Searching for that Perfect Cup...Without So Much Garbage

I "won" this Keurig Elite from the HSC Charity Auction last fall. 

Like millions of other Americans, we have become Keurig customers.  It's like a revolution in coffee...Keurigs give you a "perfect" cup of coffee with very little work.  The American dream, right?

We got our first Keurig, a "Mini", just before we moved from Nebraska to Florida in fall 2010.  After the movers took our regular coffee pot, it was a nice way to keep having our coffee in the morning.  It's small and we didn't have to keep coffee grounds on hand, just a box (or two) of K-Cups and some disposable coffee cups. That one ended up in Dave's office.  We like how it turns itself off after the cup of coffee brews.  We get a bit paranoid about coffee pots being left on.

This past fall we got one for the home.  It's been great.  When you register your machine with Keurig, you get coupons for free K-Cups.  BOGO for 2 boxes of 48 K-Cups.  This was a great deal after Christmas when the Starbucks K-Cups became available online.

K-Cup-brewed coffee is delicious and perfect every time.  No doubt there.

My conundrum: K-Cups are very wasteful and are expensive.  After all, traditional coffee pots brew through compostable coffee filters and then you can go on to compost the spent coffee grounds.

You can compost coffee grounds -- and as a bonus, they also offset the odors in your compost pail.

But with K-Cups, you're dealing with a plastic cup that has a paper filter glued to the inside...all topped with a foil lid.  The very ambitious can peel off the foil lid and compost the meager amount of grounds inside.

Not only do K-Cups generate a lot of waste, but they're also expensive.  

Let's talk about the cost.  Your typical box of 12 K-Cups will run $6-10.  Starbucks will cost more (because they can, people are buying them anyway).  The prices vary considerably, based on the brand of coffee and the number of K-Cups in the box.  It goes without saying that the large multi-packs will sell for less-per-cup.

I often seek out the big deals for the cups: Keurig's own website has good deals, military commissaries have the best non-sale prices around, and you can use the Bed, Bath and Beyond and Kohl's coupons for some good deals also.

My goal is to keep the costs under 50 cents per cup.  I'm usually pretty good about that, even with the Starbucks cups, which tend to run closer to 80 cents per cup.

So I decided to try the "My K-Cup" contraption, which is found where Keurig machines are sold.  You remove the K-Cup holder from your machine and replace it with this grey cone, inside which you put a fine mesh filter with 1-2 Tbsp. of coffee grounds.

My first attempt at using this was a gi-nor-mous FAIL.  My first cup of coffee was super-weak, but when I added more grounds, the system overflowed and I got a countertop covered in hot water and loose coffee grounds.  I attempted to adjust the size of the grounds to make the coffee stronger...unfortunately, if the water flows too slowly through the filter, the machine will stop flowing water...and you end up with a smaller-than-planned cup of coffee.

I asked friends on Facebook for advice -- and received all sorts of ideas, which I've tried.  My Mom clued me into some replacement filter baskets that are bigger than Keurig's.

The BB&B filter is on the right.

This helped somewhat.  But the coffee was still weak.

One of my Facebook friends told me about Keurig addressing the waste problem by launching a brand-spanking new coffee brewing system: The Vue Brewer.  Sounds promising...but....

...what about the millions of us who have already invested in a coffee maker that only uses K-Cups?  I'm hoping for some backwards-compatibility here...Amazon has so many options out there to make your Keurig machine more efficient...let's see what we have, shall we?

I also tried a friend's idea to simply stuff a standard paper filter into the "My K-Cup" grey cone.  It was on its way to brewing a nice strong cup of coffee but then the water began to overflow around the filter.  Oops...another mess on my hands.

How about a standard paper filter in My K-Cup?  That didn't work so well either.

What am I doing?  I'm back to the standard, expensive, wasteful K-Cups.  For now.  I've been trying to get my coffee right for two weeks with the more resource-friendly options and so far haven't been successful.  On weekends we revert to our classic French press coffee maker, no filters, and the grounds go straight into my compost pail!

Another Shameless Pitch: Secret Clinical Strength Deodorant

I can't believe I'm pitching deodorant!  But I am.

I happened across this product about a month ago at my local Walmart.  It sits high up on the top shelf of the women's deodorant section.  There's a nice, neat row of white boxes, all titled "Secret: Clinical Strength".  Lots of scents, and at least two sizes for each scent.

I decided to choose the "Marathon Fresh" scent.  After all, I was training for a half marathon and it seemed appropriate.  See the running girl on the box?

