Meal Planning

So I'm knocked up now, and the employee share of healthcare costs is about to skyrocket for about 2 years (Q, your husband's company rocks--Mr. Borealis' company is going HSA only starting January 1).  I have commenced a stranglehold on my household budget because I'm unsure if I will want to return to work after I pop in April.

Realizing that I've kept this decision very private up to this point, and have been very career-oriented, let me explain this logic.  Contrary to popular belief, I do not hate children, and nor have I ever said that I do not want kids.  I have said that I would be okay *not* having kids, and this is still true; I don't view the ultimate purpose of my life to be producing or raising offspring, and I am blessed with a large family and many personal goals worth pursuing.  All of that is not to say that kids are unwelcome--I just view a child as one more along for the adventure (...kind of like my husband).  

I have not caught the "baby fever," and we were waiting to be prepared and ready.  Anyone paying attention is aware that last year we moved from a condo into a 4 bedroom house with a sweet backyard in a good school district.  I am not shopping for tiny booties or tiny bibs or tiny whatever else the normal female response in this situation is.  I have no desire to hold other babies and "practice".  I don't feel magical--I feel exhausted and sick, and if I have to listen to one more female relative tell me how wonderful it is being pregnant and how great I must feel, somebody is going to get smacked.  And for goodness sake, I am now entering my second trimester, and it isn't getting better, and I wish people would stop saying that I will feel better soon--my back pain is increasing, my nausea and exhaustion are now coupled with migraines in the evening, I'm told I have started sleepwalking.  

Also, my grandmother passed away on the 11th, and being pregnant at that funeral wins the awkward moment of the year award.  I'm still not over her death.  Hearing "Congratulations, you must be so happy" repeatedly during a loved one's funeral is exactly what I didn't need.  I hung out with my grandmother a week and a half earlier and she was so happy and said she wanted to babysit, and she didn't get to.  She was someone I really would have wanted my kids to have a connection with, and she was someone I was close to, and I am still messed up about her death.

...And back to the work thing.  We had privately discussed that putting our kids in daycare full time is not our preferred option, and especially not at an early age.  So, I may be taking a short career break to take care of things at home.  I'm planning to get a part-time job during that time, or I may go completely insane being trapped inside the house day after day.

To cover the lapse in income, I am investigating how to cut our food costs.  And I discovered this site:  http://www.grocerybudget101.com.  It's pretty neat; I'm going to try it.

That's all for now,

Alula

Kindle Library Lending

Amazon just posted this notice today.

Fuzzy, it looks like you'll be able to start checking out ebooks on your Kindle later this year!  WOOHOO!  They don't list the specific libraries they have "partnered" with anywhere, but I'm suspecting that this is actually a partnership with Overdrive (which already has partnered with the libraries).  If that is the case, then you'll have to come down here and grab library cards to our local libraries with this service to get in on the action.  Hopefully you'll have the same level of access on the Kindle that is available on the Nook; how sweet would it be in your remote location to still be able to browse and check out books to read for free from the library?  I bet you could put audiobooks from the libraries on your new MP3 player, too.

Amazon Cloud Player

Today I stumbled upon Amazon's new service, the Amazon Cloud Player.  This service allows you to upload all of your music files to a free online cloud storage locker hosted by Amazon.  The first 5GB are free, and your music purchases from Amazon don't count toward the storage limit.  You can buy more storage space for a very reasonable yearly rate if you need it, though I have just discovered that my current library of music sits at just about 4.8GB, and I could probably prune down the files I want online if I had to.  In the past I have traditionally used MP3 downloads from Amazon because the prices were better than iTunes, but more recently the prices from most services have more or less leveled out.  Oh, I should probably also mention that the Amazon Cloud Player, while being designed for music, can also store other file types.

The reason this service is a big deal is that digital licenses aren't required to upload your music, which that (if you're anything like me) the old files you had copied from CDs you purchased that don't have digital licenses attached can be uploaded to a place where they are stored and protected (YAY!).  And from the cloud storage, your songs can be streamed to any compatible device, and downloaded to your computer or device.  I note the downloading feature for Mr. Q, who recently went over to the dark side by purchasing a Mac.  At least for now, it appears that Amazon is taking a cheap shot at iOS by purposely making the streaming features of the service *not* work on iOS devices (there is, however, a download for Android).  I found another review where someone confirmed that this is not a Flash issue; however, a possible work around is that while you can't stream, downloading to iOS systems still works.

