Reviews and Giveaways

Novica – Review and $75 Giveaway

April 1, 2014 by Kathryn

Do you remember when I became obsessed with only buying fair trade items?

Dan does. It was the year I told him exactly what I wanted for Mother’s Day but said I only wanted it if he could find it made of recycled glass by people in fair working conditions or previously-owned. He spent hours with the kids in an antique store finding me the perfect glass pitcher. I bought him a bathrobe and called the company to verify the working conditions of the textile workers. I wanted to know they had air conditioning, a fair wage.

Yeah. We got tired and lazy and we just started buying stuff again, trying not to think about where it came from or how it was made. But I still think about it, a bit. It just takes work to know what you’re buying.

That’s why I love Novica. It’s a website that partners with National Geographic to bring fair trade items from artisans around the world to consumers worldwide. Each of the items offered for sale comes with an artist bio and information about where and how it’s made. You can view these profiles online as you’re browsing and feel secure that you’re helping small businesses flourish, often in impoverished countries.

Novica also partners with Kiva.org to provide microcredit loans to their artisans, allowing them to start or grow businesses, employ others, and preserve ancient artistic techniques. You can offer a zero interest loan to an artisan through their website.

To give me an experience to blog about, Novica offered me a $150 gift card, which I spent $75 of and I’m giving the other $75 to you.

There are a ton of great products to choose from. It took me days, and sadly, by the time I made my mind up, the item I wanted had sold. I’ll have to check back later. Stock varies from day to day as artists sell out and get back to work creating. So, if you find something you love, snatch it up right away. It’s a great way to buy gifts and feel good about what you’re purchasing.

I went with this great Ica Traveler cotton handbag with leather accents. It is big enough without being enormous and has great organization with pen holders, cell phone pocket and two zipper pockets. It’s really pretty and well-made and I’m enjoying carrying it around.

It came quickly, considering it made its journey all the way from the Andes in Peru. When I placed my order, the website was glitching so I called the number on the screen and they completed my purchase over the phone.

A few other items I like that are still there are:
Leather Wristband Bracelet
Family Love Elephant Necklace
Soapstone Candle Holders
Brown Leather Messenger Bag

They also have leather handbags, jewelry boxes, sterling silver necklaces, Mother’s Day gift suggestions, blue drinking glasses, and much more.

Leave a comment if you love shopping fair trade and want to do it for free. I’ll use a random number generator to choose a winner at 10pm PST on Thursday, April 3rd, 2014. Good luck!

Book Review: 12 Weeks to Greater Peace, Joy & Love in Your Family

February 4, 2014 by Kathryn

When Jennifer Jones Smith approached me about reviewing her book 12 Weeks to Greater Peace, Joy & Love in Your Family on my blog, I was excited to read it. Who couldn’t use more of love, peace and joy in their most important relationships?

There were several things I enjoyed about this book. Jennifer Jones Smith is sincere and passionate about families. Her words feel like a labor of love, the compilation of years of experience as a wife, mother, and friend who knows what it takes to make home more heavenly. The book has a striking religious component to it, which I was not expecting, but which I identify with because belief in God is such a strong part of my family experience.

I really appreciated her focus on self-compassion and empathy and how we need to love ourselves and learn how to act in spite of fear in order to build our families. She cautions against comparing ourselves to others and encourages compassion to be turned outward as well.

Many of my favorite quotes from various religious and other leaders and speakers were spread throughout the book, providing an added layer of perspective that I enjoyed.

I have yet to try the 12 weekly assignments that she suggests at the end of each chapter but several of them rang true to me as exercises that would bring greater peace and joy into my home.

One thing that intrigued me about the book when she first contacted me was that Jennifer is an Energy Healing Practitioner, a profession that fascinates me and about which I would like to learn more. Alas, the book is less about energy work and more about common sense practical ways to improve the feeling in your home and the connections within your family. Energy work is mentioned and a few of the exercises focus on energy manipulation, but I still feel like I need to do quite a bit more research to understand the basics of this form of healing.

With the launch of her book this week, Jennifer Jones Smith has provided a link to bonus content for readers who purchase the book February 5th on its launch day. Here is the link. Enjoy!

Product Review – Amplicom Alarm Clock for the Hearing Impaired and People with Little Sisters Who Need More Sleep

June 19, 2013 by Kathryn

I don’t often do product reviews on the blog because that’s not really what this blog is about, but it is about my family and if something strikes me as particularly cool or important or relevant, I’ll blog about it.

