A Bit of an Upgrade!

Hey everyone!  Is anyone else as anxious for Fall to get here as I am?  I am literally jumping out of my skin to get started on my Fall decor -- truly DONE, DONE & DONE with this AZ summer!  Now, I totally understand that many of you live where you have beautiful summers and wish to savor every last minute of it.  We DO NOT!  

Okay, enough moaning and groaning from me.  Thought I'd share a little change & upgrade that we recently made in our kitchen.  No, we did not paint anything, but we made my our mornings a whole lot tastier.

Our old coffee pot, which we loved BTW, started leaking.  I mean, the nerve, after 15 years of serving us our morning brew every single day.......leaking?  

"Yay, let's get a Keurig," I squealed said.  Now, The Man, being the "thinker" and "weigher of options" in our duo, was not sure the Keurig was a good economical choice.  So......we shopped and looked at all the options and FINALLY chose this BABY! 

Yep, we've crossed over to the dark side Keurig!  We are now "k-cup people."

The Man was 100% convinced after his first cup-o-Joe.

I promptly ordered one of these from Amazon.  Sorry about the quality of this photo, but I had to really wash it out in order to see all of this brown-on-brown going on.

Love that it has 3 individual drawers so I can divide up our faves.

This is our  coffee station for right now, subject to change as we move into the holidays.

I simply placed my "must-haves" on this little spinner that I had & added some washi tape for color.

Two of my favorite Torani syrups!

My little frother is nestled in the back.

I'm not sure I ever showed you this little sign.  It was a free printable (sorry, I cannot remember the source), and I just thought it was so perfect for this little spot.

Cute, huh?

Not cute!

Ahhhh.....VERY CUTE and reminds me of Fall!

Since we like the largest cup-size on the Keurig, I'm in serious need of some large mugs.  Oh, please don't  tell me I have to go shopping......heeheehee!

Now this little item came with our Keurig & is great, because I do love my flavored coffees from World Market.  But........

We found these at Fry's Electronics (I know, they have a weird assortment of products), and they go right into the spot that a K-cup fits into.  This entire set was less than $10 & works beautifully.

I popped everything, including my current favorite flavor of WM coffee, into this little container 

that sits in the cabinet just below the coffee station.

YUM!

We stopped at a Smart 'n Final yesterday, and these syrups were on sale for $4.98 each or $3.98 if you purchased 6.  Cannot turn down a deal like that, so now I am well-stocked!

Well, now you have the entire scoop of our adventures in "K-cupland!"  We are still in the process of narrowing down our faves.   So far, we really like Tully's French Roast, Newman's Special Blend and Kirkland's Pacific Bold.  If you use a Keurig, what are your favorite K-cup flavors or brands? 

Before I wrap-up this post, I have a confession to make.

This happened yesterday.

 The Man, sweetheart that he is, hauled my crates of Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving decor in from the garage storage.  It is much too hot in the garage, so I covered the beds in our guest room with sheets and started the process of sorting, discarding and playing! .  I think I enjoy this part of it as much as the actual decorating.....well, maybe not!  Anyway, are any of you getting the overwhelming urge to pull out some pumpkins and light a Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin candle?  Be honest, no one will judge!

I thank you so much for stopping and hope everyone has a terrific week!

I sometimes like to party with these nice bloggers:

Cindy at Dwellings--The Heart of Your Home for Amaze Me Monday

Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday

Kathryn at The Dedicated House for Make It Pretty Mondays

Maria Elena at Our Home Away from Home for Tuesdays at Our Home

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life  for Inspire Me Tuesday

Leslie at House on the Way for Twirl & Take a Bow

Mary Beth at Cupcakes and Crinoline for Project Inspired
Suzy at Worthing Court for The Scoop

Karin at The Style Sisters for Centerpiece Wednesday

Kelly at Live Laugh Rowe for Live Laugh Linky Party

Richella at Imparting Grace for Grace at Home

Pamela at From My Front Porch to Yours for Treasure Hunt Thursday
Natasha at Natasha in OZ for Say G'Day Saturday Party

Some Simple Packing Tips

Hey everyone!  As some of you know (those who read my blog), The Man and I just got back from a 2-week road trip vacation.  This vacation involved not only simple sight-seeing, but also two reunions and several visits with friends.  There were only two times when we would be staying more than one night at a time, so I wanted to pack carefully and try not to have just a jumbled mess in our suitcases. So what do you do when you need suggestions......PINTEREST, of course!  I found some FREE printables that I used and found to be very helpful.

