I’ve been drinking coffee for a long time. I have gotten to the point where I know which brands I like and which ones I don’t. I very rarely stray from them when I am home.
While I tend to prefer certain flavored coffees, when it comes to just plain coffee, I get Tim Hortons. At our Sam’s Club I can get a big bag for what it costs for a small bag in the store.
Last time we went, I bought two bags. I have a container I store it in that seals up tight, so it stays fresh. I poured them both in the container one bag on top of the other.
Yesterday, we reached the half way point of the container. So, I’m guessing we are hitting the first of the two bags. Something suddenly tasted different.
I’m not sure what it is, but it is almost like the coffee is extra weak. I made a second pot with more scoops wondering if that would help, but it didn’t. It still tastes weak.
We bought new coffee filters, and I thought it might be those. So I brewed a pot with the old filters. It still tasted the same. The only thing I can think of is that it was a bum bag of coffee.
Is that a thing? I mean, I’ve been buying it for years and this is the first time it has tasted funny. Bad beans? I don’t know.
We have to do some shopping this week. I may have to buy a flavored coffee and brew a pot just to be sure it isn’t the pot itself.
In the meantime, I need coffee and it is the only stuff in the house. So I suppose I will be stuck with it for another day or so ..
I have a few pet peeves. One of those is people who say “Happy Memorial Day.” To me, this is an example of someone who just doesn’t get what the day signifies. Memorial Day is not like Christmas, Thanksgiving, or a birthday. Memorial Day is a day for remembrance and honor! I saw “Happy Memorial Day” countless times on Facebook, on TV, and heard it on the radio. Please stop. For those who need a refresher – this is for you:
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties. Please remember that when you are having your back yard BBQ next year.
A Busy Weekend
As most of you know, Sam is 5 months pregnant. We decided to stay close to home for the holiday weekend. There were a lot of things to do around the house and some shopping that needed to be done. We took a trip to Sam’s Club and picked up a bunch of stuff there, and then ventured up to Birch Run so I could get a few pairs of scrub pants for work.
The weather was just beautiful. Ella got plenty of time to play in the sandbox and on the trampoline this weekend. We also got to go out and walk the neighborhood a few times. One walk had a purpose.
Our neighborhood has a “group” on Facebook. A neighbor posted a picture of his daughter in front of her Melissa and Doug Lemonade Stand with the request to “make her day” by purchasing a glass for just fifty cents!
NOT my neighbor’s daughter…
We grabbed the stroller and walked a few streets over and grabbed three glasses of lemonade. I made sure to give her an extra fifty cents as a tip! Ella loved it!! So did we. As we started to walk away, another neighbor drove up to purchase some. We were certainly glad to help make her day.
Cool Treat
I think ice cream and summer holiday weekends go together. We decided that we wanted to grab ice cream on Monday. It was about 6pm, and I knew that the local Dairy Queen was gonna have a line of cars out to the road. I remembered that about 7 miles down the road, there was a little ice cream shop. They serve regular ice cream and soft serve, and since Sam was craving Moose Trax, we drove there.
The line was not long at all and we were at the window in less than 5 minutes. This place gives you plenty of ice cream! Their scoops are huge! Sam got her Moose Trax, I got mint chocolate chip, and we got Ella a scoop of chocolate (with sprinkles). She started to eat it at one of the picnic tables, and then they started to get busier, so we drove home to finish. Ella loved her ice cream. After she got toward the end, she actually picked up the bowl and started to drink it like soup or something!
Another First
We cooked out for the first time on Monday. I grilled up some burgers and hot dogs. I also cooked up some potatoes on the grill. Sam cooked up some corn on the cob. We decided to let Ella try some. She put the holders on the ends of the corn, Sam showed her how to hold it and she was off! She pretty much ate two cobs of corn. I wish I knew how to post a video on here. I took some video and asked if she liked her corn (as she was munching away on it). She shook her head “no” and kept eating, only to put it down and say “mmmmmm!” Love this girl!!
Bonus Vacation Day
Because the holiday falls on a day that I don’t normally work, those of us who work on Tuesday were given Tuesday off. Sadly, Sam still had to work, but I took advantage of the day with Ella. We went for a walk around the neighborhood, and then spent all morning at the park. She got to swing on the swings, play by the slide, walk by the creek, talk to the dogs that were out being walked, and run around like crazy!
