The stuff I buy

Not too long ago I needed new shoes, mostly because my my knees were causing me pain. As with most things I useless have an idea of what I want before I go and buy anything or even research items. My requirements for shoes were:

• They had to fit. I have rather large feet (size 13 or so).
• Had to look good. I didn’t want pink shoes or something of the likes.
• They had to be comfortable. This was very important because of my knees.

I went to shoe store after shoe store but alas no luck. Mostly because they didn’t even have shoes that fit me. I looked online but even that didn’t return very many results as its very hard to try something on over the internet.

A few friends of mine are into running, some of them even into bare-foot running and suggested that I try out a pair of Nike Men’s Free Everyday+ 2 Running Shoe because they simulate bare foot running. So I thought I’d give them a chance. I’ve had them for a few months now and couldn’t be happier. They fit my feet very well and do seem to simulate bare foot walking. I haven’t been running in them yet but I plan on it soon.

My fiancee and I had really been looking forward to getting this french press for a while now, I don’t drink coffee but she does. We had a automatic drip coffee machine but wanted to try out french press coffee since we had heard it was so good.
Un-breakable French Press by Bonjour

So far we’ve been very pleased with our new french press. My fiancee makes coffee almost daily with this and from what I understand you can also make tea with it. For those who don’t know French Pressed coffee is very tasty and almost has me a coffee drink now.

Instructions for Making Coffee with a French Press

1. Boil as much water needed for the amount of coffee you want to make.
2. Grind coffee beans, if necessary.
3. Preheat French press by filling it with warm water from faucet.
4. Allow boiled water to rest for a few minutes to cool to optimum temperature (195 to 205 degrees F).
5. Pour warm water out of press and add ground coffee. Use two level tablespoons per six ounces of water.
6. Pour just enough hot water over grounds to wet them. Fresh coffee will expand as gas escapes.
7. Pour in remaining water and stir.
8. Place the plunger over the press to keep the heat in, but don’t press it down yet.
9. Let the coffee brew for three to four minutes.
10. Push plunger down slowly. It should take about 30 seconds.
11. Pour and drink the coffee.

Last summer my fiancee and I bought a house together. Shortly there after we realized that we needed to buy a lawn mower. We could have easily gone and bought a small gas powered one rather quickly and around $150 and it would have gotten the job done. But I didn’t want to have to mess with a gas can sitting in the garage and the maintenance or the oil and mess. Once I realized I wanted an electric mower I then had to choose corded or cordless. To me this was a no brainier, corded could cause problems, what would happen if I ran over the cord? And I’d have to pull the cord out every time I wanted to mow the grass, it just seemed to much of a hassle. It just didn’t seem very safe, so cordless it was! Now my fiancee also might need to mow the grass so I had to take consideration, she isn’t very big so a self propelled mower would be very handy. Remember, we also had a time constraint since our grass was growing and at this point it hadn’t been mowed in about a month and was getting pretty high. So we already had a few requirements and to add to them:

• Could be acquired pretty quickly.
• Electric.
• Cordless.
• Self-Propelled.
• Options for mulching, side and bagged discharge.

We looked at and read reviews online and found some interesting results. The Solaris model I originally looked at got mixed reviews on Amazon. The bad ratings were mostly due to the way Amazon shipped the mower. And the Black and Decker model I was eying had even more bad reviews. Those were due to the cut off switch for it not being very durable. After looking at a few other brands and the reviews for those we decided that the Solaris SP21HB was the mower for us.

After one summer of mowing it has held up very well, better then I expected, and I hope that it will continue to hold up the same in the future.

Click here to buy the Solaris Lawn Mower