My New Love

I have a new love in my life.  She's beautiful, efficient, and can make me a steaming hot cup of coffee in 30 seconds!  Her name is "K" and I LOVE her!

So I got this wondrous machine as a Christmas present for my wife.  Little did I know that I would fall so madly in love with it!  She originally asked for one for Christmas because she doesn't usually think to make herself a cup of coffee until the very last minute and by that point there is just no time to wait for a pot of coffee to brew.  Our old coffee maker even had a timer with delayed start and all that stuff on it, but that would require prior planning which apparently was beyond our realm of capability.  The other problem with making a pot or even a half a pot of coffee is that we inevitably leave a little bit of coffee in the pot.  Then we forget about it and don't clean it.  2-3 days later you have moldy coffee and grounds in your coffee pot.  Please don't judge us.

In comes the Keurig machine and all its glory!  You simply open the up the mechanism on top and insert a "K Cup"

                             

Close the mechanism and voila!  30 seconds later  you have a single cup on hot coffee!  Throw away the "K Cup" when you are done and all clean up is finished!  Its the best thing ever!  It's also great for simply making hot water for tea!  I have recently also become obsessed with drinking hot tea.  For Christmas Breanne got me a bunch of fancy teas from "Teavana".  It's a good thing we don't have one of these stores in our mall, because it would be quite dangerous for my pocket book.  I don't really like iced tea, but for some reason hot tea seems to hit the spot.  Since we purchased the machine, I approximately consume 3-4 mugs of coffee or tea a day.  I love it!  It's just so darn efficient!

I've always wondered how I could possibly get caffeine into my system quicker, and Keurig has seemed to answer this question!  Thanks K!  You have changed my life!  I know it sounds ridiculous to make such an exclamation about a coffee pot, but its true.  The way that I consume hot beverages has changed forever and I cannot go back. 

Christmas Letter from the Clairs

Merry Christmas,

Is it seriously time for another Christmas letter?  I feel like I just hit print on last year’s letter and here I am again for this year’s update!  Well, in true Clair Family fashion, we have been extremely busy this year.  A majority of this busyness has come from our work situations.  Breanne is still working in Speech Therapy and loves the company that she is currently with.  She is also still working on building her Pampered Chef business.  The biggest problem is finding a place for all of the new kitchen gadgets that need to mysteriously find homes in our cabinets!  Michael is also still in his same job with State Farm and just hit his five-year anniversary.  Michael has also started in a part-time ministry position at South Side Christian Church.  He is working at the Southwest Campus of our congregation and is in charge of our Small Group and Discipleship ministry.  Finally working in a ministry position has been a goal in the making for many years now, and he could not be happier to finally be serving in this sort of capacity.  It presents a whole new set of challenges, but it is totally worth it!  He loves it so far!

We celebrated Julia’s first birthday with a delightful cupcake party in March.  She is so much fun, we can hardly stand it!  Julia makes us laugh constantly and a joy to be around.    She is talking in phrases, singing, climbing/jumping/running everywhere, and loves snuggles, giving zerbits, reading books, and dancing to music.  Her favorite shows are Shaun the Sheep and Sesame Street.  She also has a newfound love of all things reindeer.

In July, Michael and Breanne had the great opportunity to travel to Venezuela with a mission team from our church.  We went to visit and work with a missionary that our church partners with.  We did things like: teaching a parenting/marriage conference, door-to-door invitations to this conference, painting, teaching men’s and women’s Bible study groups, and any other odd jobs they found for us.  We were blessed with an amazing host family, delicious food, warm hospitality, and met some wonderful new friends.

 For Thanksgiving, we traveled with Breanne’s mom, Bonnye, to New Mexico.  That’s right… we drove… with a twenty month old… all the way to New Mexico.  For those who don’t know, that’s two thousand five hundred seventy-five miles!!!  It was crazy!  Julia however, was a trooper and she did phenomenal!  We had a wonderful time with a lot of family and friends that we haven’t seen in a while.

So I suppose by this point in the letter, you have already noticed the picture enclosed and are just waiting for us to get to that!  Well now that the cat is officially out of the bag, we will be welcoming a new member to our family next year!  We couldn’t be more excited!  We are expecting our little “Chicken Nugget” (this is what it looks like on the sonogram picture) to arrive on July 24^th.  However, if this pregnancy is anything like it was with Julia, we will expect to see him or her around the first week of August.  We will be finding out the gender some time in late March, but like last time, the name will remain a secret until he or she arrives.  We are so excited to meet this new little one!  We know that 2012 is going to be full of all kinds of craziness and we look forward to sharing more of that with you in the coming year.  We wish you and your families many blessings this new year!

