I discovered the rewards offer for both Canadian Gardening and Gardening Life (that was bundled with House & Home for 75,000points)last fall. It's been wonderdul to receive them in the mail. Helped to break my expensive habit of buying gardening magazines (often in duplicate by error). However, I've been getting renewal notices for several months which is annoying. I plan to do the rewards purchase again. One of you mentioned having to pay cash for renewal. Is there something in the fine print of these HBC offers that limit them to first time subscribers? Cheers

I filled up a whole box & only managed to spend $10.25! Since it was half-price day, I got a small stack of Neil Sperry's Texas Gardening for 10 cents each, a couple of nice hardback books for 50 cents each, 1 hardback was $1 (the most expensive thing I got!), & some paperbacks for 25 cents each. They had a Collector's Room, with first editions, signed books, etc, & there was a table for videos/books on tape, etc. The other books were on tables arranged by subject: gardening (need I say that one was picked nearly clean by the time I showed up???) home improvement cooking/entertaining Texana history women's studies computer children's young readers Those are some that I can remember: there were at least twice that many subjects. I also filled out a card so they'll notify me for next year's sale, & I'll try to post it earlier.

I have two rather radical suggestions -- they've been wonderful for me: DVDs: I was constantly irritated that my family'd remove a DVD from the case, watch it, and instead of returning the DVD to the case, they'd pile up the cases and DVDs on the edge of the entertainment center 'til the towers grew tall and fell over . . . and even when a few favorite movies were stepped on /broken from this lazy behavior, they just wouldn't take the necessary seconds to join the items back up again. My husband was the worst offender. So I threw away the cases. Yep, threw 'em away. Tossed all second-disks that include junk like interviews with the cast, etc. Now all our movies are all housed in those zippered cases that hold 40-60 CDs. Removing the cases means they take up MUCH LESS space. Movies are arranged by category; we have zippered cases for various categories: - Family movies - Disney movies - Action and Adventure movies - Adult comedies - and we store series DVDs together; for example, the entire 24 collection is housed together with the West Wing series in one large zippered case. The Sopranos shares space with the Little House TV series, and Game of Thrones is in a new, mostly empty case eagerly awaiting the arrival of more DVDs. We have NO TROUBLE finding movies in their cases. My family still refuses to put them away, but without the cases they don't pile up as high, and they don't spill over onto the floor as quickly. I can put them away without searching for the right case -- just the right category. I briefly considered cutting away a portion of the colorful colored title page from the cover and slipping them into the squares behind the DVDs . . . but ultimately I went for the easiest route. When I find a certain movie left in the machine, all I have to do is pick the right case and plop it into any of the empty slots. Oh, I should add this detail: I have nice, homemade matching zipper pulls on the DVD cases that let us know whether the case holds Adult Dramas or Action and Adventure. I made them from laminate samples swiped from Lowes' Home Improvement. Shhhh. They're sturdy and will last a lifetime. Now, books . . . ask yourself, Do you love books, or do you love reading? Me, I love reading. I always had piles, piles, piles of books. Finally I faced the fact that I simply didn't need -- or even want -- to keep them all. I had so many books that I rarely re-read, and it wasn't really hard to let them go to the library and to Goodwill. When I laid them all out on the floor and looked at them, I admitted to myself that they fall in the same category as the size 5 jeans I wore in high school/college -- things that I enjoyed very much at one time but will never use again. Oh, I still have some favorites, but the vast majority of books really have no monetary value, and they are easily and cheaply replaced. Furthermore, keeping them isn't free: Bookshelves cost money, and you have to dust them. And they deteriorate over time. Letting go of things that I honestly won't read again was the right choice. New fiction I'm buying on my Kindle. Digital copies are almost always cheaper, and they're so much more portable. I've been a Kindle-reader for 6-7 years now, and I have about 900 books on my Kindle. When I travel, I can bring all 900 . . . in my purse. These books do not break down over time, and if my Kindle is lost/destroyed, they will automatically re-load to a new Kindle machine (I know this for a fact because I am now on my second Kindle, having WORN OUT the first one!). These books take up no space on the bookshelf; and if I lend them to a friend, they cannot "forget" to return them. I MUCH prefer reading on a Kindle: It keeps your page number, and the book doesn't want to "close on you" as you near the end and the pages are very much out of proportion in your hand. The price of Kindles has gone down-down-down, while the quality has gone up-up-up. Disclaimer: I didn't get rid of reference books. That is, gardening books, fix-it books, etc.

My Kindle arrived on Monday, a day early! It works as advertised. I purchased and downloaded a book more rapidly than I have ever downloaded anything, probably a minute or less. I had already decided on the book, Down River by John Hart, and that decision took a long time because there were so many possibilities. Last night I downloaded one of my previously purchased Audible.com books. To do that requires downloading first to the computer and then to the Kindle via USB. The audio book takes much more space than the printed book but I will only use the Kindle for that purpose in the car on long trips because I don't have a car player for my iPOD. Before the Kindle arrived I was reading a paperback book, which I don't like to do because of having to hold it open without harming the book (my personal problem). Now, with switching back and forth, I find the Kindle is so much easier to read that I am wishing the paperback would be available on the Kindle as well. Reading on the Kindle is better than I even expected. The cover for the Kindle is like a leather-covered hardback book cover. Because it has two sides, like a book, it becomes very easy to forget that I'm only reading on one side of it. I sometimes reach for the page to turn, forgetting that I should touch the "next page" button. The cover also makes it possible to prop the Kindle in front of me while I am eating and that certainly doesn't work with the paperback book. The print looks very much like that in a printed book. It is possible to choose from six font sizes. The reason there are no page numbers is because they would vary depending on the font size. It does give a location instead of page number and there are dots across the bottom of the display to indicate how much of the book has been read. The search feature is very nice and useful, especially in looking for something in the Kindle User Guide, which I do need to consult from time to time. There are other features I haven't checked out yet. So, my initial reaction is that I really, really like the Kindle. Is it worth $400? I have no idea. That is a judgment everyone has to make for themselves. I don't think it will ever totally replace books but it will help me keep from adding nearly as many to my Tottering TBR Towers.