Senseo® Single Serve Coffeemaker

My new, red Senseo single-serve coffeemaker is the sexiest small appliance I now own. I’m sorry, little Shop-Vac; I thought you were sexy before. I still love you, but now you’re just… cute. (Handy, and cute.)

But the Senseo is seriously hot! It makes something I love - coffee - almost faster than you can say it, and much more efficiently (and fun) than the old drip-drip-dripper.

Are my coffee choices limited?

I’ve admired these in Target for quite a while, but something silly bothered me about them, and I never did any research to disprove what I assumed: that you can only use Senseo coffee with Senseo coffeemakers. Now I know better; it’s not true!

I’m not a coffee elitist -probably not even a true connoisseur. But the idea of being restricted to one brand or one type of coffee really put me off. Furthermore, I had a coffeemaker, so I couldn’t see a reason to buy another one, especially when money is tight (stay-at-home mom and all.)

A few weeks ago, I found myself with a broken coffeemaker and, thus, the need to replace it. Remembering my admiration of the Senseo, I finally did a little digging and was 1) pleasantly surprised to learn that the Senseo coffeemakers are not brand-proprietary when it comes to coffee, and 2) overjoyed to find a huge selection of compatible coffee pods. In fact, I quickly learned that there is a whole online world devoted to single-serve coffee (SSC) in general. It was easy to find retailers, reviews and lovers of single-serve coffee and everything that it entails.

Home and ready to brew!

Freshly informed and with my product selection made, I trotted off to Target with fingers crossed that I’d find a Senseo of the red persuasion, and there was one (and only one.) It came with a package of Senseo coffee pods, and I grabbed a package of their cappuccino as well.

Setup was easy - as per the instructions, I ran the machine through a cycle with water only… then it was time for the first cup. I filled the water reservoir to the appropriate line and placed a coffee pod in the podholder. (The Senseo comes with two podholders. More on that later.) I turned on the machine to heat the water, which took all of about oh… 45 seconds or so. Then I hit the brew button, and probably 20 or 30 seconds later, my hot, fresh, coffee with lovely frothy top was ready for consumption. And how did it taste?

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Thumbs Up for The ThumbSaver

Recently I had the pleasure of testing this new product from FW Tools in Tennessee. The ThumbSaver is one of those things that makes you say, “why didn’t I think of that?!”
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The Cupcake Courier

Well, someone’s done it. Someone has finally invented a way to transport cupcakes! No messy icing all over aluminum foil, and no smashing and smushing up all of your hard decorating work.

And wouldn’t you know it - the Cupcake Courier was invented by a mom. Jennifer Gunn, mother of two in southern Cali, invented the Cupcake Courier after getting fed up with all of the cupcake carrying caveats we all know and loathe.

I have to tell you, I do not actually have one of these in my hot little hands yet, but I’m on it. Look at the features the Cupcake Courier has to offer:

• Holds three stackable cupcake trays
• Each tray holds 12 cupcakes
• Made of rectangular, translucent plastic
• Comfortable handle
• Four bottom latches that hold the base securely
• Carry/store up to 36 cupcakes or muffins
• Trays are removeable, so the courier doubles as a cake holder

I hope to have one soon, so we can offer a more detailed product review, but the Cupcake Courier certainly looks like something to get excited about!

Ann Douglas: Parenting Expert, Author du Jour, Wonderwoman!

Having had two pregnancies almost back-to-back (my kids are just less than a year apart), I read a lot of books on the subject. My favorite pregnancy book was The Mother of All Pregnancy Books by Ann Douglas. It’s written in a conversational style and is probably the most thorough of all the pregnancy books I read (or started to read and then put down because they just didn’t measure up to this one!) Since then, I’ve picked up another of Ann Douglas’ titles, The Mother of All Toddler Books, and am about 90% through that one and just as impressed (and thankful!) as I was with her pregnancy book.

Not long ago, I became a lensmaster at Squidoo and much to my surprise, Ann happened upon my lens, What to Exclude When You’re Expecting (born from the article of the same name that I published here) and contacted me. To say I was honored that she enjoyed my silly little lens is an understatement!

Mrs. Douglas has penned 28 books - 28 books, people! - and has co-authored 2 books with John R. Sussman, M.D. She also writes children’s books and parenting articles, is a columnist, and has been featured in such high-profile publications as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and Parents magazine. She has speaking engagements, teaches parenting courses and appears in radio, TV and live chat sessions regularly. Did I mention she is a mother of four children?

