Butterviews

The One2One Network sent me Brandi Carlile’s Give Up the Ghost album to review.

I’d never even heard of Brandi Carlile before this.  No one song really stood out to me.  However, my review is this – It’s great music to listen to while sitting with some wine and getting some work done.  Not that I would know about that.  She sort of reminds me of a mix of Heart, Melissa Etheridge, and Alanis Morissette.  Odd but true.  I received the music as a download, which I plan on adding to my iPod for sure. P.S. – be sure to check out Caroline – it’s really fun. You can also become a Facebook Fan.

Album Tracklisting:
Looking Out
Dying Day
Pride And Joy
Dreams
That Year
Caroline
Before It Breaks
I Will
If There Was No You
Touching The Ground
Oh Dear

The opinions in this review are all mine.  I received the album download gratis.

The marvelous One2One Network sent me Joshua Bell’s At Home With Friends CD to review.

The album released on September 29th.  Here’s the track listing for your perusal:

Album Tracklisting (Originally performed by): I Loves You Porgy featuring Chris Botti, trumpet
Come Again featuring Sting, vocals
Oblivion featuring Carel Kraayenhof, bandoneon
Cinema Paradiso featuring Josh Groban, vocals
Para Tí featuring Tiempo Libre, various
My Funny Valentine featuring Kristin Chenoweth, vocals
Maybe So featuring Edgar Meyer Sam Bush and Mike Marshall, strings
Grieg: Sonata No. 3 featuring Sergei Rachmaninoff (Zenph re-performance)
Eleanor Rigby featuring Frankie Moreno, piano & vocals
O, Cease Thy Maiden Fair featuring Nathan Gunn, baritone
Il Postino featuring Carel Kraayenhof, bandoneon
Left Hand Song featuring Regina Spektor, piano & vocals
Chovendo Na Roseira featuring Dave Grusin, piano
Look Away featuring Edgar Meyer, bass and Chris Thile, mandolin
Variant Moods: Duet for Sitar & Violin featuring Anoushka Shankar, sitar
I’ll Take Manhattan featuring Marvin Hamlisch, piano

I wasn’t sure what I would think about this one.  I mean, yes, I love music.  Yes, I love orchestral sounds.  But solo violins (well, solo strings, really) tend to annoy me.  But I gave it a listen.

A couple comments on a few tracks…  Track 2, Come again, with Sting?  I had NO idea it was Sting.  It’s a total departure, in my opinion, of his usual stuff.  Track 5, Para Ti, definitely makes you want to dance the ChaCha.  And track 6, My Funny Valentine, is by far my favorite.  I love this particular arrangement.  For such a tiny gal – she has a HUGE voice.

All in all?  I would say that the whole CD is incredibly calming and soothing.  The perfect thing to have in the background while you’re working (which is what I did.)  I highly recommend this one.  I truly enjoyed it.

Here are some links to take you on your way:

Joshua Bell’s Website

Joshua Bell’s Facebook

The opinions herein are truly mine.  The CD was sent gratis.

Safety Tat recently sent me their product to use and review.  Scroll to the bottom for a discount code especially for my readers!

EQUATION: Safety Tats are temporary tattoos designed to be better able to locate your child – or have your child/adult locate you for that matter.  They come as writable, or custom made.  Safety Tat sent me both.  The custom ones came with my cel phone number pre-printed on them.

I wouldn’t use them as an every day thing, but figured it would be perfect for a family outing.  I held on to them for the right opportunity, and last weekend that opportunity cropped up.  My family and I went to the L.A. County Fair.  Lots of people, big new place – perfect.

PLUS: They went on easy.  They stayed put.  We used the custom pre-printed ones, so I haven’t used the writables.  We didn’t put sunscreen on the tat itself, but I’m sure that the sunscreen from the surrounding area made it’s way onto the tat, but didn’t effect in in the least.  It was clear and readable.  We even used the “Medical Condition” one on my youngest.  He has a medic-alert bracelet, and figured we’d be extra clear since we were using them anyway.  The didn’t make the kids’ skin itchy, which was a concern of mine as my oldest son has very sensitive skin.

MINUS: I actually don’t have a minus.  I usually like to give constructive criticism whether I like the product or not – how else will companies know what the consumer would like improved?  However, in this case…  I got nothin’.

EQUALS: A positive review.  I am definitely keeping the leftovers, and when those are gone buying more.  The truth is – I’m not sure if my kids will panic and forget my phone number.  They don’t use the phone all that much (Yet.  Heh.)  I feel an added sense of security of my phone number being right there for either me or the adult that helps them if they get lost.  Bottom line – this is a product that adds a layer of security in going out with my kids, and is a product that does exactly what it is meant to do.

