A while back, CSN offered me the opportunity to try out one of their many online stores –they’d provide me with a gift card, I’d do the shopping and then review the experience.

It took me awhile to decide what to get — after all, we have a POD full of housewares sitting in a storage warehouse. After some contemplation though, I decided it was time for an oven safe skillet. It was easy to narrow down features, price points, and brand names, and from there, a clear winner emerged — the pans I’ve reviewed below.

Frittatas for everyone!

Originally submitted at CSN Stores

Prepare delicious omelettes every time with this versatile Calphalon pan! These 10″ and 12″ Calphalon Omelet pans features a thick, flat, wide bottom for quick, even heating and cooking. This Calphalon omelette pan has a cast stainless steel handle that stays comfortably cool f…

Contemporary Nonstick 10″ and 12″ Omelet Combo Set

Amazing pans

These are a well made combo. Unlike cheaper nonstick pans, there’s no coating to start peeling off. I use them every single day — they are a great value!

(legalese)

No related posts.

1) making sure we have the assorted “equipment” for the holidays. our Christmas boxes are at the very back of our P.O.D and BgK and I have voted not to unpack 12 feet worth of stuff to get to it.

2) making sure we have a day set aside for Jolly Days, Celebration Crossing, see the Nutcracker, drive around the Circle of  Lights, drive up to Reynolds, walk through Zoo Lights and a family trip to see Jingle Rails. Does your family make it to all of the big attractions in your area every year? Do hit the same ones over and over, or pick different ones to try? There are  so many events ,and they are all so much fun…..but doing it all won’t be fun, it will be exhausting a stressful. But how to pick?

3) making my shopping list and checking it twice. This year I’m using an Android App called Gift Pony on my loaner Samsung Fascinate. (Why do I have a loaner phone? Read about how I got the name “Princess Two Phones” over at Persephone) It tracks all the people and all the gifts (and where they are hidden, and what they cost, and if I have it in my possession, etc) and I’m hoping it will help keep the hunting and gathering under control.

4) making the whole thing meaningful for my family.

Enter the little booklet I bought today while at the local Catholic bookstore. I was going to link where you could buy the book (it’s a whole $5.99), but when I did a search, the pdf of the first chapter ….so here’s the pdf to Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family by Kathleen M. Basi. Print it out (or scroll through it), read it, and enjoy the season of Advent. While it focuses on a few Catholic specifics, I *think* any religion which observes Advent will find some helpful tips and inspiration.

After reading through this booklet (while dinner was baking, it’s a quick read), I feel better about all of the above. In a later chapter, Basi suggests writing out all of the activities you’re planning for the month and making them part of daily slips on your Advent calendar. I have a plan for an Advent calendar (paper chain), and I think we are going to do some prep work tomorrow while we wait for the Uverse guy to install our order. I’m going to plug each day into a special color on the Google calendar BgK and I share, and with any luck, the priority activities (Jolly Days, Jingle Rails, making ornaments for our real tree, getting gifts to the St. Vincent DePaul Christmas Store, and baking cookies) will all happen at a manageable pace.

Manageable pace ,manageable pace…….I’m taking any and all tips on how to keep it all at a manageable pace…..

Also, MaM asked Santa for a PogoStick for Christmas. Feel free to weigh in on that as well….

No related posts.

I couldn’t believe it – I mean, I’ve purchased things for my children on Amazon.

In scanning articles tonight, it appears that Amazon is holding to its position that it will continue to sell the e-book. Their statement in response to the criticism is as follows: “Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.”

Amazon just made it very easy for me to make a major purchasing decision — I won’t be shopping there unless that book is taken down.

Do I believe in Free Speech? Of course.

Do I believe in the Free Market Place? Of course.

What I don’t believe in is the promotion of the exploitation of children.

I don’t believe in a company so lacking in morals that it will make money selling formula, baby toys, and children’s clothing on the exact same domain name that caters to pedophiles.

They are not doing a public service by allowing this e-book to be purchased. They are doing nothing but taking an opportunity to make some money on a book that could possibly destroy children’s lives. They are looking only at the bottom dollar of what they may make on this book.

Which is really too bad for them.

If you want to read more, follow #boycottamazon on Twitter, type that search term into Google or Facebook  or try this article on Tech Crunch http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/10/amazon-defends-pedophile-how-to-guide/

(Warning: it contains an excerpt from this filth. I started physically shaking, and almost threw up reading it. It is sick, it is wrong. It is in bad taste.)

IT IS A DANGER TO CHILDREN AND NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.

I’ll keep you posted. Til then, I’m sitting on my Amazon credits. I’m not posting affiliate links. If this all dies down (as causes and boycotts sometimes do) and the book is still available, I’ll use up my credits on some more items for the Pajama Program and call it a day.

No related posts.

A Flashback: FALL 2008 Junior is more likely kick, rather than sit, on a pumpkin these days

Updated 10/23/10: This giveaway is now closed and the winner is Shelby! Thanks for playing, Shelby look for an email from me.

