Why I Love My Kindle

A few years ago I was watching Whoopie on The View. She began talking about this wonderful new device that stored books electronically - called a Kindle. I wanted one! I can't remember how much they cost at first- it seemed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. That was out of my price range for something that was a want- not a need. So I just put the idea of getting one out of my mind, but I never stopped wanting one.

I have neck problems and spend way too much time on my computer, so I'm always looking for something else to replace that "addiction". I love books, and I especially love to read non-fiction.

Earlier this year I began seeing Kindle commercials on TV. So I looked them up again on Amazon. Now that they had been out a while, they were a little more affordable. Still a little much for a want- not a need. But I decided I HAD to have one. Finding out that there are TONS of free books to download to E-readers sealed the deal for me. I used the excuse with my husband that this would be my Birthday/Anniversary/Christmas present.

Now, I'm the type of person who has to research just about everything before I make a decision. Then I have to thoroughly weigh the pro's and con's, and check out all the other options. So, needless to say, I read several reviews about all the different styles of Kindle's and a lot of the other brands of E-readers. Then I even read articles that explained exactly what e-ink is and how it works. After that I read every product review on Amazon about the Kindle. Over the course of several days, I finally made up my mind that the Kindle was the E-reader for me. Mainly I think I decided to go with the Kindle because I just LOVE shopping on Amazon. You can get FREE SHIPPING on just about everything. Some people gravitate to the word CLEARANCE. My word is FREE SHIPPING.

I took the plunge and ordered it. Sometime back in October, my Kindle arrived! I took it out of the box, read the set up instructions, plugged it into my computer to let it charge, and ever so patiently waited for the green light to come on. Finally it was ready. I finally had a Kindle. I was like a kid on Christmas morning!

I spent the first few days just downloading FREE books, and FREE samples of books, and organizing them by category. I felt like that I could just go on forever looking up books and never get to the actual reading part.
Mind you, the majority of the free books are older books, but that doesn't matter to me. I daydreamed about reading all the classics, from biographies, to poetry, and anything else that caught my fancy.

Next, I read some of the owner's manual- on the Kindle. I found out how to send documents to my Kindle, and how to use the experimental web browser.

Now I could Facebook from my Kindle too! The web browser is pretty good for looking things up. Some things come up really tiny, but it does have a zoom feature. Its really good for looking up articles on Wiki sites and stuff like that if you don't want to head on over to the ole computer.

I was also in the process of deciding to homeschool my son around the time my Kindle arrived. That was no decision I was going to take lightly, so imagine how much time I was spending looking up information on the internet about homeschooling. Now, I was able to copy articles from the web to Microsoft word, and then email them to my Kindle to read later in a more comfy spot. How cool was that!!!

So far, I have sent documents of the State Performance Standards, lists of library books, recipes... all sorts of things to my Kindle.

Oh yeah, it also has a built in dictionary, MP3 player, and text to speech for some books. There are also some games that you can download to the Kindle- like word games and Sudoku.

Above all, the best thing about my Kindle is that its all MINE. My dear husband and son just don't understand how cool this little thing is- so they have no interest in using it. I hope to keep it my little secret!