Reviews and Giveaways

Love and Fat-free Cheese – Book Tour

November 15, 2016 by Kathryn

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I got the chance to devour Crissy Sharp’s romantic thriller Love and Fat-free Cheese this month. It was a fun brain vacation and distraction from the all-too-serious life that’s happening around me. I was honored to be part of her book tour and excited to read something outside my usual genre.

From the Cedar Fort website: “Fat-free cheese is okay—unless you’ve tasted real cheese. Juliet Easton learns this about love too as she uncovers who truly loves her, and who is using her to get to the secret she knows about the disappearance of her sister’s fiancé and the pharmaceutical conspiracy he plans to reveal. Can she protect her loved ones’ lives and her heart? You’ll be hooked from Asiago to Zamorano cheese in this suspenseful and hilarious romantic thriller.”

Juliet is an out-of-work statistician, looking for a job. She stumbles across employment, romance, and some unexpected mystery and intrigue in this light-hearted novel. I like her character. The world of the book comes alive for me. And the mystery is engaging enough to keep me turning pages, without being so heavy that it stresses me out.

I’ve read chick lit and I’ve read mystery/suspense but I’ve rarely read the two of them together and I like the combination. I don’t love the predictability of most romance novels so the mystery in this one is a nice added oomph to the usual girl meets boy office romance.

Where chick lit usually leaves me feeling pretty meh, this one kept me guessing and It was a fun departure from the non-fiction and historical fiction I’ve been reading lately. If you’re looking for a beach read, or something to read on the plane as you head home for Thanksgiving, give this book a try.

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212 The Extra Degree: Extraordinary Results Begin with One Small Change

October 3, 2016 by Kathryn

Today, we start with a science lesson.

Water boils at 212 degrees. So, at 211 it’s just hot water. But at 212 it boils. And boiling water generates steam. Steam can power a locomotive.

That’s a huge difference with just one additional degree.

This is the premise of Sam Parker and Mac Anderson’s motivational book, 212 The Extra Degree: Extraordinary Results Begin with One Small Change. I read an advance copy this summer and it was a great, short read. The whole book is just 88 pages long but it left me feeling inspired and motivated to make a few tiny changes in my life.

Sound at all like Drops of Awesome to you? Me too! I really enjoyed this new analogy, one more way to think about how sometimes it’s just one tiny effort that can make all the difference.

In fact, the book has a similar resonance to 523 Ways to Be Awesome.

“How many opportunities have you missed because you were not aware of the possibilities that would occur if you applied a small amount of effort beyond what you normally do?”

I would add, how many times were you too defeated to apply more effort because you didn’t recognize how well you were already doing? Drops of Awesome.

The book contained short success stories and familiar quotes about courage and perseverance. One of my favorite was the famous quote by Thomas Edison, “Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

This quote resonates with me because I don’t always exhibit great stick-to-it-iveness and I often find myself wondering, what if I REALLY tried? What would happen then?

I comfort myself in my failures by saying, “If I’d REALLY tried, I could have been awesome at hip-hop dance, or filmmaking, or basket weaving. I just didn’t choose to give it my full effort.”

Sometimes committing fully is scary. What if I try my hardest and fail? Then there would be nothing left to give and I would know my best effort is not enough. That’s not something I want to know all the time.

Right now I’m standing on the edge of a situation like this.

I have written professionally for the past 10 years and I always told myself, “If I didn’t have kids at home… if I had more time… I would make writing a full-time career and I would be super successful.”

And now the kids are in school and I can still find all kinds of excuses to not go all-out with writing as a business. What they all boil down to is, I’m scared. I’m scared of spending the next few years working around the clock, only to fall on my face.

But reading this little book helped me crystalize something in my mind. I don’t have to worry about failure. I just need to turn up my effort by one tiny drop at a time, by one degree. And never give up. Or, at least if I give up tomorrow, then I need to un-give up the next day.

What are you afraid to commit to? A better relationship with your spouse? A community service goal? A career? Weight loss?

What could you accomplish if you stopped focusing on what-ifs and fears and started just focusing on increasing your effort? One degree.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

Better Essentials Oil Review

September 8, 2016 by Kathryn

I have a complicated relationship with essential oils. Several friends whom I respect and adore love them! There is a neverending stream of stories about how they have improved people’s health and well-being. They smell and feel amazing. I own a ton of essential oils…

But I’m not totally convinced that they do everything people claim they do. And I don’t really like the business model of several of the companies that sell them. And I don’t know that there’s a good way to tell across the different companies which one has the superior product. Because they all say they have the superior product. And they all say they can prove it.

