I'm sitting here this morning sipping on my INSTANT coffee with cocoa and whipped cream, feeling a bit ornery and not having a clue as to what I should write about today. :-)

Yesterday, I watched a "Dr. Phil" while folding laundry -- and of all things, it was a reunion show of this French Mama's boy. Since he'd been on, his mother had managed to break up his marriage, and his big show of independence was to tell Mama (on the show, cuz he was skerd, that he was friends with his ex-wife behind his Mama's back.)

Are you kidding me?? But this brings me to my point, why would any woman date this loser? Fixer-uppers are fine for a house, but girls, really, if he's a fixer-upper, you have to set yourself a time limit and see if any renovations actually take place. I mean, if the foundation is shaky, you don't have a fixer-upper, you have a LOSER!

So here is my fool-proof test for whether a man is worthy of you or not. Okay, I just made it up, so it's not really fool-proof. LOL It's probably not even worthy of a Cosmo quiz, but I am a student of people.

1. He takes responsibilities for his actions! (If he's late to pick you up, he has a legitimate reason. He does not blame someone else.) The guy on Dr. Phil had an excuse for everything! He couldn't find a job because...insert long excuse. He had to live in his Mommy's house because part time work only paid a little, and he'd have to drive a scooter if his Mommy didn't give him the Mercedes.

Now, you all may see this as obvious, but it didn't start out obvious, so you have to look for the small excuses of his behavior. Everyone makes mistakes. Just make sure he owns up to them!

2. He does not think of you as the "good for now" girl until someone prettier/thinner/smarter comes along. Is he always looking around the room in a crowd? Make sure he's capable of focus -- if he's not, he's not capable of commitment. This is also called delusional thinking. When you are unemployed and living with your mama, if you have a girlfriend, dude, that's the best you can get.

3. He loves not with word and tongue, but in deed and in action. Oh my gosh, the smooth talkers are everywhere. Does he open your door? Does he know your favorite flower? Music? Do you know his? If he can name his mama's, but not yours, RUN!

4. He wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him -- you don't have to chase him, you don't have to leave him fourteen texts before he texts back. This is never a good sign. If his phone rings with, "You are so Beautiful" for his mother, again, RUN!

5. He knows the map on his video game verbatim, but needs GPS to find your house. If he has one too many hobbies, it can make for a lonely life. Don't think that will change after marriage. Make sure you do some of them together!

I watched "The Bachelor" this week, and I'm still trying to figure out why any of these women consider these men candidates. They need my test. They really do. Feel free to add your tidbit and maybe we can help the women of America!

COFFEE TIDBITS
I'm in Arizona visiting my baby girl. One of the perks of the area is that I get to visit the place where I buy my coffee--Echo Espresso (http://www.echoespresso.com) and I can get high just walking in and smelling the roasting beans. i got to meet the new owners for the first time, and Cindy showed me a fabulous new coffee blend they'd created. It's called World Blend and it's a mixture of dark and light roasted beans from every country in the world that grows coffee. I'm guessing this means my wonderful Kona coffee is in that blend somewhere. But I digress. Just looking at the mixture of dark and light beans is a delight and I was about to rush to Kara's and try it.

That's where I learned something new about coffee that I've get to pass on to you. Did you know that coffee off-gasses? Dave would say it off-gasses every time I brew it since he doesn't even like the smell of coffee, but there's something wrong with that boy. LOL Anyway, when I said I was rushing home to try the new blend, she said, "Oh no, don't drink it today. Let it finish off-gassing. Coffee is at its best freshly ground and used from day 2 to day 14."

