It's time to Spring Forward!

Daylight Savings Time starts tomorrow morning at 2:00am so don't forget to set your clocks AHEAD one hour tonight. Or in the morning when you wake up. Just be sure to do it before Monday or you'll be late for work! I know that most of our electronic devices just reset themselves, but my stove & microwave aren't that smart yet so I still have to reset them manually.

This is also a good time to take a few minutes & change the batteries in all of your smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors. We do this each Spring & Fall so we can have the peace of mind that they will work properly.

I'm not a fan of losing an hour of sleep when DST starts, but I am a big fan of longer daylight hours during the warm months so we can enjoy being outdoors later in the evenings.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend & if you're not a fan of Winter (I'm NOT!), there are only 8 more days until Spring!!

Don't forget to Fall Back!

Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow morning at 2:00am so don't forget to set your clocks BACK one hour before you go to bed tonight. Or, for you night owls who are still up at 2:00am, just do it then! Most of the clocks in our house reset themselves, which is really helpful, but my stove & microwave haven't learned to do that yet.

Besides changing our clocks this weekend, we'll also be changing the batteries in all of our smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors. Take a few minutes to changes yours too.

I'm not a fan of DST in March when we lose an hour of sleep, but I'm a BIG fan of gaining an extra hour of sleep tomorrow morning!

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend & enjoy your extra hour on Sunday!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I wrote my first post on this blog! During that time, I have published 315 posts & reviewed so many great products that I wanted to share with all of you. 

I want to thank everyone who has read any of my posts & especially those of you who take the time to comment. And now....I think I'll bake myself a cake to celebrate!

#blogiversary #oneyear #alwayscelebratemilestones 

Show your support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month #GlamuletPinkOctober

We all know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month & we all want to show our support for the women & men who have received the devastating diagnosis of breast cancer as well as for their families. We can join a walk, make a donation, hold a fundraiser & wear pink to let everyone know that we care & want to be involved in increasing awareness of this disease & to encourage everyone to take the steps to detect breast cancer in its early stages. A beautiful way to show your support is by purchasing & wearing these gorgeous Limited Edition Charms from Glamulet.

Did you know that breast cancer is the 2nd most commonly diagnosed cancer among women? In 2015, an estimated 231,840 cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. alone. But no matter who you are or where you live, understanding breast cancer is important. And the most important thing to know is: a breast cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence.

Breast cancer can be treated & millions are surviving the disease thanks in part to early detection & improvements in treatment. Everyone needs to know the warning signs & symptoms, the risk factors, how to screen for & detect breast cancer, when to get tests & what to do if you notice a change in your breast.

Your support will help raise awareness & funds that will help people reduce their risk of cancer, provide free programs & services for breast cancer patients & fund the groundbreaking breast cancer research that will take us closer to a CURE. But we need to act now so that by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live.

So join me in the fight! Get out there & join a walk, wear pink, host a fundraiser, make that donation & purchase these beautiful Limited Edition Pink charms to show your support!

About Glamulet:

Glamulet is a jewelry brand that specializes in Charms. Glamulet designs, manufactures & sells a wide range of modern & quality Charms that make it possible to create a unique bracelet. Most of these Charms are made of .925 Sterling Silver, Swarovski crystals, Murano glass & various kinds of man-made & natural stones. We wish to allow every woman to express herself thanks to an affordable collection of high quality jewelry: that's why our priority is to propose our collections at an affordable price.

Launched in 2014, Glamulet has already satisfied shoppers from Europe, USA, Canada, South Africa & Asia & is still willing to expand. Glamulet is also aware of its social responsibility. The brand's engagement in the breast cancer support campaign Pink October shows that they aim to bring to women the welfare they deserve.

For every set of charms that is added to the cart, Glamulet will donate 50% of the sales to a charity fund for breast cancer! 

You can find all of the Limited Edition Pink October charms right here.

