In elementary school, friendship pins were the thing. They were blissfully easy to make: take a safety pin, add beads, give to friends to put on shoes, backpacks, and anywhere else you could stick a pin.

In middle school, handmade friendship bracelets were all the rage. Everyone, boys and girls alike, learned how to knot the hell out of embroidery thread. I had a huge jar of pennies that I used to anchor the bracelets as I made the slanty bracelets and the arrow designs for everyone I knew.

In high school, friendship bracelets became passe and everyone began wearing manufactured bracelets by brands like Gotcha. If they were too big (I always had tiny wrists), the solution was to light a match and shrink the ends. Thus my love of fire was inadvertently reawakened.

My mom let me have a potpourri burner in my room but was always paranoid when I had it lit. If only she knew that I used every opportunity I had to legitimately burn things. I had mini fire ceremonies. Remember that Valentine’s Day episode of Friends where Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe almost burn down their apartment because they were burning stuff from their ex-boyfriends? I used to do that on the Hibachi in our backyard.

In college, a girl who lived down the hall from me in the dorms almost burned out building down. She was burning incense and somehow set her stereo on fire, then tried to put it out with her hands which resulted in the fire department evacuating our entire building until midnight the night before classes started. She had some pretty bad burns on her hands, and our entire floor got a lecture from the RA about how we were not allowed to burn ANYTHING in our rooms.

After college, I got over my fear of burning down an entire dorm and resumed my fascination with fire. I’m sure having an Illuminations store at every mall didn’t hurt. I loved all the scented candles. The fruity ones were my favorite: pear, peach, pineapple, strawberry, blackberry.

But I was an equal opportunity fire lover, so I was also willing to burn unscented tea lights. I’m the kind of girl who bought the hundred pack of tea lights at Ikea. Maybe because of my first experience with fire, I was never into pillar candles. I preferred having my fire contained so I always bought jar candles or put tea lights inside a glass holder.

Next came my love of Yankee Candles. Their large jar candles are about twice as tall as the Illuminations jar candles I had, which I assumed meant they would last longer.

I didn’t know until earlier this year that Yankee Candle owned Illuminations. I only found out because I tried to access the Illuminations website and got an error message. I thought I had misspelled Illuminations in my haste so I carefully typed in the URL again and got the same error message. What the hell? I did a little googling and learned that Illumunations had gone out of business. All the stores had been closed. The website and mail order business were gone. Even though I no longer shopped at Illuminations anymore, I was so shocked. Who else is going to send me a Halloween catalog full of candles shaped like witches and ghosts every October?

As the old saying goes, we always want what we can’t have and suddenly what I wanted more than anything was one of those special sets of wick trimming scissors I used to see near the cash registers at Illuminations. Since Illuminations was gone, I reasoned that their parents company, Yankee Candle, would also sell these scissors but that proved to be untrue. After some google-fu, I found Wickman, the company that manufactures and sells this awesome product.

So why are these scissors so great, you ask? A large Yankee Candle jar is about 5.5″ tall but the diameter of the opening is only 3″ wide. They are supposed to burn a total of 100-150 hours (yes, that’s quite a gap in the range) so depending on how often you burn candles, one jar candle can last you anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. As the candle burns down, it gets harder and harder to trim the wick down to the recommended 1/8″ (which helps the candle burn better and prevents you from getting scorch marks inside the jar).

At first, regular scissors will do the trick, but eventually it turns into blindly snipping away and hoping you don’t make a huge gauge in the wax or cut the wick all the way down to a nub.

Enter the Wickman candle trimmer! It’s really just a modified pair of scissors, but those little changes make a huge difference.

First the scissors are angled so you can get the end of the scissors deep into a jar.

Next the end of the scissors have a nice little circular area to catch the burnt wick after you cut it off so that it doesn’t end up floating in cool wax.

This is definitely not a product that will change the world, but it’s pretty awesome for anyone who burns jar candles regularly and knows what a pain in the ass it is to deal with awkward attempts at cutting the wick down to size.

The scissors are made of steel so they’ll last forever, even if you keep throwing them back into a drawer like I do. Wickman also makes a few other candle accessories (an old fashioned candle snuffer for tapered candles and a wick dipper for pillar or jar candles to, duh, dip the wick which puts out the flame without any smoking or smoldering), so you can also get the wick trimmer in a package with the other products if you have tons of candle-related needs.

I thought I’d eventually outgrow my candle phase, but we have long power outages (sometimes lasting more than a day) at least twice a year, so we have flashlights stashed in every room of the house and a large supply of candles and matches always ready for action.  I also have my really awesome destinkifying candle which I burn after we cook anything with a strong smell (fish, french fries, etc.) and whenever one of the neighborhood baby skunks happens to freak out in the vicinity of our yard.

As a kid, I’d encountered skunk smell occasionally, but usually from quite a distance so although I realized it was a stinky smell, I didn’t know how powerful skunk odor can be. The first time I experienced it up close and personal, I was almost in tears. I’d never fully understood that people can really be knocked over by a scent. It was so blindingly overwhelming that I got a headache within a few minutes. I tried to tough it out but I ended up having to leave because the smell was so painful.

I have tried several different candles and products that claim to eliminate or neutralize odors, but nothing does the job like White Chocolate Mint by Yankee Candle. The other products either have a distinct smell (often citrus or some kind of chemical fabric softener scent), which I don’t like because I want to get rid of the odor, not cover it up. And although I like citrus, there are too many cleaning products with obnoxiously fake citrus scents (lemon Pine-Sol comes to mind) that smelling most citrus-scented products makes me think of a combination of children’s aspirin, industrial strength bathroom cleaner, and orange Tic Tacs. In other words, BARF. I really love the smell of fresh fabric softener on my sheets, but other products that claim to smell like fabric softener have a harsh chemical undertone to them or are way too strong (including the Yankee Candle Good Air odor eliminating candle). I tried the Yankee Candle Peppermint Cocoa candle thinking it might have the same effect, but it’s just not the same.

There’s something about the white chocolate that tempers the mint and creates a cool clean scent and gets rid of any stinkiness (as opposed to just dumping a strong scent on top of whatever stinks). It’s only available around Christmas, so I stock up once a year. They now only make it in a large jar (no more small or medium jar sizes, tealights, votives, or tarts), which is fine with me since that size throws the most scent. If you want the house to smell clean without smelling like air freshener, then get some White Chocolate Mint before the holiday stash sells out!

I can’t say the same for the awesomeosity of using a lemon press. I will never miss squeezing the crap out of a lemon with my tiny weak hands! A few months ago, I started making honey lemon tea every night in an attempt to ward off the insane amounts of flu that seemed to afflict everyone. I tend to go a little overboard, so although I found recipes online that said to use anywhere from one teaspoon to two tablespoons of lemon juice, I decided to just use two whole lemons. More is always better, right? That’s the American way! I got the lemon juice out the hard way – by squeezing them like crazy with my hands. I know this will probably sound ridiculous, but after squeezing four lemon halves, I was worn out. But I persisted and kept up my squeezing routine every single night in the name of good health. Just listening to everyone coughing was enough to convince me that a little bit of lemon squeezing was worth the effort. Get thee back, flu!

I am a huge fan of America’s Test Kitchen. They are the polar opposite of almost every show on the Food Network. Do not get me started on Rachael Ray and her “avocado smash.” Ugh. We gave up our regular cable a few years ago, so we no longer get any of the basic cable channels like MTV, VH1, TLC, HGTV, FX, TNT, TBS, or any of the other acronyms. I really miss the Travel Channel (especially Samantha Brown’s Passport to Europe) and Alton Brown, but I do not miss Rachael Ray’s yelling, gesticulating, constantly explaining EVOO (which defeats the entire purpose of using an acronym), dorky laughing, or repeated stories about Grandpa Emmanuel and how she doesn’t bake and always burns toast.

America’s Test Kitchen is the antithesis of the Food Network. Instead of casting “personalities” and worrying about turning every person into a brand, America’s Test Kitchen focuses on FOOD. Crazy concept, I know! They compare kitchen equipment and ingredients by testing them, whether it’s putting a spatula in a cast iron skillet with a thermometer to see at what temperature the spatula starts to melt or tasting all the premium vanilla ice cream brands available at supermarkets. They don’t just endorse whatever company sent them a bunch of free samples (unlike most magazines and blogs). They do what I do: they go to the store, buy items, and then try them out.

When Mr. Awesome and I were trying to come up with things to put on our wedding registry, I went through all of our back issues of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country (the two magazines, both completely ad-free, published by America’s Test Kitchen) and combed through all of their equipment ratings and made a list of all the pots and pans, knives, and other kitchen essentials they recommended. Imagine how I felt when the issue that arrived two weeks after our wedding included a compilation of all their must-have kitchen items, which was pretty much what I spent an entire weekend putting together. Great minds think alike and all, but it would have been a lot greater if they had decided to put together that list six months earlier!

