3/28/12

From Prada to Nada

 Details: 2011, PG-13 movie, romantic comedy drama.  Two wealthy girls become orphans when their wealthy father dies on his birthday.  They are kicked out of their family home, and loose everything when they find out they have a step brother and an evil sister in law.  Trying to save what they can of their lives, their heritage and their family, they high tail it from Beverly-hills to East Las Angeles with an estranged Aunt.

Going back to their Hispanic roots is the last thing Mary the young, partying, teen who has her eye on a very hot college teacher wants to do.  She insists that she's not Mexican.  Nora looks for her independence and joins the working class, having a large success as the Hispanic Lawyer in the new neighborhood.  The only problem is that her boss is her evil Sister-In-Law's brother who she has feelings for.  Can she keep her 10 year plan for her life or will fate sneak in.  Very similar to Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility.

My Review:  I wasn't very sure if this would be a good movie.  I love romantic comedies, but this was really slow, and didn't make much sense at first.  But by the end of the movie, I fell in love.  I totally love it now, and will and have watched it lots of times.  My husband actually loved it from the beginning.  He loved the great way the movie directors showed how Hispanics live the American dream, and how they try to keep their own customs and traditions in this land of opportunity.

Pros: The sense of family before friends, and money.  I love the broken hearts that become strong and independent.  The willingness to stick to family roots and heritage.

Cons: The one sex scene with Mary and her hot teacher.

Price: DVD: Buy new$14.98 $10.14 38 new from $5.96 27 used from $4.72, BLUERAY: Buy new$19.99 $16.64 31 new from $11.90 8 used from $8.93 from Amazon.com


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3/27/12

Giving a Shout out

We're giving a Shout out to some great people for helping us with our blog!

Jessica from http://igiveugetgiveaways.com/link-love/
Alicia from http://www.workersonboard.com/
MommyStayAtHome from: http://mommy-stay-home.com/

Thanks so much!
Mom's Thumb Team

The Backup Plan

Details: written by Sherryl Woods.  Dinah Davis is a hot topic woman journalist who has been covering war in the Middle East.  Her world is quickly turned upside down leaving a large wake of questions, and hard choices.  She has to quit or chance getting fired and loose all credibility that she's spent her life building up.  She could slow down around the busy city life where she lives or go home to slow relaxed South Carolina and family.  She had created a back up plan 10 years earlier, and as she is faced with uncertainty its looking very promising.  But the unexpected happens when she comes home, and has a whole new life to plan out, or let her heart lead her to.  This is a part of The Charleston Trilogy.

My Review: I started this book 3 times before I finally sat down and read it.  Once I got past the first 10 pages I was sucked in up to my ears.  It was amazingly written, with great characters, and a wonderful plot.  I love the story line, and even though there are some lovemaking scenes they are very sweet and tender.  I am from North Carolina and really appreciate the slow, relaxed, warm feel of the Southern Gentility.  This is a great book to curl up with on a cold winter day, or a long hot summer afternoon.

Pros: Great suspenseful and fulfilling plot.  Realistic characters.  Beautiful scenery, and imagery.
Cons: there was a lot of sex and sexuality, but given the context of this novel I think it fits nicely, I just don't condone sex outside of marriage.
PriceBuy new: $7.99,  eBook Buy: $4.96 from Amazon.com


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3/26/12

SlimKicker Website Game

Details: Its a new year, and still early enough to start looking into and working on setting goals for loosing unwanted weight, getting fit, and gaining energy.  SlimKicker is a new website that helps encourage, gives rewards, and helps you to track your food, your exercise in a fun leveling up online game.  I personally have goals to get in shape, to loose some weight, and to get healthy!  You get points for everything you do, and your points get you free things, gift cards, giveaways and everything!  This is very user friendly with the dashboard.  It is the home page with tabs for everything you can do.  You have a food tracker that not only helps you track what you eat, but gives you recipes, lets you keep track of your favorite foods, gives you calories and serving sizes.  You have an exercise tracker which lets you count house work and playing with kids as exercise much like the Wii Fit Plus.  There are challenges that you can join to help take those hard baby steps to a healthier life style.  You have forums for questions and helping encourage other people too.  You can even get stats on yourself, your progress, and your goals!  There are groups you can join for specific topics, and goals with fitness.

