From my eyes…

I still hate Sony. They have terrible customer service, beyond terrible! Sadly, I love their products, so they will continue to take my money for the camera acessories I purchase - like the new zoom lens that I am finally able to use after the ordering, returning, and reordering of the approrpiate adapter all at the fault of Sony, but expense of me. Sigh.

Here is what my new lens can do.

This is with no zoom at all.

This is with my camera as zoomed as it can go.

This is with my new zoom lens. Nice, huh?

Now I realize that these are not good pictures. That is not what I was going for. I just wanted to show what awesome zoom capabilities I have with my little digital cybrshot. I can’t wait to actually use the lens for some good shots!!

** model Abby-Doo Bennett.

For Christmas, my brother spent too much money on me and spoiled me with a brand new photo printer! I have been printing a few pics every now and then from my regular ol’ Epson, but up close you can always tell they were printed from a computer.

I’ve recently put the new gift to use and was thoroughly impressed. This thing is amazing! I think it makes my pictures look even better then they did on the computer. I am so excited to print some of my favorites to frame and hang.

Looking for a printerof your own? Click here to get the info on my snazzy new toy.

Thanks bro!

I could feel it starting yesterday as soon as I woke up. That feeling in my throat where it’s hard to swallow and it feels like my tonsils are magically growing back. I felt it on the left side. An hour or so later I felt it on both sides. As the morning progressed I noticed myself doing that weird  head bob to assist the swallow, knowing that soon enough it was going to be too sore to keep swallowing at all. I was getting worse by the hour and I knew it.  I got off my lazy butt and headed to the store. I asked the pharmacist what she recommended. She said I shouldn’t treat symptoms I don’t yet have and since it was just my throat and swollen lymph nodes there wasn’t really much I could do. I was not happy with that answer. I mean after all, I’d spent the energy and gas to get up and get to the store to try to be an adult and be proactive with my health and here she is saying it was all for nothing. Not cool. I looked a minute more and found Airborne. I’d remembered hearing about it on the radio, so I picked it up and read the package. It was made by a teacher who kept getting sick from her kids. Well, I’ll be. I tossed it in the cart and off I went.

I didn’t want to wait to get home to take it, so I popped one in my mouth in the car….any of you familiar with this product are probably laughing already. I thought it was a chewable! In fact, it is an effervecent tab that goes in water. Thankfully, I keep bottles of water in my car so I grabbed one and started swishing. I must have looked like and idiot with my head tipped back like the cartoon guy on the Reach commercials shaking my head to make it all mix around. At least it is really yummy. It’s like orange/citrus drink or something.

I took another, the correct way this time, before I went to bed. I took another as soon as I got up this morning, one mid morning and one right after school. I am feeling great right now. Still not 100%, but  much better than I felt last night and even better than I felt this morning. I’m going to have another before bed tonight and finish off the bottle tomorrow just to keep the cooties away!

If you are feeling the inkling of illness, get some of this Airborne stuff! I plan to keep a bottle around so when my students start passing something around again I can take one a day as precaution. So great.

The bald man is the epitome of magic. This weekend I had a lot planned, but cleaning my disgustingly stained tub was not one of them. My plans changed when my roommate called me down the hall to see the phenom that is the Magic Eraser. It truly was magic.

The house my friend bought has got to be the most filthy house I’ve ever been in. It used to belong to a family of 7 who apparently believed that cleaning was somehow against their religion. This place was horrible. We’ve done a lot since moving in, but still things remain sticky or grayed and we’d resolved to let it be until the owner, my friend, replaces them.

I have been apologizing about my tub to all visitors we’ve had. It is horribly scratched and disgustingly stained. Jen made me try the Magic Eraser on a small part and I almost collapsed in shock. It came clean!! I thought about taking before and after pics to post for you, because after all seeing is believing, but I was too excited and thought that somehow if I stopped wiping, notice I did not say scrubbing, the magic would cease. It is now sparkling! Mom, I’m serious. This would even meet “clean” by your standards. For those who don’t know my mother, think Danny Tanner (the dad from Full House) or Monica Gellar or somehow a combination of the two.

To sum up my excitement, all people who attempt cleaning MUST have a Magic Eraser. They can be found at Wal-Mart for $2.92 for two. I’m never cleaning a bathroom without them again. Also, they work wonders on walls and floors, just like the commercial says!

My tips for use:
Works better damp than soaking wet.
Works better with less pressure then if you try to scrub hard.
Works best by wiping in circles.

Some of you may recall a past post where I bitched my brains out about how I’ve run all over town looking for the supposedly yummy Jessica Simpson lip gloss only to find that I didn’t care for it much at all and certainly not for the price it was being offered at Ulta.

Well, on a recent trip to Bath and Body Works, a friend picked up the Chocolate Fondue flavor of the Tutti Dolce lip gloss. I loved it. I got some (and since it was buy one get one I got the Angel Food Cake one too) and am totally in love with it! It looks dark in the tube but is just the slightest bit of color. It stays on FOR.EV.ER. and tastes so great (hopefully those cuties in IL like chocolate )

This product comes with my 100% This Rocks endorsement.

This past weekend I took a trip to the mall with a friend who needed to use up some gift certificates before the expired. We went to Victoria’s Secret first. Did you know they changed the name to Skanks’R'Us? Ok, well I guess the word didn’t get out yet, but the merchandise said it all anyway. What happened to the cute striped cotton undies? I digress.

I wanted to pop into Janeville just to make sure that I wasn’t missing out on any more bargain coats for the upcoming winter in IL. In fact I was! I found a great poofy light blue coat, a winter white (basically creme colored) boat neck sweater and a winter white cable knit turtleneck that I also bought in gray. I love them all and each was a mere fraction of the ticket price.

As an added bonus, there were cool women (I know, usually an oxymoron seeing how there are about 12 women on the planet I will even talk to) shopping and the cahsier was from IL and gave me tons of pointers.

It was a thrilling mall trip and Janeville is off my shit list now!

I love ice cream. I always have. I came to realize my addiction while living in and backpacking across Europe 8 years - wow it’s been that long already - ago. I mean I knew I liked ice cream, but my goodness, until you taste the cream and sugar mixture the Europeans call ice cream…..aawww…..anyway, I love it. I just got back from the grocery where I picked up a great ice cream for when you know you should just plain pass it up but can’t. Healthy Choice Cappucino Chocolate Chunk. An old roommate and close friend introduced this to me a few years back. It is the first low fat ice cream I ever liked. Thank you Rebilou (or Matador whoever made the purchse)! Of course this is no European ice cream, nor is it the Safeway stores brand of Moose Tracks (also introduced to me by the above mentioned couple) or my Baskin Robins favorite Chocolate Peanut Butter (really what better combination in the world is there than peanut butter and chocolate), but it is a GREAT option for when, like me, you are trying to cut back in fat and calories to hopefully lessen the likelihood of joining the millions and millions of obese Americans. So there is the first of many endorsements I will likely share with you on this site. I feel that when I find something great it is my duty to make sure everyone I know is aware of it.