When the cooks at America’s Test Kitchen test recipes, they don’t just slap something together, taste it once, pronounce it “good enough,” and then post it on their website. They test each recipe thirty to forty times, but sometimes as many as seventy times. They tinker with the ingredients to see how they can make the recipe better or sometimes faster (although they never go the Sandra Lee “dump and stir” route). They explain the science behind what they do (although not to the extent that Alton Brown does) so that viewers can understand the difference between heating onions in oil versus water. They aren’t just handing out recipes – they are educating their viewers. I love their methodical approach to cooking, and I appreciate that they test all this stuff out so that I don’t have to do it myself.

One item that I have seen them use on the show several times is a lemon squeezer. It’s not an electric juicer, just a simple hinged piece of equipment that extracts every bit of juice from a lemon. Thanks to the physics of a fulcrum, it’s very easy to use and requires very little effort or strength, so it’s perfect for my wimpy little wrists!

Normally I read the directions for anything before I use it. Mr. Awesome and his brother think it’s hilarious that I insist on reading instruction booklets because their method is the exact opposite: do as much as you can by pressing buttons and then if you can’t figure it out, see if there is a picture in the instructions that shows what you are doing wrong. But who’s laughing when I know how to change the dashboard clock in someone else’s car after daylight savings time? Well, both of us actually. I’m laughing since I learned how to do it by reading the instructions. Mr. Awesome’s brother is laughing because he got the clock in his car updated to the correct time without having to read the owner’s manual.

I do, however, make exceptions about reading the instructions for very simple things that seem to require no explanation whatsoever (and it drives me crazy when I see self-explanatory things like “coffee is hot” as it seems like a waste of time, ink, and lord knows what other resources). That doesn’t always work out in my favor, as I learned with my old gel insoles.

How hard can it be to use a lemon squeezer? You put in a lemon half and squeeze. The end. Well, yes and no. The only important thing you need to know is which way to put the lemon into the squeezer. I, very logically, assumed that the lemon fit into the cup this way.

WRONG! Because the cut side is up, when you squeeze the handles together, the juice wants to run out of the top of the squeezer and down the sides of the squeezer. I was a little grossed out that the lemon juice would run inside the cup and hence all over the outside skin of the lemon, so I always made sure to rinse my lemons and wipe them with a towel to get rid of any dirt of bug cooties that might be lingering since I didn’t want to drink any of that stuff. After using my lemon squeezer this way for a few days (and make no mistake – you CAN use it this way but there is a better way), I finally looked at the little cardboard tag that had been attached (it was sitting on my kitchen counter, just in case I decided to return it). “Insert lemon cut side down.” Really? Really. It should look like this.

So smart! This way, the juice runs straight down through the little holes without touching the outside skin of the lemon. Much more sanitary! And way less juice spilling out over the sides! The lemon is squeezed and turned inside out so it looks like this when you’re done.

Almost every bit of lemon juice is squeezed out by this inside out action so there is no waste. There are small holes in the bottom of the squeezer. A few small seeds might get through, but I just fish them out with a spoon. If you’re really concerned about seeds, you can always squeeze the juice through a strainer.

These squeezers come in three sizes and are color coordinated. The largest one is orange and is used for squeezing, duh, oranges. The medium one is yellow and is used for lemons. The small ones is green and is used for limes. If you try to use the wrong size, you will not get maximum juice squeezage out of your fruit. If the squeezer is too big/the fruit is too small, the press can’t squish the fruit enough to get out all the juice. If the squeezer is too small/the fruit is too big, the press can only squeeze so much because the fruit won’t fit inside the cup.

The squeezers range in price from $8-$40 depending on what they’re made of and where you buy them. Don’t bother with the plastic ones because they will break. I think the stainless steel ones are a bit on the pricey side for what they do, but they are good quality. The middle ground is enamaled. I’ve read some reviews online that said the enamel chipped off, but I’ve been using mine regularly for almost six months and I haven’t seen any chips.

You might have noticed that my squeezer is yellow and green. That’s because I bought the combo lemon/lime squeezer. The smaller green cup is meant to squeeze limes, but I found that it works really well for Meyer lemons, which are smaller than regular lemons. I use the larger yellow cup when I can’t find any Meyer lemons and have to buy regular lemons. The green segment flips back and forth so you can easily switch from the lemon squeezer to the lime squeezer. If you have an enamaled squeezer as I do, you should be careful not to flip the segments all willy nilly because that may cause some chipping when one half bangs into the other. It also makes a loud noise that hurts my ears, so between the noise and the chipping hazard, I make sure not to whack the halves together.

I saw the cooks on America’s Test Kitchen use this product countless times, and I always thought it looked so awesome but for some reason I never bothered buying , despite my numerous trips to places like Bed Bath & Beyond. It wasn’t until I started making tea constantly that the light bulb when on and I realized I should use one of my million 20% off coupons to buy a lemon squeezer. I only wish I had bought one sooner. My poor hands would have appreciated it, especially on the days that I came home from work with a paper cut or two. Not only did my hands tire from squeezing lemons by hand, but Mr. Awesome probably didn’t appreciate the shrieking that occurred when the lemon juice ran down my hand and into my paper cuts! But doesn’t that seem like a fair price to pay in exchange for having a wife who reads instruction manuals and IKEA directions for you?

After writing this review and repeatedly referring to this product as a lemon squeezer, my google fu revealed that it’s actually called a lemon press. Whoops! A press sounds so formal, like a starchy shirt having all its wrinkles steamed out. A squeezer sounds so much more fun!

Gathering all the information needed to create a spreadsheet can take up a lot of time and space. I had an accounting job in college and my desk was always covered in paper. Maybe that’s what paved the way for my paper-covered home desk. I can never seem to get rid of all the paper, no matter how hard I try. In my accounting days, I went through a few different document holders, both at work and at home. At work, I usually had an upright stand that looked like a clipboard that could stand up on its own.

At home, I had one of those swing out arms that attached to the top of the monitor. Neither was a great solution, but both were improvements over craning my neck to read tiny numbers on a piece of paper lying flat on my desk for hours at a time.

In college, I found an effective product that looks cute and also eliminates clutter: the Page-Up! Deceptively simple in design, this little piece of plastic takes up only 2 inches by 2.5 inches (and stands 1.5″ high) on my desk but holds any piece of paper upright.  Sitting in front of a computer monitor all day already puts strain on the eyes, but trying to read paper that’s lying flat on the desk doesn’t help.  Being able to read things straight on without straining my neck – how ergonomic!

One of the things I love about the Page Up is that it holds one piece of paper as easily as it holds fifteen. Some of the clipboard style document holders I used in the past could not say the same thing. The product description says it holds up to fifteen pieces of paper, but I’ve actually crammed over 20 pages at a time without any problem. Once I got past 18 pages, the paper didn’t slide all the way down to the bottom of the opening but the function was not affected. The papers still stood straight up in a nice neat stack.

The curved design allows you to insert even the thinnest paper from a magazine or catalog without the top edge bending over. I’m not sure how often you would want to rip a page out of a magazine and put it in the Page Up, but I couldn’t find anything else in my house with really thin paper!

Because of its unique design, the Page-Up can hold papers of any size both vertically or horizontally. Although I mostly use it for letter sized paper at my computer, the Page-Up can be used to hold recipes in the kitchen, sheet music, or place cards on a dining room table. It can also be used to display greeting cards, business cards, or photos. There is a slight arc (which is what holds the paper upright), so if you leave something made of thicker paper, like a business card, in the Page-Up for an extended period of time, it may cause your paper to retain a very slight curve. For most things, it’s not an issue but just an FYI before you pop in the only copy of your great-great-great grandparents’ wedding picture.

The Page-Up weighs only 2.5 ounces but it can still be used as a light paperweight, It will definitely hold down papers but isn’t as hefty as a fancy brass paperweight. It has small rubber feet that keep it from sliding around on a slippery desk or a pile of papers.

Many office supplies provide function but are sorely lacking in form. The Page Up has both! It gets the job done holding my papers and has sleek lines, but is also small enough to be unobtrusive. Best of all, it comes lots of fun colors and designs. They used to have colors that matched the iMacs, but the latest version of this line is called crystal colors. This line has tiny glass beads inside colored translucent plastic:

The aquarium line has different marine scenes floating inside the Page-Up:

The culinary line is now retired, but each one had a different food inside (corn, green beans, mustard seeds, pink lentil, red beans, or rice):

The sandy line has brightly colored sand inside clear plastic:

The zoo line has different animal print designs:

The sports collection looks like different balls:

They also come in metallic colors:

And if you’re not into the shiny colorful stuff, there is the classic line:

In other words, there is a color or style for everyone, whether you like shiny gold, something that reminds you of your school old iMac, or you want a fun animal print. Often with office supplies, function wins over form (and understandably so) but with Page Up, you can have both. I admit that I can be a girlie girl about stuff like this so given the choice between buying a plain black one or a bright fun color, I chose the most obnoxious colors I could find!

