The Jennifer Blogs

Since I've had so many emails and comments about it, I figured I'd blog about my Kindle. I've had it just for a couple of days, but I'm already madly in love with my Kindle. Granted, there are a couple of features I cannot use since I'm living overseas, but it's still worth it to me! Yes, it's expensive. Of course, just days after we dropped $399 on this little bugger, Amazon decided to lower the price by $40 bucks. Oh well. It was bound to happen, I guess. And quite honestly, this beautiful little piece of technology will be paid for very quickly.



Books in Singapore are expensive. And not just a little bit expensive. One of the books I bought here when we came to scout out places to live cost me $39 Singaporean dollars. That's $28.50 American dollars. For a paperback. That's not the average cost, but it's not uncommon. Most of the books I'm interested in reading are between $19 and $29 Singaporean dollars, or $14 to $21 American dollars. I'm reading more here than I ever have, and I just can't see paying those kinds of prices for books. Yes, there are used book stores here, but they're not easy to find and they're still expensive. Well, they're probably about on par with what new books cost in the US. Only for used books. No thanks.



For anyone who follows me on Good Reads, you know I've been reading up a storm. Can you imagine what it would cost me to buy all those books new over here? At $18 American dollars each (the average of what most of the books I'm interested in reading cost), that's only 22 books til the Kindle is paid off. I can read 22 books in about four months. Maybe five months. But the Kindle does so much more! It has a built-in dictionary. So if I come across a word I'm not familiar with (which happened a lot in a book I recently read), I can easily look it up. Kindle has free access to WikiPedia. This is one of those features I can't use. Amazon's free Internet service (WhisperNet) isn't available outside the US. But when I get home, I'll be able to use it.



Kindle also offers free email. I'm not sure what my email address is (something that ends in @kindle.com I think). Again, this is something I can't use overseas anyway. You can send documents to your Kindle - like .pdfs, .docs, or other files that you need to take with you. Only this way you don't have to carry papers.



It's also got built-in speakers or a headphone jack if you want to listen to music while you're Kindling. You can upload mp3 files to it easily by attaching it with a USB cord to your computer.



Oh yeah, and you can listen to books on tape if you want. You can buy them from Amazon or Audible. It will play either format.



The Kindle is so small and so lightweight too. Marso and the kids were amazed when they saw how compact it is. It really is thinner than the paperback I am currently reading, and it's much lighter. The screen is so easy to read - even outside by the pool. No glare!



Yes, definitely add it to your Amazon Wish List and pray your hubby is as generous as mine is! :-)

Last Sunday was Mother's Day. It was also my 7th anniversary. Since it was a double-whammy, my husband really did it up. He bought me a Kindle! Well, he ordered it. It's on its way to me right now.



The kids noticed Daddy didn't hand Mommy a present Sunday morning, so later in the week they wanted to know what Daddy got for me. I told them he bought me a Kindle. D'Ette said, "Nuh uh!" Jean-Luc said, "You're spoiled."

Have you seen that commercial where the beautiful woman walks into a clothing store, wriggling and writhing? She is making all kinds of funky faces and distorts her body in kinds of ways, til finally she falls down face-first into the carpet. On the floor beside her -- a display with wedgie-free underwear. We are to surmise from this commercial the woman was having a hard time dealing with a wedgie, but didn't want to face the humiliation of picking it in public.



I wish my daughter was worried about this same humiliation. She picks here wedgies freely, as though she's covering her face during a sneeze or something equally socially acceptable.



It's great that they sell wedgie-free underwear for adult women. But I've never seen anyone with their fingers in their rear so much as my little petite flower. She's way too pretty to always have her fingers up her butt.



In the cab, in the pool, in line at the grocery store, standing up in a subway car, taking Communion at church -- she doesn't discriminate. If the underwear is creeping, she'll pick it up no matter where she is and no matter who is looking.



I asked her last night why she is compelled to pick every wedgie, even when there are people staring. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "I have a high-maintenance butt."



I guess that explains it.

I read something incredibly inappropriate in the news this morning. As a mother, it makes me cringe. It makes me angry. And for a change, it has nothing to do with Britney Spears.



Undoubtedly you've heard about the whole Miley Cyrus thing. I mean, unless you've been under a rock or on the moon or under a moon rock, you know about the pictures for Vanity Fair magazine. Miley is supposedly very embarrassed. Some say it was a publicity stunt. Others say it was a big mistake, and that it's all her parents' fault. Regardless, I'm a forgiving person. We all make mistakes. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that.