We always start at the swings, and when I said it was time to go, she signed “more” and pointed to the swings. I took her back over to the swings and she got to swing a little bit more. She LOVES swinging! I was able to snap a picture that I feel sums up what summer should feel like:
Loving summer!
Back to Work
I have to be back at work tonight, but I got to spend some extra daddy/daughter time with Ella as mommy slept. We usually play on the floor with her toys. Today, she wanted to go down the little slide we have in the house. She must have done that about 35 times. Then she grabbed the stuffed Curious George my dad gave her and sat him on the couch next to me. She climbed down, grabbed a book and started “reading” to George. It was so sweet.
Listen up, George! I’m a Pout Pout Fish …
It has been a while, since we had a nice family weekend together. What a blessing to spend it with my wife and daughter.
I hope this blog finds that you and yours had a wonderful weekend! We certainly did.
Saturday
Saturday was kind of an “errand running” day, so we were busy with that. Funny highlight of our trip to Sam’s Club: Ella was sitting in the shopping cart and we had been through about half the store. She was fussing a bit and Sam went to take her out of the cart. One of her shoes popped off and fell to the floor. We then noticed that both shoes were missing! We only saw one fall, so somewhere early on in the shopping trip, she either pulled it off, or it fell off. Sam looked at me and said, “I’m not backtracking to look for it! This place is crazy!” So somewhere in Sam’s Club is a little pink shoe without a match. I probably should have left the other one on a box of crackers in case someone found the other one so they could make a pair.
Easter Sunday
We were all in bed by 9pm Saturday, as we were exhausted. Sam has been having insomnia really bad this pregnancy, so she slept off and on, but nothing solid. Ella woke up early, as she usually does, and we all went to the front room to show her the Easter basket. We got her some of those Mega Blocks, which are like big Legos. (For the record, they still hurt when you step on them, but not as bad as a Lego!) I made her breakfast and Sam went back to lay down.
When I laid her down for her nap, I took one, too! When we all woke up, we got dressed to go to my in-laws house for dinner. Once I was dressed and Ella was dressed, it was my job to take her outside to get pictures. Lately, it’s been hard to get her to sit still or smile for pictures. She is so curious and so busy. My brother bought her some dresses from the Disney store and one was just perfect for Easter. So I brought her outside on the porch and attempted to get a good picture. (I feel like for every good one I get, there are 16 bad ones….LOL)
Happy Easter – 2021
I was surprised I actually got this picture! I kid you not, about 1 minute after this picture, she fell off of the porch and bonked her head! Urgh! I felt so bad!
Easter was a bit bittersweet for me, as it fell on my mom’s birthday. She would have been 73. Sam suggested we go to the cemetery before we went to her mom and dad’s for dinner. I really miss my mom, even more so with all the wonderful things that are going on in my life. She would be so proud of my sons, and she would just spoil the heck out of Ella! We named Ella after her (and Sam’s mom, who were both named Pamela). I know my mom would be over the moon happy to know Sam is expecting again.
Anyway, I tend to get really emotional when I go there. Having Ella there running around lightened the mood a bit. She’s like a tornado at our house, leaving a path of toys, books, and other things where ever she has been. Sam joked and said that with our luck, Ella would knock over 4 or 5 headstones while we were out there. I snapped a picture that really moved me, and my dad even said that it brought him to tears when he saw it.
Ella at grandma’s grave
I’m not sure why, but this just touched my heart.
This year Ella got to take part in the Easter Egg hunt. She was too young last year, and now that she is walking/running every where, she had fun. We had to steer her to the eggs, and she had her cousins out there to compete with, but she did really good. She didn’t really understand that you couldn’t eat the plastic eggs, though.
Nana had to laugh. It was about 75 degrees and sunny on Easter. She had loaded many of the eggs up with chocolates. The insides of more than a few eggs were a bit … mushy.
