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MomAgenda~A Review

July 24, 2008 By 1 Comment

First let me just say “Welcome” to all of my first time visitors! I am so glad you found me, whether it was through 24/7MOMS or just blind luck.  I am looking forward to sharing  what I learn and learning from what YOU share.  Please take a moment, grab a cup of tea, and look around…make yourself comfortable. And let me know if there’s anything I can get ya.

I was recently asked to try the MomAgenda and write an honest review. Let me say first that I would not have agreed if I had felt pressured to write a strictly positive review or to give a biased opinion.  With that said…I cannot now imagine my life without my MomAgenda! I mean it!  It is just wonderful.  And SO helpful.

We are going on vacation tomorrow and I have been so lucky to have been able to plan most of our trip using the vacation planning section of my MomAgenda. With the color coded pages, it was easy to find and use for jotting down dates, places for lodging, budgeting, rental car information (we don’t have one), and more.  There is ample space for putting down thoughts on what to pack, what groceries to buy, where to eat, and our itinerary.  The MomAgenda has just been an invaluable resource; I have been able to keep all of my confirmation numbers and other important information in ONE place rather than strewn all over my house and in the wrong place when I need it.

While I “only” have two small daughters to keep my busy, some days it feels more like four or five.  We are very active in our community, church, with our family that some times it can be easy to get lost…mentally.  Recently, I had been using four different wall calendars to keep up with all our different activities AND the menu planning.  Yes, it was silly looking and yes, it does take up Alot of room.  Not anymore my friends!  I now have all of my needed information: schedules, menus, grocery lists, addresses and birthdays…and so much more safely and totally encased in my cute MomAgenda.  Oh, and by cute I mean stylish.  I love that it’s pink!  It comes in a ton of different styles, colors, and sizes to fit everyone’s tastes.  I plan to make this a Christmas present to myself and my crazy busy mom friends.

Check out MomAgenda right now and get yours!  Come back and let me know which one you fell in love with!  While your at it cruise by 24/7MOMS for some great reading and advice.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: , ,

Vacation Tips to Make Life Easier

July 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment

We are taking this week as our “vacation” from the outside world, so I will not be posting quite as much.  However, We will still be participating in 24/7 MOMS blog tour on Thursday so be sure to stop back by then!  Hubby will also be posting his Fix It Friday column on Thursday night, so be sure to check that out also.

We are meeting one of my sisters in Cherokee, NC to go camping Friday morning and until then I am going to be packing and cleaning…not to mention that I have must start packing our house.  We went to Cherokee last year to go camping and loved it so much we decided to make this our permanant camping spot.  My sisters, their significant others, and my family go camping every year in the fall; since KG starts school at the first of August we had to move the date up a bit.  We are also taking KJ for the first time ever so we got cabins this year.  Our favorite spot to camp in Cherokee is Indian Creek Campgrounds, we went tent camping last year here and it’s so quiet and serene…we just fell in love.  It’s also affordable, we are staying in a 4 person cabin for $50 a night.  The cabin has two double beds, Hubby and I will get one-sister and hubby will get the other, KG is going to sleep on an air mattress, and KJ will sleep in her Pack and Play.  We are staying 3 nights/4 days so the total cost for lodging will be $150 split between my sister and me.  So we are only paying $75 to go camping for three nights, break that down and we’re paying $25 a night-you can’t do that in a hotel. You also can’t put a price on the fun we have all sharing the same space…for a short period of time anyway.

We aren’t planning on doing too much while we’re there, however we will make time to check out the Oconaluftee Village and have a picnic on the little island they have in the middle of town. We might also take some time and go see the Museum of the Cherokee Indian while we’re there.  Our big thing this year is to do it as frugally as possible and still have the one on one time we look forward to each year.  There will be no TVs, no phone service, no computers…just family.  I can’t wait.  I NEED this time.  This is the last vacation before KG starts school.  Oh, and I almost forgot we love to eat local food made by locals so we will be eating out once on this trip and it will be at Granny’s Kitchen…they’re supposed to have the best traditional buffet around.  Another tip we tend to follow is to only buy items made there on the Reservation.  We want to support the local trade and economy as much as possible, while still supporting our pocketbooks =)

What are you doing this summer to connect with family and friends?

Filed Under: Mama Says, Recipes Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Fix It Friday – Slow PC? Let’s fix that.

July 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Let’s take a look at what we can do to make your PC quicker & more secure.

Visit the Microsoft Update website often.

Security patches, which are released on the second Tuesday of each month, are the first line of defense against badware, aka Malicious Software.

http://update.microsoft.com

Clear Registry errors & remove items from startup to speed up your PC.
Download & install CCleaner.

