and then I had to start looking for a way out of the grasshopper's money-sucking claws... the poor critter is neatly stored in my shelve and I don't see myself using it, but since I'm very cheap I won't sell it. 
I'm so grateful that I found Sherri and Dawn and what hooked me up was their offer to do facetime tutorial... Sadly, because I like the hard way, I learned on my own LOL... By the way, one of the critter's forum's post mentioned SCAL and I fell in love with the software because it injected life into the machine. later on, this forum made me aware of the Black Cat... I should thank Penny Duncan for her detailed posting in her blog in which she demonstrated and recommended cutters. I sincerely think that harm has been purposely done in this thread, just some misunderstanding...buy now that the murky waters are clear we can see that we all are a bunch of crafters who get a high from creating and enabling others to find the best deals...that said...
I have used a cricut guideline for the blades, depth, and force... at a very basic level, that will help you see if the blade you have is the one you need. the 45 blade is good for vinyl but not for card stock. The 60 blade does a better job. However, the long blade and the detail blade are to die for. I would advice you Honey to run and get into Dawn's forum and perhaps you can get into Sherri's. People are generous and very knowledgeable. Most important, they have been nice to me and willing to put up with my lack of skill and many of them are so great that will take care of you... some of them are in this forum as well. I wish I could mentor you but I doubt it would be beneficial for you.
Happy crafting and thank you for putting up with my ranting.
