October 29, 2010

Is It Just Me? By Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg is known for being extremely talented in many different areas in the entertainment field. She has won a Tony, Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, 2 Golden Globes, and many other awards for her wide range of talent.

I like her for her honesty and humor. She is a big reason I watch The View, and even TiVo it when I’m not there to watch it. Often on the show, I hear her say something about how she doesn’t use Twitter, or a Blackberry and I smile. I often though maybe it is just me, but I don’t text 24/7 (rarely even do I text). If you are left wondering if it is just you thinking these things, you are not alone! Check out Is It Just Me? By Whoopi Goldberg and enjoy an evening alone with a book discovering that it is in fact, not just you.


Book Description
“Whoopi Goldberg has always been her own woman. From her days in standup, through her acclaimed work as an actor, and now into her duties as the moderator and co-host of The View, Whoopi has been outspoken and honest, respectfully taking no prisoners even while drawing people in and making them laugh—or cry. Total honesty, administered civilly and with a healthy dose of audacity, is her hallmark and her way of life.

In her new book, Whoopi shares stories from her own life when she’s been forced to deal with tough situations in family, marriage, friendship, and business. She relates how she navigated through them with healthy honesty, which has all but vanished in the era of the volatile pundit. Naturally, she tells these stories with the humor, irreverence, and joy for which she’s known, and she also speaks up about the challenges dealing with one another here and now, especially with the growing disrespect and rudeness in this country. Cheeky, a bit naughty, occasionally in-your-face, this humorous book will bring readers into her world.” – Is It Just Me?



My Thoughts
Whoopi Goldberg is funny and talented. What I really enjoy about this book is that it is written like how she speaks. Funny and to the point. I agree with most of the things she writes about in this book. How people act on the road, texting, how people behave in an airplane, censorship, personal hygiene, noisy neighbors, etc.

The only area I wish she had written more about in a not so negative way is blogging. See, I am a blogger, obviously. I am not one that hides behind an anonymous name though. I don’t slam people and make fun of them or report on something I made up. So, she isn’t directing these sections in the book towards bloggers like me. However, she doesn’t really mention the good side of blogging either. Maybe she hasn’t seen the good parts of it, but I assure you Whoopi, the good ones are out there!

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Is It Just Me? By Whoopi Goldberg. I highly recommend this book and think this is a perfect book for everyone who has a good sense of humor and gets the things discussed in this book. Even if they don’t originally, hopefully they will see what they are doing can surely annoy those around them.


Thank you to the publisher of Is It Just Me?, Hyperion Books, for providing me with a copy for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

October 22, 2010

Pink Together Giveaway!



As you all should know already, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. General Mills created Pink Together as a campaign to raise awareness of the disease and to help those affected by breast cancer to find strength together.

PinkTogether.com is a growing community bringing hope and inspiration to more than 680,000 breast cancer survivors and supporters. It is a place where users can share stories, comment on others to bring encouragement and support, and even send virtual flowers to another user.

To encourage personal connections, General Mills is donating $1 (up to $20,000) to Komen for each story submitted, comment posted, or virtual flower sent in support. General Mills will also donate for each shared message on Pink Together’s Facebook page (up to $5,000). This $25,000 is in addition to the $2 million donation General Mills has committed to the Susan G. Komen fund to further advance breast cancer research, support, and education.


“Connecting for a Cure” Gift Pack
I’m very happy to get to share this amazing gift pack with one lucky reader. This package includes: Pink Ribbon car magnet and key chain, travel mug, and drawstring backpack, along with coupons for free packages of one Big G cereal, Green Giant® Frozen Veggies, Macaroni Grill® Dinner Kits, Fiber One® Bars and Progresso® Soup.

It isn’t required to sign up at Pink Together, but it would be great if you did.


To enter please leave a separate comment for each entry, if you do not have a viewable e-mail in your Blogger profile, please include that in your entries:

One Comment – Follow my Blog publicly and tell me what you find most inspiring about Pink Together.

One Comment – Blog about my giveaway (linking to this post). Leave URL of the post in your comment.

One Comment – Follow me on Twitter and tweet about my giveaway (linking to this post). Leave URL on here. http://twitter.com/sherinewton



Contest will end on October 30, 2010
Good luck!



Thank you to MyBlogSpark and General Mills for allowing me to review and giveaway this prize pack. The products, prize pack, information and additional prize pack to give away were all given to me from General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

October 21, 2010

Brilliant Lenses Giveaway – Winner!

The Brilliant Lenses Giveaway is now officially over. I used Randomizer to randomly select a winner out of those that entered. The winner for this giveaway is Julie!

Congratulations, I hope you enjoy it! I will contact you right now to get the info to send this prize to you!

Check back in tomorrow, I have another amazing giveaway for you to all enter! Also, if you haven’t already, enter the Bisquick Gluten-Free Giveaway that is open until the end of the month!

