Echo, make me a smoothie

I realized that I didn't post my Christmas gifts this year, and since I've been using my two favorite gifts since that time, I thought I'd pass these little gems along..

The entire month of December I shopped on Amazon, and every time I logged on to their site, the Echo popped up. It was also heavily featured in several holiday commercials, and so I decided I wanted one. Then Google introduced their version, played their own holiday commercials, and it convinced me even more that I needed one of these contraptions.

Friend: "But what does it do?"

I had no idea. I then had to research it because, hello, I live with a man who researches everything, and I have learned well. I read about Amazon's Echo and then read about Google's Home. I compared the two, and realized that neither one of them would really work in my house because I don't have a smart home and without all those other synced contraptions these devices are simply speakers. I gave up on my obsession.

But then I got one! Tom got some deal on them and ordered three Echo Dots, one for each of the women in his household. While I felt this a bit excessive, I understand why now. People, you need to have these in every room of the house!

Madison took hers to college, but Darcy and I use our Echo Dots here at home; mine is in the living room and hers is in her room. Unfortunately, for us, her room is right next to the living room so each time we said "Alexa" to our respective Echo Dots they both lit up and obeyed our commands, usually seconds apart. It was like having...well...an echo. (Insert emoji here because I didn't plan that) So I researched ways to stop that nonsense, and discovered I could change my command to awake from "Alexa" to "Echo" and now we don't have that problem. You can also change it to "Amazon", but that conjures up another picture in my head, and so I went with the object.

My Echo Dot connects to a Bluetooth speaker that I also got for Christmas. It makes her responses louder, and I can hear it outside on my front porch too with the window open. Otherwise, the voice just comes out of the dot which is just fine too. It is voice activated and will "wake up" to "Echo". I'm still learning all of the tricks of my dot, but the best thing for our family is the music. Oh, the music that has come back into our lives. This usually happens around resolution time when my husband feels he hasn't enjoyed music enough and makes it his priority for the new year. This year he subscribed to Amazon Music and it is full of all sorts of music genres. Want to hear a song that you've read about or heard on the radio? Just ask Echo and she will play it. Recently, I learned how to make playlists in my music file and Echo happily plays those for me, shuffling them if I ask. It is never quiet in my house now during the day.

Echo Dot can do other things as well, but her knowledge is limited. Ask her the weather somewhere in the world and she is on it. She is great with sport scores, telling time, and working closely with your Iphone, but ask her something like the difference between echo dot and google, and she simply will admit defeat. I'm sure this is where Google Home would surpass Echo, but hey, I can also order Amazon gifts using Echo so its good no matter. She can also play games, and while I've downloaded some of those, I haven't been able to go without the music long enough to try them out.

The only downside that I've found is that everyone wants to fight over playing their music. Darcy will come home from school and tell Echo to stop playing my music and then will tell it to play her latest obsession, the soundtrack from Dear, Evan Hanson.

Me: "Hey! You have your own damn Echo."
Darcy: "But yours is right here where we all congregate."

My second favorite gift that I use daily is my Hamilton Beach Single Serving Smoothie Maker. I saw this thing online and knew immediately that I needed it. The thing I hate about using my blender or my old smoothie maker is the clean up. Yee Gads, cleaning those things is like cleaning the toilet. It takes forever and there are too many parts and nooks and crannies. This little single maker is just perfect because there are only three parts, the motor, the plastic container, and the lid. Bam. Simple

I plug the sucker in each morning, add yogurt, almond milk, a fruit and maybe some spinach, throw in some ice cubes, put the lid on and push the button. It grinds and spins and before I know it I have a healthy drink to sip on my way to the gym.

But the great thing about this...the plastic container comes off and is your glass! Yep, no need to pour into another container just unlock and go.

My kids didn't like that the blade mechanism is at the bottom of the "cup", but it doesn't bother me one bit. I drink my smoothie usually in the car or at home so I can't attest to strange looks, but I love it. When I'm finished, I clean two items and turn them upside down to air dry. I bought mine on Amazon for $14. Target and Walmart both sell them for that price too, and I think it also comes in more colors now then when I bought mine. The pink was the cheapest on Amazon so that's how I ended up with that one. I put the item on my wishlist, but when I didn't find it under the tree I bought it myself I had the dog empty his piggy bank to get it for me.

Sometimes the best gifts come are the ones you buy yourself the dog purchases.