I was sold!

Read more »

Happy New Year! It's Resolution Time....Again....

Happy New Year everyone!  Our family had a fun weekend celebrating with friends and some folks from Dave's squadron.  One of his senior NCOs was promoted this week, so he had double reason to celebrate!

As usual, it's time for everyone to come forward with their resolutions.

"I will eat less and exercise more!"

"I will stop using foul language!"

"I will stop spoiling my children!"

I've tried 'em all.  Yet here I am, seemingly no different at the end of the year than I was at the beginning.  One of the very first posts on this particular blog was about the New Year's resolution.  Why use January 1st as an excuse to institute change?  If you want to change, just start changing, right?

This year, I resolve to better manage my time and stop wasting evenings.  I have started vegging in front of the TV and computer more and more after the kids go to bed, when that ought to be more valuable time to get productive stuff done.

In 2008 I had started knitting and crocheting more after the kids went to bed, and since we moved to Florida I'd been doing less of it -- I think the warm weather has something to do with it, but it's now wintertime and I need to get going again.  It's so much more productive than just staring at a screen all evening.


Who else made resolutions?

Pumpkin "Style" Pie? What WILL They Think of Next?

Took this picture yesterday at the Commissary.  I'll let the picture speak for itself.  The subtitle below says "Creamy taste and texture of pumpkin pie flavored with natural cinnamon & ginger".

I don't know what to say about this pie-ish product.  Many times you guys have known me to whine about processed foods.  That's not to say I keep my house free of them.  Depending on how busy our lives are, I've been known to stash a tray of frozen chicken enchiladas in the freezer or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in the pantry.

You've also known me to buy some of these crazier foods and do taste tests with my kids comparing it to a homemade version.

But I couldn't bring myself to buy this.  Heck, I'm even somewhat uncomfortable buying canned pumpkin for pie, although according to the can there's nothing in the can except pumpkin, right?  Mashed steamed pumpkin makes the pie SO good!

That's all I have to say 'bout that...

Dave goes back to work tomorrow.  He's in really good shape to return and is ready to get back to society.  Not 100% pain free, but most of his day he's pretty comfortable.  He's tapered off his meds enough that I think he'll be okay, so long as he takes it easy physically.  I think mentally he's definitely good to go for returning to work!

And then I can get my house back!  And clean things up some!  It's been utter chaos...Dave has traditionally helped with SOME of the housework -- whether it's folding laundry or washing dishes a few times per week.  I've been able to keep the house clean...i.e., free of dirt, but it's been cluttery beyond even MY personal standards!

Also, tomorrow's the last day of NaBloPoMo.  I didn't succeed in the full challenge, but I am proud for having blogged every day in the month of November so far, except for the 20th.  Where I simply had a brain fart, I guess.

Later this week I'll be dusting off my holiday cookie posts from years past.  I make a couple of fun, unique cookie recipes, along with the classic sugar cookies and spritz cookies.  I'll just re-boot the older posts.  I don't plan to change anything this year, I promise!

How Could I NOT Talk About It? The Penn State Sex Offender Thing.

It's worth discussing.  And since I have to come up with 30 days worth of material for this month's NaBloPoMo, this presented itself at an opportune time.

The web world is all aflutter with the Penn State Athletics Sex Scandal.  Or whatever you want to call it.

This makes me ashamed for all the times I've called Florida State's mascot the "Criminoles" and equated red sweater vests with "Liars".  What Penn State's leaders have done makes all those NCAA violations child's play.

Via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, I'm commiserating with my PSU classmates.  We're convincing each other that the university will dust off, move on and continue to move forward.  We're pondering amongst each other what the leaders must have been thinking to cover up something like this, whether JoePa will receive any traditional retirement benefits, and all those great Linebacker U players who regarded Sandusky as a mentor right up through this year! The alumni association is pleading with their membership to continue support to the association and university.  Ironically, we received an Penn State Annual Gift letter on Tuesday.  We typically give a modest amount every year, specifically targeting the meteorology department and AFROTC.  This likely won't change...those departments still need support.

But other thoughts have entered the mothering side of my brain.  I had these same thoughts in 2008, which is when we learned through our local TV station that Jacob's soccer coach in Apex, NC was arrested on sexual misconduct charges.  Thoughts like "How can I trust any other athletic coach?" and "How do I know that ANY adult my child interacts with isn't a sexual offender?"

So now I'm getting nervous thoughts about my kids going off to school each day, going off to college in the future, headed out to Boy Scout camp -- without the parents -- by the time they're in 5th grade.

