In the Market for New Computers

I think our biggest expense as homeschoolers is for computers.

Each kid takes online classes and does a lot of research and learning online, so each of them needs a computer.  My son has a Macbook, and my daughter's Gateway laptop has been pronounced dead.  She is using the computer my husband built as our home entertainment system to do her school work.  My husband also uses a desktop that he also built (when he is not using his work-issued laptop), and I am currently using a Toshiba laptop  with a monitor, as my laptop screen got broken by the notorious laptop killer that lives here.

No needless to say, we are looking at desktop computers for the laptop killer.  She needs something that will last her until she starts college in about a year and a half, which is about how long it takes her to murder a computer. I was contemplating a desktop for myself as I plan on getting an iPad as well, but I am finding that I can't sit at my desk for a long time as my legs get very restless so I like to move around from chair to sofa, to a laying position as I do my work as a content writer and blogger.  I don't know how much work I can get done on an iPad, so I will need to find out.  (We are contemplating rigging my broken laptop with a mounted monitor to the exercise machine in the basement to encourage more exercise.)

To top it off, son starts college in the fall, so we anticipate buying yet another computer, which will probably be a powerful and expensive Mac because he is going into media design.  Sure the school has computers, but he'd rather work in his room.

Normally our computer purchasing schedule is staggered, with us purchasing a computer every 9 months to a year, but due to the Great Laptop Massacre of Summer 2011, It seems like we may need to replace all of our computers at once.  Sigh. I am glad they are almost grown.... maybe when they are buying their own computers, they will miraculously last longer.