Edelweiss

Hubby and I agree on most things. What we don’t agree on is how to spend our disposable income. Hubby likes to buy gear and gadgets. I prefer to save money and then spend it on travel. It’s a source of friction. When hubby wants to buy a gadget, I bristle. When I want to book costly travel, he hems and haws.

We are an Apple household. We own: an iMac with a 27″ screen, a MacBook Pro, four iPhones (two iPhone 3s and the 2 iPhone 4s, which subsequently replaced them), two iPads, two Apple TV units, a Nano, an iPod, and a Shuffle. We had an iTouch, which I made hubby sell when he wanted the first iPad. I’m not telling you this to brag because honestly (although I enjoy my technology) I’m a little embarrassed. I am sure we’re helping to put several Apple employees’ children through Stanford. When I think about the places we could have gone or the things we could have seen using the money we spent on electronics, I cringe.

We have done some traveling, but most of the traveling we’ve done has been on trips booked and paid for by my in-laws. Every five years they celebrate their wedding anniversary by taking the entire family somewhere. Because of these trips, I have been to England, Alaska, and Norway. My in-laws have saved my marriage by taking me to the places my hubby refuses to pay to go. I’ve been saving quarters for two years now in an effort to shore up some cash to take the boys to Hawaii. I haven’t decided whether I’ll bring Steve with me on that trip.

Yesterday we had a long discussion about snowshoes, new showshoes which Steve thinks he “needs” because he’s not happy with the ones he has now. I have a hard time wanting to approve a couple hundred dollar purchase of something he already owns. So, we were going round and round about it. His current snowshoes are already better quality than the ones I own. He offered to give me his current shoes when he buys his new ones. As if that was supposed to encourage me to endorse the purchase. We finally agreed that he would wait until the end of this snow season to see if he could find a deal for next year’s snowshoes.

This morning, Steve was looking at a National Geographic magazine on his iPad. He was browsing through photos from around the globe. First he was showing me photos of Sami reindeer herders in Norway. Then he moved on to photos of Europe.

“I want to go to Vienna,” he stated.

“That’s not on the top of my list,” I countered, “but it would be cool to go there. We could hit Prague then too.”

“I think we’d love it. I think we should go.”

“Well, you can’t get to Vienna on snowshoes, babe,” I quipped.

“I decided I’m not getting the snowshoes,” he replied.

Victory! Who knows? We maybe I’ll be singing Edelweiss sooner than I thought.