I won't want to go through life like this.  I want to trust people.  After all, I trusted a 19-year-old with my sons for a few days in September while Dave and I traveled to Omaha on AF business, right?  I trust my sons on a school bus every day, I trust them at birthday parties, at school, and at those occasional trips they take with friends' parents.  Other parents trust me with their kids.

I'm not happy with how one guy's evil, and the witnesses who did nothing about it, turned into a huge Joe Paterno drama.  Joe Paterno may be part of the cover-up problem, but he is NOT the child rapist.  Last night CNN was airing stock footage of JoePa while discussing the graphic descriptions of those terrible things Sandusky did.  I call foul on that, CNN!

JoePa was fired first, while even Sandusky continues to receive benefits from the university for his defense, since he's "innocent until proven guilty".

Pardon the babbling here, pride in my alma mater has been shattered just a little.

Pardon Me While I Vent a Little

The box on the right was purchased in mid-July.  I thought I needed two boxes of cake mix for something, but I only needed one.  The box on the left was purchased this morning.  Darned straight I took the box tops!  But note the size difference....did someone think we wouldn't notice???

I'm baking Jacob's birthday cake right now.  The final product is a surprise -- even for me, since I don't quite know what I'm doing yet -- but I needed two boxes of cake mix for this.

I had a box of mix in the pantry from a couple months ago (the one on the right), and I prepared it as on the back of the box.  1 1/4 c. water, 1/3 c. oil, 3 eggs.

Just before I took the first cake out of the oven, I prepared the batter for the second part of the cake.  I was just about to add the same ingredient amounts as above, but I caught a glimpse of the instructions on the box on the left: 1 c. water, 1/2 c. oil, 3 eggs.

I fished the first box out of the recycling bin and placed them side-by-side: you see that photographed above.  Somewhere between July and now Betty Crocker decided to knock 3 oz (1/6th!) from their cake mix.  And I didn't see a difference in a price.

Isn't this the same thing that been happening with ice cream and salad dressing?

RRRR!

Thank you for letting me vent...time to get part 2 of the birthday cake out of the oven...yes, at 10pm!

Major Tom Made the News Again...

Canadian illustrator Andrew Kolb decided to illustrate a children's book with the story told in David Bowie's hit song "Space Oddity".

Now, you should know why this is interesting to me....

Mr. Kolb had put a link to the PDF of this book on his homepage earlier this week, but then he received a cease and desist request from the song's copyright owner and he's since had to remove it. According to the news article linked here, he's working out the legality of this, and he'd like to illustrate more ballads of classic songs.  Here is a You Tube video with the pages of the book set to the song that might or might not be available for very long.

I noticed the lack of capitalization of the words "Major" and "God", that the spaceship looks like the Death Star, and that the spaceship is ENORMOUS, but the illustrations are very cute and my sons would enjoy this very much.

Pay No Attention, Nothing to See Here....

This is just a filler post to run a fun little experiment.  I am going to compare RSS Graffiti with Networked Blogs and see which syndication posts to my Facebook page faster.

I'm leaning towards keeping RSS Graffiti because it didn't require the widget on my site, nor did it require me to pick 5 blogs to follow like Networked Blogs does (note -- I proceeded with the registration after only selecting two blogs to follow: Fotomom and Sergeant Major Mom).  If I keep Networked Blogs I will add more to follow.

Road Trip 2011: Traveling Solo With Sons

Easter 2011.

I've gotta admit it -- my boys travel VERY VERY VERY well. From Jacob and the Amtrak Auto Train to see family at 9 months old, to Timmy and a trip up to North Carolina to find a new house at 4 months old, our boys have learned that long automobile trips are part of the military lifestyle...

I also have to admit that I really enjoy traveling and I like to think that I travel pretty well. But probably not as well as I used to travel, when I'd work a full Air Force day and then hop in the car and drive from Fort Polk, LA to Keesler AFB, MS to spend the weekend with Dave while he was TDY.

(Oops, did I say that out loud?)

Right after Christmas 2006, I took the boys on a 2-week trip to New York and New Hampshire to give Dave some time to prepare for his comprehensive exams while he was at NC State. People thought I was CRAZY, but it turned out to be a really great trip.

January 2006.  Jacob has always been such an angel in the car!

Last month Dave and I parted ways about halfway through our vacation.  I continued northward to Vermont, while Dave caught a flight out of Harrisburg back home since he had to return to work.  Again, folks commented about how brave I am...or how crazy I am to make such trips on my own.

