So Close, but Not Quite

I think I've blogged about my travel mug that I take to work every day. Maybe? In case I didn't (or if you don't remember/are new to the blog), I have this travel mug I really like. There's nothing spectacular about it except that it is 100% leak proof which means I just toss it in my tote and go.

It only had one small problem. I wanted more coffee than it could hold.

So for a couple years now, I've kind of been keeping my eyes open for a replacement. I was hoping I could buy the same one in a bigger size, but alas, this is the only size.

This wasn't any kind of priority, but I was so disappointed when I ran out of coffee and wanted more!

It's possible I have a small addiction to coffee. :-)

Back to the story. I saw an ad on Instagram. I see a lot of ads on Instagram and when I check out the products that interest me, they mostly have mixed or bad reviews. This travel mug, however, had thousands of great reviews on Amazon. I perked up. The travel mug wasn't too much bigger than my current one, but an extra few ounces would be welcome.

I ordered the mug. I tested the leak-proof claim immediately because if it did leak, I was returning it ASAP. I filled the mug with water, put on the lid, and shook it while it was upside down over my kitchen sink.

It didn't leak!

I was elated! More coffee.

And then I ran into one small problem. The coffee would run down my chin when I drank from the mug. :-( I didn't see any reviews mention that piece of information. Maybe it's the way I drink? I started using a straw. That's right. I'm sticking a bendable straw into my travel mug to drink my coffee.

Also? Travel mug could be a little bit bigger. There's still not enough coffee. They have a bigger size, but my bendy straw won't reach the bottom of that one. If I could drink out of it without looking like I stuck my face in a vat of coffee, I'd consider buying the bigger size. Consider because the tote bag is getting heavy with the size I already use. A bigger one might be too heavy.

So this travel mug is nearly perfect. Nearly, but not quite.

My travel mug with a waterproof vinyl cut out with my name. I love the pink. I love my vinyl name. Damn, though, I hate coffee rolling down my chin.

Coffee Fail

My coffee maker has a timer on it, which is perfect for work days. I set the program button and wake up in the morning to fresh, hot coffee. But there's only one setting. I can't program a separate time for weekends.

Instead, I do one of two things. One, I wake up and wait for the coffee to finish. Impatiently. Or two, I wake up, traipse into the kitchen to press the button, and then go back to bed for a while. Neither choice is optimal because it involves me, getting out of bed. :-(

Then, one morning while I was half asleep, I thought wouldn't it be awesome to grab my phone and say, hey, Siri, start the coffee.

Hmm, what if I bought a smart plug that was compatible with Apple Homekit. So I hopped online while I was still in bed (and sleepy) and wow, there's a smart plug set on a gold box deal. It had decent reviews and a lot of them, so I ordered and went back to sleep for a while.

I'd like to say that as soon as I woke up, I realized why my plan wasn't going to work, but that's not what happened.

My smart plugs arrived, I ditzed around for like a half an hour, trying to get them connected to my iPhone, and once I did, I plugged the coffee maker into one of them. And that's when it dawned on my that my scathingly brilliant idea was an epic fail.

The button to brew coffee isn't going to stay pressed while there is no power to the coffee maker. Sure, I can turn the plug on, but the coffee maker is going to stay dark. No brewing.

Then there are the problems of continually needing to reset the clock and redo the programming for the work week. Sigh.

I've since discovered there are smart coffee makers. I won't be replacing my current coffee maker. It's reasonably new and I actually really like it a lot. But when this one goes to appliance heaven, my next one is going to be able to be controlled from my bed. I want to be able to say, Hey, Siri, start the coffee.

Coffee Story

I've cut back on coffee.

Shocking, right? When COVID hit last March, I was drinking two cups a day. It increased to three cups for a while, but then I dialed back down to one cup a day.

Then I had a physical and my doctor wants me to give up coffee. ::shocked face::

I might have had a combination of whine and disbelief in my voice when I said, "No coffee!?!"

Her reply was, well, you can have decaf.