Information: I started my Saving Mom page to help give me motivation to keep eating healthy, and to work out, but as you have noticed I am way behind on my daily recipes and accountability.  But this website is very nice!  It is very similar to Weight Watchers, Wii Fit Plus, and combines a Healthy meal planner.  I have signed up and already started 3 challenges, I'm on 1 forum, and I've already started tracking my meals and exercising. I already have 280 points, and am well on my way to getting on track once again to be healthy.  I highly suggest using this website, and then we can be friends on Slim Kicker!  They'd love to have you check them out on Facebook, and see what goodies they've got there too.  You can also find them on Facebook.

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3/23/12

Kid Kraft Bucket Top Train Set



  Details: A wooden train set, and wooden train.  Comes in a plastic bucket that holds all 61 pieces.  The mountain top of the bucket is part of the train set the trains can be pushed up and down.  This only comes with a 3 piece train.  This comes with a 8 piece airport with a plane, helicopter, tower and landing pad and runway.  There is a fire house with a truck and people, and a police department with people and a car that can ride on the train track.  There are lots of trees and signs.





Information: I bought this from Amazon.com for Christmas for my boys.  They love this!  The trees are more realistic than the other train set they have.  This came with no broken pieces or anything wrong with it.  I have posted a review on both Amazon, and Ebay.com.  This is super easy to put together for 5 year olds, but not very easy for 2 year olds.  My kids love to play with the train, the airplane and the helicopter all together.  Even though there is only three train cars in this set, the fire truck, police car, and air plane fit on the track. Which is really nice when more children are playing with this toy.  Train lovers and especially boys love this product!  There is only one thing that I will complain about: the magnets on the trains aren't very strong and barely keep the train cars together.  




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3/21/12

Glass Castle Memoir

Details: Written by Jeannette Walls in 2005.  This is a memoir of Jeannette and her 3 siblings as they grew up in harsh unconventional ways.  Rex and Rose Mary Walls Jeannette's parents were poorer than poor, and lived on the go, in scary places, with little to no hygiene and with personal addictions that always came before the care of their children.  Rex is drunk addict to alcohol.  Rose Mary is a romantic artist addicted to sugar.  This book is being filmed as a movie.

Information:  This is not a happy story, this is not an uplifting story.  I read this as my book club's March book.   Within the first 10 pages there's so much language (swearing, vulgar, crude, and plain nasty language) that I had to skip a few pages until the language calmed down.  Not a great start to a story.  As I kept reading I kept hoping the story (life of Jeannette) would get better, happier, and safer.  But no such luck.  These Wall kids suffered more than most people even imagine could ever happen at all in the US.  Its so sad.  I cried a few times because its such a depressing story.  Throughout the whole book I hated Rex and Rose Mary!  What kind of parents would do such horrible things to their own children?  Then I became furious at all the adults at the schools these children went to for not investigating their story, even when they had the impression that something wasn't right.  I am so proud of and impressed with Jeannette and her siblings.  They are so strong, and true, as they were easily able to forgive and get over the horrible life they were born into.  I love that they've learned to work hard and have become successful!  Just seeing what they've gone through and how positive and strong they are is inspiring, but not enough for me to buy or reread this book ever again.  I don't know if I could handle the movie either.

Pros: The only thing that was positive about their story is that the kids were able to escape before more damage could have happened.  And in the end none of the Wall children hated, their parents.  They forgave their parents and even came to understand why their parent's lived the way they did.  I could never read this book again, because I don't like depressing, sad stories.  But if you can stomach this type of memoir than read it.  If you enjoy true stories, memoirs, and autobiographies this is perfect for you!  The plot is a swirling twist of the unexpected throughout the whole book.

Cons: I don't recommend this for the tender hearted, the weak stomached, the emotional woman, and its not recommended for anyone until the age of 16!  There is tons of really bad language, some worse than swear words.  There is sexual abuse, child abuse, child neglect, lying, stealing, smoking, drug use, sex, immoral behavior, alcohol, prostitution, child slavery (of Jeannette by her father), and graphic imagery of children getting badly hurt, and burned.
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Here is an interview clip of Jeannette and her mother!  This is why I give this book a thumbs up.