EXTRA CREDIT: Just for my readers…  A special coupon code!  If you want to receive 15% off your order of $15 or more, use Butterviews10.  Note – it must be typed as seen, and it’s case sensitive.

I was asked by the One2One Network to review Once in a Blue Moonby Eileen Goudge.  And HA!  I got to see it before y’all.  The book officially releases October 6th.

However – I have to disclose something.  I love Eileen Goudge.  So.  I have to admit that this review will be biased.  Unless she totally tanks the book – the review is bound to be positive from me.

Here’s the synopsis:

Sisters Lindsay and Kerrie Ann have known hardship from an early age. Without guidance from their neglectful mother, their only aid came from an unlikely source, a retired exotic dancer by the name of Miss Honi Love. When the girls’ mother was sent to prison, Miss Honi tried unsuccessfully to save them from being separated and sent into foster care.

Thirty years later, Lindsay is still trying to reconnect with her sister. The owner of a bookstore in the sleepy California seaside town of Blue Moon Bay, she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a loving couple. Unbeknownst to her, Kerrie Ann has suffered a very different life. Bounced from one foster home to the next, she ran away as a teenager before becoming a drug-addicted single mother. Now, newly sober, Kerrie Ann is fighting to regain custody of the little girl who was taken from her.

Neither sister’s expectations are met when they’re finally reunited. But as the two sisters engage in the fiercest battles of their lives, they are at last drawn together despite their differences, restoring belief in the unshakable bond of family.

So – what did I think?

Without giving away the plot, I loved it.  It really resonated with me.  Granted some of the plot resonated a little TOO well with me given my family history and brought up some old stuff for me, but I think that’s a gift of the author’s.  In addition, I think a strong theme of the book as a whole is “family is what you create it to be,” which is something I believe and live every day.

The characters are well rounded and you really get to know them, warts and all.  What’s more – you grow attached to them, you start rooting for them.  A definite sign of a good book.

An aside: I want Miss Honi Love to come and live with me, please.

For the record, had I not been in on this, I would have bought the book when it’s released.  Translated – I loved the book and you should buy it.  If you’re already an Eileen Goudge fan?  You’ll love this one.  If you’ve never read her?  It’s a great example (although you’re then going to have to read the rest of her stuff.)

Did you know that Eileen Goudge has a FaceBook page?  And Twitter?  Check her out and then check out the new book.

This review is my personal opinion. I received the book gratis.

Rock of Ages

Some info on the CD:

New Line Records just hammered the in-store release of the Original Broadway Cast Recording of five-time Tony Award nominated “ROCK OF AGES.” For those of you not in the know, Rock of Ages is the new Broadway musical starring American Idol finalist Constantine Maroulis. Set in 1987 in a legendary Sunset Strip rock club, a small-town girl meets a big-city dreamer and they fall in love to the greatest metal songs of the 80′s. The musical is an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of Journey, Bon Jovi, Styx, Reo Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Twisted Sister, Poison, Asia, Whitesnake and more.

I’ll be honest… I wasn’t sure what this was. I agreed, because, well, Rock!! When I agreed, I didn’t know that this was a Broadway show. It also took me checking out the artwork and such to realize that Constantine Maroulis is a castmember. At that point I realized that I would have to add a disclaimer here, because I am no longer objective. I had a serious (totally married, pious) crush on Constantine on American Idol. I wanted to pet him and put him in my pocket.

Once I found out this was a musical, using already established rock, I was a little concerned. I was really really hoping it wouldn’t be like those covers you hear, where a really rocking song ends up sounding like Muzak. But this is… Amazing. While they changed the songs a smidge to fit the storyline of the musical, the music is straight on. And in fact I want to see if they use a live orchestra, because it is GREAT. And then I was concerned about the voices. Nothing would be worse than a wimpy version of rock. I was amazed by them!!

And seriously – I thought it WAS Jon Bon Jovi singing “Wanted Dead or Alive.” By the way – My husband was a HUGE Young Guns fan, and this song sold him on the CD. And of course “Final Countdown” reminds me of every 80′s martial arts movie there ever was. Heh.

So, this CD took me completely by surprise. I absolutely loved it. And I maybe might have made an idiot out of myself headbanging singing to it. My husband has learned to just smile and nod. If you’re into rock (think leather and hair and slow dancing in junior high) than this is for you.