There's something that's supposed to be so great about anticipation, but I've got to tell you it's all I could do NOT to brew some of that coffee this afternoon. I always thought I had developed my patience pretty well since starting writing, but today showed me that when it comes to my coffee, I have none. I may dream about that coffee tonight. In fact, I'm pretty sure I will. LOL

I bought some Folger's premium blend the other day when I was about out of coffee because I knew I wanted to get some fresh stuff from Echo Espresso, and it was so stale tasting I could barely drink it. You may tell me I'm crazy to buy fresh roasted coffee when you can buy a pound of grocery store coffee for $3 but you get what you pay for. I challenge you to try truly fresh coffee for two weeks. Find an actual coffee roaster (I highly recommend Echo) and drink coffee that is totally fresh (Starbucks isn't that fresh). You will never go back. Make sure you get a good grinder. I just bought a Capresso Infinity and I swear the coffee tastes better than the one I had before. And THE best coffee maker is a Cuisinart. Bar none. It makes home coffee even better than Starbucks.

Then report back to me. Yes, this means you, Diann. No INSTANT coffee. I shudder just to think of what you drink every morning.

Oh my gosh, I saw this on the news today. Babies dropped in a good luck ritual. They said in 500 years no babies have been hurt, but I'm telling you, it's the scariest thing to watch. I can't imagine handing my baby over for this:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/87943.html

It's Not Easy Being Green

So the word of the year is "green". I watched a "House Hunters" the other night where a couple in New Mexico who lived in a four bedroom, three bath house with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, was looking for a "green" vacation home in Oregon, on the beach. When they saw one house with an older "stainless" fridge that wasn't Energy Star compliant, they wanted to change it out for an efficient one.

Okay, people, are you following this? How are you green if you live in a HUGE house and you buy another HUGE house for a vacation home? You have an energy star appliance in both places and so you feel good about yourself? My point is, you can't live the way you want, big and large and be green. You have to make some choices about how much of a footprint you leave.

SO let's do the math. To get to Oregon, they will have to take a plane. (Unnecessary travel -- Bad for the environment.) Their house was in the mountains of New Mexico and big (upsetting the natural balance in the mountains -- bad for the ecosystem.) A house on the beach is about as ungreen as you can be. I'm sorry, but God isn't making any more shore (unless we have a big earthquake, maybe). But how can you build along the ocean, take up shoreline and call yourself green? How can you throw out a new refrigerator into the landfill and call yourself green? Is it really better for the environment for you to throw away laminate countertops in the landfill so you can go with recycled glass counters? Seriously, the less impact, the more green you are. It's just a fact, but it's become a sales pitch, like BUYING MORE STUFF is going to fix the environment. I mean, is it me? Two people with two houses across the country are not really as green as they believe. Now I'm not faulting the people for living the life they want to live, but don't delude yourself and say the environment is your primary concern.

To me, it's like being a Christian. You can't continue on in life just as you please and call yourself one. There has to be some action that accompanies the title. All I'm saying.

A NEW MESSIAH?
I love Oprah. Really I do. She's done a lot of great things for people. I almost think of her as a neighbor since we're 3 hours from Chicago, plus she has a lake house about an hour from me. I think she's super at encouraging people to take charge of their lives and change them for the better. But even Lucifer can masquerade as an angel of light and I'm afraid we've all been blinded by Oprah's sweetness and light.

So this serious post when we're usually light-hearted really pains me. I always knew she had a little different take on spirituality, but it's only been recently that we've seen just how far afield she's strayed. She's very deceived now, and if it's bad enough that she's standing on the edge of a cliff, but she's drawing millions of people there with her. According to today's bestsellers on Amazon, FOUR of the top five titles are by her new guru Eckhart Tolle.

In church Sunday our pastor showed this video of Oprah herself telling what she believes. What had me shaking my head was when she said she was in church and it just didn't FEEL right that God would be a jealous God. Hello? That's what the Bible says. Since when is truth based on feeling? The Bible tells us to hold what we're told up against the light of the Bible. THAT is truth, not feelings or impressions or dreams or prophesies. The Bible is the litmus test.

Here is the video I'm talking about. It totally grieves and surprises me. Did you know she was heading this direction? I didn't see it coming, not in this awful way. http://mywisegeneration.blogspot.com/2008/04/oprahs-new-age-religion-contradicts.html

Labels: heresy, New Age, Oprah

Impulse buys.