Um, decaf? I'm not drinking coffee because I love the taste more than any other beverage on Earth. (Although I do like my coffee a whole lot.) I'm drinking coffee because of the caffeine. If I'm giving up caffeine, I'd give up coffee completely.

BTW, I am not giving up my one cup of a coffee a day. That early in the morning, I don't want to drink water and I'm not a juice person. And the doctor's suggestion had nothing to do with anything serious. If it did involve a problem, I would give it up.

I suppose there are people who love the taste of coffee that much, that the caffeine doesn't matter to them, but as far as I know, I've never actually met someone with this mindset.

Maybe in the future, I'll actually get enough sleep to give up caffeine, but until that day comes, I like milk in my coffee, thanks.

It Sprang a Leak

And adding to the joys of shelter at home, my coffee maker decided to start leaking from the water reservoir. The machine wasn't that old either. It replaced my beloved red Mr. Coffee when it started tripping my circuit breaker multiple times a week and freaking me out. The leaking machine had a side for the pot and a side that did K-Cups. The best of both worlds.

There were things I didn't like about the machine. It didn't beep when it was done. It didn't beep before it shut itself off. It didn't have a cleaning button or remind me when it needed to be cleaned. All things my beloved Mr. Coffee did.

Yes, this machine was not my favorite, but now wasn't a good time for it to spring a leak. I started the coffee maker and my 12 cup pot only had 8 cups in it. The other 4 cups of water were on my kitchen counter. :-( Not cool.

I started shopping online for a new coffee maker before I remembered I had a coffee maker that I could use. Let's call it the backup coffee maker, although that's not quite accurate. I pulled that out and got it setup for the next morning. It didn't take long before I remembered why I disliked it. This was definitely a basic model without any bells and whistles. I went back to shopping for a new coffe maker.

It came down to two choices that would work for me, but they both had those cone filters. I prefer the flat bottom filter instead. I hesitated. My parents had the cone filter coffee maker and using it when I visited was a pain. I looked again, but again, it came down to the same two choices.

I went with this one:

What sold me on it: 14 cups! I could set it so the coffee would be hotter than usual (a setting for people who put milk in their coffee which is me!). It had the option for a four hour auto off instead of only two hours. It had the clean cycle with an alert when it was time to clean. It had the option to beep or not beep. (I like the beep!) And of course, it's programmable.

I've brewed one pot so far. I liked that my coffee was hot! The hot setting is a definite winner. The cone filter wasn't too bad on day one. We'll see on that. So far, it's looking like a win.

Filter Faults

I'm on the bottom of a package of coffee filters and it seems as if every single day I'm having a side collapse which sends grounds into my coffee. Grounds! I finally got fed up and went in search of an answer. Someone must have solved this issue for me. :-)

The first site I visited suggested turning the filter inside out so the pressure would go the other direction. I was like, okay, I can do this, but let's see if there are any better ideas out there.

The next site suggested one of those permanent gold filters. I hate cleaning those things, but as the thread continued, someone said they put their filter in the gold basket and that way they don't have to clean it--usually--but if the filter collapses, they're still covered. This sounded doable, but I needed something until my gold filter arrived.

Suggestion three was to put the coffee in the filter and wrap it like a pod. That didn't seem part of an answer, but left too much risk of the pod opening and coffee grounds still getting into the coffee. I decided to put a filter in and then wrap the coffee into a second filter. So I've got the pod and the filter. I brewed one cup like this and the pod did stay closed. The regular filter, though, did collapse and I would have had grounds everywhere if not for the podded filter.

Notice the pod wrapped up inside the collapsed filter. That stayed intact.

There's one big problem with this pod method, though. The brewed coffee is so light, you can see through it. While I like my coffee weak, I don't like it that weak. The first time it happened, I assumed I messed up. The second time I knew it wasn't me. I poured the brewed coffee back into the reservoir and ran it through a second time to get a darker brew.

The gold filter is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I'm ready.

