Love, Life and Appreciation: January 2014

A few weeks ago, I got an email from BzzAgent about a razor. I hadn't heard of the razor they were referring too and was very interested in trying it out, as my legs have been more dry this winter. I decided to Opt-In and I received a box for review about 3 days ago.

Here's the information for the campaign :

The hydration hype is for real

Hypoallergenic Moisturizing Serum infused with Shea Butter. 5 Curve-Sensing^™ blades. Skin Guards. All those features might just sound like bells and whistles for now, but trust us – as soon as you take a few strokes with Schick_® Hydro Silk_® Sensitive Care_® razor, everything will make perfect sense.

Winter can be especially tough on sensitive skin. Dermatologist-tested Schick_® Hydro Silk_® Sensitive Care_® razor delivers a better hydration boost than any other razor. The Hypoallergenic Moisturizing Serum hydrates your skin for up to two hours after shaving while the 5 Curve-Sensing^™ blades protect your skin from irritation. So even while you’re bundled up in a parka, your legs will feel like hitting the beach all winter long.

Here's a few pictures of what I received:

Included was one Schick® Hydro Silk® Sensitive Care® razor with 2 refillable razor heads, one coupon for a FREE Skintimate Shave Gel or Shave Creme and 4 coupons to save $4 on one Schick® Hydro Silk® Sensitive Care® razor. I use Skintimate Shaving Gel all the time so I was very happy to receive this coupon.

Let me tell you this razor is absolutely wonderful. The structure of the razor makes for effortless shaving. I found much of the area of my leg was smooth in one stroke as opposed to numerous strokes for my other razor. My legs felt so smooth and soft after using the razor and were really moisturized. 4 days later my legs are still smooth and soft. Overall, I really enjoyed using this razor and I'm very happy I got to test it out. I'll definitely be sharing the coupons with friends and family.

To find out more about BzzAgent, check out this link.
To find out more about Schick Hydro Silk, check out this link.

Disclaimer: This box was complimentary sent to me from BzzAgent for review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review and opinions are honest and completely my own.

For this week's Friday Find, I wanted to share an app that I have been using for months now. It's called the Key Ring Rewards Card App and it's available on both IOS and Android devices at the moment. I found this app, while searching for a way to minimize the clutter all my store loyalty cards have on my key ring. There were numerous times I went to grab my keys in my purse and got stuck because of the cards on the key ring. Then there was just the extra baggage I had just carrying the cards around. Well I saw this app and instantly, it became so much easier to get my keys out of my purse and my key ring was free.

The app allows you to scan the barcode of the card and even add pictures of the card itself. The app also offers a list of reward programs you can join, around your location, coupons from stores around your location, weekly circulars of the stores nearby and a shopping list, among many other things. Here's a view of my loyalty cards:

Recently the makers of the app held a contest called the 2014 Wallet Slim Down Challenge. They were asking users of the app to show their wallets and/or key rings before using the app and after using the app. From the looks of the pictures posted on their Facebook page, the after pictures have really slimmed down. I submitted this photo, of my experience with using the app:

Just look at the difference afterward. Freedom! Oh if you're wondering about the saying, I've had that saying ever since my aunt gave it to me when I first started driving. I thought it was funny and I've NEVER gone on the sidewalk. Back to the contest, about a week after I'd entered, I got an email from the team saying I'd gotten runner-up for my photo. They said I'd be getting a swag bag full of Key Ring swag and looks like I'll be getting a t-shirt too. I thought the contest was nice and I look forward to more contests.

I really do think the app is a wonderful app, to help get rid of the clutter of physical reward cards. I always have my phone with me and with the app I can have those loyalty cards too. I have not had a problem in using the app too at the stores. It's kind of interesting pulling out my phone, for the cashier to scan the code. Sometimes I get stares, others think the app is cool. I'm happy knowing that my loyalty card is there and that I am still able to use the card, even though physically the card is not on my key ring.

To find out more about the Key Ring App check out their about page.

**Update**
I received my winnings for being a runner-up from Key Ring on January 27th. I got a blue T-shirt with the logo #TameYourCards on the front, a keyring can opener and Key Ring koozie. Love the goodies. Thanks so much Key Ring!!! Such a great app!

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post.

Do you like getting free things? Well for this week's Friday Find, I found out about a new sampling service called PINCHme, from Makeuptalk.com.

Here's what the home page looks like:

I found signing up to be very easy. According to the site, the site offers the opportunity to"Try products from the world's leading brands for free." I saw the Past Products tab of previous samples which featured products like Katy Perry's perfume Killer Queen, Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs, Lady Gaga's perfume Fame, and Olay Regenerist Micro Sculpting Cream. I thought the products previously sampled seemed nice. Since I signed up though, I realized these products go fast. Since I've signed up, I've been able to select 3 products. The products I selected are below:

When you select a product, you have about 20 minutes before the offer expires in you cart. Shipping is free. I still haven't received the Gevalia Caramel Macchiato K-Cup (I don't have a Keurig K-cup Brewer though), I ordered December 20th, though viewing the forum thread on Makeuptalk, I see that others are in the same boat. Also in viewing the thread, I saw that samples are offered every other Tuesday at 12 pm Eastern Standard Time.