I want you to buy it. No, I do have a giveaway, but since only one of you will win, you should totally buy it. See the bottom of the post for the giveaway…

Tracklisting:
Just Like Paradise / Nothin’ But A Good Time
Sister Christian
We Built This City / Too Much Time On My Hands
I Wanna Rock
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Heaven/More Than Words / To Be With You
Waiting For A Girl Like You
Wanted Dead Or Alive
I Want To Know What Love Is
Cum On Feel The Noize / We’re Not Gonna Take It (Reprise)
Harden My Heart / Shadows Of The Night
Here I Go Again
The Final Countdown
Any Way You Want It / I Wanna Rock (Reprise)
High Enough
I Hate Myself For Loving You / Heat Of The Moment
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Can’t Fight This Feeling
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Oh Sherrie
The Search Is Over
Don’t Stop Believin

If you’d like to enter for a free CD of Rock of Ages for your own, I have a simple giveaway here… Nothing fancy. No extra entries for tweets or writing about it (I simply don’t have the time to do a full blown thing right now,) just a straight up comment giveaway. Comment on this entry, and make sure you leave your email address in the proper slot. That’s it. One entry each, please. Giveaway ends (and your comments must be there) by Sunday, 8/16 at 11:59pm pacific. Good luck!

The last day to enter the Capri-Sun Sunrise $250 Visa Giftcard Giveaway on Butterviews is tomorrow! I won’t be taking comments after Midnight 7/9 Pacific, so be sure to get your entry in. Oh, and don’t comment here for the giveaway – it won’t count.

The Equation:
When I came home from working full time outside the home, I had several interests I wanted to explore with my new-found time (ha.) One of those things was seriously preparing for emergencies. I have a family of four, plus my parents next door make six. The two kids both have special needs, and my parents are elderly and my mom is in very frail health. Between us, we have two homes and their properties to maintain, and 5 running vehicles. In this time of economic crises, both personally (my parents are on a fixed income, and my husband is laid off) and nationally, proven terrorist activity, not to mention natural disasters (we live in wildfire and earthquake country) – I wanted to put together a plan that is more concrete than “3 days of water per person on hand.” That is truly the extent of my emergency preparedness. But if you’ve ever researched preparedness and survival in any depth – you know how daunting and overwhelming it truly is. I’m still stuck, kind of not knowing where to turn first.

When the publishers of Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life
by Neil Strauss contacted me (about several books actually) I jumped at the chance to read this one, and told them to go ahead and send it. When I read up a little bit on the author – I was a little leery. Author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, I wasn’t looking forward to a serious take.

PLUS:
This book is chock full of information from a first person account. It makes you think. It really takes you on the author’s journey to KNOW what to do in emergency – to have the supplies, life skills, and experience to survive when it comes right down to it. It was absolutely fascinating to experience it vicariously.

MINUS:
I was looking forward to more “this is what you do” information. This isn’t exactly what I was looking for in terms of resources.

EQUALS:
A neutral/positive review. One the one hand – it’s a GREAT book. I really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t put it down. Mr. Strauss is a gifted writer who really pulls you into the journey. But it’s touted a bit as a resource guide, and this isn’t it. So really, it drops down to neutral from positive – probably because of marketing reasons. It’s marketed wrong. I highly recommend the book, especially if you have any interest in the survival community. And while it’s NOT a resource book, it certainly got me to thinking and doing a lot of research on my own, which I think is an incredibly positive effect.

I’m a mom, a wife, a daughter, a business owner… I’m busy. So are you. Mornings are, well, difficult I suppose is the word.

Here’s what we do. I get up at 6am to be able to have my coffee and some morning quiet time. I am NOT a morning person. If I don’t have that hour or so before the rest of the house, I get very very grumpy. Then, around 7am I wake the kids up. They know the routine. Into the dining room for breakfast, brush teeth, wash face, feed and water the cats, get dressed, clean up rooms, and make their beds. Then they can do whatever they’d like before going to school. It’s taken a long time to come up with a routine. We’re still working out the kinks.

For example, if the laundry’s not put away – then where are the clothes? Homework didn’t get put away the night before – where’s that? Where’s the lunchbox so it can be packed? Not to mention if, God forbid, one of the kids gets up on the wrong side of the bed.

But the kids always eat breakfast – and that’s where this review and giveaway come into play.

The good folks at BlogHer asked for a review and for me to giveaway money. How could I refuse that?!

So… Per my regular review format, here we go…

EQUATION: I received the new product from Capri-Sun in three varieties to try – well, for my kids to try. They tried the Orange Wake Up and Berry Tangerine Morning.

Capri Sun Sunrise ~ Making Every Day Better
Capri Sun Sunrise is the new, wholesome morning drink for kids chock full of Vitamin C and calcium.

• A good source of calcium
• 100% Daily Value Vitamin C
• The pouch kids love

It comes in three flavors: Orange Wake Up, Tropical Morning, Berry Tangerine Morning

PLUS: Well – aside from all the vitamins and all that good for you stuff… My kids LOVED it. I tried to get descriptions from them other than “good” but all I got out of them is, “It’s very Orangy!” They’re only 6 & 9 so I’ll give them some slack. But I suppose the biggest praise of all was, “Can we please please please have it in snack tomorrow?”