I love driving.  I guess I get it from my Dad.  My sister is the same way -- after all, she and her husband drove with their THREE sons from North Carolina to Nevada, taking a "southern route" westbound and a "northern route" (including our house in Nebraska) when they returned eastbound.

In every other way, traveling solo with my sons was great.  I only had one issue: rest stop restrooms.

I've put up a blog poll about this before: At what age is your child old enough to go into a public restroom on his/her own?

I believe most of my responses were in the 7- to 8-year-old range.

So here I am, stopping on I-81, the New York State Thruway and I-65 rest areas and was just sending my sons into the restrooms.  But I was GLUED to the exit door waiting for them...my ears were really close to that doorway listening for them making sure they weren't abducted.

Since I made it back to Florida with both boys in tow, it's safe to assume that my sons survived the rest area restrooms.  But this leg of the trip certainly got me thinking about how single parents do it -- traveling and trusting their babies in roadside restrooms.

Some other tips on how we handled the 50+ hours in the car with two young boys:

• I will admit, we have the built-in DVD player.  But we put some planning into how much the kids use it.  For starters, we have a "30-minute rule" in our SUV: no movies unless we're traveling more than 30 minutes.  But on longer road trips, I insist that the boys put some space between their movies, especially of there are particularly scenic parts to the trip (such as driving through downtown Atlanta or crossing the Hudson River on this last trip).
• I will also admit (boy, I'm doing a lot of "admitting" here, aren't I?) that my boys have Nintendo DSi's (pardon the apostrophe, not sure whether it's used here like this or what....).  On the first day of our road trip, I didn't give much thought to Jacob having played his DSi for nearly the entire day's worth of driving!  And that was a long day!  Oops...
• Don't rule out good-old fashioned road trip games: The License Plate Game, Auto Bingo, and I Spy are all family favorites!  
• I've heard of other families doing this with success, you could try using the rest area or fuel stops as break points between media: perhaps 2 hours for a DVD, then 2 hours of Nintendo, then 2 hours of "looking out the window".
• With young kids, don't forget to try to work in some activity time to make the hours of sitting less terrible.  Stop for lunch at a Chick-Fil-A with a kids' play area, or find a rest stop on your route with a playground and pack a picnic lunch.  Dave and I used to frequent the Amtrak Auto Train station in Lorton, VA as a rest area when we'd make our drives from North Carolina to Pennsylvania or New York: there's a nice playground, and at lunchtime the kids would enjoy seeing the vehicles getting loaded onto the train cars.

Google+: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

I use that line with my kids a lot when they're making questionable decisions.  If one of them is feeding grass clumps to the dog, I'll ask "Good idea?  Or bad idea?"  Usually that's enough to make them think before continuing.

I got a (not-quite sanctioned) invitation to join Google+, Google's new social network, last week from GeekMom Jules.  Several of us GeekMoms have been checking out the assorted Google+ features, from the photo sharing, to the statuses to the "Hangout" area where you can web chat with other Google+ users.  The privacy settings are very likeable (default privacy is "no one can see much", seemingly the opposite of Facebook's privacy where the default is often "everyone can see everything unless you manually change that").

Anyway, in terms of the social network, I think Google+ is on the right track for a smoother-running social network than Facebook.  I'm hoping it doesn't get overrun by corporate pages and multi-player games the way Facebook has in recent months.

However, I'm sitting here with a clenched jaw waiting for the kinks to get ironed out of the other Google products that are supposed to nicely tie into Google+.

A couple days ago it was published that Google will be rolling their Picasa and Blogger brands into their own names, and with it will come some more tie-ins to Google+.

I've been slowly-but-surely uploading and sharing my vacation pictures in the middle of this transition and was faced with some difficulty sharing my Picasa albums with my family.  What I have typically done is upload the photos to Picasaweb with captions, then e-mail the album to myself.  Finally, I forward that album to a pre-set list of friends/family.  This week I attempted to e-mail the album to myself and nothing happened after hitting that "Share" button.

Actually, something did happen: the album posted to my Google+ news stream.  Because my e-mail address was tied into my Google+ account, some assumption was made that Google+ news stream is somehow equivalent to an e-mail inbox.  I managed a workaround by using a non-Google+ enabled e-mail address that I have.

But then when I tried to share the photos with my pre-set friends/family e-mail list, several of them couldn't see the pictures unless they had their own Google.com login/passwords.  This used to not be the case and it's very upsetting that my parents (among the main audience for my family's photos) can't easily see the pictures anymore.

