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!

There were several different brands, but I bought the one that I see sell the most, “Cruz Garcia Real Sangria”. It’s in an interesting triangular shaped bottle with an orange, gold and white label. I think I’ll save the bottle.

As for the taste, it’s a nice fruity, not bitter at all flavor of wine. It doesn’t give you that “fuzzy tongue” feeling that red wines do but it’s not as clear tasting as white. It does have more similar characteristics of a white wine than a red or blush. It is sweet but not oversweet, just a bit sweeter than a zin I’d think. It’s very fruity.

Like I said I’m not much of a wine connoisseur but this is one that I do find nice enough to try again one of those few occassions when I do drink.

Whenever I go on a trip and leave mine behind, I end up missing it more than I miss my husband! My teeth are squeeky clean most of the time! I credit using their scaled down battery operated model to my son’s having no cavaties ever. He’s used one on and off all his life. (Finding a more reliable cheap version he’ll consistantly use is a challenge.)

Bottom line, if you can afford it, buy the mid priced one. I guarentee that you won’t be sorry!

One of those products is Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner. It’s in a simple white spray bottle, with green and purple lettering and accents. It’s not very expensive, only usually $1.94 or so around my area in Florida. But no matter what general cleaning product I’ve tried, I always come back to this one. For example, the other day I cleaned the top of my fridge. You know how it gets that grease, dust film if you ignore it to long? At first I tried hot water and pine sol. After the first few minutes of scrubbing I said forget this and grabbed the Lysol Kitchen Cleaner. I let it set maybe 1 minute and wiped it up with a water soaked cloth. The greasy dust mess wiped right up, with no scrubbing. The Pine Sol I had to scrub and repeat and scrub and scrub. Within about 3 minutes with Lysol the whole fridge top was clean so I went ahead and cleaned the sides and front too. I think the trick is to just let it sit for a minute.

Besides raw cleaning power it’s ANTIBACTERIAL!!! For those not completely OCD and anal retentive this is a good thing, seeing as how your kitchen is one of the nastiest germiest areas of your house, including worse than the bathroom!

Even though this stuff is labeled for the kitchen, I like to use it anywhere. It works great on the kitchen cabinets, the bathroom floor, on frequently dirtied doors and doorknobs. The only place I haven’t tried it yet is the shower and toilet.

I originally started using boric acid when we had a bad carpenter ant infestation. I was to cheap to call an exterminator so I used all the store bought remedies I could. I tried those little bait traps….useless. I tried bombs…..messy and ineffective. Finally someone told me in passing about boric acid. I remembered reading something about it ages ago but as a cleaning solution. It just so happened that my husband ended up working at a company that carried boric acid. He brought a batch of it home and I’ve been a boric acid fanatic since. I followed the company’s directions on using it for ants, a solution of water, sugar and boric acid. My son and I were fascinated actually watching tons of ants come out and carry the stuff away! Within 48 hours I couldn’t find a single ant.

I use boric acid any time I see ants around the house. The solution works for all types of ants, from carpenter to sugar ants. I also sprinkle it on carpets before I vacuum during flea and tick season. I’ve read that mixed with glycol it can be used for termite protection. I keep it in one of those cheap mustard/ketchup squeeze bottles on top of the fridge for ease of use. All that and it’s safe to use around pets and children!

I actually hope I don’t win the contest but at least place. I would love one of the 2nd place baskets but I really don’t want to go to the Grand Ole Opry. Mainly cause I’m sure we’d end up spending to much money but also cause I hate leaving home.

Anyway, if you have a good, original cornbread recipe go submit it at their site! Good luck and may the best recipe win! (hmmm I might just have to whip up the winning recipe and review it here!)

For both types of muffins I used those super easy, tear the top off bags of premixed muffin batter. All I did was add milk or water, preheat the oven, pour into muffin cups, bake em and eat em. The first was a Betty Crocker blend that I just added water to. The strawberry cheesecake mix was Martha White brand. Each cost around 65-70 cents.

For such a low cost I’m definitely buying more. I love having healthy, fresh baked snacks to offer the kids after school but I also like being lazy. This lets me have my muffin and eat it too!

With as many games as he asks for as presents, saves up his money for and otherwise purchases we always insist he rent before he buys. I don’t know how many times we’ve bought him a game only to find that he either didn’t like it or it was so easy he finished it in days. Return policies on video games bite too and you rarely can get your money back. At $50 a pop that can be an expensive mistake, especially for an 11 year old’s pocketbook.

It was easy enough for our son to activate the account on the Gamefly website. The only time he really needed our help was to input our credit card info. The one thing you do have to watch though is to cancel the service before the prepaid subscription runs out or it will bill directly to your card. It would be nice if you could ask to be notified 3 days before a credit card billing goes through. Otherwise the whole billing and account creation set up was very easy and user friendly.

I sat with him as he picked his list of games. It shows the availability for each rental and information blurb about the game. You just click a button to add it to your list. It’s easy and user friendly also and they have many ways you can browse the games – by system or catagory or search.

Shipping is free. Maybe it’s because we did it right on Christmas day but it took like 4 or 5 days to get the games initially. They are shipped in very easy to use packages that you reuse to ship them back. Again it’s so easy that my son at 11 was able to open, reseal and return the games without adult intervention. He just yesterday sent one game back so I’ll have to let you all know how long it takes to get the next game in his queue.

So far the service is nice overall. It’s very user friendly and inexpensive. We’ll see how our son continues using the service to see if we keep it. And if his grades continue to stay up there! =) I give this service an A- OK for now!

The one feature I LOVE is a pull out tray for the overflow/spill area. The last model was a pain to clean messes out of. This new model is also more compact and gives me more counter space, which I always need.

After having the old one slowly dying I forgot how awesome the vacuum power is on a well working Food Saver. The first thing we vacuum sealed was a soda can – and it crushed it! I’m going to have to be careful when I seal the chips!

Some tips on what we do with our vacuum sealer: Reseal cereals in the bag they came in. Just a light vacuum and seal away. Cheese in an oversided vacuum seal bag so you can reseal after cheese use. Potato chips or any other frequently opened snack food. Just don’t vacuum or lightly vacuum so it doesn’t crush them. Buy in bulk! We buy meats in bulk and break them down into family or individual servings. Fish! No smell and freezes easily. Christmas turkey/ham leftovers and freeze. Anything for long term storage you don’t want to mold. (Like my old highschool diaries.)

I think Food Saver should send me a commission. A lady behind us in line during Christmas was amazed at all the things I told her we did with ours.

While it’s absolutely delicious, I probably won’t be seeking them out again next year. The chocolate is nice and creamy but to a low middle income family the cost is not worth it. Also, on the bottom of each square it is covered in a light milk chocolate, not how I remember peppermint bark. I remember peppermint bark quite differently than this version. I absolutely love Ghirardelli chocolates but this is not really anything like traditional peppermint bark. They were delicious but for that price I think I’ll try making my own next year.

So my hunt for a traditional, affordable peppermint bark will go on. As I searched through the internet yesterday I came across a few recipes and my next project is to make my own peppermint bark.