Last Thursday Rundown I was writing on Halloween! It is now November and we are four weeks away from Thanksgiving. Here we go with my first Thursday Rundown of the month…

My Little Girl – We recently got back our family photos and I hope to share some of those in the near future. But tonight I just wanted to share Sloan’s school photo. There is only one question to ask: Does she look like mommy or daddy?!

This little girl though…

Trick-or-Treating with Sloan – Before Sid called to tell us to come home, Sloan and I had a great time navigating the streets of our neighborhood on Halloween. I once again pushed Sloan in her car as we trick-or-treated at some pretty festive houses. In South Carolina, because it is always nice out, you don’t go up to the door because people just set up a table at the end of the driveway and pass out candy that way. This was my sixth Halloween in Myrtle Beach and I am still not used to candy melting because it is so hot.

Sloan and I pulled up to one of those houses that had a bucket outside with nobody occupying it.

That’s A Long Time to Celebrate Christmas – My friend posted the below image on her Facebook wall. I know a lot of people who follow a similar calendar, including some who don’t even bother to circle the Thanksgiving dates. Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny.

Do you follow a calendar like this?

Cheer for the Chants – Tonight, Coastal Carolina University will be on national television once again. Our football team is hosting a Thursday night contest against Louisiana at 7:30 p.m. ET. To all my west coast friends, make sure to tune in to ESPNU if you want to see our teal turf in all of its glory under the lights. Go Chants!

Watch the Chants on Thursday night football.

C-SPAN Bus – A rather large vehicle rolled onto campus today. The famous C-SPAN Bus, rivaled only in popularity by the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, stopped by Coastal Carolina University for a few hours today. The bus travels the country and stops at colleges and high schools to expose Americans to C-Span’s political and educational resources. I had a chance to visit the bus while covering it for social media and was impressed by the interactive experience that it offered.

It was interesting to visit the C-SPAN Bus today. It made a visit to Coastal Carolina University.

————–

Thanks for spending part of your Thursday evening with me. I will be leaving the state on Sunday but will touch base with you that morning with details. Don’t Blink.

On Friday evening, I found myself in Kroger. The supermarket chain has incredible deals it rolls out on Fridays and Saturdays for members of its loyalty program. This past weekend, you could purchase boxes of Life and Cap’n Crunch variety cereals for $.99. Shelling out less than a dollar for premium cereal isn’t bad! I went in and promptly purchased four boxes.

A look at the Kroger cereal sale I took advantage of last Friday.

When I was deciding what specific kind to purchase, I found myself thinking about my history with Cap’n Crunch and how much I actually like it. Although it didn’t make my short list for my favorite unhealthy cereals, it is definitely an honorable mention. In tonight’s blog post, I want to rank the traditional Cap’n Crunch cereals. Notice how I used “traditional”? Very limited edition varieties such as the Blueberry Pancake Crunch flavor I tried last year are not eligible.

5. Cap’n Crunch – Someone had to be at the bottom, right? It isn’t that I don’t like the original Cap’n Crunch cereal, it is just that it is a little too boring for me. I love the flavor and I will put these yellow pieces of goodness on my froyo in a heartbeat, but I can’t say it is my favorite variety.

The original Cap’n Crunch. Good, just a little boring.

4. Ooops All Berries – When I eat Crunch Berries, I eat all the yellow pieces first so I can save the best for last. No doubt about it, the berries are tastier than the yellow pieces, which is why it is ahead of the original version. With that said, both pieces still need each other to be a great team. Thus, the Oops All Berries cereal finds itself in the bottom half of the countdown. While I really enjoy the taste of the berries, it needs the yellow pieces just like the marshmallows of Lucky Charms needs the toasted oat pieces.

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

3. Peanut Butter Crunch – This variety is kind of interesting because it contains no components of the other cereals…no yellow pieces or berries. Rather, you get peanut butter-flavored puffs that have no taste-resemblance to anything else within the Cap’n Crunch brand. Not that it matters to me. As a peanut butter fanatic, I really enjoy this cereal. I could eat it for at least a week straight but it does have one problem: its main competitor, Reese’s Puffs, is just so much better. It is like Peanut Butter Crunch is the less cool, chunkier older brother to the rich, lighter Reese’s Puffs.