3/18/12

Diarrhea Tips

Everyone has issues with Diarrhea at some point in their lives, and usually its during the winter because of the cold weather where colds and the flu in who knows how many different strands is going rampant around your city, town, school, church and probably your home as well.

Tips I have learned over the years:

1. Acidophilus: is a natural product that you can get in capsule form.  I've seen it as a white powder.  I buy this at Target.  My pediatrician told me to get this for my 1 year old who had diarrhea for 6 weeks due to an allergy that we couldn't figure out.  It was the worst ever, blow outs from his diaper like a new born, stinky, burned skin, and so sore that half the time he wouldn't let me wipe with anything because he was in such pain.  As adults you can swallow this pill form, but for children just pull apart the capsule and dump the contents into any liquid except water.  Milk works best: at the time we put it in Almond milk, and have even done juice.  Directions on the bottle, but because this is natural the doctor said if its really bad you can use it more often.

2.  Eat Yogurt: which has Lactobacillus acidophilus which is friendly bacteria that aids in getting rid of diarrhea.  Any yogurt will work, but for quicker results and faster relief eat plain sugarless yogurt (Greek, Goat, and the Mountain Land brand of yogurt are all recommended by Naturalists).  You can add honey if you need a sweetener.

3. You can lose a lot of liquid in diarrhea, but you also lose electrolytes, minerals such as sodium and potassium that are critical in the running of your body. Here's how to replace what you're losing:
  • Drink plenty of fluids. Consume two quarts (eight cups) of fluids a day, three quarts (12 cups) if you're running a fever. With the fever drink Gatorade to give you the eletrolytes, and to reduce the fever. Plain water lacks electrolytes, but it's a good, gentle-on-the-tummy option that can help you replace some of the fluid that you've lost. Other choices include weak tea with a little sugar, sports drinks such as Gatorade, flat soda pop (decaffeinated flavors such as ginger ale are best), and fruit juices other than apple and prune, which have a laxative effect.
  • Buy an over-the-counter electrolyte replacement formula. Pedialyte, Rehydralyte, and Ricelyte are available without a prescription from your local drugstore. These formulas contain fluids and minerals in the proper proportion.
Whatever you choose to drink, keep it cool; it will be less irritating that way. Sip, don't guzzle; it will be easier on your insides if you take frequent sips of liquid instead of guzzling down a glass at a time.

4. Primadophilus Children: My Aunt bought this to help my 1 year old stabilize his stomach and bowel movements.  Its a powder with FOS: or bifidobacteria and lactobacilli.  This is for children ages 0-5 years of age.  The potency is 3 billion CFUs per teaspoon for the entire shelf life.  It also contains NutraFlora scFOS- the preferred probiotic food source.  Once serving is given daily until child is feeling better.  This mixes easily into any liquid, but I put it in my son's Almond milk when he first woke up in the morning because he can't have anything in his stomach before taking this.  And mornings were the only time this would work.

Other Tips: Chamomile & Peppermint tea sometimes help, but does help soothe the stomach whenever you are sick.  Potatoes, rice, carrots, tapioca, and other starchy foods are all good foods to eat when you have diarrhea.  Blueberries are another good natural remedy.

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House Bunny

Details: Starring Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Colin Hanks, Kat Dennings, Hugh Hefner.  The cutest and sweetest Playboy bunny gets kicked out of the Playboy mansion and after finding herself homeless she finds herself being welcomed to the Sorority Zeta Alpha Zeta.  These sorority sisters are the most clueless, homely, and naive girls in college.  Can Shelly Bunny help these girls find their true selves and help save their sorority from being dispelled from the college campus.  PG-13, 97 minutes, from 2008.

Information:  My husband and I love chick flicks, and love comedies, and love romantic comedy movies.  So when we saw this in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart, we were a little worried it would be a little crude, and way too much open sex and nudity.  We also really hoped the plot would be decent and not dumb and vague.  We were very surprised.  This is a great movie!  We loved it.  Great music, great clean friend-shipping, great lessons learned with honesty, loyalty, and being true to one's self.
This is highly recommended by us.  There isn't any language really, there isn't any sexuality, even though they talk about becoming sexy looking, no actual sex.  I love the lessons learned the best.  Learning to accept yourself, but embrace your inner womanhood.  Even though this may seem a stretch they taught that virtue is something that is still good, even at college.  I love the lesson that a friend isn't really a friend if they force you to not be true to yourself.

