Earned.

So, my husband can sometimes be a dunce when it comes to being chronically romantic (my choice of words... upkeep can get tiring, I agree), but other times he reminds me just why I fell for so much more than his pretty face.

We were talking the other day about Stu getting an ipod touch and I was less-than-thrilled at the idea. The man doesn't quite have a "delicate touch" when it comes to electronics, appliances, etc. So all I could picture was this delicate little “touch” screen and his greasy-from-working-on-airplanes-all-day huge, masculine hands wreaking havoc on the poor thing. He has been through 4 mp3 players in the past two years. And I let him borrow mine for a week and he brought it back saying, “the play button sticks.” When I went to investigate his damage, he’d also managed to scratch the thing! So, $350 ipod touch seems like a no-go in my brain.

But then he starts suggesting things that I might like. He was none-too-thrilled by my response of “Avocados” when he asked me what the last thing I’d bought for myself was that I didn’t actually need, or that didn’t need replaced (insert eye roll at my response).

Then, a simple hook, line and sinker, he added, “You are the most unselfish person I know. It’s time for you to get something just for you.” And alas, my Kindle is on its way! We felt kind of silly spending $700 bucks in one day when we often say how “broke” we are at the end of the week when we’ve run out of butter or milk because of the ridiculous budget we keep for ourselves (but money doesn’t grow in the savings account like ours does without strict budget controls... or we'd never come home). We decided these “prizes” would be Mother’s and Father’s Day presents for ourselves and each other.

For those who don’t have an obsessed friend, or frequently shop on Amazon, a Kindle is Amazon’s cool new device that downloads and stores books that you can read on it tiny, thin screen (it can hold up to 1,500 books!). It only weighs 10 ounces and the books download in about a minute for anywhere from free to $9.99. So of course, until it arrives, I’ve already started a Favorites folder with ones I can’t wait to add (included are Christine Coppa’s book Rattled, which I’ve been waiting to read since before she started writing it… as well as a couple free options from a cook book to Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility). I can’t wait. It’s so ‘me’.

In the meantime, I have been reading “Love Walked In” by Marisa De Los Santos, which is NOT a Twilight book, which is all I cared about as I HAD to get out (if only temporarily) of that fantasy world I’d been stuck in. It is pretty good so far. She over-uses book and movie references, but it reads in a fun way. The other thing that’s kind of masochistically fun is the range of emotions it brings about as she jumps from the tragic and heart-wrenching story of an 11-year-old girl, to the feeling of ecstasy of new love. It has been excruciatingly predictable thus far, but I don’t find that it detracts from the reading experience much. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’m about half-way through it now.

I also got to catch up with my friend Melissa this week, who is expecting her second child, a girl this time! I found a couple of knitting patterns on Ravelry that I want to try out (I don't have a girl so I haven't been able to make girlie things yet!). This is how I plan to spend a lot of my free time now that school is almost over.

That’s about it for us. I feel such a weight off my shoulders having finished that final paper. Now I just have a (hopefully) easy final in Tech. Comm., and a (painfully hard) final in A&P, which I plan to study for exclusively over the next week.

Perhaps a slide is in Kaden’s future, but we have to get over to Toys R Us for that one. Stay tuned!