The Morning Show with Mike & Susan

First, you can do it the old fashioned way. Remember the days of checking the newspaper ads.

Second, you can search for online coupons for whatever you are shopping to buy. There are coupons for just about everything these days. You can even find some free stuff. I say a coupon for a free roast beef at Arby’s the other day.

Fourth, you can search on line for the best price. This is the best method of insuring that you are getting the best price for whatever you are shopping for. WalMart saves 60% of their cost of goods sold when the purchase is made online. Hence, they will now ship the product to the store for you to pick up in the store for free. No shipping and since most of us go to WalMart (some 265,000,000 weekly) regularly we can get the product sent to us for free and not pay anything additional by having to drive out of our way to pick it up. But, what if WalMart doesn’t have the best price, and often they don’t.

The Internet is rigged.  Here’s how: merchants pay to come up early in any search. So, the first three to six pages for any search are there because they have paid to be there. It has nothing to do with whether than have the best price. And, did you know that 95% of all purchases are made on the first three pages of a search. Doesn’t insure that you are getting a bargain basement price for the item.

To go beyond the first three pages in your search can take hours. A friend recently needed a camera lens. He searched for two hours to find what he thought was the best price. Did he find it? He paid $249 for the lens. But did he get the best price? He thought he did.

D. Bruce Scott, Author and public speaker writes about consumers saving money on everything they buy. He has contributed to articles on employment, homeschooling, shopping, home based businesses and other economic related matters. His website includes a tool for shopping that literally saves money for everyone every time they use it. The website address is, http://www.AmazingShoppingFun.com. Check it out

GOOD EATS ROAST TURKEY RECIPE (got it from Alton Brown)

Ingredients

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:

• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 gallon vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
• 1 gallon heavily iced water

For the aromatics:

• 1 red apple, sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup water
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 6 leaves sage
• Canola oil

Directions

Click here to see how it’s done.

2 to 3 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.

Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you’d like to eat:

Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey’s cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

My grandkids are just the cutest…..Baby Ryan is 3 months and the cutest Tigger ever

Tomorrow on the show -  We’ll also tell you how to send a letter into the future! ….wait til you hear how long the average man ends up waiting for us girls!  

So, how long do you think it is - or should be that a man has to wait? Guys, speak up too!

 

 

 

Task.fm  acts like a personal secretary, or nagging mother. You can use it to manage to-do lists, remember to pay bills and arrange a wake-up call, and most features are free. You don’t have to go in and manually set dates and times, because it understands natural language. For example - type “lunchPaige Tuesday at noon” that would be enough information to get it to remind me at just the right time. It’s pretty amazing. You can create reminders on the site, or you can e-mail it or Twitter it to set up reminders, and you choose whether it reminds you via text, e-mail or phone call.  There’s a free version too!!

In Houston - and surrounding areas this comes in really handy!!Find coffee shops and other cozy places to meet almost exactly halfway between far-away friends that are a drive apart with A Place Between Us. It’s free. Type in the addresses each person will be coming from, then describe the sort of place at which you’d like to meet. The default is coffee shop, but you can also pick a certain kind of restaurant, like “donut shop” or “tacos.” It will find you a place like that as close to the middle as possible. It will map directions to the meeting place for each of you.  How cool is that!?

 

Elephants don’t forget
One thing no one ever tells you about adulthood is that it involves an inordinate amount of time spent remembering to buy people presents, and then to write thank-you notes when you’re on the receiving end. Gift Elephant is an online system that keeps track of all the presents you’ve ever given and received, for free. It manages your thank-you notes and reminds you of upcoming holidays and birthdays and special occasions. For a small fee, they’ll even print and mail thank-you notes on your behalf, personalized with your own photos if you wish.

 

Got this information from the Today show website!

We’re hearing from kids and parents who took part in See You at the Pole this morning.  Many of them said they’d had more people this year than ever before. 

Others said they were the only ones for a while until others got the idea and came to join them.