#GlamuletPinkOctober #breastcancer #waroncancer #ThinkPINK

This is a sponsored post Powered by Brandbacker.

Product Review: BLOCKIT RFID Blocking Sleeves #BLOCKIT

We went on vacation to South Africa last fall & before we went we switched our debit & credit cards to the ones with the embedded chip so that our cards would work in that country. We protected our cards by always carrying them in an inner pocket of my big travel purse. It worked but it was kind of a pain in the butt to get to them. If we had these RFID Blocking Sleeves from BLOCKIT it would have been so much easier.

I don't really know how these sleeves work but they are designed to protect your privacy & secure your data from digital pickpockets. According to the company the blocking sleeves are made with 3 protective layers. The first layer is an aluminum layer to block 13.56MHz frequencies, the second is a copper substrate layer which blocks all 125kHz & then the outer layer of colorful glossy paper. All I know is that when I put my grocery store loyalty card in the sleeve & held it up to the scanner on the gas pump, it could not be read. So these work!

These blocking sleeves come in a variety of bright colorful designs. I chose the yellow floral top-loading sleeve & the blue floral side-loading sleeve. My cards slide in easily & I can take them back out just as easily. These are so much more attractive than some of the others that I've seen on the market. The only thing that I don't like about them is that they are a bit bulky & don't fit in the credit card slots in my husband's wallet.

You can purchase BLOCKIT RFID Blocking Sleeves on Amazon.

#BLOCKIT

I received this product for the purpose of testing and review. Regardless, I only recommend products that I personally use and believe will be good for my readers. The opinions expressed above are 100% my own and are based on my personal experience and use of the product.

USLegalWills.com Estate Planning Services Review #LegalWills

I am a Procrastinator. I always have been & I probably always will be a procrastinator. I put things off. Over & over again I put things off. But I do eventually get around to taking care of everything. Estate Planning is one of those things that I've put off for far too many years. My kids are grown & I've got grandkids so I should have all of my ducks in a row. But I don't. Then I got the chance to review the Estate Planning Services at USLegalWills.com & I knew that I would finally be able to do what I should have done a couple of decades ago!

I created an account & was given access to several legal documents at USLegalWills.com. The documents that they offer are:

• Last Will & Testament ($34.95): create a legal Will that is custom made for your local jurisdiction. 
• Power of Attorney ($24.95): if you were ever unable to communicate or became incapacitated, this would ensure that control of your finances, assets & wishes are carried out by the person authorized to act on your behalf.
• Living Will ($14.95): specify medical health care directives should you become incapacitated or unable to communicate.
• Funeral Service (free): make your wishes known for your funeral & other final arrangements.
• ExPat Wills ($34.95): if you have assets in one country but live in another, this works in conjunction with your existing Will but covers assets you own in a foreign Country.

Once you decide which document(s) you need, you simply click onto the Main Menu for the specific document. The first thing to do is to begin creating the document. The Question-and-Answer Wizard will take you step-by-step through the entire document. All you do is answer the questions. Depending upon your answers, these documents are personalized to your specific situation. You can modify your documents, download to your computer & print them at home. Instructions for signing each document is included.

I'm so glad that I have now completed & printed my Last Will & Testament. Now all I need to do is sign it in front of witnesses & everything will be handled by my Executors when the time comes.

If you want to make sure that your final affairs are taken care of as you wish them to be, these documents will make sure that it happens. There is no need to hire a lawyer who will charge a lot more than the costs listed above when you can create, modify & print your documents in the privacy of your own home.

You can see all of the products that are offered on their website:  https://www.uslegalwills.com/default

#LegalWills

I received this product for the purpose of testing and reviewing. Regardless, I only recommend products that I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. The opinions expressed above are 100% my own and are based on my personal experience and use of the product.

It's time to Spring Forward!

Daylight Savings Time starts tomorrow morning at 2:00am so don't forget to set your clocks AHEAD one hour tonight. Or in the morning when you wake up. Just be sure to do it before Monday or you'll be late for work! I know that most of our electronic devices just reset themselves, but my stove & microwave aren't that smart yet so I still have to reset them manually.