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3/13/12

Vaseline Tips and Tricks

It makes your eyelashes grow:  Lather Vaseline all over your eyelashes overnight and watch them thicken, even without a prescription!  Here's the thing with this though, its hard to get this on your eye lashes without getting into your eyes so I use an eye lash brush, or even a super soft child's (clean unused) toothbrush to brush on the Vaseline.  Don't use during the day, it leaks into your eyes and hurts or irritates them (from experience).
 Dry cuticles: Store a mini-Vaseline container in your purse and utilize for emergency dry cuticle moments.

 It eases eyebrow plucking: Tame your eyebrows and lube up the under-skin so you can pluck with ease.

  It’s your new exfoliating body wash: Mix with sea salt and come out of the shower feeling soft, and sexy.  Can be used to smooth and soothe skin after shaving just don't use too much or you'll be greasy.  Also use to soften dry and cracked elbows.

Makeup uses: Great eye makeup remover. Put a thin layer where you spray your perfume.  Scent of perfume will last longer.  Mix a touch with your favorite lipstick color and you have instant cream blush.  YES!  Been looking all over for cream blush and haven't found any.  Now I'll make my own.

Hair uses: Seals in split ends.  Just use a little, and not too often, or it will be hard to shampoo out.  But if you do need to get the grease out of your hair use Dawn.  My mother used to use it to make her hair shine by rubbing just a little in the palm of her hands, then ran her hands through her hair.  She claimed it made her hair softer as well, without being greasy.

For the Men:  Apply on battery terminals in your vehicle to prevent rust & corrosion.  My husband used to this but I think with all of our moves, he's kind of forgotten.  I think I'll go do this to our cars this weekend, especially since I just got my car battery replaced last week.

First Aid:  protects minor cuts and scrapes.  Helps with dry and cracked and bleeding skin in the winter time.

Random uses: Revives dried leather like a baseball glove. Put on your feet at night & cover with socks and wake up with soft feet...or like me I can't stand anything on my feet at night, but have to wear socks and shoes while at work, so I put the Vaseline on my feet then.  Removes makeup stains from clothes & lipstick stains from napkins.  To make your accessories look brand spankin’ new: New job interview? Scuff the crap-ol-la out of your patent leather heals thanks to pitcher night? Put a small dab on your shoes and shine away!

Outdoor uses: Prevent rust on outdoor tools and machinery.  This really works.  When our boys were Cub Scouts we had them do this for some sort of requirement.  Too bad they're all grown now.  Guess I better go do that. It also can lure trout by coating small pieces of sponge to simulate fish egg bait.

Household uses:  Repairs minor rings, stains and scratches in wood.  Just apply a liberal coat, let sit 24 hours, then wipe and polish.
Prevent shower curtains rings from sticking, apply thin layer to curtain rod.

Bonus - For Halloween  - Once you carve your Halloween pumpkin, rub Vaseline on the exposed edges. it keeps it from rotting or going dry.

Vaseline Cream: If you don't like the greasiness of regular Vaseline, try the creamy version.  Its not as greasy, rubs in faster and better, and is great for on the go moments when you need some Vaseline.

Misconception: It is a misconception that Vaseline clogs pores, so smear it all over your face, neck and arms for softer skin.

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Personalized Birthday Chronicle

    Birthday Chronicle http://www.becauseitriedit.com/personalizedproducts.htm
  • Details:  Personalized Birthday Chronicle is a cute way to recall the events that were pertinent the year and even the day you were born.  It is a personalized (8 1/2 x 11") mini-newspaper front page, going back as far as January 1, 1900 up to December 31, 2010.  Your Birthday Chronicle includes a greeting, by name, from the then-President of the United States, plus newspaper headlines and stories from the year of your birth.  
 
  • Information:  I liked how they brought up the price of gas and certain food items during that year.  They also highlight who the US President was and other current events at the time.  I received my copy less than 24 hours after placing the order.  It comes in a .pdf file sent to your email.  You have the option of printing it out and framing it.  It will fit nicely in an 8 1/2 x 11" document frame.  The person I ordered this for will be getting it for their birthday this summer.  I think they'll get a kick out of it.



  • My Rating:
    I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.  I give this a Thumbs UP!