The site also offers reward points for reviewing products and ordering your first box, among other various things. You can also get points by clicking on "buy now" for the product, whether you buy the product or not. According to the site, at Level 2, you'll be entered in PINCHme monthly sweepstakes.

To find out more about PINCHme, check out their How It Works page. Seems like a great new service. I look forward to seeing what other samples they'll be offering.

***Update***
I received my lotion sample January 23rd and my coffee sample January 25th.

The lotion was very moisturizing and smelled nice. The coffee was good. I really liked the foam. We don't have a Keurig Brewer but I have a Teavana Single Serving Strainer which worked perfectly!

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post.

My birthday is today! I'm officially 27 years old. Yesterday we said goodbye to my grandfather. It was so hard saying goodbye...

I'm happy that Rex was here to comfort me and celebrate my birthday with May and other members of my family. I'm also happy for seeing another day and celebrating another birthday. In the morning Rex and I went to Ihop. My father watched May for us. It was nice having breakfast with him, it was like mini date. I got the Brioche French Toast with strawberry and blueberries and Rex got the steak omelet. Here's a few pictures we took:

Birthday Love

Later, Rex, May, my father and I stopped by my uncle Dennis'. My uncle Clarence and my cousin Tina, had come up from Georgia for the funeral and had stayed there. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and had recently seen each other at the funeral. They wanted to see May, since we didn't bring her to the funeral. It was also nice for Rex to see more of my family members.

May with my uncle Clarence

Here's a older picture of me with my uncle Clarence, with my grandma May

Four brothers

Here's my cousin, Jamie with May

My cousin, Jamie is a home health aide and gave Rex a few workbooks she had when she was learning the field. Not long after visit my family, Rex had to be at the Greyhound station to go back to Maryland. We weren't sure if he would get a call back for a second interview Friday and felt it would be better he was in Maryland in case he got the call. Dropping him off at the station was hard and it's getting harder each time. May seems to be OK, she sees pictures of him and hears his voice. The video calling is helpful as well. We decided he'll give it two more weeks and if he can't find anything in Maryland, he'll be coming up this way. We're really hoping he hears something back from the interview. I'm hoping I hear something back from the jobs I applied for in Maryland too. Some good news, the employer I was working with before I left still wants to work with me, and I'll be remotely analyzing the data I was imputing for the middle school. It's part-time work but at least it's something.

One thing about May that has been with her since she was born, is that she loves to talk. She was babbling when she was like 4 weeks old and now almost a month after she excitingly working her vocal cords. When my cat, Tabitha, who will be turning 19 in August, meows May will respond to her meowing by either screaming or saying something in her cute little language. Much of May's speech sounds like "bahs and da-da-das." There's other sounds I just can't put my finger on it. She sounds like she has a full conversation sometimes when she plays with her toys and it's so cute when she has her toy phone. She holds it up to her head and we are always asking her who she is talking too. I love having sitting with he too and just having conversations. I know she's trying to figure out what we are saying too. It seems she figured out "bye" and a few other words early on. When Rex and I would get off the phone we said "bye" and now May says "bye" too when we end a phone call. I know her language development will keep growing. I still read children's books to her at night, even though most of the time May just wants to play with the book.

Just the other day, I took this picture of her after I had finished feeding her oatmeal cereal:

May has been giving us more hints when she's done eating like shaking her "no" and waving her hand back and forth like "stop." I'm still nursing her as well. Though I am home with her more, I'm not nursing her as much. May still seems to be interested in nursing and before she's 2, I'll have her weaned off. I have to look for more sources on how to transition her, though she's been more weaning herself off.

Now to the deep freeze in much of the Northern United States. Last night the temperature dropped to below zero and the high for today is only 15 degrees! I took a screenshot from my phone of the temperature this morning:

4 degrees and that 15 looks out of place! If you are experiencing temperatures like this, be sure to bundle up. The only plan I have to do today is to put up Rex from the Greyhound bus stop not too far away from the house. He has an interview today for a home health aide in Baltimore, and we're really hoping he gets it. I'm so happy he'll be here later today and I know May will be even more happy. The colder air and the heat are also drying out May's skin more. She's had a mild case of eczema since she was around 4 months. She had flaky skin and was scratching a lot. We put Johnson & Johnson lotion on her and to be more organic I got Shea Moisture baby lotion. None of it seemed to help and it actually seemed to be making matters worse. The doctor told it was eczema and that she would probably grow out of it when she gets older. The doctor also recommended we bathe her with dove unscented soap and put either Vaseline or Aquaphor on her skin twice a day. Let me tell you the Aquaphor really helped her skin. For the scratching, the doctor recommended we rub 1% hydrocortisone on her one a day. The hydrocortisone helps to keep her from scratching, we also keep her nails short.