This is also a good time to take a few minutes & change the batteries in all of your smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors. We do this each Spring & Fall so we can have the peace of mind that they will work properly.

I'm not a fan of losing an hour of sleep when DST starts, but I am a big fan of longer daylight hours during the warm months so we can enjoy being outdoors later in the evenings.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend & if you're not a fan of Winter (I'm NOT!), there are only 13 more days until Spring!!

A Milestone! 50 Blog Posts!

I'm going to have myself a little mini-celebration today. I just noticed that I've published 50 posts since I started this blog!

So. Since I'm feeling quite proud of myself that I've accomplished this milestone, I'm going to go have a big piece of that banana cake with cream cheese frosting that has been calling my name from the kitchen all morning!

Happy 50 Blog Posts to me!!

#milestonesshouldbecelebrated

So. Are you a Tapper?

Have you discovered Crowdtap yet? I just found this awesome site around the end of August. This site is all about Brand Participation. You can influence brands by providing feedback, you might be chosen to test products & maybe you will win some awesome prizes!

Based on your profile, you will be connected to brands that are relevant to you & your family. Each Brand will have a variety of Actions that you can complete to earn entries into their Crowd Drawing at the end of each month. This is where you can win some great gift cards.

The fun part of this program is the variety of Actions offered on each Brand page.

• Quickhits are really easy to complete. They are questions that the Brand will ask you to answer. These could be Yes/No, multiple choice or you might be asked to watch a short video & then comment on the contents. You will earn points for these.
• Challenges can be either Text Challenges or Photo Challenges. Text Challenges usually want more detailed feedback about the product. Photo Challenges will want the product included in the photo & a caption. This is where you can show your creativity. These Challenges will be rated by your fellow Crowdtappers & you can earn Stars for a really great submission.
• Discussions will have a list of topics that you can respond to. You will also want to add comments to the responses left by other Crowdtappers.
• Samplings & Parties are the best! Brands will send products to selected Crowdtappers to test at home. First you will answer the preliminary survey questions & submit your application. Then, if you are one of the lucky ones, you'll get an email telling you to claim your spot in the Sampling or Party. The Brand will send products to you to try & you'll provide feedback through a Report where you can include your opinion & submit photos. 

You will earn points by completing these Brand Actions & even more points for each star that you earn. Your participation in the Brand Actions will give feedback & influence Brands & in return each Brand will reward that participation with drawings for Gift Cards at the end of each month. The points that you earn for completing Brand Actions will add up for entries into the drawings. For every 100 points that you earn, you will get 1 entry into the drawing. And if you are one of the Top 100 in points for a Brand at the end of the month, you will be rewarded with 500 more points for that Brand which means 5 more entries into their drawing. If you click on each Brand Page & scroll to the bottom, you'll see what prizes are being offered for that month. The drawings are completely random, but the more points you earn, the more entries you will get & the better your chance that you will win a prize! And getting into the Top 100 & earning more stars will give you a better chance of being chosen for Sampling & Party opportunities.

This site is a lot of fun & winning gift cards or the possibility of being chosen for a Sampling or to host a Party will just make you want to work harder to complete every Action that you can. And if we can influence popular Brands with our feedback & opinions, then we've done our job! 

You can sign up for Crowdtap at http://www.crowdtap.com & start joining the Brand Crowds that you want to influence. Be sure to follow Crowdtap on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Crowdtap?ref=br_tf & on Twitter https://twitter.com/crowdtappers, 

So. Are you ready to start Tapping?

Don't forget to Fall Back!

Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow morning at 2:00am so don't forget to set your clocks BACK one hour before you go to bed tonight. Or, for you night owls who are still up at 2:00am, just do it then! Most of the clocks in our house reset themselves, which is really helpful, but my stove & microwave haven't learned to do that yet.

