In My Cup

I’m an unabashed coffee fan. I love my caffeine and need it/want it/crave it. Sadly I am not joined in this enthusiasm by my dear husband. This means that on the days we are not hosting my in-laws I am the only person in my house who drinks coffee. I drink one cup when I first get up and then fill a large travel mug to take to work. If I brew a whole pot then I end up pouring a lot of it out. I thought my problem was solved when I got myself a Keurig coffee maker and could easily and quickly brew up my favorite bold coffee one cup at a time. The drawback to this route is that the K-Cups you use in the machine are a little pricey. Boxes of 25 K-Cups run in the $9 – $12 range plus the cost of shipping. The boxes you can find at the grocery store usually only have 18 Cups in them and are pretty much the same price. In addition I feel wasteful tossing out 3 or 4 spent plastic cups everyday. I needed an alternative. I thought I had found my coffee salvation when I found a little “My K-Cup” insert at the store. You install the My K-Cup holder and cup into your Keurig machine and it allows you to fill your own K-Cups with your own coffee. I thought that my problems were all solved when I brought it home. Unfortunately I still await the answer to my coffee prayers. I have found my My K-Cup brewed coffee to be too weak and gritty with grounds. I’m still fiddling with the proper amount to put in it and the proper grind for the coffee. It is too much finagaling for my early mornings! It is also a bit of a mess to clean the insert of all its hot little grounds after each cup. After a quick internet search I found lots of other dissatisfied My K-Cup’ers complaining about a lot of the same things. I’m coming to think that the Keurig people intentionally put out an inferior product. The instructions tell you to not tamp the coffee down into the cup, only fill it to 2/3’s full and to use a coarser grind of coffee. None of these tips seem to follow logic especially if you take apart a store bought K-Cup and see that not only does it have a false bottom half way up the cup, it is packed to the top with finely ground coffee. There is no way that you can replicate this at home. They want to make it seem like they’re responding to users desire to have a cheaper, greener way to use their machines but they really don’t. They want us to keep on buying their expensive K-Cups so they put out a crappy alternative that any sentient being would ultimately lose patience with. Mwah-hah-hah-haaaa!

We have a regular coffee maker but it is not a very high quality one and I worry about what is leaching out of the cheap plastic filter into my coffee whenever I use it. This is pathetic but I’m so spoiled by the speed of my Keurig that waiting for even a small pot of coffee to brew on the regular machine feels like torture. What should I do oh Internets? I want to save money but I need to get this coffee thing worked out. I’ve been deeply dissatisfied with my coffee lately and this is not a good thing. Coffee and I are friends! My caffeine intake is all out of whack and I’m left falling asleep on the couch every night at 7:30pm.

Have any of you used a My K-Cup insert? Did you have good results with it?

A Post in Which I Discuss My Breasts

Not my breasts

I don’t want to whine about this Internets. I really don’t but to be honest, I do wish the girls were different. I could say that about a hundred other things in my life and the least of which would be my cup size but I have to be honest. I’ve been working on this post for a while now. You would think that I’d have a lot to say on this subject but I’m finding it extremely difficult to get through. I’ve been wanting to write something after reading this. The article also inspired me to buy. Bra shopping has always been my least favorite kind. It is not only difficult to find ones in my size 32A but having them fit without big gaps on the sides or without the straps constantly falling down is another story. I had only two bras that I thought fit well but both were probably over 20 years old. I always chuckle at those fashion makeover shows where they take the makeover-ee for a bra fitting. Once the woman is properly fitted with a $200 bra she goes from training bra to c-cups in one commercial break. I laugh because I don’t think that would ever happen to me. After reading the NYT article I decided to try to find some better fitting bras myself. I started poring through the Journelle and Little Bra websites and made a few purchases. I have to say that I am extremely pleased with what I got. I spent more than have spent on bras in a long time but I think my girls are worth it. I actually have some cleavage now. It was definitely money well spent. Now if I could only find a bathing suit that doesn’t squash my chest into oblivion.

When I was a kid there was a store in town called The Shirting Gallery. They had hundreds of iron-on designs for t-shirts displayed floor to ceiling on the walls. My dad took me in there once and told me to pick out one I liked. I wanted to get a shirt that said, “Flat is Beautiful”. He absolutely refused and wouldn’t let me get that one. I liked the shirt. I had seen girls wearing “Black is Beautiful” shirts and I wanted to be as proud of my body as they were of their race. I don’t even know if I would have had the courage to wear it to school but I still wanted it. I think it embarrassed him and he just made me feel shameful in the end.