Is It A Gift Or An Obligation?

The holiday season is here once more. This is a joyous time of year with some stressful undertones considering the current state of the economy. I already completed all my Christmas shopping for my family and kept my total spending at a reasonable amount for our current budget. I would like to say that concludes my holiday shopping, but my fear is a friend may surprise me with a gift for my son, and then I would feel obligated to buy a gift for their kid.

This year the budget is tight, and I would rather not buy extra gifts for friends and friends' kids. What is the best way to handle this situation? One option is to be upfront and say, "Hey I'm not sure if you were planning on giving us a gift, but I would prefer to not exchange gifts this year." The other option is to not say anything and hope my friends would not take offense if I did not reciprocate in the event they do give us any presents.

Because I still wanted to give something special to my friends and their children, my son and I made cute little cards, and I included a Christmas photo of my son. I thought it would be an appropriate gift during a recession and not make anyone feel obligated to break the bank.

So I'm curious if it is considered rude if a friend buys a gift for my son, but I don't buy one for their kid? Or should I be upfront and say no gifts this year, please?

UPDATE: Poll Results 12/20/08 - 12/27/08

Has the recession had any effect on your holiday shopping this year?
00% Yes
00% No
100% Meh

I'll Be At Apple's Last Macworld Expo!

Woooot! My excitement cannot be contained! I will be attending Apple's last Macworld Expo, and thus scratching another item off my Life List. With the encouragement of my loving mom to use my $100 Christmas bonus to go to Macworld, and who was also ever so gracious to help me purchase a plane ticket from LA to San Francisco, I will be at Macworld for one day. I can't afford to miss anymore work than that, so I plan to make the most of it. I'll be there on Tuesday before the expo floor opens, and I additionally hope to party it up at the Macworld Blast.

However, it would seem an item on my Life List will go unchecked since Steve Jobs will not be giving the last Apple keynote address at Macworld in January. This is truly sad, but being the Apple fanatic I am, I am still really looking forward to going there regardless of seeing the keynote.

Also, I am also very grateful to have a wonderful and supportive husband who is helping make it possible for me to go out of town for a couple of days to do something that means so much to me, and he will be taking on full parental responsibility for our son while I'm gone. Thank you and I love you Josh!

This Macworld Expo is definitely an end of an era, and I'm am so eager to be a part of it!

UPDATE: Poll Results 12/16/08 - 12/23/08

What should I do with my $100 Christmas bonus?
66% Spend it on myself
00% Spend it as a family
33% Reduce credit card debt
00% Give it to charity

FYI, I'm using my Christmas bonus to go to Macworld and it's going to be awesome :-)

Apple's Last Macworld! Say It Isn't So!

In my last blog post, I wrote about my Life List and all the items I wished to accomplish in my lifetime. Under goals to check off, I listed:

• Go to Macworld (even if I can only afford the expo)
• See Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote address

Today, my earth shattered when I got the sad news that the upcoming Macworld Expo in January would be Apple's last, and Steve Jobs would not be giving the final keynote address. Suddenly, I felt I will never get the chance to mark these two items off my Life List.

As a lover of all things Apple, I feel Macworld Expo will not be the same without Apple's presence. If there was ever a year to attend Macworld, this would most certainly be the year. Unfortunately, the state of the economy and being a responsible parent is hindering my decision to go up there. I honestly do not see Macworld in my future, but I guess I can always live vicariously through the people I follow on Twitter who are lucky enough to attend this momentous event.

UPDATE: Poll Results 12/16/08 - 12/23/08

Will Macworld Expo survive without Apple's participation?
20% Yes
80% No
00% Meh

My Life List

The close to another year is upon us, and it's always about this time that I reflect on the past year and plan for the year ahead. I think about what have I accomplished and what do I want to do next. To keep track, I have created a Life List. This is something I have been working on for the past couple of years, and I just revisited my list lately to update it and add more items. On it I have listed many meaningful goals that I want to achieve during my lifetime. Now that I have worked on my Life List more, I am really looking forward to 2009 and all the possible items I can mark off my list.