Besides changing our clocks this weekend, we'll also be changing the batteries in all of our smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors. Take a few minutes to changes yours too.

I'm not a fan of DST in March when we lose an hour of sleep, but I'm a BIG fan of gaining an extra hour of sleep tomorrow morning!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend & enjoy your extra hour on Sunday!

So. Do you Bzz?

If you don't know about BzzAgent yet, then let me tell you all about it! It's a social marketing company that offers you the opportunity to test products & services in your own home & then asks you to share your experiences & opinions with your friends & family. You will do this through face to face conversations, Facebook posts, Twitter, Instagram & a lot of other ways.

I became a BzzAgent 3 months ago. It's free to sign up & the only thing they will ask of you is that you always give your honest opinion. Like all product testing sites, they will ask for your personal information. By telling them things like your location, gender, age, marital status & how many children live with you & their ages, they will be able to match you with products that are relevant to you & your family. You will be selected to participate in Campaigns based on your demographics & your answers to surveys.

Once you sign up, go ahead & connect your Facebook & Twitter accounts to BzzAgent. You will need these connections when you start sharing your feedback. If you have a MyPoints account, connect that too because that is where the points that you earn will be used. If you don't have a MyPoints account, go ahead & sign up for that too.

So. Now what?

Well, it won't be long until you will start to notice surveys showing up that will need to be completed. Once I had completed all of my initial surveys, my BzzScore went up to 3.5. It stayed right there until I got my first Campaign & started submitting feedback.

If you keep up to date on your surveys, soon you will receive an Invite to your first Campaign. That will be an exciting day! I was on pins & needles waiting for my first Invite. You will receive an email telling you to log in to your account to accept (or deny) your Campaign, but I never waited to read those because I was always checking my account just to be sure that I didn't miss anything!

Once you receive an Invite, log into your account & accept the Campaign by clicking the "I Want In" button. But don't wait too long! There are a limited number of spots in each Campaign & some of them will fill up really fast. Once you get into a Campaign, it will show up under My BzzCampaigns but will not be active right away. You will see the start date listed next to the product.You can go ahead & click on the "Learn More" button to see product information, tips on how the campaign will work & what will be included in your BzzKit.

Then....just wait for your BzzKit to arrive. If you don't want to stalk your mail carrier, you can go to "My Account" & look under the Shipments tab. Once your BzzKit ships, the shipping date will show up there.

When the day finally arrives that your BzzKit shows up in your mailbox, you'll want to dig right in to make sure everything that is supposed to be included is there & then you'll be ready to try out the product for yourself.

Once the Campaign start date arrives, you'll see that the "Learn More" button says "Bzz Now". So click on it & you'll see your Campaign Checklist. These are all of the different ways that you will share this brand. When you click on each Activity, you will see an explanation of what you will need to do in order to complete it. Each Activity that you submit will be rated & you'll receive points. Your points will show up under "My Account" on the MyPoints tab. You will need to accept these points before they expire.

But back to the fun part! Trying the products that you receive! You need to experience them for yourself before you can tell others about the product. Duh! And the #1 thing that you need to remember is that when you're spreading the word about these products & services, always tell everyone that you received the product free or with a discount from BzzAgent or the brand. When you're talking face-to-face, tell them about BzzAgent & about your campaign. When spreading the word online, be sure to use the appropriate hashtags as instructed in each campaign activity.

This is a great program & it's so easy to do! I love trying new products & I love to let other people know about something that they may not have tried yet. I share my experiences with the product. I share the coupons that usually come with each Campaign. I post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & I even got over being camera-shy & made my 1st video review of a product. I try to complete every campaign activity at least once. Some of them have a limit on how many times you can do that particular type of sharing. Others, you can share again & again. Just remember, the more you share, the higher your BzzScore will go & the more campaigns you will be offered.