October 19, 2010

Legxicon.com Tights and Leggings Review

Looking for some amazing tights or leggings that you won’t find other fashionistas in your city wearing? I live in a small town, and even nearby “cities” aren’t honestly that fashion forward to include new colors and designs on tights or leggings at their stores.

Well, if you are in the same situation I’m in, or if you just want to look different, I suggest Legxicon.com for very fashionable and high quality tights and leggings for Fall and Winter. Here are the tights and leggings I reviewed from their fabulous website…


Loretta 64 Patterned Tights
$16


How hot are these tights? Seriously, they can go with so many looks and always look sexy and fashionable. I chose to wear them with a black skirt, gray pumps and a red top. It was pretty amazing, and I got a lot of compliments on them. The tights definitely made the outfit, and kept my legs warm on a somewhat cool day. They didn’t run, and were easy to put on and take off. Can’t ask for more than that!


Cara 27 Patterned Tights
$24


These have a pinkish purple argyle look to them, so I wore this with a purple dress I recently purchased. It actually worked really well, and made me feel like my legs were amazing. These tights were a little bit warmer than the Loretta 64 design, but they are equally stylish, head turning, fun and easy to wear.


Flosie 4 Leggings
$18


I really like to wear purple, and leopard, but not usually together. When I saw these I fell in love. Seriously, these leggings are fun and unexpected. The leggings are a little bit thin, so they feel more like tights with no feet. I love them, and so did my friends. Perfect present for the holidays!


Riyo 4 Leggings
$20


These leggings are more like the traditional “leggings” you would think of. Except these leggings ruche on the bottom and give an extremely fashionable look with high heels. I love these so much, that I have to say this is my favorite pair out of the pack. I wore these out shopping, and even one of the saleswomen in a department store asked me where I found them at (so she could get some too). Love it!


Legxicon Coupon!
Since I know you are all wanting these amazing tights and leggings now, I couldn’t just leave without a coupon for my favorite readers! Thanks to legxicon I have a very nice coupon to share with you to use in time for the fun Fall parties and the holiday season. Enjoy!




Thank you very much to legxicon.com for providing me with the products featured for review. I was not paid to write positively about the products, or at all. All opinions and experiences expressed are my own.

October 16, 2010

Giveaway + Review: Bisquick Gluten-Free Baking Mix

I’m really excited to get to share with all of you a great new product, and get to host a giveaway of it through MyBlogSpark!

As I’ve mentioned on here before, I can’t eat Gluten. I’ve also complained about not being able to eat some of my favorite things unless buying special products that are only available at certain health stores (and quite high in price too). So, I was really excited to get to try out the Bisquick Gluten Free Baking Mix!

I seriously haven’t eaten pancakes or waffles for over a year. So, I decided to start this review out by making pancakes. It was easy to do, just like with regular Bisquick. I was a little scared on if they’d be good or not (to be honest, a lot of the gluten-free stuff is not usually good). However, these were fantastic! If you didn’t know that they were gluten-free you’d have no idea! They really do taste just as good, if not better, than the regular gluten-filled kind. Yum!

This amazing mix can make pancakes, waffles, biscuits, pizza crust, pies, casseroles, and more! I’ll be buying some more to try out the pizza crust soon. Check out www.bisquick.com/glutenfree for more ideas and recipes.


Bisquick Gluten Free Prize Pack Giveaway
I have one gift pack provided by Bisquick through MyBlogSpark to giveaway. It includes a box of Bisquick Gluten Free baking mix, a pancake pan, pancake pen, and a pancake flipper.


To enter please leave a separate comment for each entry, if you do not have a viewable e-mail in your Blogger profile, please include that in your entries:

One Comment – Follow my Blog publicly and tell me what you’d make with this prize pack.

One comment – Blog about my giveaway (linking to this post). Leave URL of the post in your comment.

One comment – Follow me on Twitter and tweet about my giveaway (linking to this post). Leave URL on here. http://twitter.com/sherinewton


Contest will end on October 30, 2010
Good luck!



Only one person can win this amazing gift pack, but I have a $1 off coupon for everybody! http://www.myblogspark.com/uc/main/8b49/


Thank you to MyBlogSpark and Bisquick for allowing me to review and giveaway this prize pack. The products, prize pack, information and additional prize pack to give away were all given to me from Bisquick through MyBlogSpark.

October 13, 2010

The Link by Colin Tudge

Evolution is a big debate between religious views and what people think about it. This is a book review, so keep an open mind at least if you are on the opposing view of evolution. The Link by Colin Tudge is a story about the fossil named “Ida” that as he puts it is “uncovering our earliest ancestor.”


Book Description
“For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years.”
- The Link – Read an excerpt.


