Someone once made fun of me for breaking everything I do into phases. I do this because it makes it easier to actually finish something.
For example, I was certain that building a vegetable garden in our backyard would take most of the summer. Other people, however, thought they could do the whole thing in a day. By around 2pm, my way of thinking had prevailed, and we determined that a “phase 1” consisting of one out of the three boxes was a sizable enough goal for the day.
And one we did manage to accomplish. And by “we” I mean both those of us in charge, and those of us just trying to follow instructions. Nicole and her dad were the former, because they have their own thinking-out-loud language, that only they can decipher, that goes something like this:
Well we can’t put the post on the post, because that post there isn’t a long enough post for the post, so we’re going to cut this post and put it in here. OK?
Nicole’s mom and I just waited until one of them told us where to dig.
Nonetheless, we managed to accomplish our (new, more reasonable) goal and we have 1/3rd of a large vegetable garden ready for planting this week. I’m posting some before and after pictures here, but understand that this is only after phase 1 — it will look a lot different when we get through phase 3… some time this summer!

Before

After

Box #1 Close-up
More pictures should be appearing on the sidebar eventually…

We have an inkjet multi-function printer, that we figure is nearly 5 years old. Its an HP, and although their quality has declined recently, we have been happy with it. Its been limping along on its last legs for a couple years now, and yesterday it ran out of ink.
We also have a Samsung laser printer that I use in my home office. We paid $90 for it, and it pounded out pages for nearly a year before it ran out of toner.
The combined cost to replace the toner, and the black and color ink tanks in our two printers was going to be $169. So instead, we bought a new printer.
The new one cost us $199, and its amazing. Its a laser multi-function center, and although we didn’t spring for the color version, it does practically everything else. It prints double-sided, it scans and faxes over-the-network, so it doesn’t even have to be attached to a computer to be useful. Its a full-page flatbed copier, and it even has an auto-feeder for scanning or copying multiple pages.
Toner replacements are about $80, and it has a toner-save feature, so we expect to get nearly a year out of this cartridge before we have to replace it.
Some of the functions we won’t use very often (fax) but working from home, it sure is nice to have them available.
But the best part is, because its network attached, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near my desk — or our bedroom. Nicole can print out her Google Maps and coupon findings without having to hover around behind me while I’m coding. And I can scan my expense report receipts without running to the bedroom and risking waking the kids during nap time. I couldn’t be more delighted.
Incidentally, its a Samsung. This is our 7th major Samsung purchase (our TV, washer, dryer, fridge, etc… have all been Samsung) and we’ve been very impressed with the quality, feature set and price of each device.