There are also mini Page-Ups called babies. They are about half the size of the regular Page Ups products (approximately 1″ x 1.25″ and 3/4″ tall). The babies are great for smaller pieces of paper, so they can be used to hold place cards, photos, shopping lists, directions, etc. The regular sized Page Up can handle all of these things too, but if you’re tight on space or don’t need something quite as heavy as the regular page up, the babies are great! The regular weighs 77 grams (2.75 ounces) while the baby weighs 7 grams (0.25 ounces).

I did a side by side comparison so that you can see the difference. Since the regular page up is taller, it covers a lot more of the bottom of the document, which is not a big deal if you’re reading a document and transcribing it, since most documents have a 1″ margin. If you are using something smaller in the Page Up, like a business card, the baby will allow you to see more of the document. In this case, I used business cards but the same thing goes for photos and other things you might use in the Page Up.

In the next picture, I moved the Fifi Mahony card from the baby to the regular so that you can see how much more of the card is visible when it’s used in the baby.

My only minor quibble about the Page Up is that because it’s so small, it can be a bit difficult to move it once you have paper in it. If I just need to scoot it over an inch or so, I push the base with my finger, which works. But if you decide you need to move it more than that, it’s hard to get your hand around it with papers inside so I recommend just pulling the paper out, moving the base, and then reinserting the paper. It’s not a huge deal, but if you’re paranoid about paper cuts as I am, it’s something to be aware of.

I didn’t know how much I needed the Page Up until I had one, which is a roundabout way of saying that I lived without one for a long time and found ways around the problem of needing one (the lame stands sold at office supply stores, trying to prop paper up against my desk, using a binder clip to attach a piece of paper to the front of my binder and then leaning it against something). Now that I have one, I can’t imagine not having one.  I honestly don’t use it every single day, but on the occasions that I do use it, I LOVE it.

The regular Page Up retails for about $7 and a four pack of the babies costs about $8. The babies are also available in packs of six or twelve.  Both the regular Page Up and the babies can be found at the Container Store, as well as at office supply stores. I’ve also seen them at the UPS Store. I’ve found them for less online but the trade off is paying the shipping costs.  On the plus side, buying them online usually you gives you more color choices.

I’m not a jetsetter who flies all over the world constantly, but I do fly domestically an average of four times per year. I don’t love flying, but I don’t really mind it either. I’d rather sit on a plane for ninety minutes than sit in a car for eight hours to reach the same destination. For short flights to see my parents, I don’t do much preparation aside from packing. I hate checking my luggage, so I always cram everything I will need (regardless of the weather or the length of my trip) into one rolling suitcase and one additional bag (ranging in size from a backpack to a medium sized duffel bag). Three days in the summer, two weeks at Christmas? Same baggage. Since it’s such a short flight, I usually bring one snack item (like a granola bar or some cookies) and a large bottle that I can fill with water once I get past security. Longer flights, however, require a bit more effort. Since I just got back from a loooooong international flight, I decided to share the awesomely essential things that made fifteen hours in coach slightly less painful.

I get queasy very easily, so I take Dramamine no matter how long the flight. Even though it sucks to be woozy and off kilter for a whole day, I take it even for a ninety minute flight to see my parents. Once when I didn’t take any Dramamine, we were stuck circling the airport for over an hour waiting for the fog to clear and I almost puked. Sadly, there was no vomit bag in my seat back pocket so I did that classic grip the armrests and concentrate on not barfing mind over matter technique. After that, I decided it was worth it to be groggy to ensure that I wouldn’t throw up. I’ve tried different acupressure wristbands, but none of them seem as effective as Dramamine.

A water bottle is essential for me because I’m always thirsty, but also because being on a plane is very dehydrating. I hate waiting for the drink cart to get to me, so I’d rather be self sufficient and have my own water. I bring my insulated Klean Kanteen with me so that the water will stay cold as long as possible, but be careful if you take a metal bottle. I know I sometimes get a little clumsy when juggling all my luggage, so I occasionally drop things. If you already have a metal bottle that’s a little banged up, bring that one instead of your shiny new one so that you won’t get upset if you whack it against anything. Just a warning: on my recent international flight, all of our bags were searched for liquid and they told me that I couldn’t bring the water I had JUST BOUGHT so I had to chug 20 ounces of water on the jetway.

For any flight longer than three hours, I bring a neck pillow. I used to laugh at how silly they looked, but a few years ago, my friend and I were walking to our gate and saw a gift shop sign that said their neck pillows were on sale. Who were we to turn down a bargain? If only we’d known that getting two neck pillows for $20 was already the regular price. Suckers for marketing! We were on the return flight from a trip across the country, so we’d already experienced our heads lolling about as we fell in and out of sleep during the seven hour flight. As soon as I put my neck pillow on, I was sold. Even if I ended up not falling asleep, I was excited about the neck support. I’m short, so my head gets pitched forward at a weird angle when I sit in most plane seats. When I got home, I amused Mr. Awesome by wearing my neck pillow while sitting on the sofa. Maybe it’s just the way I sit (or I have a weak neck and need to do the neck exercises football players do by pushing their foreheads against the palms of their hands), but I loooooove my neck pillow.

There are a lot of tiny variations in neck pillows. The first one is the filling inside. Mine is filled with cotton batting, which is the white fluffy stuff you see being crammed into the animals at the Build a Bear workshop. My sister’s neck pillow is filled with tiny little balls (also used for stuffed animals). Some neck pillows are filled with buckwheat or millet hulls. I prefer the cotton batting because although it will eventually get mashed down, it’s easy and cheap to refill. My neck pillow has a zipper to make this possible, but my sister’s has no opening at all, which means if she wants to refill hers she will have to cut it open and sew it shut. She said she preferred my pillow because it was firmer. Although you might think the little balls would make for a firm pillow, they shift around inside when you put pressure on the pillow, meaning that when she leans her neck back into the pillow, the balls push forward into the shoulder area. There are also inflatable neck pillows, which are convenient since they are really small and flat when deflated, but I’m far too lazy to blow up even the smallest pillow while I’m traveling. My advice is to get a firm pillow, regardless of the filling. The whole point is for this thing to provide support, so why get a mushy one?

The second variation is the material used to cover the pillows. This might sound like a minor aesthetic issue, but when it’s touching your neck for seven to fifteen hours, the material makes a difference. My first neck pillow (which now belongs to Mr. Awesome – more on that later) was covered in a smooth velvety material. My sister’s pillow is covered in a nylon fabric which I think ended up being hotter on her neck. Remember that a neck pillow surrounds your neck so it ends up acting like a scarf, meaning you will get warm. The last thing I want on my hot sweaty neck is a synthetic fabric that is going to make me sweat even more. If the cover zips off, then you can throw it in the washing machine. Not that you would ever drool or sweat all over your neck pillow, right?

The third neck pillow variation is where the two ends meet. The first one I bought had nothing there, which I didn’t even think about, but when my sister bought hers at the airport last week, it had a snap! Not only will this keep the pillow from shifting around while you sleep, but it also allows you to clip the whole pillow to the strap of your carry-on bag so that it doesn’t take up valuable space!

I was so jealous of this new innovation that I ended up buying a new pillow and giving my old one (which, in all fairness, I’ve only flown with on ONE trip, so it’s still in good shape) to Mr. Awesome. Before you judge me for buying a new pillow just for the snap, wait until you see how freaking awesome this new pillow is. How could I NOT buy a Love Piggy neck pillow with a curly little tail? And for even less than I bought my original neck pillow! I could not resist!

Next on my list of necessities for long flights is an eye mask. I’m not one of those fancy ladies who sleeps with a pink satin eye mask (think: Holly Golightly) so I’ve never bought an eye mask before. Mr. Awesome, on the other hand, has sleep issues. He was lucky enough to grow up sleeping in a room that faced toward the backyard (with no neighbors), so he is accustomed to having complete darkness and silence. Unfortunately, that means most other places are too bright and too loud for him to sleep well. I don’t think he has had a good night’s sleep since he moved out of his parents’ house for college. Every once in a while, we see some sleep masks and he looks at them, sometimes even going so far as to put them near his face, but he never buys them because he says he can tell they won’t be comfortable.

Usually if I fall asleep while flying, I’m so zonked out from the Dramamine that any light (whether from the cabin or the windows) doesn’t bother me. Right before I left for my trip, however, Holly at Nothing But Bonfires recommended this sleep mask, the Sweet Dreams eye mask by Dream Essentials, so I decided to ordered two from Amazon.

It might look weird, but it is AWESOME. The eye contours allow you to open your eyes with the mask on. If you’re one of those awful people who insist on telling me how your long luxurious eyelashes are always bumping against the inside of your sunglasses, you may not love this eye mask as much as I do (finally a reason to be glad I have stubby eyelashes), but it’s still better than all of those non-contoured sleep masks that mash down on your eyelids! The shaped nose also blocks light from reaching your eyes from the bottom of the mask.

It worked great on the plane, but after I got back from my trip I decided to see how much light they really block.  I mean, really, blocking out some ambient light once the lights on the plane were already dimmed couldn’t be that tough, right? I went outside in broad daylight and put this mask on and it was pitch dark, not even the tiniest bit of light coming through.

