) New shade of lipstick that I'm super in love with D) My Swedish Embroidery afghan that I started last summer is almost done! So excited to show you guys the finished product.
A) Listening to probably the best song ever sung in the car B) Saying "Hi" to Katie's horse Derby C) Eating a Bleu and Pear salad at Tomato Pie Cafe. It's so good to be back in Lititz D) Going with Katie and Maxine to See Madama Butterfly in Lancaster.
A) Grabbing a beer with my Pops at Annie Bailey's on First Friday in Lancaster B) Zoe's artwork at her school's cute little art show. Love the bright colors! C) Lily's contribution to the show. She painted Harry Potter and his broom stick D) Chicken lasagna with fried parsnips on top at Ma(i)son.
A) Margaritas for Cinco de Mayo B) The girls reading while waiting for their dance recital to start. Zoe's got Hop on Pop while Lily's reading The Adventures of Luke Skywalker
So that was my week. In retrospect a lot of stuff happened. I got to spend a lot of time with my littlest sisters and got to see them tap to "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" which was just a lot of fun. After their recital, I went out with my sister and a few friends to see The Avengers, which by the way, was pretty kick ass. I walked out of there super pumped and felt like I was a superhero. Luckily I realized I wasn't before I did anything reckless. That would have been bad... Hope everyone else had a great week!
Sorry for the bit of the silence on the blog. I've been back in the States for a week now, and I'm just trying to make sure I get reorganized before this summer gets away from me and I'm surrounded by both material things as well as summer goals that are never achieved. I'm hoping to hop back on a more "regular" blogging schedule, but we shall have to wait and see if I become more inspired these next few months. So bear with me. I'm planning on finishing documenting my travels (Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice) as well as some other lighter posts. I've never been much for New Year's Resolutions, but I'm thinking about writing out a few summer resolutions to see if I can keep to any of them. So until next time friends! I promise it won't be more than a week until our paths cross. So are the days of our lives.... You know. That sort of thing.