To clean the Registry:
Open CCleaner, click ‘Registry’ & ‘Scan for Issues’.
Once the scan completes, click ‘Fix selected issues’.
You will be prompted: “Do you want to backup changes to the registry?”
Select YES and save the .reg to your C:\ for easy reference. In the event that something goes wrong, running the .reg file will re-apply the changes made w/ ccleaner.
On the next screen, click ‘Fix All Selected Issues’.
‘Are you sure you want to Fix all selected Issues? ‘OK’, ‘Close’.

To Clean the Startup:
Open CCleaner, click ‘Tools’, Startup.
Click a program that you do not want to start when Windows Boots & click ‘Delete Entry’. You will be prompted: “This will permanently remove this startup entry for the program. Are you sure you want to do this?” OK or Cancel.
* Carefully select the items to delete from startup. Don’t delete anything without first knowing what it is.

Do you have an Anti Virus…Is it up to date?
If you have no Anti Virus software or outdated anti virus software that wants a ransom to update the virus definitions, you need Avast.

After installing Avast, allow the software to scan your PC at the next restart. Avast will clean your PC of viruses/trojans & it updates free daily.

For more great ideas be sure to check out Hubby’s blog at http://fixthiscomputer.blogspot.com

Filed Under: Fix It Friday Tagged With: , , ,

Thankfulness: 7/17/08

July 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I have so many things to be thankful for this week, that I’m not sure where to begin.  Yesterday was my fabulous Hubby’s 26th birthday, the house went into escrow (I think), KG and I have had a phenomenal time at Vacation Bible School, OutRigger Island, a Christ-filled Youth group, and all the leaders at Providence that make so many of our programs possible.  I am always a little sad to see VBS come to an end and this year is no different. I will however have the majority of my VBS class on Sunday mornings.  It’s always such a blessing to see KG be blessed by her teachers and for myself to be blessed by these awesome kiddos.  I usually teach younger kids for VBS (but not KG’s class) and this year was the first I decided to take on the 5th & 6th Grade.  This is the age group Hubby and I teach for Sunday School so it seemed like it the natural choice for me.  I am so glad I did!  We have had SO much fun this year and the kids are at just the right age to be asking good, thoughtful, searching questions!  All of the kids in my class this year were already Christians, in fact, to of them were in my VBS class last year and got save then so it was nice to see them again this year.  Their being Christians already seemed to direct our class into more participation and study.  We have played so many fun games this week including a Aloha Potato Sack Race, the Human Pretzel, and a three legged race…Wait until they see what I have for them this evening.  I am so very grateful to the parents who bring their kids and the people who volunteer to drive the church van…without active people like these we wouldn’t even be able to have a VBS.

That’s me on the far right.

What are you most Thankful for this Thursday?  Head over to Sting my Heart and check out more reasons to be Thankful!

Filed Under: Thankfulness Tagged With: , , , , ,

~WFMW:Get Paid For Shopping Online~

July 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I know we all love reward sites that “pay” us for shoopping through their site. UPromise rewards yours or your children’s college funds when you make qualifying purchases or shop online.  Ebates has a great bonus going on right now where you get a $10 gift card or $5 cash for signing up and making your first puchase.  Big Crumbs offers one of the best referral programs available, not to mention one of the highest/quickest payouts (you get a check every month rather than every quarter).  But BondRewards has got to be a new one on me.  This program pays you in SAVINGS BONDS!  What a great inovation.  I love this idea!  Right now they are offering “double rewards” on purchases made at several big named stores, Overstock and OfficeDepot just to name a couple.  BondRewards helps families of all income levels enhance their savings and reach their Personal Savings goals.  They pay out when your account reaches the 100 BondRewards, the payout is a $100 savings bond or $50 cash.  I plan to use this when buying the girl’s clothes, KG’s school supplies, and anything else child related through them and saving up for both of them.  We do this at home with piggy banks and loose change.  It will be so nice to have to opportunity to futher contribute to my girl’s future with my online purchases.  Do you have any sites you especially love for their rewards??  and Be sure to check out Works For Me Wednesday over there Rocks In My Dryer and let her know how much you love reading all these great ideas!