My next test was wearing them to bed. There is a street light that shines into our bedroom window. It doesn’t bother me, but it drives Mr. Awesome insane. Although I wasn’t really concerned with blocking out 100% of the light, I really wanted to see how comfortable this sleep mask was. I am a crazy sleeper. My preferred position is for my head to be turned to the side, upper body face down, and my hips and legs twisted to the side. I’ve been trying to slowly move towards being a side sleeper so that my body isn’t contorted the entire time I’m asleep, but I know that most of the time I sleep with my head to the side which can be an issue with a lot of sleep masks. I started on my back. No light leakage at all. When I turned over onto my side, my face moved the mask a little bit. With my eyes closed, I didn’t notice any light but when I opened my eyes, I could see the tiniest bit of light coming through the bottom of the mask. I adjusted it very slightly and voila, no more light. I started falling asleep, but I took the mask off before I was completely asleep because I like the sun to wake me up, which I knew wouldn’t happen with that mask blocking out every bit of light.

The mask has two elastic straps, one on each side. The ends have velcro so that you can adjust how tight or loose you want it held against your head. The mask is soft, so you can fold it in half and put it in the little drawstring pouch it comes in. Mr. Awesome and I have very differently shaped faces. Our eyes, noses, and cheekbones are very different, but the masks fit both of us well and blocked out the light. Totally worth $8. They also include a pair of ear plugs, although you won’t need them if you get my next travel necessity!

I have been coveting the Bose noise canceling headphones for years, but I always wondered how well they worked. A few years ago, my boss bought some for a trip to Japan and he said they were worth every penny. I loved them in theory but couldn’t justify spending $300+ since I don’t fly constantly. Mr. Awesome did some research and found the audio-technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC7 headphones, which retail for $200 but can be found for about half that price if you are willing to do a little searching on the internet. I don’t remember exactly how much we paid for them since we bought them a while ago, but suffice it to say that Mr. Awesome loves a bargain and would never pay $200 for headphones.

The earpieces flip so that the headphones can be stored flat inside the accompanying case (although I’ll admit that I’m lazy and usually just throw them in my carry on bag without the case).  You can also use them to listen to music on your ipod/MP3 player, if that helps you justify buying them. When we’re not traveling, we also use these headphones with our computer. They are great for listening to music, and they are noise canceling when you listen to music as well. If you use them without music, they really block out the roar of the engines, which is the most important thing to me. This is by far the priciest thing on my list, but well worth the money if you fly often or fly long distances. If the cost is too much to rationalize, you can download a white noise app instead. FYI – they were not compatible with the headset jack on our international flight, so we had to use the airline headphones to watch movies.

I always bring a bag of small items, most of which are nice for any length flight but really necessary for long flights. My goodie bag includes: food that won’t melt, spoil, or get squooshed easily (don’t worry, I still bring chocolate no matter what!), lotion/moisturizer, lip balm, eye drops, mints/gum for when you wake up from that nap and the inside of your mouth both smells and feels like a kitten died inside, a tiny bottle of over the counter medication like antacid, Advil, etc. (I usually use an old Dramamine bottle since they’re so small), a Wisp mini toothbrush so I can freshen up without needing to rinse, CleanWell hand spray, a travel sized packet of tissue (I can’t tell you how many times the bathrooms at the airport AND on the plane were out of toilet paper – this is especially likely near the end of the flight), some music, and a book to read. I tend to favor books I’ve already read so that in the very likely event that I fall asleep, I won’t have to make much effort to remember what happened when I start re-reading an hour later.

The important lesson I learned on this trip was to have a small bag for these in-flight necessities that you can cram under the seat. I made the mistake of putting all this stuff in the bag I was going to put in the overhead bin and then realized that I didn’t want to keep getting things out of the overhead compartment (in my defense, I was originally going to put that bag under my seat, but I got stuck with the seat that housed all the entertainment components so the space under my seat was about half the size of Mr. Awesome’s). I ended up cramming everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, into the seat back pocket. There’s nothing like having headphones, books, mints, hand spray, and everything you planned to use over the next fifteen hours stuffed into that little seat back pocket. I could barely get the tray table down! I ended up buying a cheap tote bag for the return flight so that I didn’t have to resort to having an overflowing seat back pocket.

If you hang on my every word, then you will remember that the only area where I found my classic pursehook lacking was the ability to hang on doors and other non-flat surfaces. When the FUMI became available last year, I didn’t rush out to buy one because I already had a purse hook. The original photos didn’t show the FUMI being used on doors, but when I visited the website last week I saw pictures of the FUMI hung on bathroom doors, luggage handles, sofas, you name it! That was all it took to convince me to take the plunge.

The FUMI is a hinged bracelet which opens to clip onto your bag as an accessory, your wrist as jewelry, or any surface as a purse hook. Like the original purse hook, the FUMI has a rubber pad to help the purse hook grip surfaces. Many other purse hooks do not include this feature, so they slide around, especially when used with heavy purses on slippery surfaces. I have an older version of the FUMI which has rubber padding on only one side, but the newer ones have rubber on both sides so that you can hook either end! This change was made in response to customer feedback – the FUMI makers really listen to what their customers have to say!

One of the really wonderful design features of the FUMI is that when it’s open, the two ends are swiveled and therefore are not open at 180 degrees. This means you don’t need to have open space underneath in order for the FUMI to work (unlike other purse hooks that only work on tables or counters with a large space underneath).

I wanted to try out the FUMI right away, so I first tried hanging my lunch bag from the overhead bin in my office. Even though in some of these pictures, it looks like it’s twisted all crazy and sometimes looks like it’s about to fall off, it’s just the angle of the photo combined with the angle of the opening. It’s that wide opening that allows it to attach to so many different surfaces securely. I pulled on my bags to see if I could shake them loose and they didn’t budge unless I went Hulk style.

Normally I wouldn’t actually hang my lunch here, but I wanted to try the FUMI against a curved surface without space underneath. You can’t really tell in this photo, but the cabinet is very curved, which is something that some other purse hooks can’t handle. The box holding my lunch is about 6″ in diameter so my lunch bag is sticking out from the surface quite a bit, but thanks to the angle of the FUMI, my bag hangs just fine. Not possible with other purse hooks!

Although my lunch bag is nowhere near the 25 pound weight limit that the FUMI can handle, it’s still pretty heavy to me because I have a huge bottle of water inside as well. Thanks to my handy food scale, I learned that a full bottle of water in my Klean Kanteen bottle weighs 3.5 pounds. No wonder my wrist used to get so tired when I lugged it around!

I wasn’t sure how I would use the FUMI with my cross body bag since the strap is really long. There’s no point in using a purse hook if the strap is so long that the bag would end up touching the ground, right? Then I had an aha! moment and put the FUMI through the metal ring connecting the strap to the bag.

I was a little afraid that the FUMI wouldn’t be able to fit inside the ring, but it fit without any problem. For reference, the widest part of the FUMI is about 3/4″ and the ring on this purse is about 1″ in diameter. This means you can also hang most keychains on the FUMI too. By the way, do not mock my old lady purse. It’s green! It has lots of zippers! It has a striped lining! It’s AWESOME!

As you can see in the two pictures above, the end of the FUMI curves up which prevents the bag (or its straps) from accidentally sliding off the hook.

By this point in my preliminary testing, I knew the FUMI got full marks in the purse hook function, but what about the other two?  The website says it’s also a bracelet and a purse accessory, so it’s a threefer.

Full disclosure: I have not worn bangle bracelets since middle school so that may affect my feelings about the FUMI as jewelry. I wore it all day to see what I thought. Honestly, when I first saw the pictures on the website, I wasn’t sure how much I would like the FUMI as a bracelet. Once I put it on and looked in the mirror from 2-3 feet away, it was simple but cute, which is good because I don’t like overly fussy or complicated things. The snakeskin pattern is subtle so it’s snakeskin, not SNAKESKIN! It also adds a nice texture so it isn’t all bling and sparkle (although if you want one with bling, they have some FUMI models with crystals).

The FUMI is very well made. I remember from my middle school days that some of the cheapie bracelets I wore had exposed screws, hinges, or springs that snagged my clothes. I had one really nice bracelet that I had to stop wearing in college because the clasp kept getting caught on the threads on the insides of my shirts and jackets. No such concern with the FUMI though. The hinge has two tiny screws (or pins? I don’t know, my eyesight is not what it used to be), but they are flush with the surface of the bracelet so no snagging. The spring that snaps the FUMI closed is also flush with the bracelet and there are no loose ends (unlike all those spiral bound notebooks that used to catch on everything inside my backpack – holla, sixth grade!).

The FUMI felt a little heavy to me, but again, keep in mind that I haven’t worn any bangle bracelets for years so I’m just not used to the weight. However, I’d rather have the FUMI be slightly heavier and therefore sturdy enough to hold my bags than lighter on my wrist and unable to hold all my stuff! Because I have small wrists, some bangles slide all the way up to the widest part of my hand, which is totally annoying. When I let the FUMI drop all the way down, it reaches just past the top line of my wrist, which is great because that means I won’t get it soaking wet every time I wash my hands.