MINUS: We’ve been using the Capri-Sun products for a long time, and I really trust the brand. But, it’s still a packaged juice, as opposed to completely fresh do-it-yourself. But since I’ve never made juice in my life, that’s not a big minus for me. Although I suppose it should be? But it is 100% juice, and they have Green initiative that you can find out more about at their website.

There are actually 8 chances to win… Go see the Blogher Round-Up Page to find out how.

Good Luck!

RULES: Sorry. Have to have them to keep things fair.

To enter, leave me a comment below and share YOUR morning routine tips, as I mentioned above – or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. The contest will begin on 4/29/09 and will end 7/8/09. Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct. You can find the Official BlogHer Contest Rules here.

• No duplicate comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US residents, over the age of 18.
• Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Haagen-Dazs Five Coffee Ice Cream

I mean, this is Haagen-Dazs. You don’t need me to tell you they’re good. They just are. It’s a known fact.

However, through a wonderful PR rep I’m connected with, I had the chance to participate in a conference call with Haagen-Dazs. They wanted to talk to bloggers, let us know about a new product line, and then get our feedback on the idea, as well as share their process and some recipes. Involved was the Haagen-Dazs brand manager, culinary consultant (she came up with the recipes), and two PR reps for the company.

The line? Haagen-Dazs Five! What happens when you mix just 5 ingredients that you know and can pronounce. Milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and then the flavor (real.) So for the Coffee (!!) flavor, all that’s in it is milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and coffee. Not coffee “flavor”… Coffee. All the ingredients are on both the front and back. That’s all there is. Oh – and the cost is the same as the rest.

Flavors:

• Coffee (!!)
• Brown Sugar
• Ginger
• Milk Chocolate
• Mint
• Passion Fruit
• Vanilla Bean

This is a wonderful idea. I mean, yeah, sure, the big thing right now is all natural, organic, healthy blah blah blah. But frankly, while I’m certainly on that bandwagon, my whole thing is I like to actually know what’s there. I’m sure that some multi-sylabic ingredients are plenty good for you. But if I don’t know what that word is, how do I – a non-scientist – know?

During the call, we bounced around ideas for flavors and such. Some were doable, and written down, others were shot down because they were already tried, and the flavors just didn’t come out enhanced like they’d hoped. It was really interesting to listen in and see the brand manager’s reactions – you could really tell she loved the product line.

Anyway – I just wanted to alert you to the fact that is plain old good ice cream is simple, easy, and in your frozen section now. And come on. It’s Haagen-Dazs.

Here are some recipes! These are what the consultant shared on the conference call.
Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Warm Apple Cinnamon Blossoms (PDF)
Ginger Ice Cream with Cardamom Honey Roasted Peaches (PDF)
Passion Fruit Ice Cream with Tropical Fruit Confetti (PDF)

Häagen-Dazs Five Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Warm Apple Cinnamon Blossoms

Häagen-Dazs Five Ginger Ice Cream with Cardamom-Honey Roasted Peaches

Häagen-Dazs Five Passion Fruit Ice Cream with Tropical Confetti

Enjoy!

I have another one from the people at the One2One Network. They sent me the new Yanni Voices [CD/DVD] to review. I should add that it comes with both a CD and a DVD – I’m just reviewing the CD.

EQUATION: Yanni – a memorable name in instrumentals and composition is known for his sweeping music. This time around, he threw a curveball… He has brought vocals to the forefront. The CD takes some of his classic stuff as well as new music – but introduces four vocalists: Nathan Pacheco, Chloe, Ender Thomas, and Leslie Mills. All of them were discovered and mentored by Yanni. The album was released on March 24th. The Yanni Voices world tour kicks off in the U.S. on April 10th.

PLUS: There’s music and then there’s music. Due to my background, I’ll admit, I’m biased to this kind of orchestral music. I just am – can’t get around that. The composition is gorgeous, the instrumentals amazingly executed, and the vocalists are so talented I’m surprised we’ve not heard of them until now. There’s a little of everything tempo wise, so it’s not the same feel throughout. Each piece feels as though it’s a complete story – so when you move on to the next, it really feels like a new story. As for the individual tracks – while all of it is great: Track 1, Omaggio (Tribute), made me cry. Tracks 3 & 4, Our Days and Never Leave the Sun, both made me want to dance for my husband. Track 5, Before the Night Ends, is just plain beautiful.

MINUS: I’m not sure if it’s a plus or minus, but my husband listened to it with me, and his response was, “You can’t tell it’s Yanni.” The other minus I would say is – really – you’ve got to love it. I don’t think it’s a “so-so” kind of thing. I think you’ll either love it or hate it, it feels like that kind of extreme to me.

EQUALS: A positive review. A rave, actually. I simply love this CD.