My dad use to brag that he got all of us kids started drinking coffee by the time we were 3. Not sure how true that is, but I do remember our “kid coffee”. Coffee heavily laden with milk and heaping spoonfulls of sugar. This same kid coffee I gave to my kid, nieces and nephews as they grew up. I remember in high school drinking coffee for breakfast on my way out the door. Some of my fondest memories of my dad revolved around coffee. How we girls use to scramble to make him a cup. Black, with one small spoonfull of sugar, cooled off with a splash of ice cold water so it was drinkable. Then he’d always make a game out of the spoon… he’d stir his coffee and then touch us on the arm or leg with the hot spoon asking “Is that hot?!”. Sometimes at restraunts he would stir his coffee, then put the spoon in his ice water and see if we still jumped. Thanks to Pavlov we jumped whether it was cold or hot. I think I’ve probably done the same to my son over the years, but with less frequency.

I have some pet peeves when it comes to coffee. I don’t want added flavors. I like my coffee just coffee, no vanilla, no french italian spanish creme brulee chocolatemocha. Until I was in college I drank it straight up black. Then I learned that coffee can leach calcium out of your body so I started putting milk or half and half in it to counter those effects. Another pet peeve I have is buying coffee. When you buy it at these coffee shops littered around town, they all want tips. I’m not getting a freaking meal! It’s just one cup of coffee. You stand in the same place, you don’t come to a table for me, you don’t do anything more than a regular cashier does. Yet you want a tip? How bout get a full restraunt job if you want a tip. It’s bad enough that I’m usually paying through the nose for the cup of coffee as it is! You’re lucky I’m not gulping it down insisting on a free refill like they always use to give coffee drinkers.

Free refills for coffee is like a pair of socks always being a pair. It goes without thinking that if you order a regular cup of coffee in a restraunt, you’re going to get free refills. I remember our broke days in college going to Denny’s and having refill after refill, studying for hours. If I order a coffee and I don’t get refills it effects the tip. Regardless of what meal we had in restraunts growing up, my dad always ordered coffee and water. I have a tendency to do the same.

There are actual health benifits to coffee. When my nephew first started showing signs of asthma, a doctor told me coffee was good for opening up his airways. So every time he weezed, I would pour him a coffee or take him for a latte’. I’m probably very much to blame for his coffee consumption today.

There was also a study I read a few months back about excessive amounts, over 6 cups a day, keeping people from developing diabetes. There’s also another study on the net that claims drinking coffee on an empty stomach before you work out helps increase caloric consumption. It’s already been proven to be a great antioxident. From what I’ve read it could also be the reason why no one in my family has ever had Alzheimer’s. A good website about coffee benifits is coffeescience.org.

Either way, good or bad, I’m a true coffee addict!!! d

It’s a nice truely medium roast coffee. It’s almost buttery tasting, with a sweet undertone. It’s really has none of the bitterness you get with some other medium blend store sold roasts. It’s very different than all the other whole beans I’ve bought, and almost I daresay it’s better than Seattle’s Best. It’s very smooth, very tasty and has a slight carmel smell. When it brews the whole kitchen smells good it’s so fragrant. If you get a chance try some!

Now for all you daddies and kids out there trying to figure out what to do for mother’s day. #1 rule is DO NOT LISTEN if the mommy says “aw, don’t worry bout it, I don’t need anything.” We’re programmed to not ask much, it’s the mommy nature. If you want to get your mom or mother of you kids bawling happy tears then do something big, celebrate all she’s done for you.

Here’s some simple tips and ideas on what to do for her.

Handmade cards rule over store bought ones — take 10 minutes and make her a card using a few sheets of construction paper and colored pens.

Bring her tea/coffee in bed. Even if you have to set your alarm to get up before her. It doesn’t have to be a full breakfast, just something you know she normally would have.

Do the dishes without being asked or any other chore she normally does daily. (IE vacuum, dust, bathe the dogs.)

Skip the flowers and buy her her favorite candy bar, coffee or other extravagent item she normally wouldn’t buy herself but always wants.

Clean out her car! Vacuum, wipe down and windex it all. Don’t let her lift a finger!