My Thoughts
The Link by Colin Tudge is a well-written story about the fossil named Ida. I find the whole evolution discussion interesting, and I like science, so this was an interesting book to me. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t say how accurate the information included in the book is. However, it was written in a way that even non-scientists could read smoothly.

I especially liked the way the author conveyed how excited those who found and studied the fossil were. Showing this made the book more exciting, which could be hard to do being that it is just a fossil and not something “alive” anymore.

Overall, I think that if you like science and learning about evolution, this would be a great book for you to read. If you are on the religious end and don’t want to read about evolution at all, this obviously wouldn’t be the book for you.



Thank you to the publisher of The Link, Back Bay Books, part of the Hachette Book Group, for providing me with a copy for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

October 11, 2010

Weekly Freak Out

This week I don’t have a lovelist, and to be quite honest I haven’t had one for quite a bit now. Maybe I’ll have one again in the (hopefully soon) future. For now though, this week… I’m freaking out.

I have TWO exams in Anatomy and Physiology 2 this week. One is tonight, and the next one is on Wednesday night. I’m not excited. No. I’m freaking out. It isn’t like I haven’t been studying, I have. Honest. I had an exam in this class already and made a B (barely). It was the hardest exam I’ve ever taken in my life though. It was multiple choice and short answer, and short answer was a HUGE portion of it. This test will be much the same. A lot of the students in the class failed, but a lot made a B or an A on the last one too. Regardless though, I’m freaking out.

The exam on Wednesday is the lab midterm. We have to know everything on the heart and other random things. Freaking out here. I knew the muscles and bones from A&P 1 but for the test somehow I lose what I know and get confused on areas.

Maybe this is not the right path for me. Maybe I’m really just freaking out and will do fine.

On a positive note though, I scored an 89 on my Microbiology exam a week or so ago. I actually quite like that class and find it much more interesting than A&P.

Yes To Carrots: Body Washes Review

Yes To Carrots is my go-to brand of choice for “green” body care with Dead Sea Minerals. Seriously, this stuff is amazing. If you haven’t heard of them, check out this Yes To Carrots review and then go check out their website.



Yes To Carrots: Carrot Rich Shower Gel
MSRP: $8.99
Available at: yestocarrots.com


This shower gel really makes your shower feel like you are in a luxurious resort. You can use this as a shower gel, or as a bath gel for a nice warm bath. I used it as both (with all of these gels) and it was wonderful. This gel cleanses, nourishes and revitalizes the skin. It also leaves it well moisturized so I didn’t even need lotion after the shower. This shower gel is even better paired with the Yes To Carrots shampoo and conditioner. Love it!



Yes To Tomatoes: Terrific Day Shower Gel
MSRP: $8.99
Available at: yestocarrots.com


The Terrific Day Shower Gel can really start your day off being terrific. This shower gel cleanses the skin, moisturizes it and helps to balance the pH levels leaving your skin gorgeous. This is really fantastic paired with the Yes To Tomatoes shampoo and conditioner as well. I loved it!


Check out the rest of the Yes To line on their website, and Like them on Facebook for specials and giveaways!


* Thank you to Yes To Carrots for sending me the products reviewed for the purpose of the review. All opinions and experiences expressed are my own.

October 9, 2010

BrytonPick – Floss in Seconds! – Review


I admit it, I hate to floss. I have a small mouth and I would really like Invisalign. Regardless though, I do floss as often as I remember to. Regular floss is really hard for me, I just don’t know how to floss with a small mouth I guess.

That is why I was quite happy to get to try out and review BrytonPick for flossing anywhere – without the traditional floss string! This is a portable dental floss that comes in a carrying case that can fit in your wallet to use when on the go. They say that it is also great for people who are unable to floss or hate flossing – like me!

I tried out this new BrytonPick to floss with and was quite pleased with the results. It is really easy to use, and gets in the back of my mouth much easier than regular floss. I can say that I love this option for flossing, and it has even made me start flossing more. Gotta love that, right? I recommend this product for everyone who flosses like they should, and also for those who hate to floss.


This Product Was a Free Giveaway

October 6, 2010

Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt

Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt is a historical romance that is perfect for a cold winter day. The book is full of detailed and engaging characters, clever dialog, and much more to keep your attention.


Book Description
“From the New York Times bestselling author of To Desire a Devil comes this thrilling tale of danger, desire, and dark passions.

A MAN CONTROLLED BY HIS DESIRES . . .

Infamous for his wild, sensual needs, Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is searching for a savage killer in St. Giles, London's most notorious slum. Widowed Temperance Dews knows St. Giles like the back of her hand-she's spent a lifetime caring for its inhabitants at the foundling home her family established. Now that home is at risk . . .

A WOMAN HAUNTED BY HER PAST . . .

