I dare you to do some googling about High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

See??? Scary stuff! I don’t like feeding that to my kids. The twins both love French Toast and waffles, however, I refuse to feed them syrup that is made entirely from HFCS. The alternative, of course, is pure maple syrup, but at $10 for a teensy little bottle, that adds up pretty quickly. The solution? Make our own fruit syrup. They love this!

1 cup berries

1/2 cup water

1/2 tablespoon honey

Boil ingredients until fruit is limp and the syrup smells good. Put it all in a food processor and puree. Serve warm over pancakes, french toast — whatever your heart desires! Mmmmmmmm. And a bonus — it makes the house smell good!

PS — More illustrations coming as I am getting one of these, courtesy of Dell Computers because they feel sooooo bad my new computer broke and it took them a MONTH to get me a new one! Yay me!

I’ve been very blessed the last 10 years to have been able to build a business and work from home. For the most part I really enjoy what I do. I get to be creative which I like, I work on the computer which I enjoy, and there is plenty of wiggle room for procrastination which is my nature. I like to fool around alot until I am under the wire for deadline and then I can really crank out the goods. Most of the time, for some reason, this approach has me producing my best stuff. I can’t really say why.

I work as a web developer, and in light of this, I’ve been buying top of the line computers for the past 10 years, upgrading every 3 years or so. I usually migrate down the used computers to the kids, and once I even traded a computer for a dairy goat — my first dairy goat. That, my friends, was a good trade.

Sometimes I like to read “frugal living” blogs to find out tips and tricks on how I can trim our lifestyle here and there. One article on upgrading your computer at Cash Money Life caught my attention today. He recommends not buying the extended warranty on a computer. I beg to differ, and here is why:

My first internet connection was modem based, and something was really wonky with our phone line. I kept blowing out the modem on my system. Because I did buy the extended warranty, the computer manufacturer sent a guy out to my house to replace that modem no less than five times. Definitely paid for itself on that system.

Next system. Somehow acquired a virus. Wiped out everything. Again, they sent a guy out to repair, wipe clean and re-install all my stuff. Even recovered the data on the hard drive. Cost to me? zilch. Paid for the warranty again.

Next system. Booted up to hard-drive failure. No idea why. The next day the guy came out again with a new hard drive, salvaged my data and I was good to go.

Finally, my laptop. I agonized over whether to get the “accidental if you drop it or if it is stolen we will replace it” warranty. I did, and was kicking myself thereafter for spending the money in a “moment of sales pitch weakness”. Until. Until lightning hit our house. Hit just as I was reaching behind the laptop to unplug it. The surge went through two surge protectors to fry my system, and I felt the “Zap” run up my arm. The computer? Totally dead. Can you guess? Yep, brand spanking new system in two days. Even recovered data.

I am not here as a sales pitch for the extended warranty although it may look like it. That’s why I purposely left out what brand of computer I buy. I just felt it was important to maybe get another perspective on this. I never buy extended warranties for anything: cameras, cars, TVs. But, because my computer is my livelyhood I made the choice to go that route on the computer every time. And so far it has been a good choice.

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow! I am working on a landscape watercolor that is taking more time to complete, but you all will be the first to know when it is ready. Until then, enjoy little Mr. Owl doodle. He’s been hanging around in my head since about 8th grade.