But Hugh Hefner has taken it to a very certain level of "ooginess." According to the TV show EXTRA, the Playboy King would welcome Miley to the pages of his magazine once she turns 18.



Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Hugh is thinking about a 15-year-old girl in those terms? I'm disgusted by it, personally. My daughter is 12 and she's beautiful. She's lean with an athletic build. She has beautiful skin, beautiful hair and beautiful eyes. One day she will turn heads. But she's only 12. She's still a little girl. And it makes me completely sick to think that someone would say, "When your daughter is 18, I'd like to see her naked."



Miley's parents have got to be livid over this. I'm sure they were hoping it would all blow over -- this whole Vanity Fair photo thing. But I wouldn't blame Billy Ray if he headed over to the Playboy Mansion in search of an old geezer in a bathrobe and made a few threats. A good old fashioned butt-whoopin' wouldn't be out of place. Maybe he could find some other people with two first names to help out -- Jim Bob, Ricky Bobby, Bobby Steve, Billy Joe, Tommy Jack, ... you get the idea.



I hope for poor Miley's sake this whole thing becomes old news, but with TV channels like E, there's bound to be some special 10 years from now about "Mistakes of the Disney Stars," and she could very well be in second place behind Britney.

I ran into an old friend the other day. Not entirely accurate, but in this digital age someone finding you on a social networking site is as good as running into them, right? 

Anyway, to the point. This "old friend" explained to me that he is not married, but he is seeing someone. It's his girlfriend of nine years. NINE YEARS! As he was updating me on the past 15 or so years of his life, he then went on to say that his first marriage failed, as did his current girlfriend's, so they didn't see the need to "have the piece of paper."



To me, that's the problem. That's why marriages don't work. Too many people see them as "just a piece of paper." Forgive me, but I think this idea about marriage is freakin' stupid.


I promised before God, my family and friends to love, honor, obey and cherish my husband as long as we both shall live. I didn't take those vows lightly. And the fact that so many people think the paper is the important part are sadly mistaken. What about all the things that come before the signing of the paper?



Choosing the person you want to spend the rest of your life with shouldn't be taken lightly. But the fact that so many people joke around about, "she's my future ex-wife" and similar statements, shows me that a lot of people do take marriage lightly. They figure that if it doesn't work out, they'll try, try again.



Or not in my friend's case. Instead he falls under the belief that since the first one didn't work out, why bother? Let's just date for as long as we can stand each other and then when it doesn't work out, there's nothing messy in the end. We can live together, sleep together and do what other married couples do. Who needs "the paper?"



I guess I need the paper. And for the life of me, I can't see why any woman out there wouldn't want "the paper." There are so many promises that come with marriage. Are people afraid of making promises they can't keep? In the back of their minds, do people think, "What if someone better comes along?" Or is it more like, "Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?" Or maybe it's the fear of divorce.



My parents are still married - 37 years this June. So I don't have a lot of first-hand experience with divorce. My older brother recently got divorced, though, and I know how ugly it can be. I have friends who have also gone through divorce. And I am not my husband's first wife either. So I do have some insight and apathy. But I wonder why people would go into a relationship thinking, "what if it doesn't work out?" Why not instead tell yourself that no matter what, you'll make it work? Why not instead adopt the policy that you will work on your marriage every day of your life, protect against divorce before the thought of it ever has a chance to enter your mind?



Yes, marriage takes work. It's not all daisies and puppies and rainbows. But when I got married, my husband and I became one. I cannot for the life of me imagine myself without him. It would be like losing a limb. If I thought I might lose an arm or leg, I'd do whatever I had to do to keep it -- surgery, therapy, prayer, diet, exercise, you name it. So why not the same with your marriage -- do whatever you have to do to save it, and preferably before it's too late.



And here's the part where I thank God for unanswered prayers, and Garth Brooks for an appropriate song. This "old friend" is actually my ex-fiance. He broke up with me one month before our wedding was supposed to occur. I was 18. I was devastated. But I went to college and moved on with my life while he went on with his in the US Air Force. Two and a half years later, for some reason, he called me out of the blue before he was to come home on leave. He wondered if I thought of him as much as he thought of me, and wanted to know if I would marry him when he came home. I said yes. So in one week's time my mother and I planned a wedding. He broke up with me again - the day before. I have to say that I'm so glad that God saved me from what would have probably been a horrible marriage. I'm sure he's a nice guy -- he was always a nice guy -- but quite obviously our views on marriage are completely different.



And here it is one week exactly before my 7th anniversary with my husband. I have to say I love him every much as the day I married him, and more. I am completely happy and grateful that God put this man in my life. I was 29 when I got married, but it was definitely worth the wait!