Similarly, this morning I discovered that several pre-sets in my Blogger (soon to be Google Blogs) account were reset without my knowledge.  I used to have 10 e-mail addresses who'd receive automatic copies of my blog posts when published.  Who knows how long they hadn't been receiving them.  Chances are they missed most of my vacation posts....

Thanks for letting me vent...I'm hopeful that Google is taking in everyone's feedback (including this post) and will be sympathetic to those who don't necessarily want a Google.com login/password to enjoy the Internet.

Flashback From 2010: Funny Fireworks!

This was from a year ago today, but it's worth reviving for this year, since I laugh so much from the stupid names of some of these products!

This week I'm volunteering at a fireworks stand. For those saying "Wow! How?", let me explain a little.

The state of Nebraska allows 10 days per year for free-for-all fireworks sales/use. There are some exceptions: none of this is legal in the Omaha city limits, and Lincoln only allows sales for 2 days. So starting on June 25th, you hear the explosions as everyone's having a good time with their loot. In our neighborhood, it's only really loud till about 10pm...except for July 4th, I know last summer we were launching till midnight, at least!

From 2009 07 04 July4thBlockParty

In Bellevue, and perhaps in other cities (but I don't know for sure), local non-profits can pay the licensing fees and sell the fireworks as a fundraiser. I got an e-mail from the Bellevue Soccer Club looking for volunteers to help man their club's fundraiser fireworks stand up the road from us. My first thought? DISCOUNTS! Even though I was TDY at the beginning of the week, and we're leaving on vacation at the end of the week, I still thought it'd be a fun thing to do, so I volunteered to do 2 four-hour shifts.

I did my first four-hour shift yesterday and it was fun. Not super crowded, but not bad either. A steady stream of customers.

Anyway, the point of this blog post is to share some of the hilarious names for these fireworks.  These are all multi-shot small mortar shells.  You light it one time and it launches 25 or so shots in succession.

Some are benign. There's no doubt what this is, right?

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Some are sillier. And we start to lose any sense of what's in the packaging.

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Some are adrenaline-packed! Forget about a description of what this is.

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

And this one made no sense to me whatsoever. Are these even fireworks???

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

And here are some others...enjoy!

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Road Trip 2011: Thoughts on Kudzu

This is what much of my drive up I-59 and I-81 looked like last month.

If you're unfamiliar with the southeastern U.S., you might have never seen this.  Having lived in North Carolina for 3 years, there were areas where we came to expect it.

So...what is kudzu?  You can read the details, from the taxonomy to the history, on Wikipedia.  To summarize, kudzu is an Asian-native vine that was introduced to the United States in the late 1800s and was encouraged as a soil-erosion control near interstate highways.  Today, the vine is significantly invasive, covering complete mountainsides throughout the Appalachians.

I saw it all over the place on our drive up I-59 and I-81...and it was disturbingly fascinating seeing it in its prime after living in non-kudzu-infested Nebraska for 2 1/2 years.  The vines allegedly can grow one FOOT per day...and there are even legends of folks hearing the vine as it grows!  It covers hillsides, meadows, trees, buildings, power poles and even electrical lines like an enormous plush green blanket.

Kudzu is indeed edible, and on Alton Brown's 2006 television special Feasting on Asphalt, Brown stopped in Cashiers, NC and demonstrated how you can cut the youngest leaves for salad.  Kudzu is also used to make jelly, soaps and lotions.  The Asians have claimed kudzu's medicinal benefits.

There's been recent research about letting cattle graze on kudzu, both as an attempt to control the plant, but also for the benefit of the cattle, since it would be cheap, nutritious feed.  Others have come up with ways to profit from kudzu.

This biking blogger offers some more history and perspective on the weed.  In particular like the map he cites showing the kudzu growth areas in the U.S.

Blogger Problems, But Here's a Pretty Gardenia

UPDATE: Whatever is going on is related to my Safari browser. So here I am using Firefox and everything seems fine. Phew!

Apparently my Blogger account (not Google account, just the Blogging part of it) is having some problems, so I will be attempting to do some blogging via e-mail, which is the only way I know how to get posts in at the moment.

This won't look very good, and I don't know how many pictures I can incorporate this way.
Until Blogger figures out which way is up...we'll muddle along.

Coming soon...black-velvet slugs, garden updates and the CREPE MYRTLES are starting to bloom!
I'll leave you with this pretty picture of a gardenia from my garden that I took last week just before I headed to Nebraska.

