Most women buy shoes…

But we each have our own weaknesses and mine just doesn’t happen to be shoes – mind you my husband loved anything leather so I had to convince him not to buy me more shoes, purses, etc. and perhaps that is where my taste for shoes got lost. However, I suspect it was non-existent to start with as I never was as interested in fashion as my younger sister: if it fit and didn’t get in the way of my activities that was good enough: having to get dressed up to go into town as a child was not my cup of tea so was glad that it didn’t happen very often.

But, as I was saying, we all have our own particular stumbling blocks when it comes to the accumulation of things – mine happens to be cameras and computers.

And recently I gave in to the craving – my most recent camera got accidentally dropped on concrete and forever after read “the objective is not correctly positioned” – refusing to open at all. As I was leaving on my Italian trip in two days, a new one (mind you the second-oldest one still worked – the one where the telephoto lens isn’t adequate for my purposes) was obviously mandatory: as my little sister was want to say: “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it”!

I had originally intended simply replacing it with the newest of the same, a Canon, as have always found them to be perfect for me. But in the local department store’s electronics corner and faced with a choice in between a Canon or the Lumix (Panasonic) with a Leica lens, I wavered and promptly was unfaithful to Canon. And, as the saying goes, never looked back – the telephoto lens is wonderful and the IS (image stabilization for those unused to the term) certainly improves the blur even if my hands are no longer the steadiest. It’s macro is also more than adequate, witness recent flower photos.

Then there was the computer: to my credit I have been talking about a new computer for approx. two years – well before I finally relinquished the “client”. In fact they were the reason I didn’t act on it sooner as really, really, really, didn’t want to have to “translate” my earlier software programs, statistics, data basing and book keeping into newer versions that may or may not have worked. I got burned when I installed a newer OS then had to strip it back out the next day when it was incompatible with the two programs that I used the most.

But the day of my “retirement” finally came – I waiting patiently yet a few months to make sure that I could answer all remaining questions, then I headed to the Mac (not to divulge my preferences) store.  They convinced me that my computer was actually working just fine but that perhaps to speed it up a bit I should exchange my memory cards for more powerful ones. They, of course, couldn’t do that.  Well I did actually plan on doing that, but the store that could do is located in a very difficult-to-access-by-car part of town, I was busy with the bath renovations then with social events so nothing happened except that I got more and more frustrated about the slowness of my computer – never mind having to sort out trash bins in all my software to keep it moving at all (sorting out all the stuff stored on it was such a herculean task that I wasn’t even going there).

Then, oh wonder of wonders, the local department store not only had a sale on Mac’s but this also fell during a period of 10% off if you used the store card. That did it. Sorry Apple but your store lost a sale. Now I must decide what gets transferred into the new one, what remains on the old and how I transfer in between them (the old screen is 17” which of course is much better for my photo work than the new 15” – and no, you computer geeks, don’t remind me that I can simply hook it up to my TV screen – that would involve buying adequate table and chair arrangements for the chalet!)

MacBook Pro

So, although shoes and clothes might not be this particular woman’s preference, I certainly have proved that my little hobbies aren’t quite inexpensive either!