As most of you know, my oldest daughter has some hearing loss. She can hear fine *most* of the time, but if I talk softly or if she’s not looking at my mouth when I talk, she has some trouble. She wears hearing aids… when she wears them, and she should probably have an FM system at school but she’d rather not so I don’t push it with her. Our relationship is more important to me than a few missed math instructions.

When I got the chance to try out a new alarm clock, developed for people with hearing loss, I decided to do it. Enter the Amplicom TCL 200 digital alarm clock. Say that ten times fast. It comes equipped with all kinds of cool features that we don’t use. It talks to you and tells you the time. It can be turned up extra super loud and has lights to get your attention. It can even hook up to your phone to amplify the ringer.

The thing we like most about it is the vibrating pad that goes under Laylee’s pillow at night. In the morning, she’s awoken with a gentle vibration under her head. The pad is wireless and comes with built-in rechargeable batteries, and we use it without the audio alarm or flashing lights.

The obvious benefit is – it wakes a person whether they have hearing loss or not. The magical side benefit is – it does not wake up the 3-year-old sleeping on the bunk below. So, Laylee gets a gentle head massage, reminding her to get going and Wanda gets to sleep on in a drooly coma for as long as her little body desires.

Would I spend the seventy bucks to buy one if it hadn’t been sent to me magically for free in the mail? I’m not sure. Maybe in a couple of years. I think alarm clocks are going to be more of an issue as she gets older and I want her to take responsibility to get herself out of bed on time. She currently uses the hearing-loss-friendly, mom strokes your hair and your cheek and whispers loudly in your ear alarm. But she’s getting a smidge old for that.

If her hearing loss were more severe, this would definitely be a great option. I’m not sure how many of my readers suffer from hearing loss or have a loved one who does, but if you do, check out this clock. It’s intuitive to use, durable, and has enough bells and whistles without being overly complicated.

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Mindful Eating – A Review and Giveaway

November 19, 2012 by Kathryn

Do you have as hard a time with food as I do over the holidays? Let me rephrase. Is food one of the most exciting and simultaneously terrifying parts of the holiday season? Do you swear you’ll “be good tomorrow” as you lick the frosting out of the bowl and eat carbs faster than you can taste them?

If so, then you need to head on over to my food blog, Bite Upon Bite, where I’m doing an interview with Dr. Michelle May, author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat and a giveaway of her book.

She’s amazing and I think her thoughts will really help me, and hopefully you, find peace and joy with food this time of year and beyond. Food is wonderful for a reason. Let’s enjoy it, without putting back on all the weight we’ve been working so hard to lose!

I want to be sure and give a big thanks to Coca-Cola for hooking me up with this interview opportunity.

The giveaway is open until 9pm PST on Wednesday, November 21st. Head on over there now and throw your name in the drawing.

Green Drink Recipe – A Smoothie Brought to Me By Target

November 13, 2011 by Kathryn

I buy stuff at Target fairly frequently so I was pleased to see that they were expanding their grocery selection. When they sent me a $25 gift card to try out their new grocery department and blog about it, I figured it would make a good food post.

This recipe is one of my favorites, a green drink smoothie I make to pump my kids and myself full of vegetables. They’ll eagerly drink three handfuls of spinach when it’s pureed into this mixture but ask them to eat four leaves by themselves and they’ll act like their life is over.

Green Drink

2 heaping handfuls of fruit of your choosing
About one pound of fresh spinach
2 Cups fruit juice
1 Cup water

Throw your fruit in a blender. Stuff in as much spinach as you can. Pour your liquid over top. Blend until creamy and green.

I like to use at least one frozen fruit, my favorite being one banana and a huge handful of strawberries. For fruit juice, I just use whatever I have available. For this recipe I used frozen strawberries, a banana, a bag of spinach and Dole pineapple/peach/mango juice, all purchased with my gift card from the fresh grocery department of Target.

The dry goods selection is surprisingly good at Target, not to the level of a traditional grocery store, but decent and they have a good supply of basic produce if you’re not looking for anything fancy. They have meat, dairy and frozen foods now too. I found the prices to be really low on some things and high on others.

Tillamook cheese, for example, was $8.99 for a baby loaf, way more than I’m willing to pay. Their bagged spinach, however, cost less than I find it on sale at the grocery store.