Coffee Emergency

At work, they installed coffee machines for us and they're free! Yes, free coffee! Hurrah! These aren't those sad vending machine coffees, but a machine that allows us to brew lattes, mochas, hot chocolate, and teas in addition to regular coffee. There are a couple of other options I forget, too. We install a pod, the coffee brews, and automatically dumps the pod. This is beyond awesome.

Except for one thing: Our coffee machine has been down more than it's been running.

In two weeks, I think the machine has been up and running maybe three days. Possibly four, but I'm thinking only three. Insert sad face here. The coffee is decent and its quick and great if I don't want a jumbo cup--when it's working of course.

As far as I know, our machine is the only one that is down constantly like this. We've all started walking over to the next nearest machine. On Friday, they were cleaned out of coffee pods, or nearly so. When I went over in the afternoon, there were a few hazelnut flavored coffee pods left, a ton of decaf and tea, and one French vanilla flavored one. I grabbed that one. Yes, we'd even cleaned out the stash of coffee stored in the cabinets.

The biggest issue, of course, is all the extra people walking over there. The other part of the problem, though, is that the supplies are only being replenished every two weeks and the airline industry drinks a lot of coffee. I'm sure I remember reading about a survey of which professions drink the most coffee and aviation being on there right along with writers/editors. :-) Double whammy for me!

So with the coffee supply dwindling rapidly and one machine down, we are in the midst of a coffee emergency at work. Good thing I have some K-Cups stashed and that they haven't taken those machines out.

Death of a Coffee Maker

After more than 8 years of faithful service, my coffee maker died. I loved my coffee maker. Loved! But alas, all appliances have a life span. The only good thing is that it died over a weekend. Can you imagine a Monday morning without coffee waiting? Gah!

After brewing a cup in my mini pot and lugging the backup coffee maker out of the garage and cleaning it, I started shopping for a replacement. I was hoping to find my same exact coffee maker, but none of the online stores I looked at had it. I decided it must have been discontinued.

It wasn't as quick or as easy as I'd hoped. So many coffee makers are plain ugly. I don't expect stop-me-in-my-tracks beautiful, but I did want something attractive. I also insisted my coffee maker have a timer on it. That's my one, can't live without it feature. During the work week, I want to wake up to fresh-brewed, piping hot coffee. These two things bundled together increased my difficulty level greatly.

I finally found one coffee maker I liked. I didn't love it, but you can't have everything. It had lots of good reviews. I scanned a few of those and discovered I'd have to set my timer every night if I wanted coffee when I woke up in the morning. Every night! And the review said it took five clicks.

Back to searching.

After combing through multiple online shopping sites for hours, I finally thought, I wonder if the Mr. Coffee website has something similar to my dearly departed, faithful coffee maker? I decided to go look.

There was a coffee maker similar to mine. Ooh! I tried to order it, but my browser wouldn't cooperate. I pulled up a different browser and this time I paged a little farther. And there it was. A replica of my deceased coffee maker! I swooned in bliss and pressed the button to put it in my shopping cart. This was what I wanted. They did still make my exact coffee maker. ::bliss::

Replacement arrived last week. It wobbles slightly even though the bottom appears to be even. :-/ But when I brewed my first pot of coffee Saturday morning, everything tasted just right.

Welcome to the family new coffee maker. May you brew as long as old faithful did.

I Gave Up Coffee

I gave up coffee for 9 days. I know, shocking! It was part of a detox. I also didn't eat meat or bread. Those were actually fairly easy to survive. The coffee, though? Totally different story.

I knew I was addicted to coffee--or at least the caffeine jolt--and that I'd been hooked fast. I started drinking coffee later than most people do, but it only took a few weeks to reach a point where I couldn't function without it. That day stays etched in my memory. It was Saturday, so I decided I wouldn't bother with coffee since I'd had enough sleep. Only to spend half the day on the couch, feeling lethargic. I went, had coffee, and returned to a functioning human being.

You can imagine how rough giving up coffee now would be. It was twice as bad as you're imaging. Not only lethargic, but craving it like crazy! For six days, all I could think was coffee, coffee, coffee! And of course, people at work are drinking coffee all around me. Torture!