Caire makes a simple offer-in return for Temperance's help navigating the perilous alleys of St. Giles, he will introduce her to London's high society so that she can find a benefactor for the home. But Temperance may not be the innocent she seems, and what begins as cold calculation soon falls prey to a passion that neither can control-one that may well destroy them both.

A BARGAIN NEITHER COULD REFUSE”

- Wicked Intentions – Read an excerpt.


My Thoughts
Wicked Intentions is the first in a series of books called the Maiden Lane series. This was the first book I’ve read by Elizabeth Hoyt, and also my first “historical romance.” It wasn’t quite what I expected, but not in a bad way.

The story takes place in 18th century London, and has gripping characters that involve you as a reader. Generally though, the story revolves around Temperance and Lazarus, and their search for the killer, and figuring out Temperance’s secret past. There are many characters though, and many lack focus.

I didn’t quite understand all of the issues some of the characters have, such as Lazarus’ inability to let others touch him, sometimes. Seemed a bit out of place, but maybe we’ll discover more about that in future books.

Overall, it is an engaging enough story to keep the reader actively reading it. I do recommend it for those that like the romance genre. Hopefully the future books in the series will answer some of the questions from this book and tie up other loose ends.


Thank you to the publisher of Wicked Intentions, Grand Central Publishing, part of the Hachette Book Group, for providing me with a copy for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

October 4, 2010

The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark

Grammar isn’t usually thought of as glamorous. It did however, used to be the same word. The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark uncovers the magic of grammar and teaches you some basics of grammar, in case you have forgotten.


Book Description
“Early in the history of English, the words "grammar" and "glamour" meant the same thing: the power to charm. Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, aims to put the glamour back in grammar with this fun, engaging alternative to stuffy instructionals. In this practical guide, readers will learn everything from the different parts of speech to why effective writers prefer concrete nouns and active verbs. THE GLAMOUR OF GRAMMAR gives readers all the tools they need to"live inside the language"--to take advantage of grammar to perfect their use of English, to instill meaning, and to charm through their writing. With this indispensable book, readers will come to see just how glamorous grammar can be.”
- The Glamour of Grammar
Read an excerpt.


My Thoughts
Grammar is not essentially something many people want to relearn. Take a peek on Facebook, Twitter, any text message, many e-mails, and any online video game, and you’ll think words like “UR” and “PLZ” are commonplace and “okay.” Well, it isn’t. Kids and teenagers who are growing up in an era of fast communication methods like this, actually end up turning in papers with such bad typos and grammars, it makes their teachers cringe.

The Glamour of Grammar hopes to help bring back the joy of grammar. For me, anything that helps people stop using text message abbreviations for everything is a good thing. This book really does teach grammar in a fun and unique way that even teenagers may crack open the book to help become better at grammar.

Even though this book, or any book for that matter, doesn’t promise to make you perfect with grammar, it does substantially help reclaim the basics. I recommend this book to everyone who needs a refresher on grammar, or knows someone who could benefit from it as well.








Thank you to the publisher of The Glamour of Grammar, Little Brown, part of the Hachette Book Group, for providing me with a copy for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

October 1, 2010

Live Brilliantly Giveaway and Review

Sponsored by Tomoson.com



Wearing glasses can be a bit of a pain to clean. I clean mine everyday - sometimes two times a day. I can’t stand seeing streaks or spots, so I may have OCD like that, and I want to see well out of my overpriced Burberry glasses.

Brilliant Lenses Cleaner and the optical microfiber cloth allow those who use eyeglasses (or even sunglasses) to see brilliantly. This is a premium eyeglass cleaner with SR-8 that adds a protective barrier to your lenses to help resist scratches and soiling from water, sweat, dust, and dirt. This is usable for all types of lenses.

I was really happy to get to review the Brilliant Lenses to help me clean my glasses at home, school, in the car, wherever.

The big bottle of cleaner I use at home is really not something I want to carry around in my purse, so having a little bottle with a carrying bag and microfiber cloth that is light and able to go with me is fantastic!

I love how fast the Brilliant Lenses cleaner works, after rubbing it in on the lens and then wiping it off, it was finished and not streaky. I can’t say the same for my old cleaner, so this is definitely my new cleaner from now on. I love it!


Live Brilliantly Giveaway
I'm excited to get to host a giveawy for this! I have one Live Brilliantly package to give away to one lucky winner.


Please leave one comment for each entry:

One comment – friend Brilliant Lenses on Facebook, or become their fan (MUST do this or Twitter to win)

One comment – follow Brilliant Lenses on Twitter (MUST do this or Facebook, or both)

One comment – tell me why you want to win! If your e-mail doesn't show on your profile, post it here so I can contact you if you win!

One comment – tweet about it, or post it on your facebook status (must link to this blog post)

One comment – blog about this giveaway (must link to this blog post)



Giveaway ends on October 20, 2010. Good luck!



This Product Was a Free Giveaway