Wishin' and Hopin'

Friday began the month-long countdown until my birthday...my 30th, take two ;)  Last year my birthday sucked, not super horribly, but I think the reason it sucked as much as it did was that for my real 30th, I had an idea in my head of what the occasion would be like.  I wasn't hoping for a big party or lots and lots of gifts, I just wanted something special.  A nice dinner with people I cared about and those people actually going out of their way to spend the time with me to mark my 30th year of life.  I pictured a nice, long meal full of laughter and smiles, a drink or two (or ten), and our waitress carrying out a cake full of candles and everyone singing Happy Birthday to ME.  Ok, and maybe a cool gift or two as well ;)  But alas, that wasn't what happened...at all.  Sigh.  I really have no clue how this year's birthday is going to be better than last, I think the fact that there are no expectations will help.  June is already shaping up to be a busy, busy month too...not much time to squeeze in anything spectacular.  Here's hoping the hubster thinks of something fun despite the time constraints!

Then there's the gifts.  Already I have my MIL asking me what I want this year.  She's so great about birthdays, she really tries to make them special.  So I've compiled a small wishlist, emphasis on wish ;)  The hubster better take hints from this list too.

#1 this year is a white watch.  I'm normally not a watch wearer, in fact I don't even own one at all (besides my great-grandmother's antique Bulova, but it doesn't work, so it doesn't qualify).  I'm not a jewelry wearer either (I wear my wedding rings, a small anniversary band on my right hand, and studs in my ears, thats it) but for some strange reason I'm drawn to these watches and I've been obsessing over them.  My first choice would be the Fossil Stella followed by the Stella White Topring.

#2 is the Copco To Go Cup travel mug I saw at Bed, Bath & Beyond during our last shopping trip.  I have a few other travel mugs already but this one is dishwasher and microwave safe...my other mugs are not.  Plus it's super cute and it makes me smile.

 

#3 is the VacuVin Wine Saver.  I've (well, we've) been wanting one for a while now.  We enjoy a bottle of wine here and there, but we don't always finish the bottle the same day we open it.  Our favorite wine shop introduced us to this gadget when we went to stock up before the holidays.  They depend on the VacuVin to preserve their wine between sample pours...can't really expect to gain new customers if you let them sample poorly preserved wine!  They also have a champagne/sparking wine preserver...ooh, add that to the wishlist too :)

 

#4 is an item I ask for every year - Calvin Klein's Eternity Summer perfume.  This year's version is literally Summer in a bottle for me.  They change each year's limited edition Summer scent ever so slightly, and up until this year my favorite version was from 2006, but it's getting harder and harder to find from online retailers.  It may still remain my favorite, but 2010 will come pretty close, plus it'll be easier to find if the next few versions don't wow me either.  Isn't the bottle pretty?  Makes me want to dip my toes in the ocean!

 

I think that's about it as far as actual gifts are concerned, of course the usual Target and Sephora gift cards are always added to the list too.  Sorry for the greedy and selfish sounding post, I just get excited once the birthday countdown starts.  But I'm not only looking forward to the day that I become one year older (insert eyeroll here), my birthday signifies the official start of Summer, yay!  And I love that MY birthday is the longest day of the year  ;)

Appliance Love

We're not big into kitchen gadgets or having a bunch of small appliances that hardly get used.  Frankly, we just don't have the room to store these things and I'm not really one to go above and beyond when it comes to cooking or baking.  A lot of our small kitchen appliances were given to as gifts and all those are pretty cool and might be considered to have some "bells and whistles", but honestly, if we're buying it ourselves, as long as it does the job, it's fine.  We had the same $20 toaster and $30 coffee maker for 7 years until we remodeled our kitchen two years ago, and actually we sold the pair for $20 at a yard sale so they really served us well! 

One appliance we "splurged" on after the remodel was our Cuisinart Brew Central...not super duper fancy, but definitely better than our prior coffee maker, and it had a timer!  Movin' on up!  Then this past November I got sucked into QVC.  The new and improved Keurig Platinum was the Today's Special Value.  I made the hubster sit through an hour long presentation.  We ooohed and awwwed as they talked about what it did and how it worked and then we went about our business.  A few hours later on that night we both kind of looked at each other like "we NEED to order that"!  So we did.  In a pretty cinnamon color and on easy-pay :)  The poor Cuisinart now sits on a shelf in the basement awaiting it's fate.

I have never loved an appliance like this.  It is fabulous!  Plus it's so pretty, it steals the show in my kitchen.  We were always coffee drinkers, this just took it up a notch...actually, a couple notches, it's that awesome.

Here she is:

We've recently started ordering our K-cups from CoffeeWiz.com.  Their prices and selection can't be beat, and bonus, free shipping on orders over $50.  When we're in a bind we can always pick up a box at our local grocery store or use the My K-cup (which came with our fab deal from QVC) with our own preferred ground coffee, easy peasy.