It’s surprisingly accommodating. I have always had small wrists, so I had no problem getting it on my wrist. For the sake of argument, I also had Mr. Awesome try it on. As you can imagine, he was less than thrilled about this, but I was able to put it on his man-sized wrists easily. Despite this, it has a slim profile. After dinner, I pulled a henley over my tank top and although the FUMI was visible underneath the long sleeves, it didn’t create a huge bulge.

Despite all this, I will probably not wear it as a bracelet very often, partly because I am just not a bangle bracelet kind of girl anymore, but mostly because wearing it as a bracelet would mean remembering to put it on which means I’ll forget and constantly leave it at home. Much safer to leave it clipped to my bag so it’s always with me!

The other reason I won’t be wearing it as a bracelet very often is the issue of cooties. For me, the main purpose of a purse hook is to keep germs at bay by keeping my bag from touching the floor and even chairs and counters. When using the FUMI as a purse hook, the rubber pad on the inside edge of the bracelet will be touching bars, counters, bathroom doors, and lord knows what other kind of germ covered surfaces, so once I begin using it regularly, I’ll be much less inclined to want the cootie covered rubber pad rubbing against my wrist all day. The germs weren’t an issue when I wore the FUMI as a bracelet today since it was nice and clean right out of the box, but I know once I use it on something like a bathroom door or an armrest at the movie theater, I’ll be grossed out at the thought of the cooties from those places touching my skin constantly. This is by no means a design flaw though – it’s just my germaphobic nature rearing its ugly head.

FUMI function #3: purse accessory. You can clip the FUMI to any purse, but it does look better with certain bags. I think that it looks/works best on a larger purse with two straps.  On my cross body bag, it hangs nicely out of the way. I did notice that when I had this purse propped up in my car, the FUMI slid around on the very long strap so there is a possibility that when using the FUMI on a really long strap, the bracelet itself might get whacked against stuff when you pick up your purse. Not a huge deal since it seems very sturdy, but just FYI.

I also tried attaching it to the metal ring, but that is definitely a function over form decision. Although leaving it here will keep the FUMI from sliding around, it doesn’t look as nice hanging from the ring. I also have a bad habit of leaning into the push bar doors at work (which is how I broke a hair clip that I had stuck to one of my bags), so I have a feeling that the poor defenseless FUMI would get beat up a lot more in this position.

This is how is looks clipped onto my lunch bag. Shiny and fun without being obnoxious!

It totally matches my Tylie Malibu bag, which is one of my bigger bags:

I don’t know if I’d recommend clipping it onto smaller bags because it can block the zipper from opening all the way. If you put it on side where the zipper is fully open, it shouldn’t get in the way too much, but it does look a bit big on these purses:

You really can hang it on ANYTHING. I have hung it on the headrest in my car, as well as on the back of the passenger seat just to see if the clip would open wide enough and stay securely attached while driving the windy roads near my house and the FUMI held my bag in place without the slightest slip!

I’ve only ordered from Je’Marie twice, but they have been great both times. My items shipped quickly (I ordered on a Monday and received my FUMI on Thursday), and they were packaged very securely. The original purse hook came in a cute velvet bag, which I use to store my purse hook so that none of the cooties touch the contents of my purse (the velvet bags now cost $1.50, which is totally reasonable). The FUMI comes in an organza bag, which is great if you’re giving it as a gift. I probably won’t use it much as I plan to keep the FUMI on my purse strap, but I might throw it in my bag just in case I ever need to quarantine it!

I chose the black snakeskin design so that it wouldn’t clash with my different purses and bags. Aside from the black and green pictured here, I also have hot pink, purple, navy blue, forest green, you name it! Of course, my love for pink knows no bounds so I really wanted this one. Damn my practicality! I just didn’t want it clashing with the green bags.

I paid $28.92 ($24.95 retail price minus the 10% discount I’m about to tell you about plus shipping), and it was worth every penny to know that I will keep all my bags as germ free as possible.  You can get a 10% discount on your FUMI order by using the code iknownichole (all one word) or by signing up for their mailing list. I’m on tons of mailing lists and FUMI gets a gold star for not constantly spamming me. In 2009, I only received a handful of emails (maybe five total) alerting me to their product, the FUMI, and to let me know about discounts and free shipping. It’s definitely not the “send an email that says the exact same thing every other day” kind of mailing list, which I really appreciate.

This is a very well designed product in every aspect. There is nothing more frustrating and disappointing than discovering a potentially cool product, only to find some annoying flaw or corner that has been cut. By the same token, it’s really great to find a product that is so well designed and manufactured that does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

The FUMI comes in a wide range of colors. I love having so many choices – the best kind of dilemma! The simplest ones are plain metallic (silver, gold, and pewter). There are five metallics embellished with crystals (silver, matte silver, gold, pewter, and copper). The snakeskin version is edged in silver and comes in lots of colors (black, brown, olive green, orange, hot pink, teal, and white). There is also a white snakeskin with gold trim, as well as a zebra print with pewter trim, and a cheetah print with gold trim.  The only reason I might not give these as gifts is that for some people, I wouldn’t know which color/design to choose for them. Nothing that a gift certificate can’t solve though!

I also like supporting family run companies (even though I can’t imagine doing it myself!). Je’Marie joins my list of awesome companies run by sisters, along with Jaqua, Hey Lady, and Benefit. My sister and I have discussed how cool it would be to run a company together and then we realized we would probably spend a lot of time yelling at each other, so high five to the sisters who can work together. Bonus points because Je’Marie is based in my hometown of San Diego!

4/10/10 update: my FUMI accompanied me on an international trip and earned its keep by holding my various bags and bottles on buses, boats, and luggage carts!

In that vein, I really do not get how women can put their purses on the ground and then on their car seats, bedspreads, laps, or kitchen counters. I’ve seen women put their purses on the floor in the most disgusting places. Is the floor of a bar or the bathroom at Target something you want to lick or lie on?  If not, why would you put your purse on those surfaces and then put that same purse, which now has gross cooties, on your bed?  Ewwww!

I’m not a purse snob or a label whore, so I don’t have fancy expensive bags, but I doubly do not understand when women spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on bags and then put them on the floor at a restaurant. You wouldn’t put your cashmere wrap or designer jacket on the ground, so why would you put your purse down there?  Again I say yuck! You might as well run barefoot through a bar and then suck on your toes.

I swear that I’m not just being paranoid either. A few years ago, microbiologist Chuck Gerba caused a big stir when an article about germs on purses hit the media. For me, it was a big DUH but for many women it was shocking to learn that most purses tested positive for all kinds of bacteria and creepy crawlies.

I love when I go to bars that have little hooks underneath the counter, but most of the time, I’m stuck hanging my purse on the back of my chair, putting it on the seat between the chair back and my butt (which means I have to scoot forward), or holding it on my lap.  None of these are great options, but they’re all better than the alternative of putting my bag on the floor.

The solution? Purse hooks! Although they have grown in popularity over the last few years, purse hooks have been in use since the 1920s. The internet claims that Queen Elizabeth carries one with her. There are several different types of purse hooks, but all of them serve the same purpose: they allow you to hang your purse on the edge of a table or counter.

About three years ago, I found an awesome company in San Diego called Je’Marie PurseHook. There are tons of websites that sell purse hooks these days, but pursehook.net is the best one I have seen. First and foremost, their purse hooks are the sturdiest – they hold up to 35 pounds! That might seem like more than you need, but the average purse weighs over five pounds. If you have a big hobo bag or tote bag, it probably weighs twice as much. Seriously, go weigh your purse right now. You may be shocked by how much crap you’re lugging around on your shoulder!

In addition, the entire back of Je’Marie’s products are rubber, which means they grip the table. Products without this rubber backing tend not to be as stable, sometimes sliding towards the edge of the table. Some purse hooks use foam on the back for grip, but if the foam gets wet, it’s only a matter of time before it starts to flake apart (and grow icky germs).

The Je’Marie hooks are also a great size. The length of the actual hook is long enough to accommodate all kind of tables. I’ve only encountered one really thick bar counter that I couldn’t use my hook on.

The end of the actual hook has a little ball, which is nice for two reasons. On a practical level, it provides a little extra something to keep things from sliding off the end of the hook. On top of that, it’s nice to have something smooth and round at the end of the hook. For the sake of comparison, these are some Disney purse hooks without the ball on the end. I’m not saying you’ll stab yourself, but I prefer having that little ball at the end.

I have one of Je’Marie’s fusion designs, which are beautiful but no longer available. Mine is two different shades of blue and resembles dichroic glass. I use it whenever I go to restaurants, bars, or any place where I would have time to get my purse hook out of my purse. I’ve hung it on the arm rest at theaters, counter tops, you name it.