I have been pretty faithful to one brand because I have so many friends who sell it and they swear by it. Its packaging is also pretty and they swear they are totally superior in every way to other brands. And I’ve had success with a few of the oils.

Grapefruit energizes me. Their digestive blend relieves my kids’ stomach issues consistently. Peppermint and frankincense mixed together sooth tension headaches.

I even signed up to “sell” it, although I’ve never sold a bottle, just so I could get the “discount” and accrue points. But every month I have to place an order, even when I don’t actually need anything. Otherwise I lose my points. This bugs me.

If the product is so good, why do you have to use tricky sales tactics to get people to keep buying it? And, if all the people who are signed up with the company “above” me get a commission off my purchase, why don’t they just charge less for the oils? The prices have to be massively inflated for so many people to be making so much money every time I buy a bottle of lavender.

So, when I got an email from Jen at Better Essentials, I wanted to give her oils a try. She sent me a few sample bottles and I really liked them. They are well packaged, pour well, and smell and feel similar to their MLM brethren.

The thing is, I do not have a deep-seated belief that essential oils cure everything. I don’t know of a good way to scientifically test them. But their extraction processes seem similar to those of the other companies and on the surface they seem comparable.

Now let’s talk about pricing. Better Essentials market themselves as being high quality with a lower price and they are a lower price than full retail of the other companies. But no one really pays full retail with the big companies. Either you sign up to get the “wholesale” discount, or you get the discount from one of your friends who sells the oils.

Better Essentials oils are very closely price-matched to the wholesale prices of the other companies. So, essentially you paying the same price, but you don’t have to sign up and pledge your loyalty to The Man. If you want to buy something, you just buy it. The end.

So check them out. I liked the free samples they sent and I will likely buy from them again sometime in the future.

***I received free product to sample for this review. All opinions expressed are my own and I received no monetary compensation for this post.***

Pete the Cat’s Magic Sunglasses – Put Me In The Story

July 19, 2016 by Kathryn

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I’ve been a little bit obsessed with personalizing things lately. For Christmas I got all my nieces and nephews InchBug labels with their names on them. Then for birthdays this year, they all got monogrammed fleece blankets.

One of my favorite new things to personalize are books. So, when Put Me In The Story reached out to see if I would be interested in having them personalize a Pete the Cat book for one of my kids, I was excited to volunteer.

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Thusly, I am on the official book tour of Pete the Cat’s Magic Sunglasses.

My daughter adores Pete the Cat so I was thrilled to upload her picture and share a few personal details so the book could be printed with her in mind. The process was really simple. I think it took about 5 minutes and then I waited for the book to arrive.

I think it got to my house in about a week and I saved it until a moment when I thought she could really use a special pick-me-up.

Well, since my surgery, she’s been a bit of a basket-case, weepy, whiny, needs her mom to help her with everything. (And she’s not the only one!) So, as I’ve gotten more mobile, I’ve been pouring on the love. Lots of extra hugs and special story times, and today I pulled out the book.

She freaked out as soon as she saw it was Pete the Cat.

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And then she noticed that her name was in the title.

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AND THE BOOK WAS DEDICATED TO HER!!!

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Every page brought huge grins and excited gasps, smiles and giggles.

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She could NOT believe that they had a street called THOMPSON PKWY.

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And she was the sunshine.

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Overall I thought they managed to personalize the book just enough without going overboard or cheesy. It felt fairly seamless and Wanda was thrilled with it.

I would consider this a home-run gift, a gift she clutched to her chest and carried around for a good chunk of the afternoon.

Many of the books on the site are picture books, so they would be a fine gift for younger kids as read-alouds but I think the magic happens when you give one of these books to an emerging reader, someone who can discover all the places where her name appears and be delighted.

Apart from the personalization, it was just a really sweet book with a great message about looking on the bright side and deciding what perspective you will have on life. Do you want life to be awesome? Then look for the awesome!

Put Me In The Story is currently running a giveaway of a couple of personalized books and a book bag. Here’s the link to enter. I’m going to do it because I’d love to give away more of these books as gifts.

Enter via the Rafflecopter by doing any of the following:

Sharing your Sunglass Selfie! Share a selfie of you and your child wearing sunglasses with the hashtag #MagicSunglasses
Sharing a Tweet
Signing up for Put Me In The Story’s newsletter

*I received free product to review for this post. However, I only ever give my real opinions on this blog and none of this text comes from the company.*

Madama Butterfly – Fathom Events Giveaway

March 22, 2016 by Kathryn

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I’ve only attended one live opera. I wasn’t expecting to like it since I’d spent my entire life making fun of opera singers and their vibrato but I figured I had to go to one once in my life. The show I attended was La Traviata and I fell deeply in love with Verdi and gained an appreciation for opera music in general. The music was so passionate, so intense, and the level of skill needed to perform it was so high that I’ve been an opera fan ever since.