Five is apparently the age where you start understanding that a break from school is an anticipated event. Sunday night I was talking to MaM and she figured it out — “So I go to school for two days and then there’s FIVE at home days? That’s awesome!” And she’s been counting down ever since.

We’ve got some fun things planned — a visit to the Children’s Museum, a visit to Conner Prairie for the Headless Horseman, and a quick getaway to Brown County and the Columbus Children’s Museum. We’re even hoping to squeeze in a trip to a pumpkin patch (this week’s Savvy deal), and then there’s Trunk or Treat at church on Sunday. Phew. Should be fun!

In the spirit of all that is fall, I had the chance to preview a Taking the Scary Out of Halloween Kit by children’s author, Joy Berry. It’s a fun kit that includes glow sticks (one that’s a necklace! with a whistle!),  a fun projection flashlight and book about Halloween. The kids have had a great time with the flashlight (are mine the only ones who are constantly playing in the dark bathroom? what? they are?), and the book is a good one. It’s filled with safety tips and also some good manners lessons that can make Trick or Treating go more smoothly. The book also has fun stickers and Halloween activities.

Want to win a Halloween Safety Kit of your own? Leave a comment here, telling me your fall break plans or a costume idea or whatever you feel is seasonally appropriate  and I’ll randomly choose a winner sometime on Friday!

Happy Fall Break, Everyone!

(Disclosure: Joy Berry Books sent me a Halloween Safety Kit to review. Note: the first flashlight was jostled and broken during shipping, but its replacement arrived undamaged and worked great!)

Related posts:

1. Happy Fall (or Autumnal Equinox)
2. Fun at Kelsay Farms- A Giveaway
3. Take Me Out to the Ball Game: A Giveaway

For this year’s Blog Action Day, I’ve been reading up on water.org. The statistics are staggering and inspire me to use less if for no other reason than I otherwise feel helpless in the developing world’s plight for access to clean drinking water & I shouldn’t be plundering my good fortune.

I found a water calculator http://www.csgnetwork.com/waterusagecalc.html that can help track our family’s water use. Right now it looks like we use just under 90 gallons again, but that’s just a guess. You read it here first that I’m going t do some record keeping and research and get a more accurate count in November. I’m hoping that by checking in there every so often, we can reduce the amount of water we use. Strikes we have against us is that the fixtures in our home are all 20 years old, and we have a top-loading washing machine. I supposed we if don’t sell our home soon, we could start replacing these water-guzzlers with newer, low-flow models.

Poke around the “facts” pages at Blog Action Day and at water.org and you may be inspired to do the same thing. Water.org has several ways to spread the word and show your support, if you scroll down to the bottom of the “women’s issue” page.

Let me leave you with the video below (from water.org) and some things to think about (from blogactionday.change.org) :

More people in the world have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet.

38,000 children die each week due to dirty drinking water and unsanitary conditions.

One in eight people on the planet don’t have access to safe drinking water.

Women can’t do anything from water.org on Vimeo.

No related posts.

Blog Action day is now run by Change.org and the idea is that  bloggers across the globe all write a post on the same social-issue topic on the same day — thus spreading awareness.

In my 2007 post, I listed 5 things I was doing to help lessen my environmental impact — and  I thought today was appropriate to report how I’v been doing on these five things:

1. Reusable shopping bags: OMG, my collection is legendary. Checkers at Trader Joe’s compliment me on the fact that I have so.many.bags that I don’t need any paper bags when I shop. I only get my meat bagged in plastic, and we are to the point at my house that we really have to look for a random plastic bag when we need one. This makes me happy!

2. The powdered detergent: I have to say, I’ve started alternating between powder and liquid–the powder was gunking up my washing machine and not rinsing well. Any tips in this department are appreciated!

3. Using the dishwasher to conserve water: It still washes just as much as always, and I love it. Go Earth!

4. Bringing my own mug to the coffee shop: The reusable mug kick is largely over for me- I tend NOT to bring one with me these days. Reading my post on this was a good reminder that it’s easy and it does make a difference. Now if I can only remember….

5. Not buying bottled water: I’ve kept up the practice of rarely buying bottled water. We use reusable water bottles, which is no big deal and SO MUCH BETTER for the Earth I can’t hardly stand it! Sure there’s the occasional impulse/unprepared buy, and I’d rather buy water than anything else to drink, but it’s minimal.

One other thing we’ve started doing since that blog post was sign up for curbside recycling. We do pay a small fee, but we recycle so much more because we have one of those huge wheeled bins to fill. Also, when we signed up, we were one of the only families on our street to do so. Since then, it seems like every pick up day there’s another big blue bin on the curbside. It’s not the greatest recycling program (typical contents, except it only takes plastics #1 & #2) , but it’s better than nothing.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post – this year’s theme is WATER.

No related posts.

Cheerios® is giving you the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, your ultimate family vacation. As part of a paid promotion for their “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, Cheerios® is sponsoring my post today about what my ultimate family vacation would be. Read mine, Enter the Sweepstakes for a chance to actually win your own fantasy family trip or one of a bunch of other great prizes.