Of course, this awesome system does not come without its troubles.  The music industry is peeved that Amazon dare offer a streaming service where people can play the music that they have rightfully purchased and own, and will likely bring a lawsuit concerning digital licenses (read more about this issue here).  Obviously there is potential for abuse here, though I don't see how it could be any greater than any other cloud storage system, and those exist in abundance.  Personally, I think the music industry will end up having to let this one go or lose their case--it's overstepping the copyright to say that I can't store files I own in a legitimate cloud service.  If I were using it for criminal purposes instead of solely for personal use, then they would have a case, and I'm betting that existing anti-filesharing efforts would already net these culprits (i.e., when your ISP or Amazon notices that your IP address or Cloud account is seeing 50GB worth of downloading music files every day, something is probably up).

So, I encourage you all to check out this great service--this is a fantastic way to archive your music files to be sure you don't lose them when your computer dies and takes iTunes with it or your MP3 player get dropped in a bath tub.

Alula

NOOKstudy--I wish I had had this when I was in school...

During the last month Barnes & Noble made available a new, free, downloadable service called NOOKstudy.  I stumbled upon it earlier this week while downloading some free ebooks for my Nook.  The name is slightly deceptive (in my opinion) because NOOKstudy is not a feature for the Nook device (at least not yet).  It's a download for PC or Mac that provides access to your Barnes & Noble ebook library on the computer, and more specifically, it provides access to certain etextbook services.  In the FAQ section, B&N claims that this is because the computer is the most universally owned student electronic, making the PC/Mac the natural vehicle for the first incarnation of the NOOKstudy service.  I can imagine that DRM, etextbook formating for a smaller screen, and syncing might be issues if this service were to extend to ereader devices in the future, but I bet that B&N is already looking into it.

NOOKstudy differentiates itself from the regular downloadable Nook applications with several polished services, and most notably, textbook DRM.  Through NOOKstudy, you can purchase etextbooks that can be downloaded to 2 computers associated with your account, or rent the textbooks for cheaper than the purchase price for the semester that you are taking the class.  This probably works the same way that checking out an ebook from the library works--you get a digital download with an expiration date, and after that date, you can no longer access the book.  A further difference between the NOOKstudy application and the regular Nook app is the ability to highlight text, insert digital notes, import your own documents (think class syllabus, notes taken during class in a Word .doc, or downloadable handouts created by the professor), and group documents using tags or by course.  The system is fully search enabled, and offers features like being dictionary or online lookup services from within the application.

I really wish I would have had this during all my years in college.  I have literal stacks of textbooks and notebooks in my basement that I have to search by memory to find what I'm looking for, and it would be so much easier to have it all inside my PC, where I could search my class notes like I search my email!  As a student of library science, this level of control to digitally organize and search pleases me.

Also, the ability to rent certain textbooks digitally would have been nice, because some textbooks really weren't worth the purchase price to use for one semester.  I have to wonder if some universities will fight this transition to digital tooth and nail because it's likely to put university bookstores out of business.  For example, you don't get a resale value on a digital rental.  I had professors in college who authored their own textbooks and then released new editions every few years so students would be required to buy the book new every semester (heavily devaluing the used resale value), thereby keeping their royalty checks up.  If students can now rent that textbook for $50 instead of buying it for $200, some of these money hungry, empty-student-wallet-squeezing, arrogant professors might decide to not release the book in digital form to support their profits.  As a student, if I saw this happening, I would elect to take the class from someone else--when I'm already paying 10-20K a year in tuition, I shouldn't have to buy an over-priced textbook filled with information I can find online that I will probably crack twice over the course of the semester (midterms and finals).

I do have one question/concern for Barnes & Noble regarding this service, and this has to do with renting vs. buying.  If I rent a textbook, and take notes throughout, would I lose access to my notes once the rental expires?  Also, what if I rent a book, and then like it so much that I decide to buy it--will the program automate the process of moving all of my notes and highlights from the rental file to the purchased one, or do I have to do that myself?

One thing I might suggest to B&N to include in this service is academic file sharing, similar to the LendMe service they have on the Nook devices, where you can digitally loan a file to a friend for a limited amount of time.  There's another free research aid that I have used a lot at work called Mendeley, which works kind of like iTunes for your PDFs.  You can upload your PDFs and tag them, do full text search across your library, create research groups to share what you are reading and learning, and even upload them to the cloud to have online access to your PDFs anywhere.  It's spiffy, and the base level membership is free (you pay more for more online storage, but I have never needed more than the basic level).  It would be very neat if B&N would incorporate this type of group sharing and collaboration into their NOOKstudy, thereby making it a social learning tool--this type of service might be able to overtake online learning systems like Blackboard.