After the egg hunt, the kids just played in the yard. They were all running around on the trampoline. Ella wanted to go up there, and I won’t lie, I was freaking out a bit. Her cousins were jumping and bouncing and I thought for sure someone was gonna knock heads in there. Ella was thrilled! She was running and laughing, falling and laughing, and having a blast. As they all ran around on the trampoline, the static from it was really making their hair stand up. In another stroke of luck, I captured a perfect picture that really needs a frame!
Dig that crazy hair!!!
I still laugh out loud when I see that one! She is so happy and that hair is just insane!!
Our family spent an amazing weekend celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I certainly hope you and yours had a wonderful and blessed weekend, as well!
The day was supposed to go a bit differently than it did. I had planned on getting up early so we could run to Sam’s Club to get a few things. Sam came in before my alarm went off and crawled into bed next to me. She laid Ella down for a nap and she was going to nap next to me. Ella took a long nap, so we officially postponed our Sam’s Club trip until tomorrow. Usually I am up by 4, but because I turned my alarm off, it was after 5 when we woke up.
I am usually on the road by 6 for work. Because we slept so long, the stuff we pulled out for dinner never got made. So I suggested to Sam that I just run up and grab a pizza. It was about 5:45 when I walked into the Little Caesars. There was a guy ahead of me, who ordered two Hot & Ready pizzas. They gave him his order and he walked out. They took my order (2 Hot & Readys and a Crazy Bread), gave me the total, I paid for it and then they said, “That will be about 20 minutes.” I was dumbfounded. I looked at the woman and questioned, “20 Minutes?” She looked at me and stated that there were 5 orders ahead of me. I had already paid, so what could I do?
I wish she had told me that it would be a wait before I paid. I literally said, “So the Hot and Readys … aren’t ‘ready’?” She didn’t find that humorous. So I walked next door to the Dollar Store to kill a few minutes. When I walked back in, the same woman said they were just waiting on the Crazy Bread, so I sat down and waited. I watch a worker come up and put the bread in the warmer behind the counter and tell the other woman, “Crazy Bread is up!” I should be good to go now, right? No.
The woman grabs the two Hot and Readys and sets them on the counter. A guy walks in and up to the register. She looks at him and asks, “Can I help you?” He tells her that he had called in an order and she gets his name. She lifts my pizzas up from the counter, and puts them back in the warmer! She grabs his pizzas and the rest of his order as I stand there watching her. He looks at me and says, “Were you in line?” I chuckled and said, “At this point, I’m not sure they know I am here!” The woman behind the counter looks at me and says, “You don’t mind, do you?”
The old Keith would have been swearing and yelling long before this, but I kept cool. Was I angry? Yes! Did I want to make a scene? Yes! However, I calmly replied “It’s fine. Go ahead and continue helping him. I can wait.” She gave him his food and as he walked out, he apologized to me. It was not his fault at all, so he didn’t need to apologize to me. The cashier pulled my order our of the warmer again and another customer walked in. I was standing there and I kid you not, she started to ask the other customer “Can I help …..” I must have given her an evil eye or something, because mid-sentence she said, “….this man first?”
After all of that, I didn’t get back to the house until 6:20 and I still hadn’t showered for work. I ran in the house, and literally threw off my clothes so I could shower and get ready for work. On the way, I called and said I’d be really close to punch in time. I am ALWAYS a little early, so I didn’t want them to think I wasn’t coming in. I walked in about 5 minutes before I was supposed to punch in. Whew! I HATE being late for ANYTHING and am ALWAYS early! (That comes from the lesson of my band director – “If you’re on time, you’re late!”)
What I have come to realize is this – you tend to get angry when you are compromised. If it had been a day I didn’t have to be at work, I would have brushed it off no problem. However, because this was an inconvenience to me, it made me angry. When I am on my way to work and get stopped by a train, or get stuck in traffic because of an accident, I get extra frustrated and anxious. My schedule is compromised. When computers at work don’t work properly, my work is compromised. It all comes back to the greatest lesson I have learned over the past 4 years – You can’t worry about things that you can’t control.
It’s a hard thing to do.
One final thought: Remember when Domino’s Pizza had the “30 minute delivery or it’s free” thing? Perhaps Little Caesars should have something special (like a free bread or free pop or something) for people who are inconvenienced by their Hot and Readys NOT being ready ….
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 