Thoughts on Corn

Corn's been in my mind a lot this week.

"Yeah, being in Nebraska will do that to you...."

As I was saying, some corn-related items have surfaced these past few days, not just from being here, but I guess in general.

Corn thought #1: In Florida, local corn harvests are in full swing, with our local Publix grocery store offering yellow, white and bi-color corn from a farm in Belle Glade, FL.

Okay, so that isn't super local.  I realized that I could drive to Houston in less time than it would take me to drive to Belle Glade, which is west of West Palm Beach along Lake Okeechobee.

It's been great having fresh corn available to us for as little as 10 cents per ear!

Corn thought #2: This week The Pioneer Woman held another Kitchen Aid Mixer giveaway, and she randomly selects the winners from the folks who answer simple questions in her comments section.  Here's the giveaway post, and you can see how many comments it generated.  Yep, you read right...over 51,000 comments!  The question was "What's your absolute favorite vegetable?"

The following day, she not only posted the randomly-selected winner, but she also offered the statistical distribution of what answers she received.  Number one on the list?  Corn!

Potatoes were #5 on the list, and I don't agree with that one either.

Last summer, when Nebraska corn was available at roadside stands, I had set up a quickie poll to ask about whether corn should be treated as a starch or a vegetable at the dinner table.  My family's inclination is to use it as a starch, although I know that school cafeterias and 2/3 of my poll respondents treat corn as a vegetable.  I wrote up the results, along with a ranting about Florida corn being available at my local Eastern Nebraska Wal Mart (and how stupid that seemed).

I think I'm going to present that poll again...I have a pretty wide range of readers now.  Look to the right of the ORIGINAL blog post (it won't work if you're viewing this on Facebook or via RSS/e-mail) and answer my non-scientific poll question!

Corn thought #3: Enjoy a picture the gift I bought for my boys today at Chocolaterie Stam in Papillion, NE.  They're filled with a hazelnut chocolate creme...yum!  These chocolates give props to the first American Chocolaterie Stam store in Des Moines, IA.  Jacob asked me to bring some of these back from Nebraska for him.

Aren't they cute?  Each one is about the size of my pinky finger.

Why I Fly in my Uniform

Folks find it strange that I travel to and from my Reserve duty in uniform. In this week's case, I didn't have an official appointment as soon as I landed; I didn't have to report to duty as soon as I landed either. Nonetheless, I have found it beneficial in so many ways.

1.) Air Force Airman Battle Uniforms (ABUs) take up a lot of space in a suitcase. Those boots take up the same space as 2-3 pair of civilian shoes! Wear the boots, bring more civilian shoes with me!
2.) Airlines that waive baggage check fees for military members take one look at you in a uniform and don't ask any more questions. Military members don't get charged to check a bag on a lot of carriers (such as Delta). You can produce travel orders and get the waiver even in civilian clothes, but one can just save the time by wearing the uniform.
3.) In the security line, most TSA personnel won't make a military member look foolish by stripping off his/her coat and boots in front of everyone. Unless you have steel-toed boots, but then they ought to let you go through the aircrew line. Again, it saves time.
4.) When the airline loses your luggage and won't deliver it until the following morning, you can report to your first day of duty in a uniform, instead of in the civilian clothing you wore on the flight...and probably slept in that night.
5.) There's nothing to be ashamed of and I'm not wrong in wearing them. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force set guidance in December 2008 allowing official travel on civilian commercial airlines in ABUs. Some don't agree with that guidance for assorted reasons, but since it's allowed, it's just easier for me.

A lot of people thank me for my service during these trips. Folks also say "Welcome Home" to me...assuming I'm coming off a rotator flight or something. I used to REALLY be embarrassed by those statements, particularly before I took my own post-9/11 deployment (albeit a short one). I used to think I didn't deserve those statements, but since folks only see me as a representation of the entire US Air Force, I tend to take it more as their thanking the Armed Forces in general. Now I just say a simple "Thank YOU" back -- since they're paying my salary and all.

Now I Remember Why I Haven't Rented From Avis Lately...

This is what happens when I rent from Avis for the first time in over 10 years!

Greetings from yet another soon-to-be-fun-filled week of Reserve duty :-)

Today has to have been the best flying experience I've had in a very long time.  Perhaps since the trip TO Disneyworld in late 2009.

