Exceedingly Mundane

Apparently, I never posted here about my new little happy that I got in the mail! I shared a photo on Facebook, but thought I better record it here and do a little background (well, for me, it’s a lotta background, since I’m so verbose!)

I went the first 38 or 40 years of my life and never touched coffee. In fact, growing up, I couldn’t stand the smell of coffee. My parents made it every morning and drank about 2 cups each. But it seemed strong and smelled burnt and just icky. 🙂 When I met Tim, I learned quickly that he really loves coffee. He’s not a modern coffee kind of guy, though. He’s not really into going to Starbucks or a local coffee chain we have called Cups, although he will go and drink coffee. But, he just goes for a plain black coffee. Nothing flavored or sweet or fancy. He just likes plain, black coffee.

Me, I tried coffee for the first time on vacation, I think when we went to San Antonio about 10 or 12 years ago. We had a coffee maker in the room and they had some flavored coffee. One morning, Tim offered to make me a cup and add cream and sugar to it, if I would just try it. I did, and learned to “tolerate” coffee, as long as it had enough stuff added so that it didn’t really taste like coffee! He has fondly, over the years, referred to my coffee as “hot chocolate”. 😀 I always tell people mine has to be a light khaki color and not really taste like coffee. LOL!

Anyway, forward a few years and the Tassimo product first came on the market. I saw one at Bed, Bath and Beyond and thought, well, that’s something new, but I don’t know if it will go over. Why would people buy little pods of coffee to make one cup when they could brew a whole pot? Notice that I had a similar thought about the iPod and digital music when Apple first introduced the first iPod and iTunes. I’m like, why would you pay for music online and listen on a specific device, when there’s the radio and CD’s available to buy in every store on the block. Sensing a theme here? I’m not particularly forward thinking or immediately accepting of new things 🙂

So, the Tassimo did ok, and then Keurig came out with their brewers. We stayed at a Hard Rock hotel (got there late and they had given our room away, but upgraded us to a suite with an ocean view, a wrap around deck, a huge shower and a Keurig in the suite) and I tried the Keurig for the first time and exhausted their supply of flavored coffees supplied to the hotel room. I thought then, wow, I’d like to get one of these for me, to have my flavored coffees occasionally.

But then, as now, I realized that a Keurig is just NOT practical for us. With Tim working from home and loving coffee, he drinks a LOT. He’s actually drinking less than he did a few years ago. He’s down from drinking 12 cups a day to *just* 8 cups a day. We normally only make him 4 or 6 cups on the weekend. But, from a cost and practicality stand point, that’s not very cheap when you are buying that many K-cups a day. The beans he likes we get at Sam’s in a big bag and that bag (about 12 bucks) lasts at least a month. So, nowhere near the cost factor.

So, I just never got a Keurig. In our old house, I didn’t have room for it. I kept my little cheap Mr. Coffee coffeemaker from Walmart out in the garage and just brought it inside once or twice a week (at most) to make me some flavored coffee. I was banned from using “his” coffeemaker, since he swears he can taste the flavored coffee afterwards, even though it was cleaned. So, I just kept my old one hidden and he used his daily.

Then we moved last year, into a bigger house with a nice big open kitchen and quite a bit more counter space. I still stored my old coffeepot out in the garage and brought it in once or twice a week (mostly in the winter when it was cold and I didn’t want hot tea).

And, then there’s the Viggle part. I had Viggle points accumulating. I had been using Viggle (an app that you use to check into tv shows) for a while and was cashing the points in for gift cards. I have earned $110 in Amazon gift cards, $55 in iTunes gift cards and a $15 Chili’s e-gift certificate. I was perfectly happy saving my Viggle points for gift cards. Except I went about 6 months and never saw a single gift card offered. Apparently, they wanted you to spend your points on products. So, in looking through the product catalog, I didn’t see anything I really wanted. Except the Keurig. So, by June, I had saved enough points and ordered the Keurig. I think it’s a model that has been discontinued. It’s the Keurig 2.0, but the 350 model. I see the 300, 400 and even 500 model in stores, but never the 350. The 2.0 system means it has the carafe, so we can do a small pot of 4 cups for Tim. But the catch with the 2.0 system and Keurig is that it only uses Keurig branded K-cups. Which means I can’t buy a refillable cup and use all the ground coffee I have here. And I can’t use local brands like Community Coffee or other coffees that don’t partner with Keurig. I love to order stuff from Amazon and they have lots of fun assortments of K-cups. However, half of them don’t have the Keurig brand on them, which means they won’t work in this 2.0 system.

However, it was free, it’s here and I’m thoroughly enjoying it! I’ve been slowly buying K-cups. Decaf, as that’s all I can handle these days. I learned when I woke up with tinnitus 5 years ago that caffeine does a number on my tinnitus, so I eliminated caffeine from my diet. No tea, unless its decaf (so, usually herbal), no Coke, just Sprite or a root beer that doesn’t have caffeine. I’ve quickly learned that there are not a lot of choices in Keurig branded K-cups that are decaf. I’ve only found one or two that are flavored.