But on day 7, the need wasn't so great, and  by the time day 9 ended, I was like, well maybe I won't go back to daily coffee again.

How have I done on this? Not too badly, actually, but I have had coffee three days in a row and I'm already thinking about having it again tomorrow, so it's looking like I'm sliding right back into my coffee addiction. Maybe I can still stay on track, though. I guess we'll see.

Coffee Culture

It's no secret how much I love coffee and I'm not alone. This video examines the coffee culture in America.

Confessions Of a Coffee-holic

My Twitter friends have heard me wax rhapsodic about coffee. I love it. Now.

Once upon a time, I didn't drink coffee and didn't understand how anyone could like the taste. I didn't even like the aroma of brewing coffee back then, but I was taking thinks like Vivarin (basically a caffeine pill) to try and stay awake. But those damn things caused me to crash off the high, and not only was there no way to get it back even if I took another pill before I hit the wall, but it left me feeling worse than if I hadn't taken one at all. Clearly, I needed a more tenable solution. I decided to try General Foods International Coffee.

Nirvana! Coffee that tasted good and a fab caffeine burst that didn't end with me hitting the wall. I only drank a cup a day, but after a couple of weeks, I was already hooked. I'd decided not to drink a cup on the weekends and found myself lethargic that Saturday. I had a cup of coffee and boom. Instant energy. I accepted that coffee would be an every day thing from then on out.

My one-cup-a-day habit (with an occasional bump up to two) continued for a long time. As expensive as the International coffee was, I couldn't afford to drink more. And then my writing buddy gave me two bags of coffee--one from Costa Rica and the other from Nicaragua. I had to at least try her gift. And I discovered with some added creamer and sugar, that I loved this new coffee. I loved it better than International French Vanilla Cafe. I bought a 4-cup coffee pot. (It's really 2 cups since who drinks 6 ounce cups? Mice? Seriously.) I ran through the two pounds of coffee she gave me.

One of the guys I work with went to Guatemala and he brought me back a pound of coffee and it was awesome! And then I brewed through that.

Caribou Coffee is based in Minneapolis and they have a shop not that far from my house. I decided to try their Guatemalan and it was every bit as awesome. I've since tried their Costa Rican (love it!), their Kenyan (love it!), and their Columbian (it's okay) and I'm hooked. Totally, completely, utterly hooked, but I was still only drinking a cup a day.

Until deadline time was looming.

While I was working on In the Darkest Night last winter, I needed more than a cup or two to keep me going. Most days I drank four cups, some days I drank six and I did this for the entire month before my book was due.

Um, yeah. I've been struggling to get back to a cup a day since then. That's seven months. I'm hovering right around 2-3 cups a day still. Trying really hard to stay at two and not jump to three, but I crave coffee something fierce. And there are days where I'm so tired that I honestly don't know if I can function without that extra jolt of caffeine. I'm trying. If I can stabilize at two cups for a while, then I'll tackle dropping back to a single, solitary cup in the morning. It'll be hard. And there'll no doubt be another deadline that bumps up my coffee intake again.

News, News, Coffee!

To start with the most exciting news first, In Twilight's Shadow is a finalist for Best Paranormal in the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence! Happy dog dancing on this one!

Next exciting bit of news is that I have the cover for The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2. I'll have a story in the collection called Blood Feud and I had so much fun writing it! Maybe because it's such a different length for me. I've never written anything this short before in my life! The heroine is Isobel and she's the vampire, so I was really glad to see a female vampire on the cover. The hero is Seere and he's a demon.

Release date in the US is Halloween and it's up for pre-order on Amazon.



That's all my news for today. To move on to the next subject in the title, I started grinding coffee beans today. I'd gotten a "deal" on some pretty expensive coffee, and although I'd been warned to only grind about a week's worth at a time, I decided not to. It's so darn messy that I wanted to grind everything and get it over with. I made it through 3 of the 5 twelve ounce bags. Ugh!