So, when Fathom Events reached out to me to see if I wanted to give away some passes to their upcoming live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, I couldn’t pass it up.

The show is Saturday, April 2^nd at 9:55am PST and the tickets I have are for AMC Southcenter near Seattle. The show is being broadcast all over the country and there’s an encore performance on April 6^th. They have an amazing cast and crew and it should be a gorgeous production. If you love opera or if you’re even curious about it, I recommend you check this out.

If you’d like to see the show, leave a sentence or two with your feelings about live opera and how many tickets you’d like. I have 5 admit-2 passes to give away and I’ll draw for winners this Friday night, March 25^th, at 10pm PST.

Tomorrowland: The World is Hopeless Because of You so Be Hopeful, OKAY!?

May 26, 2015 by Kathryn

I blame Johnny Depp for the letdown I experienced watching Tomorrowland with my kids on Memorial Day. It’s a summer blockbuster based on a Disneyland attraction so there’s no chance it can be good, right? Well. I was surprised by my love for Pirates of the Carribean – Part One of A Thousand and that love left me with a ray of hope that Disney could pull off something like that again sometime. But Johnny Depp was not in this movie. Neither was joy.

Tommorowland was a hundred minute prologue leading up to a 30 minute propaganda fest about never giving up hope and working together for a better tomorrow. Now, I’m all about never giving up hope and working together for a better tomorrow, but I hate being beat over the head with messaging.

I like to be entertained, and gently educated by a filmmaker who tells me a story and lets me draw my own conclusions. There can be some direct messaging but it has to be done right.

Tomorrowland ended up looking like a TV commercial for clean energy and youth engagement. Yay clean energy! Yay youth tackling social issues! That’s great.

Tell me a story.

Recently we watched Rudy with the kids for the first time. I had forgotten how much I loved that movie. Mid-twenties dyslexic runty athlete struggles repeatedly to get into the college of his dreams, won’t take no for an answer and ends up getting the stuffing beat out of him as he tries to prove that he’s an athlete – unsuccessfully. What he proves is – he’s got heart and you can succeed at anything if you never give up. He starts a legacy of higher education in his family. He makes me cry. And then he becomes a Hobbit.

Rudy didn’t have nearly as many decapitated flesh-covered robots as Tomorrowland and it definitely had more swearing, but it’s hands-down a better movie. And there are pep talks in the movie about never quitting and about having hope, but they are part of dialogue between the characters, not direct address to the audience as the next generation of robot recruiters marches off into a sea of wind turbines.

Yes they do.

A highlight of the film was Hugh Laurie as the evil bad guy who doesn’t love hope or spunky kid robots with British accents or humanity. That guy could make Anakin Skywalker’s lines from Star Wars Episode II seem moderately interesting. He’s that good. But not good enough to save this movie.

My five-year-old was simultaneously scared and bored and the other two, who love just about every movie by virtue of us seeing it in a theatre, were both highly underwhelmed.

“It was pretty anti-climactic and didn’t really have a story,” Laylee said, “But thanks for taking us.”

If you’re looking for something to do next weekend with your kids, I suggest blowing up lego models of the Eiffel Tower in your back yard and reading pamphlets from the Gates Foundation in your best George Clooney voice. It will be cheaper and probably more fun.

After writing this review, I decided to peruse the internet and see what critics were saying, something I failed to do before going to the movie. My favorite snippet came from A. O. Scott at the New York Times:

“My son briefly had a youth baseball coach whose way of inspiring his demoralized players was to stand at the dugout entrance screaming at them to have fun. “Tomorrowland,” Brad Bird’s energetic new film, a shiny live-action spectacle from Disney, reminds me of that guy. There is nothing casual or whimsical about this movie’s celebration of imagination, optimism and joy. On the contrary: It’s a determined and didactic argument in favor of all those things, and an angry indictment of everyone who opposes them.”

Yes.

Veganish – Review and Giveaway

February 4, 2015 by Kathryn

I am Vegan sometimes. Sometimes I’m Paleo. Every once in a while I’m a Dorito-tarian. (Don’t tell Jamie Oliver!) I love food. I dream about food. I consume it in ample quantities and I spend a lot of time thinking about what I do eat, what I should eat, and what I will eat.

