Obsession

My camera batteries died and I apparently do not have any replacements, so until I take care of that problem, I can't blog about most of the things that I planned to blog about this week.

Never fear, though, gentle readers. Today, I am introducing a new feature of this blog. At the end of every week, I will post about one or two of my favorite things. It might be a website, a product, a food, a person or animal--who knows? Anyway, I hope that it will be a way for me to share some great things with you that you might also want to try or learn more about.

So, without further ado, here are this week's favorite things.

This is actually a pair of things chosen because they go together--PaperBack Swap and SwapADVD. I joined PaperBack Swap (PBS) last spring and I really love it. It allows you to exchange books with people all over the country (including hardcover books) easily and quickly. This way, you have access to almost any book that you want and, when you're done, you can keep the book or swap it for another book. Now, I don't feel bad about buying a book, reading it once, and not wanting to store it. I don't live near a library, so PBS is really convenient for me. There is quite a market for cookbooks on the site, too.

SwapADVD works the same way--you pay to ship any book or DVD that another member requests from you and they pay to ship anything that you request from them. Membership to both sites is free (there is also a related CD swap site) and you can transfer credits between all three. I recently decided to get rid of all of my VHS tapes because they take up more space than DVDs, but I felt guilty for buying movies that I already owned, so I looked for the movies on SwapADVD instead of buying them brand new.

Both sites allow you to make and manage wish lists for things that aren't currently available and then they notify you when someone else posts that book, DVD, or CD. If a book or DVD has been swapped multiple times, there is a feature on the website that allows you to see where it has been, which is cool.

It's really fun to get rid of some of your old books or DVDs (ones that you don't read or watch anymore) and get new ones or even to request a book or DVD that you read or watched a long time ago and want to read or watch again.

Note: I am not a paid spokesperson for these websites and I am speaking only from my personal experience. Please do not get mad at me if you get kicked off of PBS for sending books full of highlighting or if you get kicked off of SwapADVD for sending someone half of a Jane Fonda work out DVD ;-)