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Review: ORGANICALLY GROWN Toddler Clothing

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Nancy

Emily from Organically Grown sent a super cute outfit to Logan. They recently added Organic Toddler Clothing to their collection and wanted a few moms to try it out.

We received a two-piece outfit: a blue shirt with Nature Boy written on it and Khaki colored shorts. Oh my GOODNESS they’re so incredibly soft!!

Since I put this on Logan on a 90 degree day, the outfit took quite the beating. He was outside for most of the day playing in sand, water, dirt, grass, chalk, everything! At one point, I looked at the outfit and thought, “well, it was good while it lasted…there’s no way it’s going to get clean!” Boy was I wrong. Everything came right out – perfectly clean and still as soft as when we received it.

I’m told that at some point in the near future, I’ll receive some coupons for Organically Grown. Stay tuned because I’ll be passing some along to you! I’d highly recommend the Organic Clothing!!

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:

Organically Grown recently added Organic Toddler Clothing to their collection. The collection is comprised of adorable two-piece outfits for boys and girls in sizes 12-24 months, and 2T-4T. With the cute and eco friendly slogans on each of the sets’ t-shirts, your toddler can wear their heart on their sleeve with a new message every day of the week!

INFANT: Also, be sure to check out our Infant Collection! Some of their best sellers include three-piece sets with baby gowns, body suits, jackets, pants, blankets and hats, all on padded hangers and priced between $12-38.

WHY ORGANIC?

As the awareness of the effect that pesticides and toxins have on the environment and individual health grows, more and more families are realizing the importance of choosing organic products. Making this choice is not only good for our earth; it is good for all of us. With your help, organic textile production will increase, becoming more of a standard in the clothing industry.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to choose organic fabrics for you and your family. Organic cotton has all the high quality, soft and cuddly texture with none of the harsh chemicals to irritate your child’s delicate skin. Organically Grown’s products are not only breathable and cuddly; they are also recyclable, renewable, and biodegradable. With products by Organically Grown, there is no need to compromise between your budget and your conscience. As well as being ECO-FRIENDLY, their clothes are AFFORDABLE and STYLISH.

Nature Boy

Filed under: Logan, reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Book Review: The Given Day

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Nancy

I read The Given Day by Dennis Lehane for my book club.

I think, if this hadn’t been for a book club, I might have put it down a few times and never picked it up again. It was really cool to read about some of the history of Boston and the way Lehane wove personal lives into what happened way back when – even with someone famous like Babe Ruth. (Funny story about that…more later). It would be neat to do a little research to see if indeed Ruth was in a slump at the time period…no way to know if the reason he was in the slump was what was written in the book, but my guess is that the slump actually happened.

When I first started reading it, I was intrigued by one of the main characters (Danny) and not the other (Luther). And then about 1/2 way through, it flipped and I was bored with the first character and more interested in Luther. There were scenes that made my stomach turn though, and that’s not normally the type of book I enjoy.

I was definitely entertained, but I don’t think I’d recommend this book to just anyone. It was brutal.

So…funny story. I was reading along and BOOM there’s a chapter about Babe Ruth. And I’m thinking to myself, “Geez, that was out of nowhere. Why’s this guy all of a sudden writing about Babe??” Turns out that since I read it on my Kindle, and the publishers decide where you start when you download a book…I MISSED the entire first chapter!! (It was a prologue of maybe 15 pages that totally ties in a whole part of the story!)

Filed under: reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Review: Amazon Kindle

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Nancy

Mike gave me an Amazon Kindle for Christmas (the 6 inch screen version). Can I tell you how AWESOME this thing is?!

First of all, it looks just like a book.

Handle with Care: Kindle and Paperback

Well, while you’re reading, the text on the pages looks the same. If you get a cover for it (which I HIGHLY recommend), it feels like a book because you can open it. 🙂 And if you get a clip-on light so you can read in bed while your significant other is sleeping, the cover is the perfect place for you to clip it to (and yes, I did get the purple light, thank you 😉 ). The cover also helps protect my Kindle when I throw it in my purse…which is where it lives when I’m not reading or charging it.

I haven’t run out of batteries yet, but I also haven’t read it on a long trip yet either. It really doesn’t take very long to charge anyway. A few hours tops. (And I think I read that you can still use it while it’s charging.)

