breaking our technology barrier (in which we buy a tablet!?)

a week and a half ago, tommy won a $50 amazon gift card from our utilities company. how amazing is that?! they were doing some sort of giveaway on their facebook page and tommy actually entered it and actually won. true, it wasn't the ipad or other much cooler and more expensive prizes, but we've never really won anything before. so this was really awesome.

so we were talking about what we should buy with this $50. we mentioned diapers or some other real necessity, but it feels like a crime to spend a free gift card on something so mundane and not exciting. and that's what we usually do with gifts of money anyways--we save it or use it for something necessary and boring, because we're poor like that. but this time, we decided to buy something frivolous and fun.

we thought about buying Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Cataan--two board games we like but have never bought because they're around $50--but then i saw that a regular plain old kindle was only $69.

now, i am kind of anti-e-readers. i'm all about reading a real live BOOK and i love, love, love having bookshelves overflowing with them. but i have always kind of longed for a kindle while traveling, when i pack four books and have to lug them around in my backpack for a month even if i never read them or even after i finish them all. it seems kind of silly to buy one just for the one or two months a year we're out of town (yeah, we're out of town a lot) but if we have a gift card, that's not too bad, right?

so anyway, as we discussed buying a kindle, we started talking about the kindle fire as well, which was about $90 more, and how it would be really useful to have that while traveling (especially with dane, as he gets older--i'm really nervous about flying with him FIVE different times this summer) . . . and one thing led to another, and--

we bought one! last night! a kindle fire HD, no less. (yeah, we totally fell into the amazon gift card trap and spent way more than the gift card was for. i know, i know. but we felt like it was going to be a worthwhile purchase.)

this is a big deal. we have always fought the inevitability of getting smart phones (still stuck with our cheap plain old phones, and happy with it), we bring our plain old heavy scriptures to church, and we only have a TV because someone in our ward gave us their old one for free. but we just bought ourselves a tablet, and i'm getting really excited about it. we'll get it before we leave on our trip in a few weeks, and will have it all set up and ready to go for our month and a half of traveling. just think about all the books i'll be able to read this summer without having to cart them around! my back is already thanking me.

new and improved!

my computer--wrapped up and ready for me enjoy after being fixed up.

i have the best tech-savvy husband ever.

he would be embarrassed to hear me talk about it, because he knows enough about techie stuff to know that he doesn't know very much. but i, on the other hand, know NOTHING and so all of his techie endeavors are incredibly impressive to me.

his most recent accomplishment was REFORMATTING MY COMPUTER--a project he'd been talking about doing for the last six months, but we were both nervous about it because it involves wiping your computer completely clean and then re-installing all of your files and programs back on there. i didn't like the idea because i didn't want to lose anything, and i wasn't sure i totally trusted the reformatting process.

but he convinced me, mainly because my computer:

-made noises reminiscent of a jet plan revving up any time it was running

-had a habit of freezing the windows task bar at the bottom of the screen, not allowing me to switch between programs, see how much battery was left, or click on the windows tab

-wouldn't let me create new folders (i developed the sneaky habit of creating new folders on tommy's computer and then using a jump drive to move them to my computer. WAY TOO MUCH WORK!)

-would die after 45 minutes of running without being plugged in because of how slow and jumbo-tron the system had become.

so this week, tommy watched a few videos about reformatting on youtube, commandeered my computer for two days, erased everything, and put it all back on. and when i nervously came opened it back up . . .

IT WAS LIKE MAGIC.

it's like a brand new computer. i don't even know what to do with myself--it's silent. it's fast. it's CLEAN AND SHINY AND NEW! we were planning on getting me a new computer after i graduate, because it was having so many problems, but now i really don't think we have to. i'm a little bit bummed to not get a brand new one, but a lot psyched to save $1000+. three cheers for tommy!

thank you, technology

for providing skype so that we can talk to our families and see their lovely faces and meet our lovely little twins.


we remembered about the joys of skype the other day and were finally able to meet leif and joel via the internet. (we will actually meet them in less than a month!) and we got to talk to my family too. i wish we'd taken a screen shot of talking to them, but we didn't. but they'll be here in four days anyways, so no worries.

i know it's a bad picture . . . but aren't they beautiful???

KILL YOUR TV

i remember seeing this bumper sticker (or one just like it) stuck on grandpa myres' desk in their bedroom in san diego for years and years of my childhood. it's funny because it's so like grandpa myres.

on that note, tommy and i don't even have a tv right now. we have a tv stand and a ton of dvds, but all we have on the tv stand is the ihome we stole from kristen while she was on her mission (thanks, kristen). back in provo, we had a small tv from tommy's family, but we didn't think it would be worth the space and hassle of moving it across the country so we gave it back to them. so now we are tv-less and you know what? IT'S TOTALLY FINE.

maybe it's the lifetime of growing up where we weren't allowed to watch tv on weekdays. maybe it's the four years of college where i was too busy to watch tv, ever. but now, now that for the first time in my life i have TIME to watch tv, i don't want to. so even though tommy and i could find a $40 tv on craigslist pretty easily, we don't want to. the only thing we ever used our tv for was watching movies anyways--and we can do that just as easily on our computers.

i just feel much better about wasting away all my days reading rather than sitting on the computer or watching tv. i think it's the grandpa myres in me--which is the icelander in me. i'm still being lazy, but it doesn't feel so gross afterwards.

so for right now, we are going to remain TV-less. it won't be that way forever--but for right now, it works, and we like it.

jump. drive.

this is my jumpdrive.
i vividly remember going to office max in irvine, buying random school supplies before my first semester at BYU, and my mom getting me this jumpdrive. little did i know that this jumpdrive would become my best friend and most constant friend throughout my college experience.

this jumpdrive, aptly named "murweather" by the MIA sister fairweather before she left on her mission, has held all of my files since starting at BYU. it's red. it has no cap, unlike the misleading picture. it only has 1 gig of space, yet i've never been unable to add more files to it, even while it was holding tons of wedding pictures. my faith in murweather is unfailing.

i've probably lost this jumpdrive approximately 37 times over the course of my time here at BYU. and every time, a good-doing cougar returns it to the lost and found and they email me to let me know that it's there and telling me to pick it up.

i went and picked it up today for the 37th time, after a week of not knowing where it was. it was a joyous reunion. i love this jumpdrive.

goodbye, facebook

i just deactivated my facebook account because i'm tired of being a habitual facebook checker. i hate how much time i WASTE because of that thing.

it's kind of ironic because once you create a facebook account you can NEVER DELETE IT--you can always just sign in again and it'll be there waiting for you.

i'll probably end up reactivating it sometime (i'm being realistic), but it'll be gone for at least a month. and hopefully by that time, i won't want to reactivate it again. we shall see.

blogging? really?

am i really going to start a blog? i can't decide if i want to. but this might be the most effective way to share things with my friends and family who are all spread far out across the country nowadays... it really is a great way to keep people updated. and i know i like looking at other people's blogs, as long as they're not too cheesy and gross. we'll see how i feel about this in a few days.