Today Stinks - Literally!!

I think potpourri should be outlawed in public places.

Don't get me wrong - it's fine with me if you want your house to smell so intensely of cinnamon that primitive spice traders show up at your door with jewels to trade.

It's a free country.

But when I walk into Michael's, as I did this morning, and am hit with such an overpowering potpourri smell that my liver curls up, my face sweats, and my head aches in the first ten seconds, it seems to me that second hand smoke would actually be preferable.

Follow that with a quick sprint through Bed Bath & Beyond, and I am about to have total organ failure!

I can still smell and taste it. Bleh.

I wish Michael's had a drive through. However, I did use my snazzy Micheal's phone app to save 40% off one item and 25% off my total purchase including sales items, so I am pretty happy about that. I never did like paper coupons, so this is awesome.

But it DID inspire me to make a card, as such bizarre things often do!! I laughed so hard when I saw this stamp from the Unity Kit of the Month that I HAD to use it on a card for this stinky occasion.

I took my design principle from this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger challenge, which is not only Moxie Fab, but reminds me of the accessories of my youth!

Here's the Tuesday Trigger:

It cried out for a retro treatment, and so that's what it got. I put the image in the corner so that I could use one iteration of each of the colors in the inspiration piece.

 Stamps: Unity KOTM November 2011 Ink: Basic Black Paper: More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, 

Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Taken With Teal, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip Accessories: 3/4" Circle Punch, Taken with Teal and More Mustard Stampin' Write Markers

Does that not crack you up?? I especially love the element of my beloved procrastination in the sentiment. So there's my Moxie Friends with Flair!

Now - do you want to meet my new favorite gadget? GAH I am in love with this thing!!

Meet the new Kindle Fire!

I skipped over the whole Kindle phase the country went through. It didn't interest me.

I really, really like real books, so I didn't see the point.

But after I experienced IBooks for a while, I started to see the allure of having all those e-books in one place. But the Ipad is not a good reading platform. It's too big, you can't read on your back - if you brained yourself with your Ipad (I tend to fall suddenly and violently asleep while reading) you'd really be sorry. It's just a really awkward way to read.

But when I started to see the specs on the new Fire, I was intrigued. And my mom loves her next generation Kindle, so I thought I'd dive into this one.

And holy cow am I glad I did!

First of all the packaging and presentation is very Apple-like.

Then, unlike any other piece of the digital world I've ever owned, when I pressed the on button, it said "Hello, Lydia" and already had my account pre-loaded on the device!! No syncing, entering passwords, plugging into my PC - it's a DIGITAL MIRACLE! All I had to do was start reading!

And did I read! I don't really have time for real books anymore - I get most of mine on audio so I can listen while I walk. But this thing is bewitching. I read for 4 hours straight in my first sitting. I love the bookmarks and all the little fun tricks. The size is really, really nice. Big enough to read comfortably and small enough to hold comfortably.

If you're an Amazon Prime member (which for me - since I don't shop in real stores willingly, and buy pretty much everything on Amazon - pays for itself a thousand times over) you can even share your books for free with other Kindle users. So really, every one of your reading friends can have a virtual book club - how cool is that?

You need one of these. It's totally going on the Blue List. 5 stars from this girl. If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see all the features, which I haven't even played with yet because all I've done is read.

Anyway, I hope you have an unscented, literary, stampy rest of the weekend!

Loveyameanitbye.