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Update on our Homebuying process

July 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

We went in yesterday to sign the final offer papers and now it is all in the hands of our mortgage company and the sellers.  Now the sellers must make the repairs they promised and get rid of the “Army Of Fire Ants!”.  At this point it is all out of our hands…we can’t do anything else to make this any faster.  Sigh.  Now I pack.  I plan to spend the next 30-45 days packing rather than waiting until the week we are planning on moving.  Hubby has to run cable throughout the house before we move in…I cannot even imagine trying to survive without the internet.  Hubby has the internet at work (he has to as this is what he does for a living), but it’s not like he can do the grocery research from work or print the coupons I need.  This is a mandatory pre-move in task!  Today is the day the FHA loan rates get raised, but luckily we were able to get locked in at our rate last week so this rate hike won’t effect our loan.  However, if you are planning on applying for a FHA loan any time soon you should get started and try to get a locked in rate as soon as possible.  The government plans to raise the rates at least two mroe times before the end of this year, or so we were told by our mortgage agent.  So now we wait.  And pack.

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Update on Fix It Friday

July 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

My hubby was unable to start our series on Home computer upkeep last week but is really looking forward to starting it this week!  We have Vacation Bible School all week this week, so my posting might be sparadic this week.  Take a look at my hubby’s blog next week if you have any questions on what to do with your computer problems.  He will be happy to aid you in any way possible.

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: ,

~Tipster Tuesday~Scrapbooking for the Craft Challenged

July 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I have recently been interested in trying out some online scrapbooking sites, since I personally have ZERO crafty talent.  Seriously.  Not a crafty/artistic bone in my body.  This has always been a bit of a bummer for me, both of my parents are talented artists and the gene just skipped my generation.  My only hope now is one of the girls inherits it.  Back to scrapbooking though.  You see, I love the look of scrapbooks, but just don’t have time of artistic talent to undertake a project like a scrapbook.  Recently, I have been yearning for some really cute scrapbooks of KG’s 5th birthday and would like one of her first week of school.  So in doing some research I have found that you can get this done for free online wiby using some really adorable and well put together scrapbooking sites.  A couple of the sites that interest me most include:

Smilebox.com-Here you can create a beautiful scrapbook in less than five minutes and add music, videos, and of course pictures.  The fantastic themes are designed by Hallmark, Making Memories, and many more.  You can even email, blog, or save your scrapbook to your hard drive.

Scrapblog.com-This site has more thingamajigs and dohickeys to layer on your special pages than I have ever seen.  This site includes hip templates and even allows you to create your own by using their selection of thousands of different stickers, frames, fonts, and backgrounds.  You can email or upload your pages to your blog for FREE.

I know there are tons of these on the inter-web, but these are the only two I have had time to try out.  Please leave me a comment if you know of any more great sites to help my poor un-crafty self.  For more helpful tips, checkout BeCentsAble‘s Tipster Tuesday.  and If you aren’t already check back with BeCentsAble on Monday and Thursdays for their Grocery Gathering.

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: , , ,

My Darling Hubby-blogs and guest posting

July 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment

My wonderful and ever intelligent Hubby has started his very own blog!  *applause*  We’ve only been discussing this option for 6+ months now…but I am so proud of him!  Bear in mind he has only posted once, at 2am this morning, to make sure it works…but anything he does is well thought out and well put together.  As many of you know already, Hubby is a computer technician by trade and is an ever expanding wealth of knowledge concerning all things computer related.  Hubby is planning on covering many different computer problems and their solutions in the coming weeks/months.  I have also asked that he do a guest blog for me on Fridays, tentatively called “Fix It Friday”.  If you have any computer related questions, please leave them as a comment or send me an email and he will be answering these on Friday mornings.  In the meantime, Please check out his new blog, Fix This Computer! Feel free to leave him constructive comments with ideas of what you would like to see covered.  A link to his blog will aways be accessable through my blogroll.

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: , , ,

~Thankful Thursday~

July 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I want to take the opportunity every Thursday to write a little about what I am thankful for in this life.  God has given me SO many blessings in my life and I feel pressed to share with you weekly what the Lord is doing in my life and the lives around me.

Last Friday, 4th of July, a UofL wide receiver was shot outside a downtown Louisville nightclub early Saturday morning after an altercation inside.  He was shot in the back in a parking garage in downtown Louisville.  That parking garage is the very same garage my husband parks his car in while at work.  He could have been there when that gun went off…if it had not been a national holiday.  The wide receiver was shot at 19 times and had the bullet hit him four inches in another direction, University of Louisville could have lost a very valuable person…not just a player, but a person. Someone’s son, fiance, friend…you get it.

Most of the time when we hear about a football player involved in a club shooting you are likely to think…”Just another sports player getting in trouble.”  But you see, THIS player was kind, considerate, and some would call him “up-lifting”.  He worked on the team’s Habitat for Humanity house and would be the first one the coach goes to when bringing a recruit in town.  On this “Thankful Thursday“, I am also Thankful that this man was spared by our merciful God.  Please check out Sting My Heart for more reasons to be thankful.

What are you thankful for today?

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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