Buying

Okay, I'm done.

So far, we've bought two gifts each for each other, plus two for us from our daughter that somehow ended up being funded by us. Nothing yet for the kid, though I'm sure I'll be surprised. She said she'd like a digital camera. Ho ho ho. No way that's going to happen, as a 'cheap' one is over three hundred dollars.

We replaced the octagonal carpet in the kitchen. The old one was in fairly good shape, but it was getting grungy. We ran it through the washing machine, which probably wasn't a really good idea. We did get a discount on the new one.

We ordered a bunch of coffee during the Cyber Monday sale, spending as much as we normally do but getting about two more packages than we normally get. Thats good, I think. We will, of course, swear to ourselves that we will drink the store brand, too. Uh-huh.

We bought an artificial Christmas tree, which is up in the kitchen nook (really good, too; used to be that I'd put lights up on one of the evergreens, where we could see it through the doors in the nook, now we have the artificial one indoors, and the lights reflect on the glass so that it looks like outside lights, plus, it lights up the room quite cheerfully). And we got a real one, which is still outside in a bucket, with snow and ice on it.

We are apparently going to buy all-weather snow tires for the Prius, and Pretty Damn Soon, too. (That ticks me off.) And to round out the automotive front, the 'check engine' light that periodically comes on in the van, stays on for a while, and goes off again, apparently has an error code that indicates something to do with the transmission. (The most frightening automative phrase I know uses the word 'transmission'. I fear and loathe that component.) Exactly what, they're not sure -- so we get to pay them large amounts of money just so they can figure out how much it will be to fix. Apparently, removing the 'check engine' light isn't an option.

We paid for my dental surgery, ouch. No financial anesthetic there. We do get to pay for some of it with pre-tax dollars, and deduct some on taxes next year, but still, its a major amount of money. I am still amazed that my wife doesn't beat me upside the head about that. Glad, but amazed.

We bought a 500GB hard drive to do backups for this laptop and the desktop, so we can cancel the commercial service. Just over ten months of using this device, and it'll have paid for itself. Oh boy, just in time for next Christmas.

And, since this laptop has developed a 'known problem' with the motherboard's power connector, such that it may at some point just not start at all, and since the desktop is slowly dying, we ordered a new laptop with a docking station so we can plug it in as a replacement for the desktop, or use it on its own. We'll use it on its own until the desktop does actually give up the ghost, though. I asked my wife if our daughter would get to use this laptop, or the newer, faster one, and she said 'If she drops one, which would you rather it be?' Gotcha. The new laptop, incidentally, is Dell, running Windows XP -- cost won out over Apple; plus, I realized that very few of the Apple-unique features appealed to me (though the 'ease of use' did, greatly). In that arena, this graphic, comparing the appearance (not the functionality) of generations of Windows versus Apple, is quite good.

We got a new vacuum cleaner after the old one's motor died.

And, oh yeah, we're getting the Santa suit.

I am done. I don't want to buy another thing until January. All of this stuff is defensible, but still -- its a lot of stuff, and I don't want to buy more. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Oh, look at that, wouldn't it be a great gift?