Testing here or here

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Hi, if you've made your way to this blog, congratulations! It took me a lot longer to find this one, this was my "test" blog, so if you're here, go HERE
Thanks :D

Monday, January 4, 2010

A much less whiney, more fluff & circumstancial post :D

I knew it wouldn't be long before my last 'whiney' post bothered me enough to get back on here and do some fluffy stuff - and I found it in my bathroom, and I cannot believe I haven't posted on this, in the depth it deserves, sooner.
Ok, well, I won a giveaway that was hosted by Felicia, at Go Graham Go!, where she does wonderful reviews, has tips, great links, and just general cool blogger stuff. Anyway, the winner received a beautiful personalized bracelet from Belly Charms, which specializes in Belly button rings for Moms to be (they're flexible, and allow a mom to be to keep her edginess, I think it's a cute idea!) There are also bracelets & anklets personalized for Moms, they make them with a selection of swarovski crystals, you can personalize it however you like, your favorite colors, a sports team, names ... they're great! Well, I won, and was quickly contacted by Felicia, then Sonya at Belly Charms, to see what I wanted. Well, I picked the 1st initial from everyone in my family, I tried to arrange them in a way that the letters looked like they mean something, and it doesn't just look like a jumble of hodge podge letters. Well, Sonya then asked if I wanted a 'spacer' between the letters, which I hadn't even thought of, and was absolutely thrilled that she even thought to ask. Especially since I won a giveaway, which means I'm not actually a 'paying customer', per se. But she was very professional, and it was lovely dealing with her.
I then got my package in the mail, 2 days after it was shipped, talk about fast!

It was beautifully presented - it literally took my breath away, and I hadn't even gotten to see the bracelet yet!
It was done very professionally, and considering I had won a giveaway, I was absolutely impressed! I immediately emailed 3 of my friends who were waiting for me to get the bracelet, because they wanted to order from Belly Charms themselves, but wanted to see what my impressions were.
My bracelet was absolutely perfect! I picked the "Tahitian" color, in medium wrist size (which I did find I should have ordered large, the medium for me, is still small, I can wear the bracelet (wild horses couldn't stop me from wearing it!) but it's hard to get the clasp done up, being that I should have picked a bigger size - nothing at all to do with Belly Charms. Anyway, I had the initials QACJAC, in that order, placed on the bracelet. Here's the final result!


 
 
Wow, my arm looks not so pretty, but the bracelet looks amazing! I'm so pleased with how it turned out, I've showed it off to everyone I know! I have recommended it to several friends, including my online ones, (that includes the 3 who were waiting on how my bracelet turned out before going ahead with their purchase) and I'll leave it said here Belly Charms does gorgeous work! They're professionals, in every sense, they know their craft & obviously have fun with it. The talent they have for making customized jewelery is blatantly obvious, & it shows through their pieces how skillful they are, & how beautiful their jewelery is.
Thanks so much again to Felicia, from Go Graham Go! and Sonya, at Belly Charms. Fabulous!!

I also wanted to quickly add, I won a giveaway (another!) from Here and There, actually I won TWO, so that makes my total THREE, from Here and There alone! Well, I won a "SoftLips" giveaway, & I love SoftLips, so I was super excited to get this! But, unfortunately, my daughters love SoftLips as well, so when I went to get all the SoftLips together and take a picture, I could only find 3 still in the package!! Oh, the bane of having young girls who know a good thing when they see it. I then went to hunt the culprits down (knowing full well who was involved) & learned that they thought it was one for everyone, seeing as there were so many! (I won 5, at least I'm pretty sure I did, I only have 3 left, and I'm only assuming they took 2!) So I clicked a pic of just one (& at least it was the flavor I really wanted to try! They left me that at least ...)

I was excited to try the new "Pure" Organic line, Chai Tea being a "OOOOH I want to try THAT!" one for me, so as I'm writing, I will now open the "Chai Tea, flavored SoftLips, new Organic line of PURE" & write what I think. Give me a sec to open it ...

Firstly .. like the 'hiss' from a soda drink, my girls have fine tuned their hearing to hear the 'pop' of a lip gloss cap from up to 4 yards away, most impressive.  They came wandering over as soon as I opened the cap, & it smells phenomenal! I get the hint of vanilla in there somewhere, but it smells like I want my next batch of cookies to smell like! Now for the lip test ... it tastes a little like Chai Tea, there's a 'spark' to it that I can't quite identify, some vanilla like I said, but there's something else, and the aroma from my lips goes all the way to my nose ... I can smell this while it's on! I don't think I've ever had a lip gloss do that for me before! It went on smoothly, feels great, smells fantastic & tastes good too! I think they've found a winner. Thank you to Pat at Here and There, go click over to her blog (& Felicia's, Belly Charms and Softlips) all the links are here, and google connect blog follow them all, or Facebook them, Twitter follow - whatever your poison is. They're all fabulous and you won't be disappointed!

Ok, there's one more thing I wanted to blog about. I took the girls to the "Squealqueal" of Alvin & the Chipmunks, 2. It was cute, the girls loved it, the songs just sounded so funny. Although, don't they always when you speed them up & chipmunk sound a song? I remember doing that to my step fathers old school record player. He had a collection of oldies - from the 50's & 60's, & my Mum had more modern records. (Can you actually say 'modern' and 'records' or 'vinyl' in the same sentence?) like Madonna etc. and I would speed them up with friends of mine & giggle away at how clever we were, & how funny it sounded!