0.) I fly in my uniform (that's for another blog post) so Delta didn't charge me for a checked suitcase.
1.) Free WiFi at Pensacola Airport.  Worked on my first-ever guest blog post for a friend, which is coming soon!
2.) Despite arriving staring at a 45 minute delay when I arrived at the gate for my Pensacola-to-Memphis leg of my trip, for the first time in my life I experienced an "un-delay" of 30 minutes of that!
3.) I arrived in Memphis at Gate A6, the next leg of my trip was at Gate A7!
4.) I arrived in Omaha 20 minutes early.

So by about 3:30pm I had my suitcase from baggage claim and was at the Avis desk to pick up my rental car.  Everything was as I reserved, but then I was asked to initial this "Fast Fuel" charge clause in my rental contract.

I read the clause.  I don't have the contract with me as I'm writing this (it's in the rental car out in the parking lot), but it reads something like this:

"If you drive fewer than 75 miles, save time and do not refill the tank. Avis will automatically add a $13.99 charge to the rental for fuel."

To NOT get that charge added to your rental costs, you have to present a receipt showing that you filled the car so that the fuel gauge needle isn't at the bottom of "F", it's at the top of the "F" or something like that.

I vented at the poor Avis clerk for a few minutes about the principle of assessing a charge that the customer has to work at to not have charged, i.e. making sure said customer obtains and presents the fuel receipt.  I called the charge "pure evil" and was on my way.  It wasn't her fault.

Apparently this charge started up in September 2007 (back when it was only $10.50), and I know I haven't rented from Avis since then.

I'm sure for those who have rented from Avis routinely, this is old news.  Perhaps you know the routine and present the receipt every time...or you always drive more than 75 miles just to ease the hassle.

Chances are, I won't be driving more than 75 miles, although a trip or two to Trader Joe's might do the trick to put me over the edge...

Watch Out!*

*Yes, this is one of the much-less-creative blog post titles.

I have an awesome watch.  I've had this watch since my college graduation in 1995.  It was a gift from my parents...16 years ago this week.  Yep, that's a now-extinct Nittany Lion statue in the middle of the dial.

Best. Graduation. Gift. Ever!

Being that it's a Seiko, it has performed incredibly for the past 16 years.  About 2 weeks ago, the watch stopped.  This has happened before, and all that means is a new battery.  I typically have to change the battery out every 18 months.

I took it to the mall to replace the battery, but the watch didn't resume working right away.  It played dead for a day or so, then started working.

I wore it for a couple days and all seemed well; then I wore the watch when I took a run last week and it stopped again.  Probably from my sweaty arms (ewwww!).

Back to the jewelry kiosk at the mall.  The gentleman there told me that the watch needs to go to a Seiko authorized repair facility to replace some of the contacts that had gone bad.  So it will operate intermittently until I get it dealt with.

So I will put the watch in the mail (adequately insured, I promise!) this week.

In the meantime, I headed over to Kohl's today for a replacement watch.  I had my supply of coupons and Kohl's cash -- I figured I could pick up an inexpensive basic digital watch with a stopwatch function (this might have come in handy earlier during the soccer season).  So that's what I did:

Yeah, it's gaudy, but I wanted to have a little fun.

Pink.  I was looking for a watch for running and this model had everything I was looking for.  I had a choice between purple, blue, orange and pink.  The blue was a very bright blue, as bold as this pink here.

Being that I have some AF Reserve drill days next week and chances are my Seiko won't be done by then, I'll need to think twice before putting on this new watch with my uniform.  Since it's supposed to be conservative.

What do you think?

Extreme Couponing? Not For This Military Family!

How many of you have seen Extreme Couponing, the reality show on TLC?  Or is it Bravo?  A&E?  Heck, they all seem to run together to me now...

By the way: When did the word "coupon" become a verb?  

I tossed the show on my DVR a couple weeks ago and watched a few episodes.  I learned a lot.

I learned that there are ladies who can invest 30+ hours per week clipping, organizing, planning and executing their weekly grocery trips.

I learned that some of these ladies were downright dishonest with the couponing: taking papers from neighbors' houses, dividing up their transactions to multiply how many coupons they could use, etc.

I learned that with those practices, they could cut their food bills down to $20 per week...and even used the stockpiling techniques to build up a balance on their food bill which they could apply to non-couponed foods, such as meat and produce.

While giggling at this incredible drama the show applies to these ladies (really?  you're mad that you only saved 96% instead of 99% on your grocery bill?  you didn't want to spend more than $10 on $1000 worth of groceries?  then put back 20 of those 50 bottles of mustard!), I learned that I have really slacked off on the work I used to put into my own "couponing".