This cereal is good…but not as good as Reese’s Puffs.

2. Crunch Berries – A classic! Not even Mike & Ike has anything on this duo. Just the aroma given off by this cereal is a winner. Not only do I like Crunch Berries but Sloan does too, eating it both dry and with milk. Speaking of eating it with milk, Crunch Berries is a cereal that tastes really, really good soggy (even if it takes away the “crunch”). A cereal that was a favorite of mine as a child and as an adult, it finishes in second place.

Can’t beat this combo! I love Crunch Berries.

1. Christmas Crunch – As a kid, I knew the Christmas season had arrived when I saw the boxes of Christmas Crunch on the shelves. Basically a clone of Crunch Berries just with different colors, the taste didn’t need to be sold on me. But the Christmas tie-in with the Captain on the front of the box with the Santa hat is what makes this cereal so magical to me. It screams the holiday season and even made a 2017 blog post that listed my top seasonal treats. In the introduction I mentioned that I wouldn’t include limited editions in this post but Christmas Crunch is produced every single year so I don’t consider it “limited,” I just consider it good.

This cereal brings back so many great holiday memories.

——————-

Who needs Morgan when you have Crunch? There is no question about who the superior captain is in my book. Have a great night, friends. Don’t Blink.

Chew on this for a moment…

Ponder this for a second.

No need to write a lot tonight because the above quote pretty much says it all. Yes, it is from last year’s Life’s Little Instructions Calendar but it is as relevant today as it was 15 years ago and will still carry the same weight 15 years from now.

As we start to think about Thanksgiving and the holiday season, it is important to keep in mind what true wealth is. In an age where our culture and those around us might measure richness by material objects, we must remember that the greatest thing given to us is love––both in the capacity to give and to receive.

So I ask that throughout the rest of 2019 to be especially mindful of those people who love you. Appreciate them and thank them, because the currency they transfer to you is much more valuable than the American Dollar.

But don’t keep all that love in the bank. Make sure to give it and express it to those around you. In much the same way that we can easily accept monetary gifts while neglecting to give back, the same goes for love.

Remember, if you love and are loved, you are richer than most. Don’t Blink.

Last night, I saw something on Facebook that was eye-opening and a little discouraging. One of my friends had shared a graphic that delivered the below sobering news.

Do you like soda? If so, you must REALLY like sugar.

SIX donuts?! EIGHTEEN cookies?! How could a harmless Dr. Pepper pack as much sugar as a half dozen Krispy Kremes?

In a way, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. I distinctly remember a junior high PE coach bluntly telling us that soda was “poison for the body.” Perhaps my parents weren’t crazy for only letting us drink it every now and then. Obviously dentists don’t warn about its enamel-decaying tendencies for nothing.

But man oh man, even with the warnings, that is a boatload of sugar! Unfortunately for me, I can’t ignore it. Over the past few years, I have bathed my teeth in layer after layer of sugar. As someone who avoided soda and would develop a headache if I even drank a small glass of the stuff, I ended up developing a taste for it. I now drink soda more days than not.

And I like it.

Although I would probably participate in No Soda November before No Shave November, I don’t plan to participate in either this month. I drank some Kroger peach soda on both Friday and Saturday so I already have a couple blemishes on the challenge.

I opened the month of November by indulging in this.

My thoughts on No Soda November? It definitely isn’t a bad thing. Despite the fact that I believe many of these well-intentioned initiatives become a little diluted just because there are so many of them, if it motivates at least some people to skip out on carbonated drinks it can’t be a bad thing. Another positive is that even if people don’t commit to the challenge, it does raise awareness. Even though I am still drinking soda, I now know the outrageous amount of sugar I am consuming with each serving.

So friends, remember: most of the added sugar in our diets comes from what we drink, not what we eat. As we reflect on this fact over the next four weeks, let’s remember to reach for a bottled water every now and then instead of that Coke. Don’t Blink.