And it’s so light! I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to “curl up” with it, but I really can. I can hold it with one hand – either hand as well since there is Next Page button on both sides of it. There’s no glare and it’s easy on the eyes.

I just love the fact that I’ll always have a book to read – no matter where I am (as long as I have the Kindle). If I’m about to finish up one book and start another, I don’t have to lug two books along with me (hello Airplane reading!!)

There are a few down-sides to it…when reading in the presence of my kids, they’re drawn to the buttons, so I’m constantly shooing little hands away from my Kindle. 🙂 But then again, they were always playing with my bookmarks when I was reading paperbacks, so I suppose it’s always something 😉

When you purchase a book, you don’t know the size or feel of the book. I’m guessing that I’ll get better at judging the size after I’m used to the  key along the bottom of the screen. There are indications for how far into the book you are – percentage-wise, the ‘location’ of where you currently are, and the total number of locations in the book. I just don’t know, exactly, what these locations equate to. (For example, I’m currently reading The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. The key on the bottom tells me that I’m 43% through the book, I’m at locations 5102-9, and there are 11623 locations. See? I don’t know.)

I also received a few gift cards for Christmas that I thought would be perfect for purchasing books. Ya…it was a slight nightmare. Luckily, it’s super easy to ‘return’ books through the Kindle if you’ve accidentally purchased them! LOL!  I mistakenly thought I’d be able to enter the gift card number after purchasing the book through the Kindle (as opposed to through the Amazon website)…nope. So then I tried purchasing a book through the Amazon website figuring I’d enter the gift card number at checkout like you would for a ‘regular’ purchase. Ya…nope. Turns out that you have to enter the gift card number into the redemption page before purchasing anything on the Kindle and it will automatically use the gift card money. So…it worked out, it was just a bit of a learning curve (with some frustrations) on my part.

Cool features:

  • A built in dictionary. If I don’t recognize a word, I can click down to it and it automatically pops up a definition!!
  • It goes right to where you left off in the book…no fumbling around for where you were.
  • You can create manual bookmarks if there are spots you know you’d like to return to.
  • I’m sure there are a bunch more, but I’ve been too busy reading to go exploring 🙂

One of the things I’ve really been enjoying is the free sample. You can download a free sample (usually a chapter or two) of any book available for Kindle and then decide if you want to purchase it…a simple click from the Kindle, of course! But the reason I’ve enjoyed it so much is that if someone recommends a book, you can immediately download the sample and not forget about it! There have been millions of times that someone has recommended a book and I’ll think “okay – next time I’m at the book store and I have nothing to read…I’ll pick that up.” And then when I get there, I’ve totally forgotten what that book was. I don’t have that problem any more!! And I don’t have to worry about spending a whole bunch of cash if I don’t have any at that exact point in time.

Another cool thing I discovered..? FREE BOOKS!! (Okay, I didn’t discover them, my friend at Lit & Laundry pointed the way…) Some of them are like, $1, but there are a whole bunch that are free. And not just ones that your next-door-neighbor probably wrote (although, watch out for those 😉 ) You can search for the free ones on Amazon as well, but the link above points you in the right direction.

I’m now the proud owner of a crock pot cook book, a whole bunch of classics I was supposed to read in high school but never did (like The Scarlet Letter and a bunch of Jane Austen books), The Angel Experiment by James Patterson (the bugger made the first book in this series free so you’d buy the rest of them LOL!), and a romance novel that my mom suggested. My mom also sent a few other links to freebies, but I haven’t tried them out yet (again, too busy reading!). Always one to pass along information, here are the links if you’re interested:

Anything else I should know about my Kindle? Anything else you’d like to know?

Filed under: reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Review: Palm Pre

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Nancy

I’m in love. I’ve had my Palm Pre for a week now, and I can honestly say that I love it! I’m still getting used to it and I haven’t downloaded any new apps or ring tones or anything, but niiiiiiice. 🙂

The story of going to the Sprint store with all 3 kids is enough for its own blog post…so I won’t go into the details…but I will say that before the guy behind the counter could program things into the phone, Palm makes you go through a little tutorial – on the phone. Now imagine me trying to do this with 3 VERY hungry kids…who have already been waiting with me for about an hour. Yup. good times.

