Surprise!

Dictionary.com defines surprise like this:

–verb (used with object)
1. to strike or occur to with a sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment, as through unexpectedness: Her beauty surprised me.
2. to come upon or discover suddenly and unexpectedly: We surprised the children raiding the cookie jar.
3. to make an unexpected assault on (an unprepared army, fort, person, etc.).
4. to elicit or bring out suddenly and without warning: to surprise the facts from the witness.
5. to lead or bring unawares, as into doing something not intended: to surprise a witness into telling the truth.

–noun
6. an act or instance of surprising or being surprised.
7. something that surprises someone; a completely unexpected occurrence, appearance, or statement: His announcement was a surprise to all.
8. an assault, as on an army or a fort, made without warning.
9. a coming upon unexpectedly; detecting in the act; taking unawares.

Life is full of surprises. Some are good; some are bad. I've had my share of the bad ones over the past year. More than my share actually, so I was overdue for some of the good ones.

And I got a really good one this past Monday. #2 son has been visiting me and the day after Christmas we were supposed to go visit his older brother who is married and has a four year old. Now, I love my sons and my DIL, but you must understand that after raising two boys, I derive great joy from buying girly stuff. So while I enjoyed the white Christmas we had, I was very disappointed our trip to see the grandbaby was delayed a day.

But we needed to stay safe and the roads were quite treacherous. On Monday, though, things were fine and we travelled without incident. I pulled out my gifts and distributed them to both boys and to my daughter in law, and they were excited by what they received. Then the granddaughter opened hers and oh my gosh, it was just a giggle-fest as she unwrapped rhinestone necklaces, a new outfit with sparkles on the top, a child-sized pink travel neck pillow with a cat head on one side and a cat tail on the other, a personalized Princess Tea Party CD and a big story book. Her stocking had lip gloss, nail polish and a little bit of candy. Her great-gran sent her a tiny tea set in a wee wicker basket. Of course she had to try everything on, wear some lip gloss and have a tea party while she listened to her CD.

Then I was given a box wrapped in red and white paper. "This is from all of us," my daughter in law said. I tore off the wrapping and found a sturdy cardboard box with these words on the outside:

AMAZON KINDLE

Color me stunned. Speechless. Almost in tears. Of all the presents in all my years, this ranks among the very best because I know it was a stretch for my kids to buy it. And you will have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers to get it away from me.

But now I have to figure it out. I spent yesterday morning trying to just get it registered with Amazon and in the process I messed up my network. At that point I was completely frustrated and had to just set the Kindle aside until my stress levels dropped. Eventually I figured out that certain letters in my network password were capitalized. Duh.

So now it's registered, I've downloaded a free book from Amazon for practice and set up a Romance collection to categorize the download. I'm still a looooooooong way from conquering the Kindle, but doing so will keep me out of trouble. ;-)

So... who else has a Kindle? And what tips and tricks can you offer me? Where can you buy books for the Kindle besides Amazon? And what about covers? I want to get one but there are so many choices.

The best tip today will win a paperback book from my stash. Kinda funny, huh? A paperback in exchange for an e-book tip? Surprise!