Overall, I think it’s a convenient option if you’re going to Target anyway, but I wouldn’t make it my primary grocery source.

For Real – Stop Saying “Never”

August 23, 2011 by Kathryn

This weekend Dan and I watched Justin Bieber: Never Say Never for our hot date night. I pitched it to him as “a chance to let the magic of documentary film transport us into the world of a strange and interesting new culture.”

Also, he would get to sit really close to me for two hours. Also, he would get to see Jaden Smith perform his first live rap solo at Madison Square Garden. Most people don’t get to perform their first live rap solo at Madison Square Garden but. He’s. That. Good. So there’s that.

I was mostly watching it because a friend dropped it off and told me I had to, because it was directed by Jon M. Chu of Step Up 2: “The Streets” and Step Up 3: “The D” fame, and because of purple.

I won’t bore you with all the details and doubtless you’ve all seen it already.

*cough* American Classic *cough*

I will say that tears were shed as we watched it. To protect the privacy of those involved, I will not tell you by whom the tears were shed or what type of emotions were behind them. I will tell you that the movie makes me question my fashion choices. There’s just something about those bedazzled hoodies… like baby, baby, baby, ooooooh.

Mockingjay – A Review – SPOILER ALERT

August 27, 2010 by Kathryn

I devoured the first two books in the Hunger Games series in one sitting and have been counting down the days to the release of Mockingjay this week. I was one of the first to purchase it Tuesday morning and I carried it around with me all day like a security blanket. Then I read it. All night I read it. And it was over.

Like all good things that come to an end, it left me feeling a bit deflated. Now what? I often feel that way when I finish a good book, movie, or TV series. The characters have become my friends and I just don’t want to say goodbye. My sadness at the end of Mockingjay was a little different though.

The three book jackets tell a vivid story. Book one shows the Mockingjay small, almost timid, with its head down, clutching the arrow as though picking it up for the first time. Book two shows the bird as robust, surrounded by the color of flame, ready to take on the world. The cover of book three is pale blue and shows the Mockingjay with its wings spread out, surrounded by light. The book jacket radiates hope and rebirth. Then you open the first page.

Keep reading at your own risk. Highly opinionated commentary and spoilers abound. …

Wii Netflix Party – A Review and Giveaway

June 28, 2010 by Kathryn

***The winners have been chosen by Random.org. They are Poppa2b, Carolee and Julia. ***

So now Nintendo has asked me to be a Brand Ambassador. I’m not totally sure what it means but I do keep getting free stuff, which is nice and they have not yet set fire to my house so I think both of those things must be part of the agreement. As far as I can tell, we come in peace and bearing gifts.

Last weekend, they sponsored a little get-together at my house with some friends. We had a game and movie night with food and games provided by Nintendo. They also sent along a sweet little flip video camera to capture the fun and we did have a great time.

However, I’ll warn you that as I tried to edit this little baby together, I discovered that there’s not much in the world quite as boring as watching video of other people playing video games and watching movies. There is a really cute shot of Wanda in the middle of it all which I think makes it worth watching.

We downloaded Haunted Mansion Party with the free points cards they sent us, kind of a board game with interactive Wii-play arcade-type games along the way, and ended up playing some old favorites, Big Brain Academy and Dr. Mario as well.

Then keeping with the Dr. theme, we streamed Dr. Horrible with our Netflix disc. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We’d do it again for sure.

Nintendo provided some Nintendo Points Cards to give out to our friends and since I consider you all friends, I’m extending the party and I’ll send cards to a few of you if you’d like. Just leave a comment listing your favorite game for the Wii and I’ll draw 3 winners to receive a couple thousand Nintendo Points each so you can download fun software for your Wii or DS.

The timing was a little funny to be throwing a party celebrating streaming Netflix because we’ve had some issues with it lately. We’d been really enjoying it until a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of great movies and TV series available and it’s nice to have them on demand.

But two weeks ago, we left Magoo inside playing Lego Batman while Dan put together the play set in the back yard and he got into some trouble with the Netflix. He knows he’s not allowed to use it without me or Dan there but like most 5 year-olds, he thinks he’s smarter than us and he “totally knows what movies are for kids.”

Long story short, he ended up watching some really offensive content. It was animated so he thought it was okay but it was WAY R-rated and honestly I don’t know any adults who would not have been offended by it. It was awful. Luckily Netflix keeps track of what’s been watched so we could go back and see what he’d seen and address it, but it was a wakeup call.

