RIP, Mr. Coffee

Coffee is not a luxury in our house, it is a necessity. I am not talking about a $4 foofoofino, just your basic rich, hot, delicious cup of caffeine each morning. And me without coffee in the morning is not only not pretty, but potentially dangerous.

Our Mr. Coffee coffeemaker, which was only about 2.5 years old, went on the fritz early this week. It huffed and puffed and made lots of noise, but not so much coffee. I cleaned it and tinkered with it to no avail…it was kaput. And what really annoyed me is that the one before this one lasted about the same length of time. We use the coffeemaker every day but we are not harsh people, so why do these things have such a short life? It’s as though they are the pantyhose of kitchen appliances!

I did some reading online and determined that I wanted to try out a percolator instead of another automated drip machine. Of course, the one I wanted that received excellent reviews on Amazon was not to be found here in Hooterville, so I ended up ordering it from Amazon. I was feeling cheap so I chose super saver shipping, knowing that it might be a week and a half before we received it. In the meantime, I used a mini French press that we have had for many years to make our morning coffee. It makes good, thick coffee but let's face it, I am lazy.

Much to my surprise, Amazon notified me that it shipped the percolator the same day I ordered it and it arrived via UPS yesterday, just two days later. Yippee! This morning we enjoyed hot, delicious coffee with a minimum of effort. Using a percolator does take more work than an ADM, but not much more...and, hopefully, it will prove to have greater longevity.

House of the Mouse

It was a good vacation, just tiring. As I said before, it was tough to keep a balance between the needs and wants of both a six year and a 70+ year old. I also felt as though I did not get much time to relax, which is my FAVORITE thing to do while on holiday, because we didn't want to miss anything. At first, five full days at Disney sounds like a lot but then you quickly realize that five full days isn't much at all.

All that said, I don't mean for this space to turn into a Disney saga day after day after day, nor do I want to overload anyone with photos. So I will post a few here and there and then move on with this thing I call my life.

Here is a photo of Aidan with Cinderella, the night we had dinner in her castle:

He was quite taken with her! He could not stop smiling.

And here are two photos from our very first night, which was a character dinner at Chef Mickey's:

Aidan was wide-eyed as Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto and Minnie walked through the dining area, hugging and posing for photos.

The character dinners were well worth the effort and cost, just to see the joy on Aidan's face! And, yes, we adults enjoyed them, too.