The holidays have gotten the better of me — and my waistline. Truth be told, my weight has been increasing ever since I welcomed Hubby home from Iraq. It was inevitable. My dining-out partner was back and with Hubby home, I was less bored; therefore, less prone to filling in my time with silly things like, oh, exercise.

So, tonight, while running errands (like returning aforementioned coffeemaker), I wore my favorite pair of fat phat pants. They’re actually a pair of somewhat ill-fitting boot cut Gap jeans, but at least they aren’t cutting off the circulation from my lower extremities.

While we were shopping at Safeway, Hubby drove the shopping cart. In his usual fashion, he went around to the next aisle and met me on the other side to avoid a crowd of oblivious aisle hogs. As I perused the Oriental Food section, I noticed Hubby holding his belt in his hands.

“Did you just take your belt off?” I asked him, thinking that maybe the tossed salad, spaghetti, garlic bread, 2 large pepsis and a banana royalle (hold the whipped cream and the nuts) from Zippy’s had prompted it.

He nodded and handed it to me.

“You want me to wear it, don’t you?” Taking the belt from him, I muttered, “I can’t believe you’re making me put on your belt here in the middle of Safeway. Do my baggy pants bother you that much?”

“I don’t like way it bunches like that in the front. When you made that comment before about it looking like you had a penis, I always notice it now.”

“Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe I’m putting on your belt in the middle of Safeway,” I said as I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking and buckled it on the last notch. “And even worse: it actually fits.”

Back in Business

Originally uploaded by Champuru.

Thankfully, exchanging our defective coffeemaker at Best Buy wasn’t too stressful. The Customer Service lady said, “oh, good thing it’s within 14 days.” It made me wonder what happens on the 15th day? Does that mean I would then have to go to the manufacturer to arrange for a return and replacement? Now that would be a royal hassle.

I am happy to report that we successfully brewed a cup of coffee tonight. All systems go!

Broken - already?!

Originally uploaded by Champuru.

We were so pleased with our purchase. The new appliance was the center of attention in the household, we gazed upon it with adoring eyes and it filled the house with the rich aromas of freshly brewed gourmet coffee at the push of a button. We even bought a tray table at Pier 1 Imports to set up a spiffy coffee station.

Unfortunately, the darn thing just gave up today. Simply rendered itself useless. It can boil a mean cup of hot water, man, but what good is a coffeemaker that can’t brew a cup of coffee?

It tries its darndest. It makes a sputtering noise, shoots out an ounce of coffee, and just stops in its tracks, resetting itself and proclaiming that it’s READY to brew yet another incomplete cup. What’s up with that? We wasted five K-Cups with vain hopes that it would miraculously self-repair after repeated attempts. I even rebooted it a few times. It works for PC’s. Why not coffeemakers?

Heck, we even RTFM’d. Okay, RTM’d. (”Read the manual,” that is.) We followed the troubleshooting steps. No luck. A day without freshly brewed coffee is like a day without sunshine. Well, alright, it isn’t that bad, but it sounded good and dramatic.

I am hoping that Best Buy will take it back and give us a replacement. After all, the bugger is only 8 days old. There has to be a lemon law for coffeemakers, too. Right?

Keurig Single Cup Coffeemaker

Originally uploaded by Champuru.

Gadgets excite me. These days, even kitchen gadgets are a turn on. (Another sign that I’m becoming more domestic.)

We first saw this at the escrow office when we were closing on our recent home purchase. Last night, we saw it in action at our friend’s house where we attended a Pampered Chef party.

When we discovered that it was only $149 at Best Buy, we knew it was destiny for us to own one. Okay, so that’s a little dramatic, but you get the idea.

If you haven’t seen one of these, go visit the Keurig website. It’s a single-cup coffeemaker that brews gourmet coffee using what they call K-cups. No more coffee filters and bothersome cleanup. Just open the chamber, pull out the spent K-cup and toss it in the trash. Voila! Another nice thing is that you don’t have to brew an entire pot of coffee, you can make one cup at a time. No more burnt coffee! Every cup is fresh. (Oh my goodness, I sound like a commercial.)

Hubby enjoys gourmet coffee, but I’m much more of a tea drinker. The kicker is that you can even brew tea in this thing. Sold!

When we got home after the Pampered Chef shindig, I jumped online and bought the Keurig at BestBuy.com. We picked it up today and was plesantly surprised to find that it was on sale for $10 less than the online price and they were nice enough to extend us the discount.