My grandfather's funeral is tomorrow :-( This is starting to become an all to familiar occurrence.

{To find out more of why I'm writing this entry, check out my 30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me post.}

1. List 20 Random Facts About Yourself

1. I never could have made it without God.

2. I was born at 10 pounds 6 ounces with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck.

3. I love my birthday! My birth year is enough to explain my birth-day, month and the year itself.

4. My favorite colors are purple, blue, green and silver.

5. I’ve had a few poems published in analogies and my goal is to publish a novel, one day.

6. After I graduated from high school, I enrolled as an English major, Mass Communications minor at Virginia State University, in Petersburg, Virginia for two years. My passion was more meteorology, and I transferred out of Virginia State in the Fall of 2007, to attend Kean University in Union, NJ in as an Earth Science major, meteorology option. I later graduated from Kean with my degree in Earth Science. Talk about 360° change!

7. My freshman year at Virginia State, I got a certificate for the highest GPA out of the whole freshman class taking English as a major.

8. I took French for 6 years.

9. My favorite movie of all time is Independence Day, second favorite is Titanic.

10. I really enjoy listening to all types of music, especially Rhythm and Blues. I also love to dance. Any dance.

11. How I met my husband (your father) was completely random and it was the best encounter I’ve had.

12. My favorite kind of food is Italian. My least favorite is spicy foods.

13. I love watching the Amazing Race and want to participate one day.

14. I've had my luggage lost at an airport once. It was not fun.

15. I've been many cities around the United States, like Seattle, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tallahassee, for meteorology conferences.

16. In high school and college, I played tennis and at once someone told me they thought I’d be the next Serena Williams.

17. I have Raynaud's phenomenon. Thank you Mystery Diagnosis!

18. I am not a very good swimmer but I like sailing and canoeing.

19. When I was 10, I ate a jelly doughnut and got very sick. I have not eaten a jelly doughnut since.

20. I'm an only child.

Atop the Space Needle in Seattle, WA in 2010.

Throughout the week I stumble across a few things, like articles, apps, and programs I think might be interesting to share. I decided to create a "Friday Find" segment every Friday to specifically dedicated to these finds. For this Friday, I'd like to share an app I found called Viggle.

I've been using these services for a few days now and so far I haven't had any complaints. First off, Viggle. Viggle is a rewards application which rewards the user based on checking in to TV shows and checking in music. Now I'm very big on rewards programs. I've been a member of Pampers rewards, Kellogg's Family Rewards, Recyclebank, Lean Cuisine rewards, among a few others for months now. When I heard about this service I thought to give it a try. Now with most reward programs collecting points takes patience. It took me over a year to redeem something off the catalog for Pampers rewards. Of course it might not take that long depending on what you want. For Viggle, I found points can collect rather quickly. No that does not mean you have to spend 14 hours in front of the TV. I actually find myself checking into the show and doing something else most of the time.

I have not had any problems checking into a show or checking in a song. If the app can not match the song or show you can manually enter in what you are watching or listening to. The app also has ways you can get more points like watching short videos or playing a live trivia game with the show. I did the live trivia game once for the movie Avatar, though this is a way to collect 350 or more points, I found myself checking my phone every 3 minutes for a new trivia question. It was crazy. I decided just to check in the show and do something else. Some shows have 3 times or 2 times more the points for the show. The points are associated with how long the show is. For example: a 60 minute show is worth 60 points. 2X would meant that would be doubled, equaling 120 points. That's only if you checking at the start. If you check in even a minute late that would be equal to 59 for the show, or 118 if it is doubled.

You can see what shows are doubled or tripled by viewing the "Featured Shows" tab on the app. Most of the show's I don't really even watch but I check in and I get points. I check-in many shows that aren't on the list, which I still receive points for. I've checked in a lot of the shows I watch with my daughter. I love Ni-Hao Kai-Lan. You can also favorite the show and of course, share your check-in with friends on Twitter or Facebook. The music tagging is nice. Ever heard a song on the radio and you don't know the name? Viggle can name the song and you get 25 points for it. There is a limit to how many songs you can tag daily though. You can only tag 20 songs and that's a daily limit of 500 points. Here's where I've got so far:

I haven't figured out how to unfollow people and those 20 people where there when I first signed up. 8,479 might seem like a lot, but for most of the rewards, I at least want, I have a long way to go. I found most of the show's to tag are more in the prime time hours which is nice. Overall, I'll say that the app is something to try, especially if you like listening to music. I still plan on using the app and test it out more. If anything it can help me find out the names of songs. Currently I use Soundhound.

For more about Viggle check out this learn more.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post.

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