So far, I've been invited to 8 campaigns. I've had the opportunity to try a wide variety of products. Just to give you an idea of some of the brands that are offered, these are the campaigns that I've worked on since I joined:

And, like I said above, my BzzScore stayed at 3.5 until I began completing my Campaign activities & earning points from the ratings for those activities. Now I'm very proud that my BzzScore is:

So. If you love to try new products, love to share new products with your friends & family, love to share on social media, then BzzAgent may be for you!

Why don't you go to their website & take a look. How will you know that you don't want to do it if you don't check it out?!! You can find them here: https://www.bzzagent.com/.

So. Do you Bzz?

So. Have you signed up for Smiley360 yet?

I just discovered Smiley360 around the end of July. I'd seen several posts on Facebook about it but had no idea what it was. So I clicked on the link. I found out that Smiley360 is a product testing site where you can be chosen to try products in your home in return for sharing your opinion on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. I love telling people what I think!

So. I wasted no time getting started.

First, Smiley360 will need your personal information including your marital status, income & number of children in your home along with their ages. All of this will help you to get offers for products that are relevant to you & your family. And of course they need your mailing address so that they can ship packages to you each time you qualify for a Mission. I never knew I would get so excited to see an envelope or box arrive! But I'm always so happy to see that cute little logo smiling at me!

I got all of my personal info entered & sat back to wait. I must have checked the website a dozen times a day that first week while I anxiously waited to see what would happen next. And then....

Finally! My first qualifying survey showed up! I was so excited to get it but after I submitted my answers I just had to wait & wonder...Would I qualify? Was I the right demographic for the product? Am I worthy?? I really really really wanted to get my first Mission!

 And then....there it was! I qualified! All I had to do was go to my Dashboard & accept the Mission. I felt like James Bond! I got a Mission!

After I accepted the Mission, it showed up on my Dashboard right away & I could open the page to see all of the information about the product & what would be included in my Smiley Kit. I could also check out all of the Required Sharing Tools. These are the actions that are necessary to be completed in order to get the points to complete the Mission. There are also Additional Sharing Tools. These are optional but the more you share, the more points you get for the Mission. It all adds up to a better chance of getting offered more Missions in the future. So I always try to complete as many of the Sharing Tools as I can. A Mission usually lasts around 10 weeks so you'll have plenty of time to try the product & then share your experience with your friends & family. And anyone else who you can get to listen!

And don't forget to complete the Final Survey that will show up after the Mission has ended.

I've qualified for 9 Missions so far. To give you an idea of the variety of products that are offered for testing, here are the Missions that I've either completed or am still working on:

And that's about it. I check the Smiley360 website at least a couple of times every day just to be sure that I don't miss a new survey. I can't help it. I'm obsessive that way.

Go check it out & see if it's for you. It won't hurt to take a look around. You can find them here: http://www.smiley360.com.

So. Have you signed up for Smiley360 yet?

So. I finally took the plunge...

and decided to jump right into the deep end & start my own blog!

For quite a while now, I've been seeing Facebook posts about people who get free products & samples that they get to keep in return for providing their feedback in the form of product reviews.

Well, I wanted in on that! So I signed up for BzzAgent (www.bzzagent.com), Smiley360 (www.smiley360.com) & Crowdtap (www.crowdtap.com) a couple of months ago. I've had some great Campaigns, Missions & Sampling Opportunities from these companies, but I knew that in order to spread my opinions, feedback & product reviews to a bigger audience, I needed a place to post the product reviews.

So. Here I am!

I've got some Campaigns that I'm currently working on for BzzAgent:  Kroger Brand bath & beauty products, International Delight coffee creamers, Tony's Pizzeria Style pizza, Chobani Greek Yogurt Oats, Secret Outlast Completely Clean Clear Gel.

And some Missions for Smiley360: ChapStick Hydration Lock Moisturize & Renew, TAZO Chai Tea, 5-hour ENERGY shots.

I know it will take a while for me to get the hang of this blogging thing. But hey, I just made my first video last week so I know I can do this too & I know it's going to be fun!