The form below was so helpful in just having one place to jot down all the things we did not want to forget.  I simply kept this out on the kitchen island for a few days prior to our DD, so The Man and I could write down things as we thought about them.  The last category on this form, Entertainment, is where I listed things like: snacks & water, electronics & cords, reading-writing materials, my crochet (I like to crochet in the car), etc.  When we are car-tripping, I always use several sturdy tote bags to make things easier to find......one for snacks & water, another for the electronics stuff & paper goods (including our travel agenda & hotel reservation confirmations), and a separate one for my crochet & my iPad (we listen to audio books on that).   

Source

I really like this next form and used it to plan out my outfits for each day of our trip.  My plan (and it worked beautifully) was to have everything in one suitcase that we would need on-the-road and not have to haul in both suitcases -- The Man likes to use one of those fold-over type bags.  

Source

I packed the completed form right into a pocket in my suitcase, incase I forgot what I planned for a particular occasion, or if I would be doing some mixing and matching for additional outfits.

PSST.....I am now using the above form to plan outfits for my everyday wear.  I have a section in our master closet where I can hang several outfits and not have to decide each morning what I will wear.  I'll share more about this trick later when I reveal our master closet redo -- it's almost finished!

Okay, it's time to pack those bags!  I found this Source on Pinterest and decided to give it a try.  It's pretty ingenious as far as I'm concerned.  You simply pack "outfits" in the Jumbo Ziplok bags.

I neatly folded tops and bottoms, plus a little bag of the matching accessories, placed them in the zip bags, pressed out the excess air, zipped it up, DONE!

If what I was packing might wrinkle easily, I didn't squeeze out so much air.

This was a medium-size suitcase, and I had all of my clothes (*minus shoes, purses -- those went in a tote bag), The Man's travel clothes, & all the undergarments for both of us zipped into separate bags.

*The tote bag with shoes and purses is not something I ordinarily do, but we had plenty of room.  I just decided each day what shoes/purse I wanted and grabbed them from the bag -- no need to take the whole tote bag in each time.

This system worked so well.   It was so easy to find what we wanted each day without disrupting the entire suitcase.  Each night I would pull out the next day's outfit and hang it up so any wrinkles could fall out -- that worked well, too.

*FYI -- all of my toiletries, including makeup & hair stuff goes into a zippered tote bag.  I usually carry this inside the car, especially during warm weather.

When we got home, I only had 2 outfits that had not been worn, but were still nice and clean in their zip bags and ready to re-hang in my closet.  After unpacking everything, I simply tossed all the zip bags right back into the suitcase to reuse on our next trip.

Well, that's just about a wrap for this post.  I would love to hear how you pack for trips -- tips, tricks, etc.  Trips-vacations are such fun but also a bit chaotic, so it's great when you have some tricks up-your sleeve.  Hope you enjoyed and maybe "packed" (wow, I'm so funny) up an idea or two.

I sometimes like to party with these nice bloggers:

Cindy at Dwellings--The Heart of Your Home for Amaze Me Monday

Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday

Kathryn at The Dedicated House for Make It Pretty Mondays

Maria Elena at Our Home Away from Home for Tuesdays at Our Home

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life  for Inspire Me Tuesday

Leslie at House on the Way for Twirl & Take a Bow

Mary Beth at Cupcakes and Crinoline for Project Inspired
Suzy at Worthing Court for The Scoop

Karin at The Style Sisters for Centerpiece Wednesday

Kelly at Live Laugh Rowe for Live Laugh Linky Party

Richella at Imparting Grace for Grace at Home

Pamela at From My Front Porch to Yours for Treasure Hunt Thursday
Natasha at Natasha in OZ for Say G'Day Saturday Party

I'm Baaaack!

