Category: product reviews/giveaways

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One EskimO–Give Them a Listen

A long, long time ago (in the last millennium, to be exact), I used to go with my college roomie down to the Patio in Broad Ripple Village on Thursday nights. We’d leave our dorm after ER was over (that’s 11pm EST) and go see shows for a few dollars a piece. We’d sing along and dance and dance, stay til 1 or 2 am and then catch a few hours sleep before going to class Friday morning.

Now that it’s 2010, I don’t get to see live music all that very often, so when the One2One Network put the word out that a few bloggers were welcome at the One EskimO show at Radio Radio last night, I jumped at the chance. BgK literally walked in the door at 7:30pm after being gone all week. I was glad he made it home in time for me to pick up my friend Becky and make it to Fountain Square for the opening act.

Before the show, I had only heard the song, “Kandi”, which is currently getting mainstream radio airplay. It didn’t matter….once they started playing, the music was inviting and comforting. I was surprised by some of the instruments played…the percussionist had a full variety of ways to turn out a beat, and the bassist also played a horn   (my friend Becky is musical, and she’s thinking it was a flugelhorn), which had a fantastic sound.  We found ourselves swaying along and singing along to choruses we’d never heard.

Summation without much detail? Awesome. I went directly to iTunes this morning and downloaded the entire album.

Summation with detail? Go to their website, under the band tab. That describes their sound far better than I can. And, if you get the chance, see them live. You’ll love them.

Remaining 2010 tour dates:

Jun 12 – Minglewood Hall – Memphis TN USA
Jun 13 – Crossroads – Kansas City MO USA
Jun 15 – Blueberry Hill (solo date) – St. Louis MO USA
Jun 17 – 3rd & Lindsley (solo date) – Nashville TN USA
Jun 18 – Southgate House (solo date) – Newport KY USA
Jun 19 – Taste of Randolph Street (solo date) – Chicago IL USA
Jun 20 – People’s Court (solo date) – Des Moines IA USA
Jun 21 – Waiting Room (solo date) – Omaha NE USA
Jun 28 – Largo (solo date) – Los Angeles CA USA
Jul 01 – Anthology – San Diego CA USA
Aug 14 – The Fields at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park – Mile High Festival – Denver, CO USA
Nov 13 – Fox Theater – Boulder CO USA

Disclosure: I was given a pair of tickets to attend One EskimO’s show at Radio Radio in exchange for this review. The opinions on the show and music are mine. Thanks, One2OneNetwork for turning me on to this great band!

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Totally Cheating on Today’s Post

If I admit it in the headline, you have to accept it, right**

For reals, today’s post is just a link….did you know that The Adoption Writers at Grown in My Heart has a review/giveaway site? Sometimes I forget myself. Then I take on a post to write, and it’s all, hey! there’s this secondary blog with some fun things on it!

SO.

My first post over there is about the Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest and a battery giveaway that goes with it.

**In my defense, I’m coming off of the four-day business trip of BgK, which was sort of out of the blue. My tactic for coping is to keep the children as busy as possible. So I’m kinda tired…..

Day 10 DOWN.

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I Let Noodles & Company Do the Cooking

The last week of school is almost as hectic as the first week of school. Instead of this looming sense of “we’ve got all school year to figure it out”, there’s this sense of “holy crow, if it doesn’t get done now, it never will!!”, which can be a little overwhelming.

Or a lot overwhelming. This week was a lot overwhelming. By Wednesday night I’d had quite enough, so I decided that I was giving myself (courtesy of MomCentral) a break Thursday night for dinner.

We packed up the kids and headed out to Noodles & Company at the newest outdoor shopping center in Central Indiana. I was excited that not only were there many menu choices, but that the choices spanned continents. I was able to have Indonesian Peanut Saute (yum! more yum!), hubby was able to have Italian, and the kids, well the kids weren’t going to venture out past mac and cheese. I was ok with that–I got to eat Peanut Saute while everyone else in my family was happily eating what they like as well.

Also? I didn’t have to do the dishes. And? Someone else cooked my meal. And? The service was quick so the four of us actually sat at the table all together to eat without chaos. We had a great meal, let the kids play at the playground across from the restaurant, and made it home with plenty of time to spare before bath time. It was a great weeknight excursion (which is saying something, because quite often excursions on school nights are anything but great).

Honestly, part of this review is supposed to include my kids eating vegetables while we were at Noodles & Company. That wasn’t going to happen, unless veggies were added to the cheese sauce discretely. Children with a more diverse palate would probably have no problem with the veggies found in most of the menu items, but my kids weren’t going to stray far from mac and cheese. It’s something I plan on working on over the summer–getting them to at least put more vegetables to their lips.

Check out all of the variations available at http://www.noodles.com/ surely by the end of the summer they will pick something besides mac and cheese, right? New for summer is an Asparagus & Lemon Linguine dish which sounds divine (it wasn’t available the night we went).

Overall, we had a great family night out–I’m so glad that Noodles & Company did the cooking for me Thursday night!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central (www.momcentral.com) on behalf of Noodles & Company and received five Noodles & Company bowl cards to facilitate my review. Mom Central also sent me a thank-you gift certificate.”