Nintendo products tend to be so family-friendly, a big part of the reason I chose the Wii and the DS over other gaming systems when I had money to spend. However, the Netflix disc does open up a whole new can of worms. We now have the whole Wii on lockdown so I have to enter a passcode for the kids to use any game or the Netflix disc. I’ve also set our Netflix rating max to PG in case I leave it unlocked someday.

So, be wise. Use it for the good but protect your family from the bad.

Leave a comment if you’re interested in the giveaway!

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With Incredible Power Comes Incredible Responsibility

May 6, 2010 by Kathryn

(Feel free to skip to the bottom for my quick take on the new HTC Droid Incredible.)

I buy capers at Costco. Sure I can only go through a few tablespoons of capers a year but I still buy the Costco-sized bottle of capers. It’s all about value. The little teeny bottle at the regular grocery store costs the same as the ginormous bottle at Costco and I cannot bring myself to buy the itty bitty for the same prices as the Jamie-Oliver-sized jar. (This is conjecture. I have no actual idea how many capers Jamie Oliver goes through in a given 3-month period. I imagine it is more than the 25 that fit into the jar at Safeway.)

Which brings me to a point. The Droid. Or should I say Droids?

In my latest adventure in selfish smartphone testing, I tried out the Motorola Droid. I was hooked almost immediately. It was fast. It was versatile. With an inexpensive app (Touchdown) I was able to sync up all my Outlook calendar and contact information using Exchange. The built-in Exchange support was lacking. It came with access to a plethora of apps that were cool, useful and fun. One of the most amazing things was the speech-to-text capability. You’d speak into the phone and it would transcribe your words into searches, text messages, emails, etc. I kept texting Dan with things like, “I just said that,” and “I’m not typing this either.” It was hot, the phone, not the texts. I loved it.

It was not as cute as the Palm Pre. It didn’t feel as good in my hand. It was not a mobile tethering wireless hotspot but it did everything I needed and more.

But wait. Then I found out that its Costco caper jar equivalent was coming out soon and I just couldn’t be happy with the Motodroid. The ~~HTC Incredible Droid~~ ~~Droid Incredible from HTC~~ Incredi-HTC-ible-McDroidy-Pants was released on April 29th and it has everything that the MotoDroid has plus and plus and plus.

The Incredible has access to the same apps and features as the MotoDroid but it also has a faster processor, more internal storage, an 8 megapixel camera, HTC Sense UI (meaning cool modifications to the Google Android operating system making it more sleek, attractive and functional), a better feel and a partridge in a pear tree.

So I could have been very happy with the MotoDroid but why spend $200 on it when I could spend $200 on the new hotness? The only reason I see to go with the Motorola Droid vs. the HTC Incredible is the slide-out keyboard. If you can’t live without it, then you’d better stick with Moto. I thought I couldn’t live without it but it took me all of a week of abstaining from using the MotoDroid keyboard by choice to convince me that I could live without it. The touch-screen keyboard is actually quite nice.

So I jumped in and bought the new hotness with my own hard-earned cash and we frolicked in the grass and synced up calendars and contacts. I downloaded known apps that were recommended to me by friends and family. I loved the phone and the phone appeared to find joy in me as well, remembering all of my likes and dislikes and allowing me to rearrange its multiple home screens to my liking.

HTC Sense has much better built-in Exchange support than the standard Android 2.1 operating system so after we figured out some weird bugs on our Exchange server, I was really happy with the way everything worked together. My Facebook contacts are now linked with my Google and Outlook contacts so anyone with a profile picture in my Facebook friends now has a photo attached to their contact on my phone and when I look at their contact info, I can see their latest status updates right there.

The first day I had the phone up and running, I took a picture of Wanda eating in a cute bib my friend had given me as a gift. I clicked “share” on the phone and chose “email” from the long list of sharing options. I then selected my friend from my contacts list, typed a one sentence thank-you note and sent it off. The entire process took less than 2 minutes and she was impressed that I’d taken the time to send her a photo thank-you.

The built-in Twitter app is lame but there are others for free in the Market. The Facebook app is alright. The internet speed with the Incredible on Verizon frequently beats my laptop. It’s very very pretty. I can point it at pictures and landmarks and it “scans” them and tells me what they are. It does more things than a phone really should do.