Love,

Michael, Breanne, & Julia…. And our little “Nugget”

Reindeer Games

So my daughter has a new obsession.  It all started with a trip to the doctors office a week ago.  In the waiting room there was a "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" book and in the short time she spent in the waiting room, she read the book several times.  It wasn't the classic Rudolph story, but some sort of generic sequel.  That night when she came home, she could not stop talking about this book.  She could tell you the whole story about Rudolph and some rabbits and something about how somebody ran into a tree.  (Obviously, I did not read the book as I don't have a good idea of what happened in it).  Whatever happened in the story, it made an impression on her because the girl is obsessed!  All we have heard about lately is reindeer and Rudolph. 

So as any good parent would do, we decided to feed her obsession.  She had never seen the actual Rudolph movie so we decided to go to the video store and rent it for her.  After several viewings, she was even more hooked!  So much so that the first thing we hear when she wakes up in the morning is "Reindeer... Rudolph".  The problem was that our rental had expired and had already been returned to the video store.  So after the 37th request for Rudolph on Saturday morning, I found myself headed to Wal-Mart to purchase the movie.  The trip was a success and we returned home with Rudolph in hand.

So after approximately 8 viewings of this movie this weekend, I have come up with a few observations.  Now I could not tell you the last time that I had actually seen this movie.  I have no memories of watching it as a child so for the most part, I was watching this movie with fresh eyes.  First of all, I want to know why Santa is such a jerk!  What happened to his Christmas spirit?  He is extremely crotchety and downright rude!  The head elf is super crotchety too!  While I'm at it, Dasher and Comet are pretty nasty as well.  What's with all the crabbiness? 

Now.. on to the elves.  So Hermy wants to be a dentist.  I don't recall him actually going to school for this.  I'm pretty sure he simply declared himself a dentist and it was so.  If only it were this easy.  If this is the case...  I am formally declaring myself an astronaut!!  I will be expecting a call from NASA any day now!

Unfortunately for Hermy, this declaration made him a "misfit" and he and Rudolf both found their way over to the "Island of Misfit Toys".  Now it is plain to see why most of the toys on the island are "misfits".  The train has square wheels and the cowboy is riding an ostrich.  The ailment of the doll is a little less apparent.  Based on a little light Internet research by my sister-in-law, it was discovered that the doll is a misfit because she has "emotional problems".  Not to ruffle any feathers, but she is a female doll so isn't that a little expected?  Just saying.  Thankfully, by the end of the movie, all of the toys were deemed good enough to be given to children and Santa saved the day.

And now the final question that was raised in the countless viewings of this movie.  Why in the world does Rudolph's nose whistle whenever it glows?  I don't get it!  Anyone have an answer to that?

All in all, I think the movie is a little weird.  Those old kid movies seem to lose a little bit of their magic when you watch them as an adult.  For my daughter, the magic is alive and well.  As all I will hear for the next few days is "Reindeer, Reindeer, Rudolph, Reindeer, Rudolph...."  and on and on it will go.  I fear that I will be watching this movie until late July and continuously singing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"!

Christmas Movies

This year we made the decision to cancel our cable subscription and I have yet to regret this decision.  We simply just do not watch that much television.  We cannot even keep up with the few major network shows that are on our DVR.  Several of which are still shows from last season. 

The time has come that I actually do regret this decision.  Only a tiny bit though.  There are a few Christmas movies that I try to make a point of watching every year and now the availability of said movies is quite limited.  They just don't show as many of them as I would like on the major networks.  Without TBS or ABC Family to turn to, I just don't know what to do?  I suppose I could rent them or just buy them, but that requires effort and money, which is just silly if you ask me. 

So here is my list of "Must See Christmas Movies".  These are in no particular order.

1. Miracle on 34th st.  (The old version) 
2. A Christmas Story (It's not Christmas without Ralphie!)
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The cartoon)
4. Christmas Vacation (Absolute classic.  Love this movie!!)
5. Home Alone (Definitely the first one and the second one is a maybe)
6. Elf (This is the only one that I have watched so far)
7. It's a Wonderful Life (Mainly I just need to see the last 20 minutes)
8. Charlie Brown Christmas
9. White Christmas (Breanne and I watched it before I proposed.  It's a must see every year)
10. The Santa Clause (I know it's cheezy, but I still like it.)