Looking forward to future improvements on this product, B&N.  Keep up the good work!
Alula

DecalGirl: Before the Storm on Nook

Here are the promised pictures of my new DecalGirl decals on my Nook.  The larger decals were not as easy to apply as the smaller ones I put on my phone, but still applied without a lot of drama.  The design I picked was Before the Storm for the Nook; I picked this design because I keep my Nook in the Brontë Cover in Storm offered by Barnes and Noble, and I wanted something that would match the black cover.

I should also note that as I have read my Nook in garish light before and been slightly bother by the glare coming off of the shiny white plastic, I elected to pay the extra $5 to get the Matte/Satin finish on this cover.  I have the regular shiny finish on the skin I used on my phone, and I have to say, I think I picked right in each case.  The shiny finish skin on the phone is reminiscent of shiny plastic (like the shiny white plastic on the Nook) and the matte/satin finish is very much like a matte finish plastic (like the matte finish used around the page turn buttons on the Nook).

I was initially worried about a functional aspect of this skin, because of the Nook home button.  For anyone who doesn't have a Nook, this is a "soft" button on the Nook that does not click because it is touch activated.  The skin now covers this button, but the home button still works through the skin.  Some other reviews I read online complained a little that the cutout window for the touch screen was a little small; I will concur with this opinion--the touchscreen is still fully accessible, but the skin could have been a little more generous in this area.

 Nook before--notice the grey on black touch "n" button just above the touch screen.  This button will be covered by the DecalGirl skin, but will still be fully functional after the skin is applied.  Also, while the skin does have the arrow page turn icons included in the design, the pips that tactilely indicate the page turn keys can also be felt through the skin.  I do have screen protectors for both the touch screen and the display screen, and these need to be put on before applying the skin.  Note that while applying the skin, I did have some trouble repositioning the skin because it stuck to the touch screen protector and would peel it up when trying to move the skin around for placement--be ready to iron out any bubbles that might get under there in this process, and do it at a time of day when you are the least likely to experience high frustration.  I recommend Zen music and chai tea.

 Front of Nook with the applied skin and the matching background.  The background seems to not have formated as well as the one for the LG Vortex--on the Nook, there is a white information bar at the top with title, time, etc., and the image seems to get shrunk a little to allow for this bar.  If you look closely in the picture, you can see how the Nook has added black margins along the sides of the image to account for the image resizing for the bar at the top.  This has caused a minor misalignment with the edges of the skin, but not enough to bother me, as I'm only using this as the Nook home screen (I have a series of images from my own creation and downloaded from online that I like to use as screen savers).

 The back of the Nook with the skin.  Note that the skin is elastic enough to be pressed in and cling to the "n" brand icon on the back of the device, which is a nicely stylized touch.  As with the skin I applied to my phone, the skin can easily be pressed and worked around the rounded edges of the device to prevent and get rid of sticker edge bunching.

The Nook, with skin, inside my Nook cover.  The browny-orange-black stencils go much better with the tan inside of the cover than the white of the device, and the black goes well with the outside black of the cover.  Also, the skin serves as a surface protector for my Nook, while the Brontë cover is firm and sturdy enough to offer decent device protection from light drops and bumps.

Alula

DecalGirl: Winter Sparkle on the LG Vortex

A couple of days ago I received the decals that I ordered from DecalGirl.  Some people reported unusually fast shipping online; mine took about 10 days to arrive, and both of the decals I ordered arrived in the same shipment (one for the Nook and one for the LG Vortex).  The skins each arrived on a simple one piece sticker sheet and were well packaged with a "Do Not Bend or Fold" warning on the outside of the shipment envelope.

I was a little dubious about the application of these stickers to my expensive electronics, but after reading some reviews online I learned that they can be removed without leaving a residue on the device.  That said, I was worried about ruining my fancy stickers by mis-applying and then needing to peel them back up; figuring I might need to reorder, I started with the cheaper of the two I ordered, and applied the Winter Sparkle for LG Vortex skin first.

N.B., apply any screen protectors you want on your phone BEFORE applying the skin, as the skin will lay over the screen protector.  Also, try to be sure you're happy with the application of the screen protector--if you're the kind of person that those bubbles will annoy, get rid of them now, because they will be all the more difficult to get rid of when you're trying to squeeze them out from under the layer of screen protector and the added layer of skin.