It’s not just for little purses either. As I already mentioned, it holds up to 35 pounds which is enough for even a backpack. I really wish I’d had one of these in college. Just thinking about all the disgusting places I put my backpack grosses me out! This little guy is a multitasker too.  One night when we were sitting on barstools, I hung my purse, scarf, and wool coat on my purse hook.

The head swivels so that when the purse hook is not in use, it’s almost completely flat. It’s very light so it doesn’t add a lot of weight to my purse when I’m carrying it around. Mine came with a little velvet carrying pouch, which means that any germs that might be on the rubber part of the purse hook don’t touch anything inside my purse.

I looked at a lot of different brands before I bought my purse hook from Je’Marie, and I’ve been very happy with it. My only complaint about it was that I wished I could somehow hook it over the top of a door or chair on those rare occasions when I don’t have a table or other flat surface. Whenever I was in a public bathroom without a hook on the back of the door, I found myself thinking about this.

Lo and behold, Je’Marie heard my unspoken request. Their next product is called FUMI (Fashionable, Unique, Multipurpose Innovation). It can be worn as a bracelet, used as a purse accessory (clipped on the handle or the hardware on most purses), and is also a purse hook. Like the regular purse hook, it has a rubber backing to keep it from sliding around and it also holds up to 25 pounds.

Because it’s round, it can be hung on almost anything: doors, sofas, luggage, you name it!

Although I haven’t bought a FUMI yet, I am excited about being able to use it on non-flat surfaces. I love when companies read my mind and create something that I already wanted! Now I just need to decide which color I like the best so I can order a FUMI!

Tangent: I know that it’s not anyone’s job to save the world on every possible front, but it seems to me if Klean Kanteen is telling me to use their product because it’s more environmentally friendly than plastic water bottles and safer than BPA lined aluminum bottles, shouldn’t they care about the toxic chemicals used to create the neoprene sleeves that they sell as an accessory? Heh, sometimes I surprise even myself when I start talking like a total hippie.

One of the drawbacks of the old Klean Kanteen bottles was that cold beverages didn’t stay cold for long and pouring hot beverages in meant the entire bottle was burning hot to touch.  My half-assed solution was filling my water bottles at night, putting them in the refrigerator until I left for work the next day, and then keeping them in an insulated lunch bag.  Usually by the time I finished a 40 ounce bottle, the water was still cooler than room temperature. On the other hand, maybe it was a good motivation for me to drink more quickly, the mindset being that I was trying to beat the clock before my water turned lukewarm.

When the insulated bottles came out, I didn’t rush to buy one because at that point I already had four, count ‘em FOUR Klean Kanteen bottles (two classic bottles which I initially bought, and then two wide mouth bottles that I bought when they came out last year). I use the two wide mouth bottles every day, Mr. Awesome uses one of the classic bottles at work, and I recently gave the other classic bottle to my sister because I felt so guilty that it was just gathering dust. Needless to say, another bottle seemed an unnecessary purchase. Plus I swear, every time I order something from Klean Kanteen, they come out with something new right afterward which makes me feel like I should have waited a little longer.

I was also a little reluctant to buy an insulated bottle because the largest size available is 20 ounce, which is half the size of the bottles I use now. I finally gave in and bought an insulated 20 ounce bottle at the grocery store last month. Somehow, not paying for shipping made it seem like a bargain. I was excited about trying it out…and then promptly forgot about it. I left it on the counter, unwashed and neglected, until last week when I decided to bring some tea to work.

Klean Kanteen says that their insulated bottle will keep drinks cold for up to 24 hours, and it will keep food warm up to 6 hours. I’m always a little skeptical of such exact claims, but they are not kidding. The bottles themselves are not microwavable, so I heated my water in a mug for 3 minutes and then poured it into the bottle.  I added some Manuka honey and squeezed in the juice of two lemons. I deliberately didn’t drink it right away because I wanted to see how long it would stay hot.

I have been secretly trying to justify my need for an infrared thermometer (I originally wanted one because I ordered some french fries which were cold and stale, and when I asked for fresh hot fries, the manager had the nerve to tell me I had to specifically ask for them that way – apparently the expectation is that they always serve cold stale fries. I thought having an infrared thermometer would be a much more accurate and fun way to tell them that their fries were too cold to be served), and now I really wish I had one so that I could report on the temperature of my tea. You will have to take my word for it when I say that four hours after I made it, my tea was still hot enough to almost scald my tongue. When I took the top off, I saw steam coming out of the bottle.  At the six hour mark, it was still very warm, bordering on hot (hot enough that I had to blow on it a little before sipping).

The insulated bottle comes with a standard loop top. The outside is made of plastic (BPA free polypropylene #5) but the inside is stainless steel so that there is no plastic touching your food or water. The loop makes carrying this bottle very easy (although even the largest size is slim enough to wrap your hand around comfortably without any strain). The main con to the loop cap is constantly screwing and unscrewing it to drink. Normally when I drink water out of my regular (non-insulated) bottle, I take the top off once I get to work and I leave it off until I’m finished drinking the entire bottle. Because I wanted my tea to stay hot, however, I kept putting the top back on which got tiresome.

Klean Kanteen’s solution is the cafe top, which is similar to the top of a travel mug. You can sip hot drinks out of it while driving without fear of spilling coffee into your lap or sloshing coffee all over the car (even after we bought my dad a travel mug with a top, he still insisted on driving to work and drinking his coffee out of a regular mug, which resulted in a lot of spilled coffee over the years). It has a raised rim and the top rotates to expose the opening. There is no steel inside this top, which means your beverage is coming into contact with plastic, but again, it’s BPA free polypropylene #5 which is supposed to be safe.  I know, I know – it’s only a matter of time before another report comes out and tells us this one will kill us too, right?

I was worried that perhaps the cafe top would not keep my drink as hot for as long as the loop top, but it did surprisingly well.  After four hours with the cafe top, my tea was still hot. After six hours total, it was still very warm. I think the temperature was slightly lower with the cafe top, but just barely.  Overall, I was impressed with how hot my drink stayed with both tops.

One important detail about my heat tests is that aside from checking the temperature every once in a while, I did not take the tops off during the first four hours. The results may be different if you start drinking right away, meaning you let cold air in from the beginning and very frequently.

Although this seems like an obvious point, it bears stating that the cafe top is NOT leakproof. To me it seems like a huge DUH, but there have been several online complaints from users saying that the cafe top “leaked,” meaning when it wasn’t upright, some liquid came out.  No shit, Chet, no shit. If you put liquid in a vessel, screw on a top THAT HAS A HOLE IN IT, and then turn said vessel on its side or upside down, shockingly, the inside of your bag will not stay dry.  Gravity is crazy that way.

The outside of the insulated bottle stays completely cool. You would never know from picking it up that it contains boiling hot water. If I put my finger inside the loop, I can feel a slight warmth radiating, but that’s the only hint that the contents are hot.

I’ve only used the insulated bottle for cold drinks once. I put cool water with three ice cubes inside and took it to a performance. Five hours later, my water was still nice and cold but there was no condensation on the outside of the bottle. After I drank all my water, the ice cubes were still intact, so I refilled my bottle with room temperature water which quickly became icy cold. Once the weather warms up, I may start using this to bring cold water to work!

The only issue I had with my 20 ounce insulated bottle is that I couldn’t get my hand inside to clean it very well.  With the classic and regular wide mouth bottles, I only carry water, so cleaning is pretty simple.  I either wash with soapy water, baking soda, or white vinegar. The honey and lemon I use for my tea leave traces inside the bottle and my fingers can’t reach far enough to scrub all the way down the bottle. To solve this problem, I bought a Munchkin deluxe bottle brush. It’s the perfect size (almost the exact diameter as the bottle) and scrubs away any lemon crud inside. Bonus: it has a hidden nipple brush inside the handle (I swear, I can’t make this stuff up). I suppose you could use it to really get into the grooves in the cap, but the regular brush seems to do a good job at that. The end of the handle is a twofer: it’s flat so you can stand the brush up (rather than letting it lie on the counter) and it’s also a suction cup so that you can suction it to the counter and keep it from getting knocked over while it’s drying.

Although I like the 20 ounce Klean Kanteen insulated bottle for tea, it’s a bit too tall (8.75″) for a regular spoon, which would be completely submerged inside this bottle. My first solution to this problem was to fill the bottle a little more than halfway with hot water, add the honey and lemon, stir with the longest spoon I have, add the rest of the water, screw the loop top on, and then turn it upside down to mix gently.

My next solution was to use a bar spoon. Many of them have a twisty handle, which allows you to make layered drinks, but can make the handle seem thinner and weaker than a regular spoon. You can buy one on its own for a few dollars (the one I found at Bed Bath and Beyond was $2), but they also come with a lot of bar accessory kits if you plan to practice your Tom Cruise in Cocktail skills! If you want something a little sturdier, you can also purchase iced tea spoons (also known as sweet tea spoons) which are more like regular spoons with longer handles.

If you need an insulated bottle for soup or other hot food, I recommend one of the smaller bottles (unless you want to use a long handled spoon to eat your lunch).  The 12 ounce bottle is only 6.5″ tall, so you can fit plenty of food inside and still get a spoon to the very bottom. Besides, it’s so little and cute!

