Rival Crock Pot

Doug and I got this crock pot as a wedding gift a couple years ago. I love it. It's the Rival "Smart Pot". It's got digital controls, digital timer and when the meal is done it automatically sets itself to warm so the meal doesn't overcook. It's great. It comes with an instruction manual as well as recipes. I've seen it for sale at Costco for about $40, it's definitely worth the cost.

Check out their products here: Crock~Pot

Sheraton

We stayed at the Sheraton while we were in San Jose, CA. It was a nice room, simple and classy decorations, clean and it felt comfortable to be there. We booked online using Hotels.com and got a great price of $90 for a weekend night while most hotels in the area were going for $120 and more. The staff was very nice and although the hotel restaurant/bar was empty, the food was good (Doug got the wrong sandwich, but he ate it anyways) and the bartender was very helpful.

I would definitely stay at this hotel again. The picture above is from their website and looks just like the room we stayed in, except our comforter was white.

Sheraton

Southwest Airlines

When I fly, I always seem to check Southwest first. It's always been a pretty easy experience, so I keep flying with them. I don't dislike the other airlines, but Southwest seems to be my preferred airline (not to mention we don't have to pay for our luggage to fly).

We flew Southwest to and from Minnesota. I searched online to find the cheapest flights and found one online for $200 each. It wasn't letting me book it online and the next flight price was $400 for the exact same trip. I called Southwest to see why I couldn't book online and I was told they must have sold all the tickets at that price level. The gentleman I spoke with asked me to hold for a moment and was very sympathetic to my situation (trying to get to my grandma's memorial). He was able to find me a ticket at the $200 price. I'm so grateful for their customer service! They saved us $400 on our flight to Minnesota!!

A funny story though: while we were on our flight from Chicago to Minnesota our flight attendant was the equivalent to the "Soup Nazi" on Seinfeld.
Here's how the drink orders went:
What do you want to drink?
Sprite
(to the next person) Yes
coffee
Yes
Coke
Yes
water
Yes
If she got to you and you didn't have an answer ready, I was SURE they were going to hear "NO DRINK FOR YOU!" We had a pretty good laugh over it. It was funny to watch when the people in the next rows weren't paying attention and would hear, "Yes." I imagine the blank stares she would get and then she would say, "What do you want to drink?" "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." She did apologize while rapidly handing out the peanuts/pretzels that they were in a hurry due to the ice delay in Chicago.

Jack's Urban Eats

You should really take a break and stop at Jack's for lunch. They have delicious food. You can create your own salad, have a Thai Salmon Salad, Hot Pastrami Reuben, or have a BBQ Tri Tip sandwich - there are many more items as well as garlic french fries and sweet treats. Doug and I stopped in for lunch on our way out of town a couple weekends ago and he really liked his Tri Tip Sandwich and said we need to go again next time we're in the area. I usually create my own salad, but I had a BBQ Chicken Sandwich and it was really good.

I used to work across the street from one of their restaurants, now it's a little further of a drive to a different location but always worth the food. There are about 5 restaurants in the Sacramento area and most items are $7-8. Enjoy!

Jack's Urban Eats

Giant Cupcake attempt #2

My sister-in-law gave me this pan for Christmas. It works so much better than the Wilton Giant Cupcake pan. I'm sure I would have mastered the Wilton pan, but it seemed like extra work compared to this pan. The silicon version positives: 2 separate pieces, an insert for fillings, a "fill-to" line in the base pan (you pour the rest in the top pan), and it comes out of the pan SO much easier. The issue I did have with this pan was the baking instructions say 35 minutes, then the base will take an additional 10 minutes; it took almost an hour to bake the cake (I only used one box mix for the recipe as instructed). See how clean the base pan is??? A little bit of the top was left in the top pan, but not enough to have to use frosting to put it back together. The plate on the right is the cupcake after I cut each piece to level them.

The plate on the left are the pieces we cut off, frosted and ate over the weekend :)

Fruit Snacks

These Kirkland brand fruit snacks from the makers of Jelly Belly are so yummy. I think these are my favorite fruit snacks. I wish the bag was made in “April size”. But, it keeps me from eating the entire box in one sitting. The little bags are 80 calorie packs and I want more than that. I really like the fruit snacks by Welch’s too, but they aren’t selling them at our local Costco anymore (Welch’s makes an “April size” bag). On a side note: food sizes just keep shrinking….100, 80, 60 calorie packs. Here’s an annoying example: the Jello 100 calorie packs of pudding are actually more calories than the regular Jello pudding packs we would normally buy (thanks to the Eat This, Not That book for pointing this out), but the unobservant consumer doesn’t realize that they are probably paying more for the “100 calorie pack” and are actually getting more calories when they think they are cutting calories.

iPhone

This is such a fun phone. I really wasn't looking forward to the extra $30 a month data charge, but Doug and I really like these phones. There are so many free apps to get. We can stream music online for free, email, look up maps, play games, etc. I upload different things frequently and it's like having a new phone all the time. There are 16G of memory in this phone, so we have a lot of room for photos, music, etc. It's an easy phone to use, customer service is great, and we are glad we bought them. Unfortunately it took dropping my other phone in Tilex, but we've had these for a couple months and don't regret it.

A note about the customer service....AT&T cell phone customer service is amazing. I think AT&T kept the Cingular customer service department when everything switched over; they've been great over the last 10 years, all the way back to when I joined Cingular. I can't stand the AT&T customer service for their internet and phone and have a friend who has fought with them on numerous occasions regarding cable, internet and phone also.

Plant Caddy

I bought these from Home Depot last summer. They suck. Short and sweet. They were great at first, but then moisture ruined the “wood”, so they are cracked and gross looking. The wheels, which are plastic are breaking and the caps are falling off. I got three ($15-$20 each I think) and 2 of them are holding very heavy pots, but I expected them to hold up better than they have. The third one is holding a small plant I call Anastasia because I could never remember that it was an Azalea bush; even the wheels on that one are breaking and the “wood” is cracked and breaking.
Real wood and sturdy wheels are the way to go; not these little caster wheels and fake wood.

Hopefully we can get these trees in the ground soon and not have to buy more.

Faux Wine Barrels

I wanted the half wine barrels to plant our orange tree and mandarin trees in until we were able to get our yard in order. Not wanting to spend a lot of money – and unable to find a couple – I settled for a faux wine barrels my mom and I found at Kmart. It’s held up pretty well, until recently. They’re over a year old and being fake, I guess I didn’t really expect too much. The black coloring is rubbing off, so I try not to touch them. The weather is getting to them, so they are beginning to crack and I’m sure it won’t be too long before they fall apart. I’ve got a couple online photos for these posts until I can get actual photos posted.

Updated...Here are my photos. Don't be like me....wait and buy the real thing.

Energizer Batteries

I LOVE these batteries.

I've tried so many rechargeable batteries and they just don't last long. We got our camera a year and a half ago and I was constantly carrying batteries around, rechargeable or not. I have a small box full of batteries that we've been through, even rechargeable that don't hold a charge although they're new.

Doug bought these Lithium batteries just to try them and they're amazing. To get an idea of how long they last: rechargeable batteries would last a day ( on a REALLY good day ), "regular" batteries would last about a week, but the Lithium batteries last about a month, if not longer.

Our packaging looks a little different, but I L.O.V.E these batteries. It's so nice not worrying that our batteries are going to die while we are out for the day. We use 4 AA batteries in our camera and buying batteries was getting ridiculous, not to mention having to carry an extra 8 batteries and a battery charger.

These cost a little more, but I think it's worth it. I think this 4 pack of batteries is about $8.