Tell her you love her and really appreciate all the things she does every day to make your life easier. Hug her and tell her she’s the best mom!

Happy Mother’s Day!

While the “coupon lady” got a huge overage, you don’t see most coupon cutting folks trying to achieve that. I truely believe the “coupon lady’ is a rarity and probably not even all that accepted in her own coupon circles. From what I read it seems most people genuinely want a deal, not a free ride.

I also learned that “THE STORE” I work for doesn’t have a nation wide, consistant policy on coupons! They officially state that it is set by each store. So don’t get mad at us rabid cashiers who have no clue what to accept couponwise from you, if our own company can’t come to a consensus how can we be informed? It does seem that as a general rule my store’s coupon acceptance is:

No internet coupons Bogo is accepted Overage is accepted One per purchase means 1 item to 1 coupon, not 1 item/coupon per transaction. No doubling coupons

Here’s some good urls I found poking around. About.com’s coupon section. The Coupon Mom site, I didn’t get to poke around much but it looked good. I spent most of my time at review sites talking about “THE STORE” and how it handles coupons. (Our store could use some TLC in the customer service department regarding coupons and cashier awareness on them.)

Ever since I can remember, we’ve done the coloring the eggs, hiding the eggs, finding the eggs and baskets. My husband, son and I all 3 get into coloring eggs. We use regular crayons to decorate them with our names, hearts, dots, anything we can imagine. We also make our own dye for the eggs. 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water and drop in food dye until you achieve the desired intensity of color. You can test it with strips of paper. (I was suprised at how many people didn’t know you could make your own colors with plain old food dye.)

Happy Easter all!

I’ve been on a spring cleaning spree lately and when I attacked my cupboards last night I noticed a pork chop recipe on the Lipton’s Onion Soup mix box. Today I looked closer and found a pretty easy recipe that I actually have all the ingredients already around the house. Also on the package was the website address for their recipes.

Since I don’t want to plagerize, go here for the real recipe. If you’re to lazy to go there then here’s a simple version.

1 egg 4 chops some bread crumbs 1 package liption onion soup mix

Combine soup mix and bread crumbs. Beat egg. Coat each chop with egg and dredge through the crumb mix. Bake at 400 for 20 min.

Let’s see how they taste! Will report back tonight!

We spent a good 5 minutes just looking through the different Haagen Daz and Ben and Jerry flavors. Ben and Jerry’s was about 5 cents cheaper so I actually spent more time on that brand. Also, the flavors for Ben and Jerry’s seem way more out of the ordinary, while Haagen Daz sticks to tried and true flavors.

I ended up picking Ben and Jerry’s Everything But…. a sinful collection of chocolate and vanilla ice cream completely ladden with Heath Bar chunks, White Chocolate chunks, Peanut butter cups and chocolate covered almonds. It sounds like a lot but it was actually a perfect blend of tastes. There weren’t to many candy pieces but I got one each bite. It was almost a guessing game trying to figure out what type I was chewing. At first I thought it was a bit to much chocolate, but as you dig deeper more vanilla shows up. It was killer and perfect for my sweet tooth. I can guarentee I won’t be willingly sharing that with anyone.

On a side note, I bought Tyler a box of Drumsticks, his favorite. I also picked Tracy up a carton of Haagen Daz Butter Pecan.

Ben and Jerry’s is definitely an ice cream brand for the adventurous. Every time I’ve had their ice cream it’s been a unique and good flavor.

I’m not much of a shopper, I hate it honestly. And bra shopping is the worst. I went with my friend pretty much for moral support, comradery and to get out of the house. I tend to hole up at home to much and sometimes have to remind myself to get out and be social. I didn’t need to do any shopping for myself or my family. First stop was to JcPenny for an appointment with a bra sizer. I imagine their official titles are something like Lingerie Consultant or Intimate Apparel Apprentice or something all haughty like that.

They didn’t have it set up very well, just a sign in book and 1 lady to cover at least 5 people there for a fitting. It was very unclear what was needed to do to sign in and get started. The poor, single “consultant” there had 4 people show up in the middle of her taking care of one already there. I asked at one point if they had to go to school for this or what and she let me know that they in fact do have to take a class before they can do this.