I could never work in a coffee shop, not if I had to grind coffee and smell it. I like the smell of coffee someone else has ground, but this just left me nauseated. Right now I don't even feel like getting my coffee pot ready to brew tomorrow's pot and that's like a fish not feeling like swimming. It just doesn't happen. :-) So my plan is not to grind any more for a while until I can stand the thought of smelling that again. And I am never, ever buying beans that I have to grind myself, not even if the price is good. This is torturous!

Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Day to Stop Drinking Coffee

Last night, I decided I needed to kick the coffee habit. I usually only drink one cup a day, but I desperately need that caffeine kick. This isn't the first time I've tried to quit, but I was on deadline when I made the other attempts and I quickly resumed the coffee, needing to meet my deadline.

Now, though, my next book is due March 1 and I don't have revisions yet on the last book, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Um, yeah, while I'm still having insomnia issues. I had a grand total of 3 hours of sleep last night. Maybe.

I popped a vitamin B. That got me through my morning routine and to my car. It's not helping at the Evil Day Job (EDJ). I'm sitting here, fighting to keep my eyes open. I've done a lot of walking around the office, on the theory that humans don't sleep on their feet.

So far, I'm holding out, but if this is what it feels like to be without coffee, I don't know how I'm going to make it.

Last night, my internet connection went down which is why I'm blogging from the EDJ today. It's also why I didn't get a chance to answer comments yet. I'll do that as soon as I can.

Ode to Coffee

I feel as if I should write an Ode to Coffee this morning. :-) One of the things that always tips me off as to whether or not I'm sick is my desire--or lack thereof--for coffee. Yesterday, I didn't want any and this morning I felt the same way. So despite going to bed early last night, I've been doing the head bobs here at the day job. And not just the head bobs, but I felt fuzzy brained as well. I hate that feeling.

So I debated back and forth, have a cup of coffee, don't have a cup of coffee. I decided I'd give it a try, and if it tasted icky or made me feel worse, I'd just dump out the cup. Luckily, it did neither and I was only about halfway through when my brain started firing again. :-)

In another ten minutes or so, I should (maybe) feel normal again. On the one hand, it's sad to be so addicted to caffeine that I Can't function without it. On the other hand, it is so nice to have a nice, hot cup of coffee, and when I'm done, know that I'm going to feel so much more awake and alive.

I'm terrible at poetry, but let's see. Ode to Coffee. Coffee you make my brain feel good. Coffee you make me feel awake. Coffee you are proof that there is a divine power. Coffee I love you.

Um, well, maybe I'll just stick with fiction writing and leave the odes to others.

The Coffee Paradox

Last night around 5:30, I decided to have a second cup of coffee. Normally, I only drink it in the mornings, but I'd been struggling to stay awake and write this fight scene and coffee seemed like a totally brilliant idea. I still fought for each word in this scene--part of my balancing choreography with emotion issues--but now I was wide awake as I ground it out word by word. (Part of the problem is that I need emotion to drive action, so that even while I was telling myself just get the action down and layer in the emotion later, I had to have some emotion in there.)

So at 10pm when I'm tired, my brain is still wired from the caffeine. I don't know how long I laid in bed, tossing and turning. A long while. As frustrating as it was, though, it was also a good thing because I figured out some stuff. Like how my characters kill the creature that seems unkillable. (I know, not a word, but I'm going on very little sleep here.) I also came up with something cool about the hero's scars. I knew part of it from earlier in the evening when I had the original idea, but I didn't figure out this last part until I went to bed. It's going to work really well because it will be a plausible excuse for some action he takes in the scene that his co-workers (and do you really call fellow magical troubleshooters coworkers?) are angry about. And the best part is that I actually remembered these things when I woke up this morning and wrote them down.

Anyway, once I didn't have a restful night and getting up this morning was painful. Painful enough that I overslept for about twenty minutes and now I'm exhausted and rushed. Oh, yeah, while we didn't get any snow yesterday during the day, we did get some last night. Less than half an inch, I think, but enough to mess up traffic.

Tonight, I'll continue to pay the price for coffee last night. I'll be dead tired by the time I sit down to write. The question then becomes do I have coffee again or not?