We store our selection of K-cups in a cute little tin "lunch box" on our counter (we replenish when needed from the seperate big boxes which are stored on a high shelf not easily accessible to my midget self).  It's cute and holds the K-cups perfectly!

My favorite K-cups:

We have ours programmed to turn on/off at certain times of the day, and by "on" I mean that the water is heated and ready to brew at the push of a button. If the machine is in "off" mode, it generally takes about 3-4 minutes for the water to heat up to the right temp.

 Here's how she works... first you choose your K-cup and put it in the brewer.  Today's choice was Butter Toffee, yum!

Then place your mug below...

Make fun of my coffee mug if you must.  I own probably six different mugs with my name on them, mostly from theme park gift shops, but I have a compulsion about buying things with my name on them since they're typically hard to find.  This one is from the Arabian Nights dinner show in Orlando, circa 2006 :)

Next you choose your mug size...

  I use the 10 oz. size, second from the right, while the hubster prefers the 8 oz. size in the middle (he likes a stronger brew).  Notice the selection all the way on the left of the little screen.  That's for iced coffee, neat-o!

Then you just hit the "brew" button and you're good to go. 

 

In less than a minute you have a perfect cup of coffee!  Add a bit of sugar and a splash of creamer (huge rave for the new Bailey's creamer, I love the caramel) and I'm in heaven.

Hmm...I think I may have a cup of decaf after dinner tonight!

Lazy Sundays

Sometimes I feel like I live for Sundays.  Why, you ask?  Because we can be as lazy as we want to be.  Of course, "lazy" is a relative term and probably means different things for different people.  While I consider Sunday our lazy day, I probably accomplish more in this day than I do any other day of the week. 

The day starts off with a cup of coffee, it's a must to get me moving.  I think I'll do a seperate post on our Keurig - the appliance "love of my life" -  in the future, it's a-ma-zing!  While I sip on my coffee I read the paper, watch some HGTV, and chat with the hubster before he heads off to the gym and then I really get started on my day.

For whatever reason I get the itch to clean on Sundays... I think because we usually spend the day at home, the house needs to at least look clean so that I can can relax.  That means I usually run the Dyson to rid our horrid, dark carpet of the neverending cat hair and other random fuzzies and dirt.  Clean carpet gives me the illusion of a clean house, instant gratification!  I like to declutter a bit too...the counters in the kitchen, the desk in our office, the ottoman in the living room, etc.  I trash or recycle what I can then organize the areas to again give the illusion of a clean and tidy house.  I'm all about the illusion, can you tell?  I'm going to admit that cleaning (actual dusting/windexing/soap and water cleaning) is not my most favorite task and I'll put it off as long as possible.  But I swear, anyone that walks in my house would never say it's dirty, so I guess I'm a pretty good illusionist.  Just call me David Copperfield ;)  I do get to the serious cleaning, I do, but certainly not on a regular or consistent basis.

Sunday is also usually laundry day, yay!  I love doing laundry, LOVE it.  I find it relaxing and rewarding.  Call me crazy, I don't care.  I'd do laundry 24/7/365 if it meant I never had to do another household chore again.  I love the sorting, the washing, the drying, the folding, the "putting away"...well, except putting away the husband's clothes, I leave that up to him.

My next favorite Sunday task is clipping coupons and browsing through the sales flyers.  Do you clip coupons?  I think I'm addicted.  Although I wouldn't exactly classify that as a bad thing, I'm doing it to save money - nothing wrong with that, right?  I do have a routine and a few rules with coupon clipping...a seperate post for that too, maybe :)  The sales flyers are fun for me to look through and it kind of feels like shopping without really spending money.  No room for excess or senseless spending these days, unfortunately.

Now comes the lazy part... once the small amount of cleaning is done, a few loads of laundry washed, dried and folded, coupons clipped and sorted... we lounge and watch crappy television or movies until dinner time.  Not sure what's playing on our TV today, I leave that up to the hubster.  I just hope it's something good that holds my attention.  A few weekends ago we watched Up In The Air with George Clooney and I liked it, I'd say it's worth a watch.  We also watched Precious and while I thought it was a great movie, it was definitely HARD to watch.  I had to turn it off a few times just to give myself a break.  I can see why it was nominated for so many awards this year, that's for sure.

Sunday nights are usually closed out with dinner and Desperate Housewives before hitting the hay.  Whew!  Sounds pretty busy for a lazy day, but I promise most of it is done at a snails pace while still in my pajamas, crazy hair and no make-up.  Any day I can stay in my pj's ALL day qualifies as a lazy day in my book!  Now if you'll excuse me, I have coupons to clip and laundry to fold...