The stickers peeled off the sheet easily, and I was a little surprised that the back side of the "sticker" decal didn't feel much like a sticker at all--it was tacky and adhesive, but not hyper sticky.  When placed on the device, the peeled decal would kind of sit on top until pressed down, and then it would stick.  This "doesn't stick until pressed" property made the positioning of the decal very easy to do, because I could move it around until I was happy with the positioning.  One would think that this quasi-stick property would mean the decal wouldn't adhere well after the fact, but I can say with confidence that the decal is now on and is staying put until I try to peel it off again.  Another property of the decal that surprised me was the elasticity of it--with a normal sticker, a sort of "bunching" of the material can occur at rounded edges on the device.  These decals can kind of be worked and stretched so that bunching around the edges does not occur, and the decal fits the device very closely.  Also, upon investigation, the sticker also has some channels drawn into the adhesive underside--these allow trapped air to be pushed out after application to reduce bubbles under the design.

The price was very reasonable, and the functional and aesthetic design of the product is magnificent.  I am very pleased, and will likely buy from this company again.

 The front of the phone--notice how tightly the button holes fit to the buttons on the device.

 The back of the phone--notice those well-contoured edges!

Front of the phone with the downloadable background--notice my cat watching you intently!  I was a little afraid that the background image might be a smidge off from the decal, and the mismatched edges would annoy my obsessive compulsive tendencies too much.  However, the download fit to the edges off the sticker decal amazingly well, and the colors match darn well perfect despite the company caveat that the LCD screen colors might vary depending on the device.  The overall presentation is very slick!

I'll send more pictures when I get my Nook decal installed.

Alula

Free NookBooks from Kaplan!

Anyone who has a nook, and who has not become a fan on Facebook, you should do it--that's where I keep finding out about these great offers.  Nook on Facebook.

Kaplan Publishing is running a special offer through Barnes & Noble to give away 130 of their titles for free until January 17.  Read the original post from Barnes & Noble here.

I just looked through the books--there are a lot of test preps, some professionals guides, true stories, etc.  DoHP, you might like some of the pharmacy stuff, and Q and Munchkin might appreciate some of the pregnancy and new baby stuff.  Fuzzy--lots of business type books in there, too.  Personally, I like all the writing guides.

Alula

Things that Make Me Happy

Mr. B is out of town, marking the first time since his illness that we have returned to a regular work schedule.  

Today, I got harassed outside the grocery store by someone who wanted me to sign a petition to bring medical marijuana dispensaries into town.  (Many issues with this, but I will spare you.  Suffice it to say that out of principle, I have little to no respect for individuals who break federal law, and find the blatant abuse of medical marijuana by people who do not have medical need disgusting.)

Anyways, I was passing by the frozen foods and all riled up about the damn hippie drug abusers who are able to organize to get themselves medical marijuana dispensaries, but can't be socially responsible enough to not break the law, because instead of pushing to pass a law to legalize recreational use, which might make sense, they're seeking to legalize medical use so they can continue to break the law with prescription drug abuse....*grumble, grumble*.  Illegal and illogical--what a combination.

Then I find Ben & Jerry's Magic Brownies, and it catches my eye for obvious reasons.  It's awesome.  Try it.  Black raspberry ice cream and brownies.  One of my new favorite things.

This is the book light my husband got me for my birthday (to go with the nook, which I was counting as a sort of early birthday present).  Also one of my new favorite things.  2 levels of brightness, fits great into the little pocket slot on the back of my Bronte nook cover.  I thought it was a little bulky at first, larger than I expected it would be, and the clip is kind of poorly designed.  The metal slide clip would probably shred a leather cover, but I guess it worked out okay where I put it on my nook cover, so that's a positive.  Blue lights on the back give it kind of a futuristic feel, spread out LEDs give a good glow on the book without needing repositioning, and it was very reasonably priced.  Love it!

Ritelite LPL792XLB 5-LED Computer and Book Light, Metal

Alula

Amazon Student, Free Shipping!

I'm not sure if any of you knew (or how many of you this currently applies to), but Amazon has a new student membership program going on!  You can read about it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

The big point is that you get a FREE Amazon Prime membership for one year (usually costs around $70-80 for this service)--for those of you who don't know what Amazon Prime is, it's unlimited free 3-5 day shipping with no minimum order size, and a discount on 2 day shipping ($3.99 per bundle).

Combining my love of online shopping with my obsession with education, I am on this like a pregnant woman on nacho cheese covered chocolate ice cream.

Alula