So, when you visit us, I’ll be a much better hostess since I’ll be able to offer you something other than Itoen green tea or diet Pepsi in the way of refreshment.

NOTE: Batman cup not included.

I retain stress in my neck, shoulders and back. It collects there until it becomes unbearable and the only way to purge the pain is to visit my shiatsu therapist. The trend seems to be about once every 3-4 months.

This time, I decided to try someone new. He came highly recommended from a co-worker as well as my mother-in-law. Hubby and his father received a massage and acupuncture from him and got good results. He comes with some great credentials and is an instructor at an accredited college of “Oriental Medicine.” Best of all, he makes house calls. Gotta love that.

So, today I booked him for 2 hours. 1-1/2 hours of Shiatsu and Thai bodywork and 30 minutes of cupping therapy. My friend claimed that the cupping helps relieve the tension in her muscles and combined with masage, would work wonders for me. Hey, why not? I can deal with a few welts. My back never sees the light of day anyway.

Oh, the massage was heavenly. It was shiatsu, but not painful. He applied a good amount of pressure, but it didn’t feel like I was having an aneurysm when he worked on my neck (one of my most problematic areas). When the massage was over, my muscles didn’t feel like they had been pummelled with a blunt object like they normally do after a shiatsu session.

The cupping, although looks painful in the photograph, really isn’t. It just feels like a suction cup stuck to your back with a moderate amount of pressure. I was quite shocked to see the extent of the markings, but my skin is naturally prone to scarring anyway so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. They basically look like enormous hickies on my back, but less sexy.

My body feels invigorated, energized. Loose! My body hasn’t been this free from tension since I was 7. There’s no going back now… I’ve found myself a new therapist!

Next time, I want to try the acupuncture.

This is pretty embarrassing. You would think that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen to an IT professional, but it does. At least it does to me.

My HP LaserJet 1012 which has been serving me faithfully for about 2 years now suddenly stopped printing. Whenever a print job was received, the printer would fire up, rollers would spin, click 3 times, and give up, unable to pick up a sheet of paper from the tray. I figured maybe the rollers had worn out since I had sent some high volume print jobs for my last few classes, pumping out the equivalent of 3 textbooks on that little low-end consumer grade printer.

Luckily, I work in IT and am friends with a vendor that repairs office machines. I told him about it and he instructed me to bring my printer in to the office where he would take a look at it.

Well, I brought it in today. He had a befuddled expression on his face as he disassembled the printer. “Have you ever seen this before?” he asked me, holding up a comb that I had lost track of some time ago. Incidentally, it was of the same color scheme as the printer.

A blush rose to my cheeks and I laughed nervously, “uh, yeah… that’s my comb.” I mumbled some lame explanation about how it was sitting next to the printer and how I had no idea how it got inside the printer.

He said that it’s common for foreign objects to get mysteriously sucked into printers. I’m guessing that the comb got placed on top of the manual feeder, pushed inside inadvertently and sucked in when I tried to run a print job. It was funny because he was just about to consult his manual to identify this strange part. After all, it looked almost like it belonged in there with the same colors as the printer itself. Maybe that poor little comb thought he was returning to the mother ship.

Now I know how our computer users feel when they realize that their problems are a direct result of “user error.”

Okay, this time it’s not an actual germ. It’s a fun little game that gets the inhabitants of my blogosphere involved. Psst… that’s you! (Infecting: Aiyah, Auntie Pupule, Annalise, sUrfChik4JeSuS, and Shari.) I’d like to infect more of you, but the rules say 5. Boo.

I’ve been infected!

The Ladybug has infected me! Here are the simple rules: Write 5 random facts about yourself, and then list the names of 5 people whom you in turn infect. Also, leave a post to these people letting them know they have been infected.

My Random 5 Factoids:

1. The one temptation that I absolutely cannot resist: crispy chocolate chip cookies.

2. When I was a teenager, I had aspirations of being a rock star. (Dorky me? Strange, but true.) I owned 3 guitars and a full drumset and am mostly self-taught. I now own 1 acoustic which I haven’t touched in years.

3. To this day, I can still rap every word of “Ice Ice Baby” by memory. (Okay, now that’s embarrassing to admit.)

4. I am a prolific Microsoft expert who aspires to someday be a Mac convert.

5. As a child, I took Revelation 3:20* literally. Every time someone would knock at our front door, my heart would skip a beat as I ran to answer it, hoping if it was Jesus wanting to have supper with our family.

*Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Okay, your turn!