Please don't tell me if your camera is nicer than mine

It's here, it's here! My new camera arrived in the mail yesterday, and so far, I love it.

Our old Olympus Stylus was great in its day. But it's been getting slower and slower, and the battery needed to be replaced, and then...I dropped it on the sidewalk. Even its all-metal casing (a key point for me) couldn't hold up to that. It broke, and I was in immediate need of a replacement, as I use a camera daily in my work documenting the children's play. So I did some quick research, reading all I could during naps and late at night. I started by looking at the cameras of some of my favorite bloggers, but I'd have to win the lottery first!

I thought I'd made a good-enough choice when I ordered the "Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 10.1 MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom". It had a great zoom lens, took much better interior photos than my old camera, and when I read about it, it sounded pretty small. I was really excited about the good zoom lens, because when I take pictures of the kids, I like them to be fully engaged in their work, and not posing for the camera. But when it arrived, I found it wouldn't fit in my pocket--a big problem when I need to have the camera available all day but also be able to, say, play in the leaves with the kids. And, I was resigned to the fact that cameras I could afford are plastic now (ugh), but this one had a removable plastic lens cap and a plastic pop-up flash which you had to manually push down after using. Too slow to do all that, and worse, they were sure to break off or get lost. But oh, well, it had that great zoom and was fairly affordable.

I tend to agonize over decisions too much, so I tried not to worry about it and just use it. We shelled out the $40 for a memory card so we could really test it out at the Garlic Festival. We were having a great time playing with the zoom and getting used to the camera when I ran into a friend and her dad. Making small talk, I mentioned that I was getting to know my new camera. Her dad said "oh, what did you get?" and when I pulled it out to show him, I felt like I had to explain "it's kind of bulky, but that's because it has this good zoom." That's when he pulled his new camera out of his pocket and said "mine's a little bulky, too, but it's got this 12x zoom." I saw metal parts, and a retractable lens, and an automatic flash, and my heart sunk! (Dramatic, I know, but like I said, I tend to agonize.) I rationalized "well, it must have been much more expensive," until I got home and looked it up and it was only $50 more than what I'd bought.

I decided I didn't want to regret my decision for years (when I buy electronics, I use them until they're well and truly dead, not just until the next thing comes along). So I decided to return my first choice and try again. So here it is, my new "Canon PowerShot SX200IS 12 MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-inch LCD".

Now, please don't go telling me there's something better out there. I don't want to know!