But STILL. It was free, I didn’t even have to pay shipping and handling. It’s here, it’s out on my counter, and I’ve been enjoying the bee-jeebers out of it! I’ve had decaf or hot tea every day, using one of my new K-Cups. I’m adding a lot of cream and sugar, as is what I have to do, and I’m already noticing the pounds are starting to slide back on. Nothing like drinking your calories! But. I’m loving my new little happy! 🙂

Here’s the assortment of K-cups and K-carafe pods that came with the brewer:

And my first cup of coffee that I brewed in my favorite little red cup:

It’s the little things in life that make me happy! 😀

Once again, I don’t have anything earth-shattering to blog about. Just some random tidbits floating around in my head!

* The weather here is gorgeous! It finally feels like fall and not so much like summer. I’ve joked most of my life that we have two seasons here in the Deep South – really really hot and not quite as hot! Last week, it started cooling off some and was in the 80’s during the day and 50’s and 60’s at night. The last couple of days have been even better – 70’s during the day and 40’s at night. Awesome! I’ve had the windows open and been enjoying not only the cooler air, but hearing my birds at my bird feeder, the insects chirping and even occasionally my wind chimes singing 🙂

* Once the weather starts feeling better, I start thinking about needing a few new pieces of clothing for fall and winter. I have mentioned before that I really don’t like to shop (not for clothes anyway, food and electronics shopping make me happy though!). I particularly dislike shopping for shoes. And purses. And underwear. Ugh. But, part of me wants some new boots this year. I have never owned a pair of cowboy boots and some part of me wants a pair. Maybe even a pair of short ones, I saw some in a store when I was at the beach with my sister and her family. So – if you buy boots this year, will they be tall or short ones and what style? Is there anything that’s really “in”, not that I’m much of an in-style kind of girl!

* We got our replacement coffee maker in the mail, finally. Our Cuisinart On-Demand coffee maker started having problems after about a year. It’s under warranty for 3 years, so we called them and set things up. We had to cut the cord from the old one and mail to them, and then they told us that our unit was on back-order. So we waited, and waited. It finally came in last week! Tim is happy and I’m pretty happy too. I had bought a cheap Mr Coffee at Walmart to use while we waited on the new one to come in. Now, I drag that one out every day from the garage to use for my decaf coffee. So, I’m back to drinking coffee some days 🙂 If you remember, I gave up caffeine to help with my tinnitus, but I do miss sweet tea in the summer and coffee in the winter. I am now enjoying the Decaf Moose Munch flavored coffee I bought at Harry & David last month!

* I’m still on the fence about getting a Kindle. My birthday is coming up, and I actually have enough credit at Amazon to get one (from doing the Swagbucks and MyPoints programs). I’ve been going back and forth between thinking I want an iPad to thinking I want a Kindle, to most days thinking, I love paper books, why on earth would I waste money on an e-Reader. Tim encouraged me to download something to my Mac and read it on there. Luckily, Amazon gives away a lot of really good free books and I’ve downloaded quite a few. I read one, “The Pawn” by Steven James on my Kindle for Mac app. I really enjoyed it, good book and it was easier to read on the laptop than I had anticipated. So now I’m swinging more that way than before!

* I’ve been doing better on the cooking front. I’m making menu plans more often and sticking to them, and I’ve also made a concerted effort to try some new recipes. I’ve got a few that have been deemed keepers, so I’ll try to post a link to those soon – in case anyone is interested! 🙂

Hope you’re all having a great day and week out there in blog-land!

What does this look like to you?

To me, it looks like cough syrup. But, it’s not. It’s what I’ve been putting in my morning coffee for the last few weeks. I have blogged before about my love of flavored coffee creamers in the past, and we’re definitely coming up on my favorite time of year – when Coffeemate brings out their holiday flavors like gingerbread, peppermint, etc. I normally buy other flavors of Coffeemate (as many in the lowfat variety as I can) to use throughout the year. But a few months ago, I tried buying a bottle of flavored syrup at Sam’s Club, and just using fat-free half and half in my coffee. I think the syrup lasts a lot longer and I think it may be a bit cheaper to go this route. Either way, it’s always nice to change things up a bit 😀

This is the cough syrup flavored syrup I’ve been using:

The raspberry tastes good, although I think I like the vanilla and caramel flavored syrups better. I just can’t get past the look of it! It’s a bit disconcerting to put that red syrup in my coffee, it looks just like cough syrup! And, with the red syrup and white half and half, my coffee comes out looking pink! 🙂 Good thing it tastes good….

Have a wonderful day!

and In with the new!