Keri's Life List

Constant goals - These are the most important items on my list.

1. Wake up every day with a smile :-)
2. Exercise and stay healthy
3. Not be so critical of myself
4. Compliment others more
5. Learn to say "no" without feeling guilty
6. Be a good role model for Cruz
7. Keep in touch with friends
8. Try harder to remember people's names
9. Learn new graphic design techniques
10. Take a picture every day
11. Try to fix spelling mistakes before using spell check

Goals to check off - These are things I hope to experience in my lifetime.

1. Own a house
2. Go to Macworld (even if I can only afford the expo)
3. See Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote address
4. Go to an Ellen DeGeneres Show taping
5. Travel cross country with no set destinations or time frame
6. Eat sushi in Tokyo
7. Visit Spain during summertime
8. Visit pyramids in Egypt
9. Go on a cruise
10. Decorate the yard & house with Christmas decorations
11. Take surfing lessons
12. Go scuba driving
13. Learn Spanish
14. Build a telescope
15. Be on the Price Is Right
16. Run a marathon
17. Set a record
18. Go water skiing
19. Actually follow through on one of my invention ideas
20. Play putt-putt golf under par
21. Eat suckling pig
22. Eat gooey duck
23. Take a cooking class
24. Drink a $100+ bottle of wine
25. Learn how to sew
26. Eat Ethiopian food
27. Vacation in Hawaii
28. Participate in a raw oyster eating contest
X. Eat at a 5 star restaurant
X. Stay at a 5 star resort
X. Be pampered at a spa
X. Cook a Thanksgiving feast & share it with family and friends

X = completed items

I'm curious if you have a Life List or if maybe now you are inspired to write one. What do you want to do with your life?

UPDATE: Poll Results 12/7/08 - 12/14/08

Do you have a Life List?
66% Yes
33% No
00% Meh

To Turn Off Or Not To Turn Off?

Tomorrow husband, son, and I are traveling to go see my in-laws and friends for Thanksgiving weekend. There's still tons of packing to do, but my iPhone is synced and ready to go. As I was choosing what music to sync to my iPhone, I was debating on whether or not I should shut my iMac down before we head out tomorrow. We'll be gone for four days, so it seems logical to turn off everything to save power. However, I have two reasons why I would rather leave my machine on: Simplify Media and email.

First Simplify Media is a must have for any iPhone owner. I love my iPhone, but my 8 GB version makes picking and choosing music a pain. I have a very large collection of music in my iTunes Library and I want to take it all with me. Simplify Media does that for me. It allows me to stream my entire music library from home and listen to it on my iPhone. The one catch is my iMac must be on and it has to be set to never go into sleep mode.

Now about email. I have a MobileMe account that I've had and loved since the beginning of .Mac back in 2002. I use Leopard's Mail App to check my email on my iMac, and of course I check my email regularly on my iPhone. Problem is, the iPhone doesn't filter junk mail, so I need the mail app to work it's magic to keep spam out of my inbox. This wouldn't be a problem if MobileMe's server side junk mail filtering was as sophisticated as say GMail, but that's another topic. It is what it is, and I can deal with it by setting my own junk mail rules locally. But again, the catch is I have to leave my iMac on all the time to filter my mail, and I have to set my iPhone to fetch email instead of push, otherwise it pushes me all the junk too.

So now I'm curious how many carbon credits I'm burning by leaving my iMac on for the next four days while I'm out of town, or is it nothing to worry about to have access to my home machine while on the road? To turn off or not to turn off? That is the question.

UPDATE: Poll Results 11/26/08 - 12/3/08

Do you turn your desktop off when you're out of town?
33% Leave it on
33% Shut it down
33% Sleep mode
00% No desktop