One of my biggest goals is adding more vegetable into my life in a delicious and sustainable way. By sustainable, I’m not talking about composting and buying local. I’m talking about eating vegetables in a way that I’m willing to do over and over again till death do we part, which hopefully won’t be for a long time because, LOOK, I’m eating so many vegetables!

So I’m always checking out new cookbooks and I love vegan and vegetarian cookbooks especially because they focus so heavily on veg. I’ll take an awesome vegan casserole recipe and substitute chicken for beans or cheese for fake cheese. Because I like me some tasty animal products.

Mielle Chenier-Cowan Rose’s new-ish cookbook Veganish: The Omnivore’s Guide to Plant-Based Cooking speaks to the world of vegetable lovers who add in an occasional animal product for the health benefits. It’s pretty fabulous. The book has no pictures and a horrible index but the recipes and information are so good that I’ve gone back to it again and again. This is surprising if you know me and how heavily I rely on good indexing.

I worked through several of her recipes, cooking from it almost exclusively for a week and we enjoyed nearly everything. I think during that week I tripled my family’s veggie intake and not just for the meals I was preparing from her recipes. Veganish gave so many great veggie prep instructions and just plain motivation to live and eat healthier, that I found myself snacking better, sleeping better and drinking more water between meals.

In the introduction to the book, Mielle says she wants it to be more of a cookbook than a recipe book, to inhabit the nightstand as much as the kitchen. It did just that. I read it from cover to cover and got really fired up about eating better.

I’m sure you will too. If your New Year’s resolutions for healthy living are starting to fade, this book is a good refresher. I’m giving away a copy. ~~Just leave a comment below, listing your favorite veggie and I’ll choose a winner the evening of February 6th. You need to live in the continental US to win, unless you want to pay the shipping.~~ The winner is comment #5 – Valeri!

For those of you who don’t win the book, you get something too. By request, Mielle is sharing her Massaged Kale Salad with my readers. As a person who wants to love kale so I can feel superior to my spinach-eating friends, I was excited to find a salad that finally made this monster green palatable to me. I LOVE this salad. Maybe it’s because the kale is so happy and relaxed after its massage and happy food is tasty food. Whatever the reason, this one is a winner. I’ve made it for extended family dinners and neighborhood potlucks and it’s a crowd pleaser, among people willing to put kale in their mouths and chew. Enjoy!

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Christmas Gift Idea Smackdown

December 1, 2014 by Kathryn

Raise your hand if you’ve been planning and shopping for Christmas presents for months. If you’re like me, you feel like you’re behind if you’re not done your shopping by December One. But it’s December One and I’m not done. I want to spend that month celebrating, not fighting over the last Queen Elsa’s demonic disembodied head hair salon. So we need to get moving.

Let’s help each other out. I’m gonna throw out some gift suggestions I’m excited about and then you show me yours in the comments section. If you’ve blogged gift ideas, include a link to your page. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list. It’s just stuff I like and think you might like too. Also keep in mind that you can give pretty much everyone on your list a copy of my book and I won’t judge you for your lack of creativity.

For Babies

Silicon Bibs – I had this style of bib in hard plastic for my kids and I loved that you could just scoop up the food from the pocket and shove it back in their mouths. These silicon versions should be more durable, less hazardous, and they are stinkin’ cute, yes?

Orbit labels by InchBug – I’ve given these as gifts countless times. You personalize the bands and they can be stretched around cups, sippy cups, bottles or sports bottles. For the second line of text, I now put my cell phone number. I have been called multiple times when we’ve abandoned the One True Sippy Cup at Target or track camp. Kids won’t love them, but their parents will!

Sophie Giraffe – Classic, Sweet, must have for a new baby.

For Kids

Snap circuits – My kids have built alarms, fans, and light switches with these versatile, durable electronic toys. Hours of educational fun and with the simple instructions they can do it themselves at an earlier age than you’d think.

Break Your Own Geodes – We ordered this specific set from Amazon when my son turned 9 and became obsessed with crystals. Every rock had beautiful sparkly joy inside and it was really fun to discover.

Zoobs – If your kid likes legos, check these out. These are probably the coolest kids building toys I know of. Their creations can pivot on hinges and there are so many cool projects they can build.

Party Machine – So, I bought this for me. And for a wedding present once. But the kids LOVE it. I probably really bought it for them, right? The sound quality is good, but not amazing, and it can hook up to your phone or MP3 player over blutooth or with a patch cable. The lights are really fun and it’s turned our Saturday chores into a dance party.