I’ve blogged before that we make a lot of coffee at our house. Tim has been drinking coffee (black, thank you), since long before I met him. I resisted for a very long time, but a few years ago, learned to drink it, if it is somewhere in the khaki shade 🙂 Lots of Splenda and creamer for me. Anyway, since he started working part-time, and then later, full-time from home, our coffee maker gets quite a workout. We make 12 cups a day, 7 days a week, on average. Some days, I make a second pot, although not as much lately since it’s hotter. And speaking of that, highs every day this week are 97 and 98. UGH!

Anyway, our reliable old Cuisinart, pictured below from a previous post, finally bit the dust:

Actually, it started smoking! Tim said it had a short in it, and the carafe starting boiling, in addition to smoke coming out the back. So, we went that very afternoon to get a new one. We thought we would go to Sam’s Club and buy another one like this, as I always see them in there. However, they didn’t have this one. They had a different Cuisinart, an On Demand one, that doesn’t have an external glass carafe. Tim liked that idea, and so we are giving this one a try. I’ve read some of the reviews on Amazon, and it appears that this new one may not last as long as our old one (3 1/2 or 4 1/2 years), but we’ll give it a go. Tim likes that the coffee stays hotter inside the internal carafe. It’s easy to clean up, and it doesn’t splash at all when you hit the pushbutton to stream the coffee into your cup. The only kicker for me is that it is harder to fill up an internal reservoir/carafe. It was easier to take the glass 12 cup one over to the sink and fill it up 🙂 But, I’ve adapted. You can teach an old dog new tricks!

Here’s the new one:

Which reminds me, I blogged last year about hoping to get new dishes, and I finally did! I have four colors of Fiestaware, that’s the scarlet red one. Maybe I should post about my new dishes. Love having color! 🙂

Have a wonderful day, one and all! 😀

When I met Tim, I didn’t drink coffee or tea. When we were dating, I started drinking sweet tea (it has to have sweetener in it, I can’t drink it unsweetened). I learned to drink the occasional hot tea over the years, mostly in the winter to warm up, or if I wanted something for a sore throat. I went about nine long years before I ever ventured into the coffee world. I remember it clearly – we were on vacation in Texas and for some reason, Tim kept badgering me to try coffee. I have learned to drink it over the years – again, like tea, it has to be highly sweetened and it must have a lot of creamer in it. Tim jokingly calls it “hot cocoa” because he said it doesn’t resemble coffee by the time I’m finished with mixing stuff in it. I call it “beige” or “khaki” because it has to look a very light color and not smell much like coffee for me to be able to knock it back 😀 Tim, on the other hand, only drinks it black.

When Tim started working part-time from home, we started making more coffee on a regular basis. When he proceeded to working full-time from home, our coffeemaker went into overdrive. We make, on average, 12 cups a day, 7 days a week, in our trusty little Cuisinart coffee pot. In case you’re math-challenged, that’s 84 cups a week. Needless to say, we go through a lot of coffee! And not just any coffee. Tim is very particular about his beans. He likes them dark and rich, a very good roast. We started out with Community Coffee and he was okay with that for a while. Somewhere along the way, he decided that wasn’t what he wanted, and we progressed to other beans and brands. We settled, surprisingly enough, on a whole bean from Sam’s Club – their Marques de Pavia brand (however you spell it!). We’ve been buying beans there, faithfully, for several years. The main thing I liked about buying our coffee there, was that it was in larger quantities, which we so desperately needed. Not to mention that it was cheaper than other brands. When our Fresh Market opened a year ago, we started buying beans occasionally in there, just to try. So far, Tim has liked all of them (no flavored beans, no decaf beans, please). But, they’re pricey, 9.99 a pound.

Then, around Christmas, I started having trouble finding our whole beans at Sam’s Club. I thought, it’s Christmas, they’ll get them back in soon. We bought beans at other places and “made do.” Then weeks turned into months, and we could never find our favorite beans. We had to even go so far as to start buying Starbucks at Sam’s Club. Much more costly, and honestly, I don’t like their coffee as much. I think the beans themselves smell bitter and too strong and I was not fond of the final product either (although Tim liked it). We were both so tickled to go into our Sam’s this past weekend, and find that they were once again carrying the Marques brand of bean. They had a breakfast blend, a medium blend, a French Roast blend, and Tim’s favorite – the dark roast. I tried to talk him into trying a different one, but he was happy to go back to his old standard. We “only” bought two bags. I’m hoping we didn’t make a mistake and they stop carrying them again, or they run out. We were both so happy to find them again – we’ve both mentioned it several times to each other since shopping there that “oh, I’m so glad to have our coffee back”. 😀 Yes, we’re nerds on a much grander scale than you know!

So, how about you? Are you a coffee drinker? A tea drinker? Both? Neither? Vote in the poll and leave me a comment if you want. I’m sure none of you are as avid about your drinks as we are (don’t get me started on the obscene amount of Coke Zero we purchase, that’s a whole ‘nother post!!!) 😀

Cheers!

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