When I got the phone home, I read through the little tiny manual. (I’m a tech writer – it’s a professional courtesy!) I haven’t even looked at the in-phone help yet, though I plan to at some point in the future, and that may address some of the things I’ve come up against.

Again, I’m loving the phone. Love the slide-out keyboard. Love the big screen. Love the picture quality. Love the wireless charging dock that turns the phone into a bed-side clock (sold separately).

There are definitely things that I still need to get used to … and things that took me a little bit to figure out … and things that could work a bit differently. (Keep in mind that my previous phone was a Rumor, another phone that I really liked, so I’m probably comparing it to that…)

Here’s my list in no particular order:

  • The apps load fairly slowly. Once they’re loaded, they go pretty fast, but the loading is a lot slower than I would expect given that it’s this brand new kick-butt phone. (The internet, on the other-hand, is SUPER fast!)
  • Still don’t know how to download a new ringer. Spent some time on the internet this morning and found all sorts of ring tones, but no ringers. *I* want to hear the new ringer, I don’t care if the people calling me hear “ring ring, ring ring” or not. 😛
  • There doesn’t seem to be a way to set a different tone for different things for the same person. It looks like I can set the same tone for all phone calls, another one for text messages, etc. Or I can set a tone for a specific person. But I can’t set one tone for  a call from a specific person and another tone for a text for the same person. (My old phone had that – very handy for knowing who was ringing me up and if I had to run to the phone to answer it, or let it sit cuz it was a text.)
  • I use my phone as my alarm clock. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I have to unlock the phone to turn it off. It would seem to me that automatically unlocking the phone so I just have to push the “snooze” or the “off” button would make more sense. My brain isn’t awake enough to make that swish movement needed to unlock it.
  • At first I was annoyed because I set up my email account and then thought that I had to open an email to delete it. (Very annoying when you receive lots of spam). THEN I realized that the sideways swish removes items from a list. Duh Nancy, the Inbox is a list. Swish! It’s gone.
  • There are no arrow keys. With a tiny little keyboard, it’s easy to make mistakes (and not realize it until said mistake is half way up the page). You can touch the screen and move the pointer back up – but unless your fingers are elf-sized, you aren’t going to hit the right spot on the first – or second, or third – try. And who wants to use the backspace key to remove all of your hard work on that tiny little keyboard?
  • The first time I made a support-type call, I panicked because I needed to enter my phone number, but there was no keypad! Okay, found that button and hit the first digit…and the screen went blank. GAH! It took me two more calls to figure out that if I tilt the phone slightly away from my body, the keypad stays lit. (There must be a sensor of some sort that makes it turn off when it thinks it’s up to your ear.)
  • There is no video camera. The still pictures are FABULOUS. But no video. If you’ve come to depend on your cell phone for video, you’re going to be disappointed here. (Strange, right?)
  • I wanted to put an icon I knew I’d be using a lot in the Quick Launch bar (the internet icon). Figured that I could just drag and drop it in…no such luck. Duh Nancy, you need to remove one to make room for it first.
  • It’s not as easy to use this phone with one hand. It’s not even easy to open the keyboard with one hand. I’m still working on unlocking the phone with a thumb swish, but it’s a lot easier if you hold the phone in one hand and swish with the other.
  • I wish there was a way to have my different email accounts as different “cards”. I’m getting used to them all in one, but it’d be more convenient if I could switch between work and home accounts quicker.

I admit – a fairly long list considering that over-all, I really like the phone.

(Did this help you? Lemme know!)

Filed under: reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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  • 2012 Book Reads

    The books I've read this year. Linked books take you to my review.

    Read:

    • Zero at the Bone
        Jane Seville
    • Genuine Lies
        Nora Roberts
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    • Hollowmen
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    • Crossed
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    • Body of Lies
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    • Board Resolution
        Joey W. Hill
    • Fifty Shades of Grey
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    • Fifty Shades Darker
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    • Fifty Shades Freed
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    Currently Reading:

    • Diary of the Displaced
        Glynn James

    Couldn't Finish:

    • The Traveler
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