I Have an Opinion

For someone who used to read ebooks only on her phone or on her tablet, I have developed a really interesting preference since I returned to using eReaders.

My mom had a Kindle, and after she died, I used it and then my dad used it.

Last year, I bought a Kobo Libra Colour with buttons on the side.

I read on both the Kindle and the Kobo. And you know what? I prefer using buttons to turn pages rather than touching the screen.

There it is. My weird opinion.

I don't know why I shy away from reading on a touchscreen now. When I was reading on my phone and tablet, it was all touch, there was no other option. I'm used to touchscreens. I never have a problem on any other device I own. Except my eReaders. I want buttons.

Kindle used to have a reader with buttons, but it was discontinued in 2019. I would love to see them come out with a color version WITH buttons. That seems unlikely, though.

For a while now, I've been trying to figure out why this is. I have no answers. All I know is what I like. 

Pans and Purchases

Years ago, I bought a set of pots and pans. Non-stick and red to match my kitchen accents. They remained mostly unused because I hate cooking and that didn't change just because I had pretty pots and pans.

Fast forward to when my dad moved in with me after my mom died. My dad loves to cook. Seriously. And not only did he bring his pots and pans to use, he also made a lot of use out of my set.

And the non-stick surface started to get scratched up. He never threw the pans away, but after he died, I did start throwing the messed up stuff away. I believe I blogged about the pan with a hole in it that leaked olive oil onto my gas cook top. Scared the hell out of me when I noticed. After I cooked the vegetables.

One of the pans that had to go was a nice, deep frying pan with a lid. I did a little research, picked the one I wanted, but I had to wait for it to go on sale.

It finally did. And when it arrived, I needed to assemble it. No handles were attached. Easy enough and they actually included a decent screwdriver.

One small problem. I thought the 12 inch pan was the correct size to buy. I was wrong. It's way too big. I should have ordered a 10 inch? And 8 inch? Yikes! 

The Very Late Christmas Story

As a gift to myself for Christmas, I bought an expensive stationery advent box. I'd researched different advent options and this small business created the most beautiful items I saw when I looked at the previous year's boxes.

They went on sale Aug 2nd. I hesitated because it really is an expensive indulgence and did I really need this? But I talked myself into it because it would be my one gift to myself.

I clicked the buy button.

The description on their website said shipping by Nov 17th so it would arrive in plenty of time for the countdown to Christmas. Perfect. I put it to the back of my mind and went on with life.

And then November 17th came and went without a shipping email. I waited a week, thinking maybe they're just a little behind. Still no email, so I contacted them. I received an assurance that they were just a little behind and that the boxes would be mailed out shortly.

Cool. I can wait.

And then we're into December with no notification of anything being mailed. I join the shop's Facebook group, but there's no information there about the advent box. It takes days, but finally someone else asks about the box. No one from the shop answers. Then a few days later, the post disappears. The shop shares that order questions should go via email, not the group.

Within a few days, the shop sends out an email saying that they're far behind, but that advent boxes will go out in time for Christmas.

We get deeper into December. There's no chance this box is arriving before Christmas. I email the shop again, inquiring about my box. My expensive box. The response? We posted about this in our Facebook group.

Really? The same Facebook group where you said that you didn't want order issues mentioned?

She posted that day. My email had been sent three days earlier.

To shorten the story, the box finally arrived on January 2nd, well after the advent season. I decided to make it a New Year box and opened one package a day until they were all done.

The items are beautiful. The stress of spending that much money for a box and being met with sheer silence about the order were not worth it. If she had kept me up to date with the order, I would have been fine. If she'd said hey, we're dealing with a family emergency and I won't be able to keep on top of things. I would have been fine. But there were no explanations, no transparency, and no updates.

So while this shop has beautiful stuff, I doubt I'll order from them again because the experience was so unfun.

2026 Reading Challenges

I am hoping to finish two reading challenges this year. I have them all ready to go in my reading journal. These are challenges that I failed last year.

I'm giving myself grace because both are year-long challenges and I didn't discover them until well into the year. One of them in May, the other one much later than that.

There was never a chance to get caught up and I spent a lot of time writing in 2025.

This year, I have a plan. Um, I hope because I haven't actually done it yet and it's February. My idea is to slot books ahead of time into each category. That way I know I'm reading a book that fulfills a prompt.

I've started to follow my plan a few times by looking at other readers' choices and hoping to pick one of them to fulfill that prompt myself. This isn't working real well for me. I'm thinking I just need to make my own choices and not refer to anyone else's list.

We'll see how this goes. 

A Scathingly Brilliant Idea

Sometimes my scathingly brilliant ideas actually are brilliant. And sometimes I actually remember them, although in this case, the light bulb popped on while I was at my computer, so I was able to go right online and put in my order.

As you might know, I have a sticker cutting machine. My biggest issue is I'm not good enough with the software to use it to its full potential because I just do custom stuff for myself on occasion.

My second biggest problem is light.

The cutting machine has to be able to read the registration marks in order to cut the stickers correctly. That requires lots of bright light. If it's not a sunny day outside? If it's not mid day with lots of light streaming in my office windows? Forget about cutting stickers.

I can work around sort of by turning on my phone's flashlight and holding it over the machine so it will read the registration marks, but that doesn't always work.

It's one more annoyance in making stickers, something that is already annoying for me because of my lack of familiarity with the software. Since I'd rather spend my spare time writing rather than learning how to use the software, I don't see this problem improving any time soon.

And then I had a scathingly brilliant idea the other week. What if I bought under-cabinet lighting? I have two shelves directly over the cutting machine. I could buy one of those after market lighting wands, put it over the cutter, and not have to remember to hold my flashlight over it.

I found a set of two on sale. They attach magnetically as well as with sticky squares. Since one of my two shelves is metal, I was like, yes! Perfect!

Almost.

The position on the metal shelf wasn't over the cutter and so I had to stick it with the adhesive to the wood shelf that's above the metal one and juts out farther.

I am happy to report that it was a scathingly brilliant idea! I put the second one in my kitchen near my coffee maker and that was also brilliant.