Hey everyone!  I had a wonderful "bloggy break!"  Sometimes, an announced blog break means exactly that -- you just need some time away from your blog to regroup and renew; but other times, it means a bit of a vacation is on the calendar.  Well, this time for me has been some of both.   The Man and I had a wonderful road trip vacation which included seeing many good friends and a fantastic family reunion.  I do not intend to bore you with tons of photos, but I have to share a few......y'all who know me, know that it will be more than just a few, right?  Well, we decided it would be "fun" to take the old coast highway from Ventura, CA to Newport, OR.  We did enjoy the first leg of the journey very much.

   

  

We were so excited to return to Carmel, remembering the cute little village atmosphere that greeted us 25 years ago, but we were truly disappointed.  This burger place was the best thing about Carmel, and that's kind of sad when you think about it.  It was bumper-to-bumper traffic, rude drivers, and very pretentious people.  We stayed in the highest price hotel of the entire trip, and it was "the worst" of our entire trip.  Absolutely scratching Carmel off our "must return to" list!

If you've never traveled the coast highway, you should know that it takes you through a very small slice of San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge.  We just happened to be traveling this ten mile stretch on Saturday morning.  YIKES......took us 2 hours to travel 10 miles!   

We were so happy to finally see this beauty straight ahead!

Those little specks are fishing boats......the ocean was very calm.

Land, sea and sky -- Mother Nature at her best!

We really had so much fun seeing lots of friends and family that we had not seen for awhile.  The highlight of our trip was a family reunion which was held at The River's Edge Hotel in Portland.

It was a very beautiful hotel and the restaurant where we had the reunion is tucked in beside it on the right side of this photo.

This was the view from our room.  That's a tour boat on the Willamette River.

It was such great fun getting to see everyone, but.......

these four were the ones I was most anxious to see.  They flew in from Washington D.C.,  

And I spent as much time as possible with these two!

I just love this photo!  These are all the little (and not so little) 2nd cousins.  They all got along so well and had so much fun together.  The only ones missing were our four oldest grandchildren.

Our trip took us north to Tacoma to visit with several friends and then a bit further to Bremerton, WA.

Bremerton was our first home after The Man and I married.  He went to work for the shipyard as a civilian Mechanical Engineer.

This was our very first house.  It was very tiny (maybe a 1000 sf) but had a full daylight basement.  It was sad to see how run-down and very over-grown it is now.

We did have an incredible view of the bay and the Olympics in the background.  Of course, we were too young and dumb to really appreciate it at the time!

This was our 2nd and final house in Bremerton.  This one was barely under construction when we bought it, so we got to choose all the colors, etc.  This really felt like a mansion after living in a thousand sf.

We decided to head home via Eastern Oregon, Idaho, and Utah.  There were acres and acres of these trees (could not tell what kind), because Oregon has such a shortage.....NOT!

For those who might not know, The Umatilla Army Depot was once the home to our most dangerous chemical weapons.  They incinerated the last of the chemical weapons in Oct. of 2011, or so they say.......hmmmm?

Wide open vistas and some angry clouds at times as we traveled into Idaho......why am I hungry for mashed potatoes?

The sky changed so quickly from looking like we were really in for a storm to just being

so beautifully puffy.

I thought this bridge was so beautiful as it led us over the Snake River and into 

Twin Falls for the night.

We didn't quite make it to this view point for the full sunset, but it was still pretty.

Utah was full of pasture land that could have used some rain, but nothing came out of these 

dark clouds.

This reminded me of Sedona with all the red rock......beautiful!

We stayed in this lodge-type hotel in Mt. Carmel, UT, and the room had some

very interesting furniture.

Not my style, but I can appreciate the workmanship and beauty of the wood.

This was the view from our tiny patio in the hotel.

And this was one of about five of our little dinner entertainers!

Looks like the AZ desert begins!

We were greeted by a fabulous sky as we drove into Flagstaff and

continued as we made our way home.

Vacations are always fun, but there is just nothing like being home again!  Okay, I fibbed a bit when I said I would not bore you with a bunch of pictures......sorry, I just couldn't help myself!

I hope you are all having a great week!  School started here this week, so Abby and I get to enjoy the parade of kiddies every morning and afternoon.  I've just about caught up with laundry and have slowly gotten back into a routine -- sort of!  I do have a packing tip to share with you in another

post -- something that I tried out on this trip and plan to use on our next European sojourn.  It's not an original idea, so I can say that it's quite clever!

Stay happy and enjoy the rest of your summer!