What is it that the kids say? 6 things that may really get on your nerves!

I want to tell you what I brought back from Florida that I want to use all of the time…..but first…couldn’t resist… Here’s the best picture of my little baby grandson, Ryan.

 

 

I got it while I was in Florida - at Disney - they call it a Fast Pass.  For us, it was a pink arm band that meant that while we were in the park if we wanted to go on a ride that had a long line we could show the band and there was a special line that zipped right through and we were in it! Now it didn’t mean that we could jump in front of other people - it was a totally different line that took you right to the front! I have refused to take mine off my arm!

Now, I know that I’m not in the park any more but I’m hoping that we can get people to recognize the idea of a fast pass in other areas of life!  Can you imagine using a Fast Pass at the grocery store on a Saturday or the Post Office (pretty much any day!) Maybe for seating at a restaurant on a Friday night or Sunday after church? There’s a huge line - you hold up your pink arm band and Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip! you are in the front! 

Now, in the Disney park, people don’t get mad about the Fast Pass people getting ahead because they know that they have paid for the privilege to Fast Pass….so, it’s not like you’re leaving angry people in the wake of your Fast Pass through.  See!? I love this.

I’m not taking my Fast Pass band off - I’m thinking it could make life a lot easier!!

So a neighbor asks to use your stroller  (that you don’t need anymore) as an extra for her family and you agree.  Then a few weeks later you’re babysitting and you need to use the stroller for taking the baby for a walk - and you send the kids next door to get it - and the neighbor says NO! They’re not going to give you your own stroller for the walk -

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

 

Catherine Kruppa your nutritionist  has the skinny on the fattening foods we all tend to eat at Thanksgiving and wait til you hear how many calories a Traditional Thanksgiving meal has to offer!   Get the details on the show This week or  check out  her website.

 

We wanted to help out the family with this website dedicated for helping families find local restaurants that let the kids eat free!

Check it out! http://www.usakidseatfree.com/territories.aspx

So, I love baseball…the Astros and the Cubs are my favorites and this season opened with both of them at Minute Maid Park.  I took off early, grabbed by daughter and our baseball babe buddies and we girls went to the game!  There was a huge crowd, lots of people having a party!  People were dressed to let people know who they supported!  There were tents with all kinds of food and give aways…there were lines out the door and way down the street to get tickets to be part of it all…even some people paying way over the ticket price to get to be in on the Opening Day. I loved it! Had a blast…and last night I was thinking…..

There’s another Opening Day coming…Easter …Opening Day for we Christians is Easter and I really wish that it was celebrated with the same kind of excitement and party atmosphere that opening day of baseball season is celebrated.  I mean, I’ve already admitted that I was there for the party Monday at Minute Maid too…but I’m wishing that more people would want to celebrate Easter with the same abandon and excitement.  Dressing to let people know they love Jesus - not so much the clothes but putting on Christ himself to show people who they really are!

Grace and a risen Christ make us unlike any other religion….and the Risen Christ is the joy of knowing we serve a living God.  It’s so powerful to know that God so loved us that He gave His Only Son so that anyone who believes on Him can have life everlasting - but how powerful is it that although He died for our sins….He conquered death once and for all and He LIVES!  HE IS RISEN AND HE LIVES! ?

Monday I watched the Opening Day crowd dancing to music, making a circus type atmosphere to surround the activities of baseball….and I thought of all of the sedate commemorations of Easter I attended as a child in my hometown in Indiana…everyone dressed in their finest and new shiney shoes and I thought…that’s nice, but I want us to celebrate this with abandon and parties!  He is Risen! He was dead but now lives…forever!  and I can live forever because of Him!!  Let’s party! Let’s dance to the music, sing the songs at the top of our lungs…set up tents…close off the streets and celebrate!!  It’s OPENING DAY - the stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty…..the tomb is still empty!! He LIVES!  Now this is a REAL Opening Day!!