I think it’s a fine time for me to invest in a new printer. I need a multi-printer though, not just something for printing important documents. I need the ability to print photos as well, because right now all I feel like I’m doing is wasting my money. With the cost of gas these days, having to travel 60 miles round trip to the nearest printing location, and the cost of printing itself, it’s just become a real hassle. Not to mention that it’s put a dent in my wallet.

I found a great deal, actually a steal, in the weekly deals at Buy.com. It’s absolutely perfect for my needs, as it’s an photo all-in-one printer by Canon, which is exactly what I need. Who could complain about an all-in-one printer by Canon, for only $68.83 that also includes free budget shipping? I’m certainly not going to complain. This will make a great addition to our home office. When I have a photography session, I’ll be able to print my own photos without having to waste time and money doing it somewhere else. I love the nifty LCD display, which allows you to preview images before you print them. I think it’ll be really nice being able to scan old photos onto my computer and be able to email them to family and friends too. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a very stylish and sleek machine in black and gray, which is going to coordinate perfectly with our computers which are also black and gray.

This will come in handy. Not only can I print straight from my computer, but I can also print images from my memory card, my digital camera (which I know I’ll do on a regular basis) and even my husband’s camera phone - directly from each. I owned an all-in-one printer before, and though it was nice for the price, we’re talking about Canon here. I can print all of my photos and documents in the comfort of my own home, which will esstentially mean I’m saving a nice chunk of change! I think this will be one of the better investments I’ve made in a long time.

It’s hard to believe it, but between my addiction to taking pictures and my husband’s addiction to computer games, we’ve almost reached capacity on my old external hard drive. It’s nothing unusual for me to take over a hundred pictures a day, which eventually adds up to thousands fairly quickly so it’s really no surprise that we’ve used up so much space so fast. We only had 150GBs on it to start with. What makes things worse, is that at this time we’re sharing a computer and I’m doing a lot of design work on the side. I really don’t want to overload my husband’s computer with all of my stuff when I know I’m going to have my own system again soon.

I’ve been wanting a new external hard drive for a couple of months now, ever since I got my new camera. I’d been in a slump with my photography for a bit so I wasn’t really worried about the storage issue, but now that I have a camera again, I’m taking more and more pictures. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before I run out of space on my old external hard drive, entirely. My husband has mentioned that he’s planning on buying a new one for me, as an early birthday present so I’ve decided to start pricing them. And this time, you better believe I’m going to get more bang for my buck, so I’m going to start by checking out the weekly deals at Buy.com. We paid $140 for our 150GB external hard drive. I’ve just found a 500GB external hard drive for a great price - $104.99, and comes with free budget shipping. That’s more than 3 times as much space. As a photographer that takes as many pictures as I do, having a lot of storage space is important so having an extra 500GBs of storage space for such an awesome price is fantastic.

If you’re running out of storage space on your hard drive, or external hard drive like me, Western Digital’s 500GB external hard drive is a great solution. Just think of all of the photos, videos, music, movies or even games you’ll be able to store on it. It’s compatible with PC’s running Windows 2000, XP and Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. It’s small enough to sit on your desk without taking up a ton of space. Great news for me because my desk is super tiny to begin with, with very little space for much of anything, even with a flat screen monitor. This will make a great addition to my own home office!

It’s sleek, it’s small, it’s affordable, and it gets the job done. What more could I ask for?

I have my laptop picked out and though I’m sad that the tablet notebook only had a 12″ display, I’m still excited about the one I’m getting. I was able to upgrade to 3gbs of ram, which was pretty neat. The only thing I’m not sure about is that it comes with Vista. I’ve heard so many horror stories about Vista (anyone using it, please offer your opinions), so I’m a little weary about it. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll be OK. Besides, I’m just grateful to be able to get this laptop - I’m definitely a “lucky” girl, who generally doesn’t have much luck at all. It’s something I’ve wanted, and somewhat needed for years now. It’ll be nice being able to use it in other areas of the house besides the “office.” It’ll also be nice having a laptop when we travel.

Jo’s sort of jealous that I’m getting laptop though. Why? I have no idea, I mean it isn’t like he didn’t get a new computer last Summer. A suped up computer at that!

I think it’s time for my husband to upgrade some of his electronics. The speakers for his computer have really been horrible lately. It’s either one speaker is out or they’re both out. Usually I use the headphones so I’m not really bothered with it that much. Until today of course, when the headphones gave out. Every time I’d move, even just an inch, they went all wonky with static. Jo says he’s been noticing it for a few days now. He’s always using one or the other for gaming, so I think it’s more irritating to him, therefore a “priority.”

Guess we’ll be heading to Gander later this week. I may even get myself a set of speakers and headphones for my own computer. I’m only using it for storage (photos, graphics and themes) right now but I’m eventually going to set it all back up for the internet. And no Jo, you aren’t getting it! Ha, ha. He seems to think he’s going to get a second computer when I get my laptop (which will thankfully be very, very soon). He’s always wanted to be able to play WoW on one and surf the internet of the other. Men, or should I say husbands?

By the way, I’m a very sad Teesa today. The Flames lost the game last night (Tuesday). Hopefully they’re going to pull off a win in San Jose today (Thursday). If not, I’m going to be so upset because that’ll mean that much more pressure!

Since we’ve been here, Jo’s had to fix my in laws’ computer at least a dozen times. About a month ago someone wound up getting a virus on it. It took quite a bit of work to get rid of it, so he’s been trying to help them better understand the “do’s and don’ts” of the internet.