I learned early on as a new mom that vacation with kids typically isn’t a vacation — it’s a family trip. A family trip means travel, means family, means fun, means memories, but it’s not a vacation for mom. Suitcases need to be packed, children need to be entertained while traveling, and upon arrival? Oh my — there’s the sleeping away from home issue, the eating away from home issue and the pottying away from home issue. That’s a lot of issues for a 5day/6night adventure. My line of thinking is this — for it to be a real vacation at this point, it needs to be all-inclusive. And there needs to be on-site childcare so that at some point in the trip there is an actual vacation. I’ve concluded then, that our ultimate vacation would be an Alaskan Cruise.

Why Alaska? I don’t need to be paranoid about sunscreen, and I think seeing that part of the country would be amazing. I imagine it would be a National Geographic issue come to life — educational, breath-taking, interesting, and fun all in one swoop. The kids would swoon at the wildlife, I would swoon at the lack of housekeeping and cooking for which I’d be responsible, and I think it would be a win-win all around. The four of us would be able to have a lot of family time exploring what the ship had to offer, as well as swimming, sharing meals, and enjoying entertainment when we weren’t on excursions. I would make no beds. I would make no meals. I might even spring for the housekeeping staff to do our laundry. That, my friends, would be a real vacation! Where would you go??

Don’t forget to enter the “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, for a chance to win your own ultimate family vacation. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Related posts:

1. Family Vacation 2011
2. Announcing: Family Fun in the City.com!
3. Summer Vacation? We Have an App for That

“Mommy! Dad showed me the moon is out tonight ,and so’s Jupiter!”

“That’s great honey. You saw the planet Jupiter?”

“Yes, I did. Mommy, who drives Jupiter?”

“Who drives it?”

“Yes. Who drives it? Honey, it’s in orbit around the sun like our planet, Earth.”

“What’s orbit?”

“It means that something goes around something else. Jupiter and Earth orbit around the sun.”

“Oh. What does Jupiter look like?”

“It’s very big, and it’s read and has a big spot on it, there are also nine moons.” (I think. Is it red? or is Mars?)

“But what are the people like on Jupiter?’

“There are no people on Jupiter.”

“But I want to SEE Jupiter. I want to go there!”

“Well, Jupiter is very cold, you’d have to take a spaceship there” (I think it’s cold. Which planet is Jupiter? M V E M ….?)

“A spaceship? How do you drive  a spaceship?” (are they called spaceships? can you even ever get there? would it take light years?)

“Well a space ship travels in space ,and you have to be an astronaut to work in one.”

“An astronaut? What’s an astronaut?” (Where are those Tang commercials when you need them?)

“Well, an astronaut learns all about the spaceship. Most astronauts have been in the Air Force , and you have know a lot of science.” (Is it the Air Force? or is it Navy? Are they even training new astronauts? Is NASA defunct yet?)

Enter Mad Science’s KNOW Magazine. KNOW Magazine is a new, advertisement-free science magazine for kids ages 6-9 yrs old. Colorful photos, activities and interesting articles for parents and children alike will engage any budding scientist. I think MaM is seriously going to dig the experiments. I’m just hoping I can keep up with her!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by  Mom Central on behalf of Mad Science and received the products necessary to  facilitate my review. In addition, I received a gift certificate to thank me  for taking the time to participate.

No related posts.

Over cake and ice cream Sunday (for my mom and myself) we determined the only months our immediate family doesn’t celebrate birthdays are May, July and December. Other than that, we have birthday cake nine months out of the year!

On my in-laws side things are a bit more lopsided. Granted, there are a lot more people (BgK is the oldest of seven), but still, here’s the break down is this – ten of twenty one birthdays are celebrated in September-October-November. TEN.

It’s not your imagination or just my Facebook calendar that says September and October are birthday months–it’s an actual statistical fact. The most common American birthday? October 5th! (I have one friend celebrating that day, then 8 more with other October birthdays, just on Facebook)

1-800 Flowers has some fun things planned this fall in honor of all these birthdays. See what they’ve got going on over on Facebook www.facebook.com/1800flowers you could win flowers for a year — or follow them on Twitter www.twitter.com/1800flowers .

Is there a day or a month that is full of birthdays for you? Is it a fall month, by chance? Inquiring minds want to know!

And for those birthday flowers you need to send (the above images are just a small sample of what’s available):

Save 15% on Birthday Flowers & Gifts at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. Promo Code: BIRTHDAY15

(Disclosure: this is the first of two posts in a series for 1-800 Flowers.com promoting their Deliver Birthday Smiles Campaign. I am receiving a free product for participating in this promotion)

Related posts:

1. Happy Birthday, Grandma!

So it is with great excitement that I present to you the first offering (there will be a new one each week):

A HALF PRICE FAMILY MEMBERSHIP TO THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF INDIANAPOLIS!!!! (deal should be live early Monday morning!)

I know, it’s HUGE, right? For $60 (a $120 value) you can enjoy the museum all year long with your family. If you frequent this blog, you know that we are huge fans. We’ve been going since MaM was about one, and the kids both love every floor of that place.

Not in Indy? Here are the rest of this week’s deals:

Atlanta: $17 for creative playtime at Farmhouse in the City

No related posts.