Jacob actually gets a kick out of watching the show.  Ever the numbers guy, he gets SO excited when they show the cash register reducing that final total.  He's cheering on the ladies and everything!

Of the 8-10 profiles of women on this show that I've seen so far, I've only liked the ones who gave their stockpiles to charity, or to family members.

Extreme Couponing was the name for this movement before the TLC show brought it to mainstream America.  I used to be a diligent (no, not "extreme", just "diligent") couponer from before I got married.  Growing up I helped my Mom clip coupons from the Sunday papers, scoured the sale ads and organized everything in Mom's coupon keeper.  I'd see her save 15-20% on her grocery bills, and it was as simple as tailoring our family's meal plans to what was on sale and what had good coupons.

When I grew up and out of my house, I continued clipping coupons.  I did most of my grocery shopping at my local commissaries, so there weren't the same type of sale ads as in civilian grocery stores.  It was nice having all those special commissary-only coupons.  Also, when we were stationed overseas, our commissaries would take 6-months expired coupons, whoo hoo!

I got a bit lazy in North Carolina.  I began to shop at specialty stores more (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's) which features a lot of non-mainstream brands for which you rarely find coupons.  We weren't near a commissary either.  Our food bill skyrocketed.  I attempted to keep tabs on the sales at our local Harris Teeter and Food Lion stores, but with a newborn and a toddler, it wasn't a priority in our lives.

I severely slacked off clipping the coupons while living in Nebraska.  We didn't subscribe to the newspaper there, which would have been about 1/2 of our coupons.

As fuel prices climb, food prices are climbing industry-wide, and my days of spending $80-100 per week on groceries are now OVER.  It's now a struggle keeping the food bill under $150 per week.

It's time to get back in the saddle and invest a couple hours per week in clipping and organizing coupons!

I don't have the time, fortitude or space to do the "Extreme Couponing".  We are a military family and stockpiling 50 jars of peanut butter simply isn't practical.  Perhaps if I get more diligent I can apply some of the techniques for charitable uses.

I need to take time to get smart on the online, printable coupons available to me.  I also need to learn to mix things up a bit and venture into other stores.  I recently learned that my local Publix grocery store will take coupons from several competitor stores: Winn-Dixie, Target and Walgreen's.

I found this website that features a "Super Couponing 101" guide.  This is probably more my speed and I plan to check it out.


How many of you clip/use coupons?  Are you an "extreme couponer"?  A "super couponer"?

Mark Twain Said It Best...

‎"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

Dave and I got the news at the same time as most Americans who were watching "live" TV tonight.  We can't believe it!

We knew something was up when Dave got a phone call during church this morning. I was convinced it was related to our killing Qaddafi's son last night with a NATO airstrike in Libya. Dave's commander was on vacation so Dave had to take the lead to get over to the base ASAP for a meeting. It was rather embarrassing to yank the kids out from the 2nd row pews in the middle of the hymn of the day, but I guess by now most of the folks will understand why.

We've been virtually "celebrating" with our Facebook and Twitter friends, first by posting this You Tube audio clip:



Then by posting that quote above by Mark Twain.

If it weren't for our early mornings tomorrow, I'm sure Dave and I would be pouring scotch and tequila and toasting the victory right now. It's neat to see the Americans celebrating in the streets in Washington, D.C.

I can't wait to find out which great Americans were actually there during this mission, and which one pulled the trigger that actually took him out. As one of my Facebook friends declared in his status, that individual will probably never have to buy his own beer again!

But let's keep our diligence America! Terrorist organizations are like animals that can regenerate lost body parts, they can regrow leadership and inspiration so we need to keep aware!

We're Rooting for You Leia!

"I was a Geek Pinup Girl!"

Who out there has seen the recent Jenny Craig ads?

My husband saw one of them this past weekend -- I think it was a "targeted" online ad on a health website -- and he couldn't believe it was Carrie Fisher!  We didn't recognize her!  Seriously.

Then this morning during the Rachel Ray Show I saw my first television ad featuring Carrie Fisher.  The commercial, which was a simple interview with Carrie (similar to the video below), was actually kind of dark, but it got me inspired to root for her.  She's brutally honest!

Today, I found a video on YouTube's Jenny Craig channel, and it's worth sharing.  She talks about how she was the Geek Pinup girl of the mid-80s, and has declared that she's going to fit back into that gold metal bikini with Jenny's help!

So who's with me!  Go Carrie! Go Carrie!