Anyway, they had some Beyonce songs (of course, we've all seen the preview with the Chipettes singing "All the Single Ladies). That is seriously one song that I only need to hear a part of and it is stuck in my head all bloody day!


Funny. Anyway, it's a cute holiday movie, I took the boys to see Avatar the other night, the girls weren't allowed to come see that one, and it always makes me nervous viewing a movie with my children that I haven't seen beforehand. And this is one I wished I'd seen first hand. There was a huge amount of cussing in it, no 'F' bombs, or anything like that, just a large amount of cuss words, that truthfully, I thought brought down the show. It was unneceassary but that's Hollywood for you. It's not considered watch worthy without a couple of good one liners, some cussing and when you throw some nudity in you have a childrens movie! (good grief)
Anyway, Avatar was actually quite good, but for kids, stick to the PG13 rating. (My other son is 10, so I considered him too young, for all the cussing etc.)
But the Alvin & the Chipmunks 'Squeakqueal' is a good one. Cute, a good story about friendship and trusting your insticts, it's a one-we're-going-to-buy. And the girls loved it!



We were going to originally go and see 'The Princess & The Frog', which my girls were SO looking forward too, until a friend of theirs told them it was a movie for 'babies', so they suddenly wanted to go and see Alvin first, which I was disappointed in, tried to reason with them that this little girl also thinks she was set to STAR in HSM3, before she got really sick and they asked "Gabriella" (Vanessa Hudgens) to 'fill in' til she could come back, but she found she didn't want to do it anymore. Or that she's a 'secret' Princess, she just can't tell anybody. Now, to me there's nothing wrong with little girl fantasies, I think they're cute and harmless, but when it turns into it being "she" is the 'only Princess' when my girls try to join in, or when they try to do dance numbers from HSM3 & are promptly told they're 'doing it wrong', "watch me", and they're left to stand there while little miss shows off & they aren't having fun anymore, then it bothers me. So I really wanted the girls to go see 'The Princess & the Frog', which I informed them is not for 'babies', it's for every little girl who wants to watch a great movie about a Princess - and their Mommies who want to watch too! But Alvin won out , mostly because when we entered the movie theater there was Alvin stuff everywhere - and Christmas things too, but not much cutouts of 'The Princess & the Frog', which was a shame. But anyway! I digress ...


So that's me for today, I actually feel a teeny bit better, so I bet if I go lay down, I'll be doing ok by tomorrow! (fingers crossed)
As for my New Years post, which I caught sight of my many, many pictures in my camera, I will get to it (sorry B) probably tom. or the day after. Sounds about right though, a New Years 'Joe' post 4 days after the fact? lol, I'll get there though!
(...all the single ladies, all the single ladies ... now put your hands up!...)

a somewhat "downer" post, sorry

I haven't posted anything lately, so I figured I should get on here and leave some kind of something behind! I got word from Hasbro, they are sincerely disappointed in my disappointment with a product of theirs. They will be rectifying the situation, which is fine, but I'm still not a fan of Hasbro, so offering to 'give me something else of equal or lesser value', while is a nice thought (I do have to send EleFun back though) it's really just a store exchange, isn't it? Which I specified in my email was exactly what I didn't want (I can easily go back to the store here and get another product of equal or lesser value too, it still doesn't work as it should!)
So I'm still at square one - they did send me an apology, but I'm still stuck with my daughters curious glances whenever IT is mentioned near her. When she see's it, she will point and say "Elefun", but wonders where my excitement went, and why I don't get all worked up over it anymore. I'm to blame for that though, I have learned my lesson - no more "pre" excitement in extreme measures until I've trial run whatever it is.
This has turned back into another Elefun rant, and I'm not consumed with this, so let's change the subject for fear of looking as though I am consumed.
I'm Lupus sick today, and was yesterday also. I wish there was some way of not being on any medicine at all, & being strong enough to cope with everything that will most assuredly land on my lap.
I've done natural, ran (with my knees & eyes now though, I can't run as much as I want to) <-- well that, and my laziness level is up there.
My doctor has informed me to "go swimming" for the back, eyes and anything else that's occurred. I agree, to some degree (lol, say that 5 times) it would help with muscle cramps etc. but for my eyes? How would chlorine filled water, with other peoples bacteria help with my failing eyesight? Well, it can't hurt at least. So a-swimming I will go! (Once my Flare has died!)

The kids go back to school tomorrow! I have mixed feelings about this. I've liked & gotten used to having them around the house, even though it's a short time they were here (in N.Z our Christmas holidays are during summer, so we have 6-8 weeks off from school there. It took me a while to get used to the whole "I go back to work the day after boxing day" thing.??) Well, they're here now, and we have to shift back into 'school schedule' mode, & on days like today, I just don't feel like it.
I've seriously turned this into a 'whine' post, which I usually can't stand, so I'm stopping now. Just know, I'm sick, tired and have a lot to catch up on. I also argued with my mother the other day over some strange unimportant things, the end result of which is she hung up on me from over 8,000 miles away. She knows I can't just "call her back" due to the cost of that (N.Z has cheaper rates & phone deals to other countries, but N.Z is such a small country that america doesn't have the same deals, and the cost is almost surreal. I once was on the phone from our end for 3-4 minutes. The cost was nearly $30.00! Mum can call me here, talk for 2 hours, and pay $20.00) Anyway! I've been feeling "off" ever since that went on. So another reason why this turned 'blah', but I'll be back. I know this will bother me all day until I get back on and post something light and fluffy with some pictures to boot. Unless it's a not-so-good review, but I'll be back.
*Happy School Day for Tomorrow*