Okay, it’s official: ANN DOUGLAS IS A SUPERHERO!

If you’re pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or already a parent, I highly recommend that you add some of Ann’s work to your arsenal of parenting books:

• The Mother of All Pregnancy Books
• The Mother of All Pregnancy Organizers
• The Mother of All Toddler Books
• The Mother of All Baby Books
• The Mother of All Parenting Books
• Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler
• Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler
• The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby
• The Unofficial Guide to Childcare
• Choosing Childcare for Dummies
• Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss

You can read more about Ann Douglas at her website.

Here’s a massive list of articles - written by, contributed to, or written about Ann.

Check out Ann’s lenses at Squidoo for more great advice and parenting resources.

Ann also has an author profile page at Amazon, and a great blog!

Shop-Vac® 6 Gallon, 3 Peak HP Wet/Dry Vac

So what I want to know is… when did the Shop-Vac get so sexy? Look at it, all blue and silver and shapely!

Okay, I’ll stop and be serious. The Shop-Vac Wet/Dry vac is, after all, a serious piece of equipment. It’s small, portable and lightweight, so you can easily tote it around the house (or the shop, as the name implies) for quick pick-ups. It’s powerful enough to tackle bigger cleanup jobs. It’s versatile - again, as the name itself says - you can use it for wet or dry cleanup. It converts to a powerful blower when you attach the hose to a blower port on the rear.

Yes it does all of that, has a 6 gallon capacity (plenty for me, but you should note that there are many different capacities to choose from), is affordable, and did I mention it’s sexy?

So far I’ve used the Shop-Vac, which I’ve affectionately named R2 since it reminds me of R2D2, for dry cleanups, one of them fairly major. It’s super easy to move around with, thanks to the 6 foot power cord and smooth-rolling casters. The included attachments have proved to be sufficient for me thus far, though I may add additional attachments later (like a small round brush, crevice tool, and “claw” for auto vacuuming.) I was impressed with the quickness and ease of cleaning up a ton of sawdust, paint particles and other gunk. R2 even snagged some things I’d missed when picking up after a
toolbox tip-over - some straggling nails and screws. I’m glad the Shop-Vac caught them before one of my toddlers did!

To sum up, the Shop-Vac wet/dry vac looks great and works even better. As a dear old friend of mine would say, “that thing could suck the butt right out of a cat.”

Not the most professional observation, but you get the idea.

Price: $39.94
More info is available at Shop-Vac’s website
Purchased at Lowe’s

ilo 1GB MP3 Player

Cool gadget alert!

If you’re looking to get into the world of MP3 players (I was late to the game, I admit), I can now personally recommend this nifty little ilo MP3 player from Wal-Mart.

So here are the product details with my commentary (because I love to make commentary!) in bold italic - which is quite ugly, I might add, but I think you can at least see what the marketing people wrote vs. what I wrote.

• Slim, compact digital audio MP3 player - it’s cute too!
• 1 GB storage capacity - mmm a yummy gigabyte
• Stores up to 480 songs - I will never have time to add that many
• Perfect companion for working out or sports activities with sport design with rubber grip - working out? yeah, or just listening while vacuuming, ’cause ya can
• Includes case and armband for protection and accessibility - case! armband!
• Solid state memory for skip free playback - no skips here
• Simple and intuitive menus for navigation and customizing your player - yeah the menus rock
• FM tuner with 20 presets and recording capability to record your favorite radio programs - if you’re into FM, ok
• Easy to use Voice Recording feature - i recorded. it worked.
• Up to 16 hours of battery life on one AAA alkaline battery - haven’t timed it, but this does seem about right
• Supports easy drag and drop song transfer from your PC - there is a learning curve if you’re new to players in general, but it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it
• SD/MMC memory expansion slot (up to 1GB)
• USB 2.0 connection for hi-speed music transfers
• Screen display is black LCD with white lettering and a white backlight - again, cute! woo!
  
• Comes with 12 pre-loaded tracks - ugh, they SUCK! delete immediately!

The price is decent, and the player comes with 10 free music downloads from walmart.com, which is a nice little bonus.

One word of caution: THIS PLAYER IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ITUNES! I repeat, THIS PLAYER IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ITUNES! Once more, for the record: THIS PLAYER IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ITUNES!

So don’t go buy one and then yell at me, k?

No iTunes was no biggie for me, as I use Wal-Mart for music downloads anyway.

Did I mention they come in purdy colors?

And you can check out the great selection of tunes available for download right here:

Price: $69.84
Available (in multiple colors) from Wal-Mart.com