When I was in elementary school, we moved to warm sunny southern California and the need for warm winter clothes vanished.  I had a few jackets for the inevitable winter rain, but usually I wore sweatshirts when the weather turned cold.  The few jackets I had were chosen more because they were cute and had long sleeves than for actual insulation purposes.

After college, I moved to the Bay Area.  It’s only a few hours north, but man does that distance make a difference.  After only a few months, winter began and I was cold.  All of my warm weather clothes (short sleeved shirts, capris, shorts) were abandoned, and I began the pursuit of adequate warmth.

My mom took pity on me and gave me a secondhand jacket from LL Bean (secondhand because my sister specifically asked for it as her Christmas gift and then decided that she didn’t want it, so I got a brand new jacket that my sister had rejected).  It was waterproof and lined with wool, so it was supposed to be perfect for the inclement weather I had to deal with.

It kept me warm, but on my uphill trudge after work, I would start sweating.  It was a strange sensation – half of my body was still freezing and the other half of my body was sweating.  I could have lived with that (kind of) but the wool lining itched my neck and anywhere that it came in contact with my skin.

That Christmas, Mr. Awesome’s mom gave me a pair of cute holiday socks: bright red wool with white reindeer.  I was looking forward to having warm feet…until I put them on and my feet started to itch.

Undaunted, a few years later, I bought a wool blend coat, thinking that since it was lined, the wool wouldn’t touch my skin and bother me.  What I neglected to consider was the collar touching the back and sides of my neck.  Every time I wore that coat, my neck would get red and itchy.  I tried wearing a scarf underneath to separate my skin from the wool, but I somehow always ended up scratching at myself like I had bedbugs.

After that, I gave up on wool.  I resigned myself to a wool-free existence, which didn’t seem too bad.  In this day and age, there are a lot of other insulating materials that provide warmth, so I just had to make sure to read labels carefully when buying scarves, hats, and winter jackets to make sure they were wool free, which seemed a small price to pay in order to stay itch free.

Last month while I was looking for a winter hat, I found a pair of magenta gloves by SmartWool.  I made an immediate beeline to them, only to see that they were 100% wool.  The label said that this wool is itch free, so I decided to give it a try. I put on the pretty gloves and walked around the store for twenty minutes to see if my hands got hot, sweaty, or itchy.  All that happened was that my hands got cozy warm without the slightest trace of an itch!  How awesome is this color?

I used to hate pink.  When I was little, my younger sister and I each picked a favorite color.  I chose blue and she chose pink.  That was that.  We did not deviate from that for years.  I can count on one hand how many pink things I owned: a sweet vest with tons of pockets that my sister and I both got at KidsMart, a pale pink party dress that my grandmother gave me for my birthday when I was nine years old, a bitchin’ neon pink mesh piece of fabric that my sister and I used to tie around our heads as 80s headbands (we have a picture of both of us wearing said headband while posing with the Easter Bunny at an egg hunt), a fuchsia satin prom dress that my mom made for me, and a coral sweater/Hammer pants outfit from high school.  Who would not love such kick ass pants?

What is that pattern, you ask?  Mendhi?  Something in a trendy tribal print?  Complex hidden messages?  I always thought they were little men dancing, but I’ll let you be the judge.  Check out the extreme close up:

This was the extent of my acceptance of pink.  Aside from the few examples (and a costume I was forced to wear in a school play), I shunned pink for most of my life.  On the rare occasion that I allowed pink into my life, I wanted bright screaming pink.  Pastel pink was an abomination relegated to baby clothes and bathrooms.

Then about four years ago, I started to like pink again.  It was totally out of nowhere.  First I bought one pink tank top, and it was just an anomaly.  Then I had several pink things and I finally realized I LOVED PINK.  Where did this come from?  I have no idea.  It culminated in a holy grail search for a discontinued fuchsia Tylie Malibu purse, complete with fuchsia crystals:

Even though I love pink, I am very particular about the shades that I like, so finding some magenta gloves was really exciting.  I saw some pink socks, but I decided to go with blue.  These are the popcorn cable socks that I decided to buy with my gloves:

I wasn’t crazy about the greenish hue on the toes and heel, but I figured that no one would ever see that part of the sock besides me.  These socks have extra cushioning on the sole, which gives extra support.  That is really awesome for me because my feet are completely flat.  If they were any flatter, they would bend upward.

I used to wonder how it was possible for my feet to sweat but still be so cold.  Now I never have to wonder again because these socks kept my feet my feet warm without any itching or sweating.  I started looking online, because $20 is a lot for a pair of socks.  Sierra Trading Post had a bunch of SmartWool socks, most of them 40-50% cheaper than the retail price!  It must have been my lucky day because the website was having a sale, so everything was an additional 20% off AND I found an online coupon!  I decided that in light of all the extra savings, I should buy a bunch of different socks to see which ones I liked the best.

One of the really awesome things about SmartWool socks is that they have different levels of cushioning: no cushion at all, extra light, light, medium, heavy, and extra heavy.  The knee high ski socks also have extra compression on the shins and the tops of the feet for even more support.  I wore these the other night at a performance, and they were great.  Usually by the end of my third set, my feet are sweaty and sore, my shins ache, and the inside of my pleather boot covers are slick with sweat.  One night with these cute argyle socks and no more sweaty calves or feet!

The moral of the story: I am now totally in love with high quality merino wool.  As long as I don’t itch, I am happy!  SmartWool has a bunch of information on their website about the moisture wicking properties of their wool, why it doesn’t itch, etc. but honestly, I feel this is similar to the way that I feel about the inner workings of my tv and my car: as long as it works, I’m fine with believing that magical fairies do all the work.

And because I can’t resist posting pictures of cute stuff, this is the adorable (boiled wool) sweater coat that I bought the same weekend that I found the gloves and socks.  Looking back, it was an unintentional wool weekend!  Even though this sweater looks thin (which it is), it’s unbelievably warm.  I wore it with just a thin, long sleeved cotton henley underneath to run errands until after dark and was comfortable both inside stores and outside.  One of the reasons I do not miss Chicago winters is I hated bundling up to the point of sweat inside the house, going outside in the freezing cold, arriving at my destination, going inside all sweaty, and then peeling it all off.  With this sweater coat, I did not have wild temperature fluctuations.   And I love the ruffles – feminine without being juvenile!

SmartWool also makes clothes (none as cute as the purple sweater), but I haven’t tried any yet. You can find their socks and other accessories at REI and other outdoorsy type stores.  A friend of mine is totally in love with Icebreaker, another company that sells merino wool products, but I have yet to try them. They are having a sale through December 15th so if you are interested, leave a comment below so I can send you the link. You will receive a coupon code for one of the following: 20% off, 50% off, a free Bodyfit or Superfine top, a free pair of socks, or free two day shipping!

Enter Peanut Butter & Co!  Their peanut butter is not full of hydrogenated oils or other icky stuff AND it doesn’t separate.  Like at all.  It stays creamy and smooth without any layer of oil floating on top, and it spreads easily.

I learned about this company from reading Evan’s blog, Food Makes Fun Fuel, because he looooooves White Chocolate Wonderful and Mighty Maple. Peanut Butter and Co sells their products online at their adorably named website www.ilovepeanutbutter.com, but at $6 per jar plus $9.69 for ground shipping for just one jar ($10.40 for two jars), I decided that was a little too much for me to try some peanut butter. Luckily, the store locator said that a few grocery stores near my house sell their products too. I’ve been burned by that a few times, scouring a store that is supposed to sell a specific product, only to find that particular location no longer carries whatever I’m looking for, but I decided to stop by and look anyway.

It must have been my lucky day because they had several flavors in stock AND they were all on sale for $3.99 each! I decided to try White Chocolate Wonderful (thanks to Evan singing its praises and slathering it on every kind of carb known to man), Dark Chocolate, and the Bee’s Knees (with honey). Sadly, no Mighty Maple but I am willing to be persistent and check out some of the other local grocery stores that are supposed to carry this brand too.

White Chocolate Wonderful is really wonderful, like the name says. Eaten straight out of the jar, it has a mild sweetness that gives the peanut butter an interesting depth. But once I put it on bread, the difference between this and regular run of the mill peanut butter became much more apparent. I don’t get a straight, one note white chocolate flavor. Rather, the sweetness of the white chocolate really softens the overall taste of the peanut butter and adds a nice contrast to the salty and savory flavor of regular peanut butter. I can’t wait to try this on apples, in marinades, and anything else I can slather this stuff on!

I’ve been making myself eat a slice of Ezekiel 4:9 bread each night as a healthy snack, and I’m not crazy about the bread itself so I smear on some PB & Co. and suddenly I don’t mind eating this healthy bread anymore because all I can taste is the sweet, creamy peanut butter!

This is one of the shortest reviews of written so far, but I will update once I’ve tried the other flavors!