I’m not a computer genius by any means, in fact, I doubt I could read the simplest dos command line. That being said, I at least understand that I must be cautious online, whether I’m downloading a theme for my blog or opening an email. It really isn’t complicated and for the life of me, I don’t understand why Colleen and her boyfriend can’t comprehend that.

There aren’t many things that I can honestly say that I hate. That being said, I absolutely hate running out of everything at one time. I’ve just run out of my beloved sweet pea body wash, conditioner (strange that I run out of conditioner faster than shampoo) and mousse. Yesterday, after baking cookies, I realized that I am now out of shortening and chocolate chip morsels. I wonder what’s next? Am I going to run out of computer memory while I’m typing this out? Ha, ha!

How annoying! Well, actually the most annoying part of that is that a) there are no Bath and Body Works here, b) I can only get the conditioner at Wal-mart and the closest one is 30+ miles away.

Anywho.

Speaking of chocolate chip morsels; when I realized I was out, I remembered that we’d purchased some Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough a couple of days ago. Since the cupcakes lasted no time and I had a sweet tooth, I decided I’d make bake some cookies.

Well, my in laws’ computer is at it again. It seems like every time you turn around it’s starting to lag, crashing or just not loading things properly. Today is no different than any other day I suppose. They’re in their computer area talking about all the troubles they’re having again. It really is becoming “usual” and honestly, I would be drove up a wall if I had to deal with the issues they deal with. Jo and I keep telling them to install a good popup blocker, stop using certain programs that are known for viruses / trojans and stop opening attachments on emails. Of course it seems to be falling on deaf ears every time because the next time you turn around, they’re having the same issues. It’s really sad though because if something happens to it to the point where it can’t be fixed, they’ll be without a computer. I’m certainly not loaning them mine to use and I surely can’t see Jo letting them use his (his cost way more than mine). I’m not going to risk having the same thing happen to my computer or Jo’s, so they’d just be out of luck.

They’ll listen someday.. hopefully it won’t be too late.

The last few days have been so frustrating. Jo had given me several ideas about Christmas gifts that he wanted. Well I’ll be gosh darn if those weren’t the hardest things to find in Newfoundland. I know a lot of it has to do with it being so close to Christmas but I’ve also heard that those things are hard to find regardless but I figured we’d surely find it in the larger cities. Boy was I wrong!

The first thing he wanted was Call of Duty 4. Even EB Games didn’t have it. The second thing was the iPod Nano. We still haven’t been able to find it anywhere around here. So, while we did our last minute Christmas shopping yesterday, we figured we’d try a few more places for those two things and the cell phone he wanted. Guess what? No luck with ANY of them. Jo had such a sad look of depression on his face on our way home and it made me sad. I wanted to do something extra special for him this year since we were in the position to spend a bit more this year. I’d just about lost all hope but then remember “The Source” and stopped in today. Of course they didn’t have the iPod Nano but they did have the LG Chocolate phone he wanted - SCORE!!!!! Talk about relief! I also darted over to this place called Jeans Expert (I think) and picked up a pair of jeans and two long sleeved shirts for him.

I only have one gift left to get and that’s for Jo’s dad. We know what we’re getting him though and thankfully know it’s in stock around here.

I really hope that Jo’s mom likes what I got her. I wanted to get her a little something that not only represented how we feel about her but also how she felt about Nan, her mother. You may recall that Nan passed away shortly after we got here and Christmas is going to be so rough without her. I think she’ll like it.. at least I hope she will!

I am so pooped though. I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple of nights, plus we’ve been on the go for the last couple of days doing tons of shopping. Shooooweee! I’m ready for a nap!

My sister in law can be pretty rough with things and at times, even acts a bit careless no matter how much something costs her or someone else (which is usually the case). Last year my mother in law bought her an iPod for Christmas, though she was a bit weary about spending much on it because she was worried that Colleen would wind up scratching it. Well, of course that happened but not as bad as any of us expected. Well, my mother in law has been thinking about upgrading Colleen’s iPod this Christmas and I’ll tell you, she’s going to be happy to learn about the invisibleSHIELD ipod case. It helps to protect iPods and iPhones from scratches and because the nearly invisible film is super thin, it isn’t going to make your iPod or iPhone bigger or bulkier.

If she doesn’t buy this for Colleen, I think Jo and I will. Like I said, Colleen is a little rough with things and as much money as my mother in law spends on things, Colleen could use this kind of protection on her gadget! I think Colleen will like it too because it isn’t like she intentionally tries to scratch or damage her things, she just isn’t careful when handling them all the time.

As much as I love buying big gifts for my loved ones, I actually enjoy buying stocking stuffers way more. I think it’s because I’m able to buy a lot of smaller gifts, so it feels like I’m giving them more - which I guess is the case. I’ve already bought a few stocking stuffers for a certain someone who’s sitting behind me, so I can’t really go into detail about them right now (haha). One thing she does need, that I don’t care if she sees is an ipod battery.

I need to come up with some ideas for stocking stuffers for Jo and his mom too though. I’ve been trying to figure out what I can get other than bath and body type stuff. The only thing I can think of for Jo is socks and I have no idea what kind of stuffers I should get for his mom (other than her beloved candies!).

What do you put into stockings for your loved ones? Besides the usual candies and personal items?