Scince I wasn’t there for a fitting, I got to see how it was running. The “consultant” had 1 lady in a fitting room, took my friend into another and measured her, selected a few bras for her to try on and took my friend’s mother in to another fitting room for measurements. After all the measuring was done she just went back and forth between women with more bras but somehow she forgot my friend’s mother and left her with nothing but the first bra to try on. My friend demanded more of the consultants’ attention than most, she had to have tried on at least 10 bras if not more.

While they tried on bras I ran around after my 4 year old godson. He’s cute but he’s a handful and everytime I am with him I remember why I only had 1 child. At least he only crawled under the dressing room door of his grandma and not a total stranger!

After all this effort neither my friend nor her mother ended up buying anything. The lack of actually doing anything for the mother was what kept her from finding anything. The fact that the “consultant” really didn’t convince my large breasted friend she was a 34d kept her from buying anything. Every bra that she tried on that the consultant brought either made her fly out if she bent over or hiked up if she raised her arms. Any woman buying a bra knows that just won’t go, specially with a 4 year old to chase after.

So Nanna took the 4 year old and Kim and I hit Fredrick’s of Hollywood. I remember looking at the Fredrick’s catalogue when I was a kid and it was very sexual, very scary and NOTHING our mothers would wear. The Fredrick’s of today’s generation is much more friendly than that.

We walk in and the sales lady asks if we need fitted. We decline, stating we justh had one down the road from “the other store.”. After trying on a few bras the size the other “consultant” recommended the Fredrick’s lady brought over a few DD and even an F. Believe it or not, the bra that fit the absolute best was the 34 F…. much to my friend’s amazement who’s been a 36 D all her life. But I guess after 3 kids, mid 30’s, and motherhood makes for the bigger boobies! She’s never going to hear the end of it from me that she’s an F.

After a while of trying on bras and having the sales lady actually check fit and make suggestions my friend walked out with 2 bras. 2 very pretty, feminine, lacy bras too! If you’re big breasted you find out fast that the cute bras are only made for size C and under. It’s like the bigger boobs you have the more you’re relegated to ugly bras. Ahh but not at Fredrick’s, they seem to cater to the bigger breasted woman with pretty bras!

Next time I actually suck it up and go bra shopping I’m just heading right for Fredricks!

But there have been exceptions to this over the years; Farscape, Judging Amy, ER, Survivor the first few seasons. And now Nip/Tuck. My husband liked watching this show on FX that was very avant-garde. At first I was offended by the blatent sexual references, adult language and violence. But the story line, plot and characters really drew me in. We watched it if we caught it on, but never made a point to try to make time for it.

Until this season. For some reason this last season that concluded last night really kept you wanting to watch. My husband said last night “I have never been kept on the edge of my seat by a series like this ever before.” We even set it to record on our DVR this year. I would cheat and watch the shows with out Tracy the night they aired or sometimes watching the recordings.

Last night we got to find out who the Carver is. My bets were on that really bitchy chick who was always calling Christian “asshole” or Quintin. I had to gloat and make my husband say “You were right.” when it was finally revealed to be Quintin. That he had no dick really threw us for a loop, we didn’t see that coming, nor the fact that Kit was his sister. It bothers me on some base level that he’s loose though.

I feel sorry for Matt- that poor kid just can’t catch a break. He starts acting normal again and getting his head on straight and WHAM, the Nazi Dad goes kamakazi on him. I hope he didn’t kill the dad and doesn’t end up in jail.

I felt even worse for Kimber, but a touch mad at her for rejecting Christian. She blames him for being superficial but he never lied and said he wasn’t and point in case, she had to be pretty superficial to be with him in the first place. Good looking, not only a doctor but a plastic surgeon and a major asshole. Any narcisist’s dream man! But still, for all of Kimber’s mental illness, insecurities and attention seeking, I want to pat her head in a motherly way and give her chicken soup.

I’m definitely going to be watching next season….. wonder if it’s to early to set the dvr?