11/13/09 – Update!  I didn’t want to seem like a glutton by opening three brand new jars of peanut butter all at once, so I have tried to pace myself a little bit.  Even so, I couldn’t wait to try the other two flavors!

The Bee’s Knees has a slight honey taste to it, but there isn’t a whole lot of peanut flavor in this peanut butter.  The honey flavor isn’t strong either, so I will probably stick with White Chocolate Wonderful for flavored peanut butter.  The pros: visible flecks of honey in the peanut butter and a very smooth, spreadable texture.  It’s much softer than WCW, which is a big plus for me.  When I use WCW, I microwave the bread for about 30 seconds beforehand, which helps the WCW melt nicely.  With the Bee’s Knees, the extra warmth isn’t necessary.  It glides on beautifully!

I have mixed feelings about Dark Chocolate.  Honestly, there is no discernible peanut butter flavor.   But can I really complain when in its place is delicious chocolate?  I used to love Nutella, but this suits my chocolate craving even better.  My minor quibble is that it’s all chocolate, without any peanut butter flavor at all.  I love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, so it’s a little bit disappointing that I don’t get that combo with this product, but again I point out: CHOCOLATE!  This is even softer and more spreadable than the Bee’s Knees, which is awesome.  I tried them separately and then tried layering them on top of each other.  YUM!

I still haven’t been able to find Mighty Maple at any of my local grocery stores and I can’t justify spending $16 to buy one jar online, but I will continue to hunt for it.  In the mean time, I have three tasty flavors to keep my busy!

I started seeing lots of cute metal water bottles, but my friend told me that right after she bought her shiny new metal water bottle, she dropped it and put a huge dent in it. That didn’t exactly encourage me to run out and buy one. Most of the metal water bottles I saw were much smaller than my awesome hot pink Nalgene bottle, so I often slowed down when I saw the new metal bottles but never seriously considered buying one.

I started looking at new water bottles online (my theory being there were a lot more choices on the internet than in the stores where I happened to see them). That’s when I learned that most of the metal water bottles are made of aluminum, which can react with acidic beverages (like apple juice or orange juice), leaching toxins and chemicals. For that reason, all aluminum bottles are lined. With what, you ask? Often it’s baked on epoxy or plastic. Both of these types of liners can leach BPA or other chemicals, and both types of liners can get scratched up, exposing the aluminum. Sometimes ceramic is used to line aluminum bottles, but the ceramic can crack. Sigg, one of the big companies that makes aluminum bottles, won’t disclose what their lining is made of, so take that as you will. (Update: a few months after I posted this blog, Sigg admitted that their liners in bottles manufactured before a certain date contain BPA so my paranoia was not unfounded)

Klean Kanteen bottles, on the other hand, are made from food grade stainless steel, the same material used in most food processing, dairies, and breweries. In other words, whatever concerns you may have about drinking water out of a stainless steel container shouldn’t be an issue if you’re okay with drinking beer or milk.

Unlike Siggs and a lot of the other bottles out there, Klean Kanteen bottles have a wide enough mouth that you can put regular sized ice cubes in and wash the bottles easily. Sigg solved these two problems by offering special ice cube trays and bottle cleaners, but that seems like too much extra stuff I need to buy. I’m all for accessories, but they have to be cute and bottle cleaners do not fall into that category.

Another big plus for Kleen Kanteen is that their bottles come in multiple sizes, including a big 40 ounce bottle! Finally, something that could take the place of my beloved 34 ounce Nalgene bottle! I bought two 40 ounce bottles, one in brushed silver and one in a bright blue. My theory was that I would have one bottle for home use and one for work.

The first thing I noticed was that unscrewing the cap made a horrendous screeching sound. Mr. Awesome said it probably wouldn’t be so bad once the bottles had water inside, and he was correct.

The second thing I noticed was that the bottles had a slightly metallic smell to them. As you know, you taste what you smell, so the metallic smell of the bottles made me taste the water as slightly metallic. There are some solutions to this: first, don’t inhale while drinking. I know that sounds self-explanatory since inhaling while drinking can cause choking, coughing, and sputtering, but once I made a conscious effort not to inhale right before I took a drink, there was less metallic smell/taste. The other thing that really helped was washing the bottles, particularly the inside and outside of the rims, with baking soda a few times. After I washed with baking soda the first time, there was a noticeable decrease in the metallic smell, but it was still there. I had assumed that one quick wash with baking soda would do the trick, so it wasn’t until the next day when I was at work that I realized there was still a little bit of the metallic smell and taste, kind of what I imagine licking a quarter would be like (only colder). I washed again with baking soda after work and that seemed to do the trick.

The bottles are not insulated at all, so I either fill my bottle with cold water from the refrigerator or I use filtered tap water (room temperature) and put the bottle in the refrigerator before I go to bed so that it’s nice and cold when I take it to work the next morning. The bottles do sweat, so it’s helpful to have a coaster, a folded up napkin/towel, or an insulated tote (more on that later) so that you don’t end up with a little puddle underneath your bottle.

So which is better? The plain stainless or the one with the pretty color? It’s a toss up. I think that the blue bottle had less metallic odor initially and it faded more quickly, but the plain stainless bottle seems to stay cold a little bit longer. I have no scientific data to back up either of these claims though!

One thing I dislike about these bottles is that the lip of bottle is exposed, even with the cap screwed on. The rim, which is where I put my mouth, is exposed at all times. One day while driving to work, someone cut me off and when I slammed on my brakes, my water bottle flew off the passenger seat and onto the floor. It rolled around a bit before I was able to pick it up, and by then the entire bottle, including the drinking edge, was covered in the dust and debris from the floor of my car. Yuck!

I initially disliked that there was no leash to keep the lid attached to the bottle, but the slanted design of the top allows me to lean it at an angle so that it won’t roll off my desk. I also started remembering how many times I’d accidentally whacked myself in the face when the attached lid on my Nalgene bottle rotated while I was drinking, so maybe not having a leash is a good thing.

I bought one of the insulated totes to keep my work bottle cold a little longer since it sits on my desk all day. It seems to work pretty well. If I had two of the exact same bottle, I would love to do an experiment to see just how well the neoprene sleeve works, but for now I’ll just have to be happy that my water stays cold for a few hours.

The neoprene sleeve has a few issues though. First, they are made by Built to fit multiple bottles by different companies. The one I bought fits both the 32 ounce and the 40 ounce bottles. Both bottles have the same circumference, but the 40 ounce bottle is taller, which means that the top loop of the tote doesn’t quite work. The bottle fits inside the top loop, but it’s then difficult to use the top loop to hold the bottle because there is barely enough room to squeeze my fingers between the loop and the cap. There is another loop on the body of the bottle, but it’s a bit awkward to use. Holding the loop on the body makes the bottle crooked, meaning I can’t hold it straight up and down, so I have this paranoid feeling that my off kilter bottle may fall forward.

Another problem is that the when I pull the top loop up, the neoprene rubs against the exposed drinking rim of the bottle. This leads to the third problem, which is the neoprene itself stinks. That’s because neoprene is essentially rubber treated with a lot of chemicals. I don’t think it’s necessarily the healthiest thing to inhale all the gross neoprene chemicals every time I drink out of my water bottle, but even if it were totally safe, I can’t stand smelling that stench every time I take a sip. I’m trying to find a better water bottle holder. I found a company called GreenSmart that makes their insulated totes out of recycled plastic water bottles. According to them, their Neogreene products have twice the insulating properties of stinky old neoprene, but their totes don’t accommodate the big 40 oz. bottles I have, so I haven’t bought one.

The 40 ounce Klean Kanteen fits perfectly into the cup holder in my car, but once I added the neoprene sleeve it was just a smidge too big to fit into the cup holder. Luckily I have a big flip up storage console in the armrest, so I still have somewhere to put it while driving, but not everyone has that option.

I was content with my 40 ounce Klean Kanteen, but then I saw something really exciting – a new model with an even wider mouth! The new Klean Kanteen Wide is for all of us who miss the size and shape of our old Nalgene bottles. The new model accommodates water filters for people who hike or camp (not me). But even better, the cap screws onto the outside of the mouth which means that the drinking lip is now completely covered – yay! The shape of the new wide mouth bottle is a little different. The classic Klean Kanteen tapers at the top so the top of the bottle is narrower than the footprint of the bottle. The new wide mouth does not taper at the top, and as a result, the bottle is a little shorter. That means it fits inside the neoprene sleeve a little better.  They also have a monster 64 ounce bottle available in the wide version!

One side note: the original Klean Kanteen comes with a plastic (BPA-free) cap. When I ordered my new wide mouth Klean Kanteen, I ordered a stainless steel cap for my original Klean Kanteen. I figured what the hell, I’m already paying for shipping so why not? When my order arrived, Mr. Awesome put my new stainless steel cap on my old bottle and showed me that the stainless steel cap has an overhang so that the lip of the bottle is completely covered, which is awesome! I just wish that their website mentioned that because I would have bought that cap sooner if I had known!

Klean Kanteen has a great side by side comparison of their classic bottle versus the new wide bottle here in case you can’t decide.