Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Gift Ideas

Everyone has a number of people who are challenging to shop for.  I thought I'd share some of my ideas in case they might help someone.

Gift Basket

My kids and I collected some of our favorite foods to send as a gift.  I had each child make a tag for one item to personalize them. They drew a picture on the tag, wrote why the liked that item and signed it.  Then we attached the tags with red ribbon.  Some of the items we included are
Archer Farms Black Bean and Corn Salsa (Target)
Archer Farms Butter Crunch Cashews (Target)
Dickenson's Lemon Curd (Safeway; my family called it lemon butter and it's great on rolls)
Krusteaz Orange Cranberry muffin mix (Target)
Gummi Bears
Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple herbal tea

Gift Card With Suggestions

I like sending a gift card so that the recipient can get whatever they want.  But to make it more personal, sometimes I'll include a note saying what I considered getting them.  This might include one or more books, CDs, DVDs or other items that I really like.  My kids have helped me with this too, adding their recent favorite items for a family member.

Photo Ornament

I found a variety of holiday ornament photo frames at Michael's craft store recently.  There were several for baby's first Christmas, in addition to "Our First Christmas" for newlyweds and many others.  I scanned a photo, printed it and added it to the frame.  This makes a special personalized gift.

Donation in Honor of Teachers

Teacher gifts can be really hard to choose, especially when each child has ten or more teachers counting the related arts teachers, other school staff, scout leaders and religious education teachers.

The last couple of year, I've made a donation in honor of my kids' teachers.  I include a note with their card (see below) saying that a donation was made by our family and to which charity. My favorite for the last couple of years has been Water.org since they help build clean water sources in developing countries which drastically improves the people's health and helps more kids get to school since they're not walking hours each day for water.

The thank you notes I've gotten from teachers for this gift have been very enthusiastic and appreciative.

Note for donation:



In the spirit of the holiday season, our family has made a donation in your honor to Water.org to provide clean water sources to families in developing countries. Clean water improves their health and enables more kids to have time to attend school.

Thank you for all you do!!

The _______ Family


I hope these ideas have helped!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Friday, June 29, 2012

About TealDragonMama

I am a stay-at-home mother of three, ages 12 to 5 years.  My interests include reading books and ebooks, Kindles, paper crafting, and trying to conquer of the endless mountain of laundry.

Kindle Fire vs. Kindle Touch

I have been asked several times whether I recommend the Kindle Fire or Kindle Touch.  I received the Kindle Touch at the end of December 2011 and the Kindle Fire end of May 2012.  Now that I've had the Kindle Fire for six months, I'll try to answer that question.

While I wish that I could just recommend one of these Kindles, there is unfortunately not an easy answer.  I really like them both for very different reasons! If I really had to choose between them, I would probably choose the Kindle Fire, but I think it's better to describe their strengths and differences and leave it to individuals to decide which is better for them.

I'll start by saying that I highly recommend the Touch and the Fire over the other Kindles available.  More about why the Touch and Fire are the best Kindles below.

Most features in this table are explained in more detail below.

Kindle TouchKindle Fire
Color DisplayNoYes
Display Typee-ink - easy to read outsidebacklit - not as easy to read outside
Screen LitNoYes
Screen Size6"7"
Weight7.5 ounces14.6 ounces
Web SurfingNo*Yes
Battery Lifeabout 30 days (with WiFi off)up to 8 hours (charge every 1-2 days)
Text-to-SpeechYesNo
TabletNoYes
Price$99$199

For more information about the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch, please view them at Amazon.com. (Buying products from Amazon through my web pages helps me earn referral fees at no cost to you.  Thank you!)

Color Display

If you're only going to read novels, then the Touch's black and white screen is fine.  But if you want to read magazines, children's picture books,or anything else with color pictures, the color screen is obviously a big plus.

Display Type

Amazon makes a big deal about the E-ink display technology.  It's supposed to be much easier to read in bright sunlight and easier on your eyes than a backlit screen.  The E-ink screen also doesn't constantly redisplay like the backlit screen, so it uses less battery power.  Personally, I do a lot of reading on my shaded porch and don't have trouble reading the Fire's screen, but I don't read in direct sunlight, so that's not a factor for me.

Screen Lit

The downside to the Touch's E-Ink display is that since it's not backlit, you need a light source to read by.  So if you read in bed a lot, you'll need to buy a separate Kindle book light.  (Note that another leading brand of eReader recently came out with an E-Ink type display that has a light source around the screen that can be turned on and off.  I expect this will be added to a Kindle soon.)

Weight

The weight of the Touch is really comfortable to hold and feels about the same as most paperbacks.  It's certainly lighter than many hardback books.  On the other hand, the Fire feels quite heavy and I find that I prefer to rest it on something when possible as my arm gets tired from holding it.

Web Surfing*

Both the Touch and the Fire include a web browser.  HOWEVER, the Touch's web browser is under the Experimental menu.  I find the Touch's web browser painfully slow.  The Fire's Silk browser on the other hand is quite nice for sofa surfing.

Battery Life

On the Touch, I can easily go for a month on one battery charge if I keep WiFi turned off most of the time.  The Fire, being a tablet with a backlit screen needs to be charged every 1-2 days depending on how much I use it.

Text-To-Speech

Text-To-Speech is a feature that allows you to listen to an ebook via the Kindle Touch and select other Kindles.  It's not at all the quality of the audio books recorded by professional authors, in fact, it's a computerized voice.  This feature is not available for all ebooks.  To determine if it is available for an ebook, find the book on Amazon, scroll down to the Product Details section and see if it says Text-to-Speech: Enabled.  When available, the Kindle allows you to select between male of female voice and the speed of the reader.  As I said, the quality is not great, but I think it's a cool feature for a light book when you really want to listen in the car, or for a book for which there is not audiobook available.  For some reason I can't imagine (possibly a copy right issue mandated by the publishers?) it's not available on the Fire.

Tablet

As mentioned above, the Fire is made for web surfing and other tablet functions such as watching video.  There are also more apps available for the Fire which extends it's functionality.

Why the Fire and Touch are Better Than Other Kindles

Many see the Kindle Keyboard and think it's better because it has actual keyboard buttons.  However, I feel strongly that the Touch is better because the whole screen is touch sensitive and it includes a keyboard on the touch screen.  The whole screen being touch sensitive allows you to touch a word to get a definition, and highlight a phrase by touch, and navigate the menus by touch instead of using the up, down, left right arrow buttons to navigate.  The Kindle Touch is $99 whereas the Kindle Keyboard starts at $139.  While the Keyboard comes with free 3G which allows you to buy books from anywhere even when there is no WiFi signal, the Touch is available with 3G for $149 if 3G is really important to you.

The basic Kindle is sold for $79, but I feel strongly that the $20 for the Touch is well worth the price difference for the ease of navigation.