And there’s the hitch.

The joy of my new toy was disrupted last weekend when I was browsing the Android Market for new apps and came across several distasteful and offensive apps in the games section. I do not want to see clothesless women as I’m browsing for solitaire games on my phone. I do not want to see apps for freaky weird creepy guys with specific “interests”. I’m trying to avoid certain key search terms here but you get the picture.

So I figured if they had an app for finding my car in a mall parking lot and an app for people who like to do things to pictures of women, then they certainly had an app that would help me and my family avoid running across that junk while we’re searching for games. They might even have a filter built in so I could just say, “Don’t subject my eyes to these types of apps. I’m not old enough,” or a way to lock access to the Market altogether so my kids don’t accidentally navigate there as they’re playing a Disney Princess game on my phone while I doze next to them on the couch.

Not so much.

I searched and searched and found nothing but references to the fact that people wanted filters, locks and controls for their Android phones but could not find them or were having trouble getting Google to let them create them and add them to the Market. So basically, even though my home internet is filtered, I found myself carrying around unfiltered open season to all the junk the internet has to offer in my diaper bag without much hope of a solution.

Luckily since I’ve been working with PR at Verizon I was able to get into contact with someone at Google who spent some time on the phone with me this afternoon, listening to my concerns and answering some questions.

The short story? They don’t have an app for that… yet. The man I talked to handles among other things “child safety policy and communications” for Google. He pointed out several instances where Google has made strides to make internet usage safer for children and adults like myself who don’t want to deal with filth.

I was unaware that you can now filter your browsing experience using SafeSearch filtering. It’s a setting you can get to from the Google main page. I didn’t know about the new Safety mode on YouTube, a button at the bottom of the page that you can activate and lock to reduce the risk of seeing nastiness on that site. Neither of these are perfect by any means but they’re a good faith effort by Google to offer options for filtering and they’re working to improve them.

My new Google friend was very encouraging. The phones are still fairly new terrain for Google. They’re working on it. They know there’s a demand for this and they’ll follow their model on the web, bringing filtering and locking to their mobile phones.

He said he’d let me know as soon as developments occur. And I’ll let you know as soon as he lets me know. For now, I’ve locked the front screen of my phone so my kids can’t slip it out of my purse and play with it without me. I’ve also set the SafeSearch mode in Google Mobile’s settings to “Strict” although there’s currently no way to lock in this setting but unless the kids figure out how to change it, it should keep me from running into too much junk. However, there will still be garbage on the Android Market and for the time being I will still run into it occasionally.

To avoid it, I’d suggest sticking to the “Top” apps rather than looking at the “Just In” apps because after signing up as a developer with Google, which requires a credit check and access to the developer’s real identity information, a developer can post things to the Market with no sort of vetting process. This allows for the kind of creativity and freedom that has made Google so successful, but again there’s that whole bad-comes-with-the-good thing.

If an app violates Google’s policies by posting anything pornographic or malware or spyware, users can flag it to be taken down. Personally I’d rather not be the one to “discover” malware, spyware or pornography so I’ll stick to the high end of the Market and wait for quality apps to be tested by others and trickle up.

Daring Young Mom Quick Take – The HTC Droid Incredible is an amazing tool with huge possibilities for productivity, fun, creativity and connection. I love all of the great things it can do for me. But, like the internet itself, it’s also got some real hazards built in. I’m so glad Google’s working on them. I can’t wait to pass on the good news that they’ve implemented mobile safety solutions but for now I’d say to proceed with caution.

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Mother’s Day Gift Book Idea

May 5, 2010 by Kathryn

If you’re still looking for a last minute Cinco de Mayo/ Mother’s Day gift, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the girls who put together The Mother in Me, a really lovely compilation of poems, essays and reflections by young LDS mothers.

A friend who was part of the project sent it to me for review a year ago while I was pregnant with Wanda. And since I was… well… pregnant with Wanda and barfing constantly I let a lot of things slip and never posted a review.

I’m sure she’s not expecting to hear from me now but I wanted to let you know about it. The writing is beautiful and very real and I think you’ll enjoy it. Heck. It would make a great Mother’s Day present for yourself because chances are you’ll see yourself in the pages you read.

I recognize that most of my readers are not LDS, but some are and the book is quite tender and affirming of the role of mothers in a way that I think crosses religious boundaries.

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