Any suggestions on how to economically achieve this?

What are your thoughts on my Christmas bucket list?

The Magical Draw of Freebies

You know how when you go to a bank or some other establishment and they have a little table of freebies?  Things like ink pens, candy or magnets?  You take a one or maybe two and you go about your merry way with whatever trinket you happened to have helped yourself too.  It's all well and good, and I am totally ok with this practice.  Although, there are times that it just gets on my nerves.  We do the same thing at our office.  We offer such whosits and whatsits as road atlases, ink pens, and calendars.  For you nerds out there, in the insurance world, this practice is regulated by law.  Legally, you are not allowed to give away anything that is valued at more than $15.  If you do, it is called "rebating".  This prevents any company from buying your business.  This is why whatever we are giving out is generally lame and cheap!  This is important to note as I am pulling out my soap box and am going to stand directly on top of it.  You ready?  Here goes...

THE THINGS WE ARE GIVING OUT ARE NEARLY WORTHLESS AND ARE NOT WORTH YOU GETTING ALL WORKED UP ABOUT!!!

Ok.  I feel better.  Allow me to explain.  Around this time of year we give away the ever coveted, wall calendars.  For some odd reason, people go nuts over wall calendars!!!  It's almost as if no one owns a portable device that has a usable calendar already in it!!  I digress.  We have several varieties featuring, rivers, pets, golf courses, and African Americans.  You heard me right.  There are several ethnically diverse calendars that feature people groups of certain demographics engaging in everyday activities like hopscotch and picnics.  There are several varieties such as Asian, Hispanic, African American.... it goes on and on.  To each his own.  Point is, we have a wide variety and people love them.  They are also greedy.  We cannot keep them all out on a table as people will help themselves to giant stacks of them.  As if you need that many?  And as if they are completely free to us in the first place!  I'm pretty sure people grab a bunch and give them away as Christmas presents.  As if people won't be suspicious of your cheapness as they see your present with the State Farm emblem all over it.

We also cannot give people a choice because it usually goes like this.

Me- "Would you like a calendar with puppies or with national parks?"
Customer- "one of each!!!"

It never fails!  Every time, they will take one of each!  And if you really want to see the ugly side of people, just tell them you are out of Calendars.  It's almost as if you are personally offending them by not having their Calendar!  The conversation today that is spurning this rant went something like this.

Lady- "Do you have any calendars?"
Me- "Let me check the back and see what we have"  "Looks like the only thing I have left is the golf course one".
Lady- (with a disgusted look on her face, she thrusts the calendar back at me) "I HATE golf".
Me- "Oh... well sorry.  We have more on order, they just haven't arrived yet"  " I do have this African American Heritage calendar if you like"  (She was not impressed)

She just gave me a death stare and left the building.  I assured her that she could stop back in a week or so and we might have a new shipment in.  I'm not sure if she will be coming back.

Then there is our habitual favorite, Paul.  Paul does not have any insurance with our agency, but you can be sure that every year around this time, he will make an appearance.  He will come in and ask for a quote on something really obscure like IRA's or health insurance and then after he has wasted 30 minutes of your time he says that he is going to think about it.  He ends with "by the way... do you guys have any calendars".  It's so exasperating because you know he is just wasting your time to get something free.  I think I am more annoyed that he thinks he is fooling us.  I mean, it is literally EVERY year!  This is my 6th Christmas season at this office and he has yet to miss a year!  Last year my conversation went like this.  I totally thought I was going to out smart him.

Me- "Hi Paul.  I don't really have time right now, I'm pretty busy, but can I just get you your calendar?"
Paul- "That would be great, but I still want a quote on car insurance"
Me- "You sure I can't just grab you a calendar".
Paul- (looking nervous) "no I need a quote too".
Me- (So I whip out the fastest auto quote you have ever seen).  "here you go"
Paul- "OK, thanks.  I'm going to think about it".

AHHHHHH!!!!!!  Well this year I know that he has a policy with another agent in town so when he comes in, I'm totally sending him to their office!  You're not getting one of my calendars this year Paul!!! Do you hear me!

So I ask you.  What is the elusive power of the Calendar?  Is it the pretty pictures?  Or is it just the allure that you are getting something free from your insurance company?  Is it a way to get back at them for taking your premium?  I just don't get it, I suppose.  You are going to have to offer me something a lot better than a calendar to get me excited.  However it would probably have to be of great value which as we learned earlier, would be rebating and is illegal.  Way to pay attention kids.  Class dismissed.