For Old People Like Me

Fit Bit – I keep giving these as gifts. I’m not sure why. It’s like I just want other people to count their steps and sign up to be my friend on the fitbit app so they can pound me. I am only asking for trouble. It’s fun to keep track of my movement during the day and sleep at night and compete with my friends and family. I’ve used the One and the Flex and I prefer the One.

*Punk Wireless Speaker by Sol Republic – I’ve tried several wireless speakers and I loved this one. It’s rugged and has great sound for a device this small. Give the gift of kitchen dance parties.

Glass Water bottle – We love these bottles and have given them as gifts several times. There’s no better way to drink water than out of a glass container. It just tastes better and these are so cute.

For Everybody

Woot Shirts – There is a Woot shirt for everyone.

Experiences – Indoor Skydiving, Laser Tag, Memberships to your favorite Museum, or Waterpark, tickets to a sports event, concert, or other performance

Something You Were Going to Buy Anyway – Sometimes I think about what I’ll need to buy for the person in the coming months. Buying it for Christmas and wrapping it up eliminates the need to “come up with something” to give someone. For example, I may give my kids supplies for band or ballet or baseball. They’re excited to get something useful to them and it saves me time and money. Clothes items are great for this too.

*Sample provided to me by manufacturer.

Affiliate links are included in this post.

Hubby Can Draw Drops of Awesome Art Print Giveaway

September 24, 2014 by Kathryn

Tons of great things have come from releasing Drops of Awesome out into the world. One of my favorites is that it helped me discover Brandon Miltgen’s art. We met through my blog and when I saw the Drops of Awesome art he created, I had to hang it on the wall of my family room.

And there it lives, even now.

I posted a link to his work when I first discovered it and several people asked me where they could buy it, but he wasn’t set up to sell prints back then.

But… dun dun dun…. his wife recently set up an Etsy shop to sell is work and you can go there to get the Drops of Awesome print or a ton of other great pieces.

To launch the shop, Hubby Can Draw is giving away a free 14×11 print of the Drops of Awesome piece. To enter, just:

1. Visit and Like Hubby Can Draw’s Facebook page;

2. Share any post from the Hubby Can Draw Facebook page (Be sure to mention that you found Hubby Can Draw through Daring Young Mom to be part of the giveaway!)

That’s it! Anyone can enter from today until Saturday, the 27th at noon. One random winner will then be chosen from all the entrants and contacted through Facebook for their free Drops of Awesome print!

So head on over, and be sure to browse their shop – it’s got a bucket’s worth of awesome art for sale.

Glad to Be Dad

June 11, 2014 by Kathryn

As is seasonally appropriate, I’ve been thinking a ton about dads this past week. As part of my mental celebration of all things fatherly, I opened up the book, Glad to Be Dad: A Call to Fatherhood by Tim J. Myers. Tim is writer, songwriter, professional storyteller, and for several years he was a stay-at-home dad. I found out about him through Familius, the publisher for my upcoming Drops of Awesome book.

Glad to Be Dad is a thoughtful look at the joy, pain, and depth of experience that is fatherhood. It’s a call to action for fathers everywhere to recommit to fatherhood as a life’s work and it was beautiful to read.

When I say it was beautiful, I mean that in the most manly, at times laugh-out-loud funny way. The book is full of personal stories, research, and a lifetime of parenting wisdom that doesn’t come off as pompous. Tim Myers has lived life in the trenches and gives a very real perspective on parenting as a daily unending labor of love and somehow manages to capture a glimmer of the truly joyful nature of raising children. It is a book about the importance of “capital F” Fatherhood, fully realized.

Near the beginning of the book, Tim talks about how refreshing it would be to see a nativity scene in which Mary was asleep and Joseph was holding the baby Jesus. I first began reading the book in December and the same day I read that paragraph, I went to see a live nativity and was so pleased when I saw an attentive Joseph bringing Mary water, while tenderly holding the baby.

Reading this book, I often recognized myself or my children in its pages and it motivated me to tune in more as a parent but also to cut myself some slack. There is no perfect way to be a dad [or mom]. It also made me grateful to be married to a non-helpless, non-zombie husband who engages with our kids and who never sees his time with them as “babysitting.”

It’s a book about how to be a more engaged father, but it’s not preachy. It’s a book about women and men better understanding and appreciating each other in family relationships, but it’s not trite. It’s a book about being torn between two worlds, the world dedicated to family and the world of everything else. Mostly, it’s a book about finding joy with the life you have and the people you love most.

Consider Glad to Be Dad as a last-minute gift for the fathers in your life.