When I moved last month it was such a relief to find clear tv bundle packages. Moving is so tough to begin with that it was just so nice to be able to get multiple home services from one company. I didn’t want to move, but my family needed more space, so I was left without a choice. I was not looking forward to all the extra work a move would entail. Life has become so fast-paced since having kids that sometimes I feel like everything is spinning out of control. If I’m notcooking and cleaning, I’m dropping the kids off at school, or taking one to a play date. I really underestimated how hard it was going to be to be a stay at home mom. I figured my life would become much less complicated, but boy, was I wrong! The kids and my husband are just so demanding that I forget to do important things all the time. It is really helpful to have my cable and internet consolidated into one monthly bill. Not only is it easier to send one payment, it’s much easier to track my money when I only have to send one payment.
I have recently been trying to read more books, and heard many of my co-workers talking about the book "Heaven is For Real" and had to check it out for myself!! "Heaven is For Real" is the true story of a four year old boy's trip to heaven. While on a family vacation, little Colton had become sick with what his parents thought was the flu. Doctor's at one hospital can't say what it IS, but they do rule out appendicitis. After a couple days of Colton not getting better, his parents decide to check him out of the hospital and take him to a different one to get a second opinion. There he is diagnosed with a ruptured appendix. A week later after having surgery, Colton is headed out of the hospital and is in the elevator when his doctor yells for his parents to stop. Colton's white blood count is up and it is found that he has three more abscesses which require more surgery. A few days later, the doctor tells the family there is nothing more he can do and refers them to a children's hospital, the only problem is there is a snow storm and the family is unable to leave. Somehow the next day Colton is recovering amazingly well and is soon discharged home for good. The hospital staff are without words. A few months later while riding in the car with his family, Colton starts talking about his trip to heaven. He tells his parents that he visited heaven while the doctor was working on him and could see his family praying for him. Throughout the next several months he begins to tell them more of his trip. He talks about meeting his great grandpa who had died 23 years before Colton was even born and also of the sister that his mother had miscarried. His family is speechless since they had never talked to Colton about either of these people, yet he knows many details about them. He also talks about Jesus, God's throne, the battle of good and evil, and what heaven is really like. He tells his dad that "nobody is old in heaven". While looking at various pictures of Jesus, he is able to tell his family what is wrong with each one of them.
Now for my opinion of the book. Let me start by saying that this book was written by Colton's father based on what Colton has told him. Yes, Colton's dad is a pastor. Therefore there are several passages from the bible that go along with what Colton has described to his father. It is also considered a true story. Obviously there are going to be people that think it isn't true, but I guess the only people that truly know are Colton and his family. If you are not a believer, then this is not the book for you. However, if you do believe there is a heaven, you will LOVE this book. It makes you feel good to know that when you leave this world, you will be reunited with loved ones and that they really are in a better place. I really enjoyed it myself! Highly recommended!!
I received this book in exchange for my HONEST opinion. I was not required to give a positive review, but I actually did enjoy it immensely!
So I have been HORRIBLE at watching movies lately. When I first joined Netflix I would watch a movie every weekend, so it was worth it for me to keep my subscription. The last two movies I have rented from there I have kept for almost 2 months EACH. So I basically could've bought the darn movies for cheaper than I paid to rent them. Oh well. I did finally get around to watching "The Social Network" though. I think I may be the last person in the country to see it, but I finally did. I'd have to say, I liked it pretty well too. It was actually one of those movies that while I was watching it I thought "yea I guess this is pretty good", but then after it was over and I thought about it more I thought "Wow that really was a great movie, I will definitely have to watch it again". Have you ever seen any movies like that?? I actually feel a little smarter after watching it too. It's kind of like that show "The Big Bang Theory", in the sense that I don't actually have a clue what they are talking about half the time, but if I can make it through it without getting too lost I give myself credit. Unlike "Jersey Shore", where I actually feel stupider after sitting through an entire eppy.
So for those of you who haven't seen it (if there actually IS anyone that fits that description), "The Social Network" is about the creation of Facebook. After breaking up with his girlfriend, Mark Zuckerberg decides to create a website called facemash.com.. In order to do this he hacks into various universities online facebooks to get the pics of the female students from. The site is all about comparing to female students and clicking on the one that is "hotter". Well after getting 22,000 hits in two hours, the network crashes and Mark is almost suspended from Harvard. He then is approached by three guys who want him to work on their site, a place where Harvard students could make their own page which contains their names, pics, relationship status, info, etc. Well Mark decides to expand on this idea all on his own and ends up creating "The Facebook". "The Facebook" is at first only open to Harvard students, but ends up expanding to other schools gradually. I should add of course that Mark founded this site with his best friend, Eduardo, who put up the money for the site to get going. Mark and Eduardo end up meeting with Sean Parker (the creator of Napster) and he becomes a partner too (much to Eduardo's chargin). Well eventually, the "The" is dropped and Facebook is up to one million members. Poor Eduardo ends up getting cut out of the ownership and Mark ends up getting sued by the guys that originally wanted to create the Harvard site and Eduardo. I won't spoil the entire movie, so I won't post how it ends.
It was a pretty great movie. Jesse Eisenberg does a great job and his sarcasm is pretty amusing. Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo, who is pretty amazing also. Sean Parker is played by Justin Timberlake, which actually made me hate JT for a while, but I guess that is just because he did an amazing job also. Great acting all around, I can DEFINITELY see why this movie and its cast were nominated for Oscars. If you actually haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it! Check out the clips below, one is the trailer, and the other is the confrontation between Mark and Eduardo.
Up next: Book review of "Heaven is For Real"!!! Check back soon!!
Well I am sure many of my blog readers have either been through college, are currently in college, or will be having children attending college in the near future. For those of us who have been through the lovely higher education experience, we all know of the extremely high cost of textbooks. Now luckily I had scholarships that covered the cost of all or almost all of my books, but not everyone does. I do remember going to the student book store and having them ring up all the prices of my books and being extremely glad that I didn't have to pay out of pocket for them. I always wished I could just rent the text books and return them when I was done with them. I kept the books that were related to my major, but I sure as heck didn't need to keep my algebra book, so I went and sold that baby right back as soon as the semester was over. Of course I didn't get nearly what I paid for it, but got a pretty decent amount. The books that they were giving me a decent amount for I just kept though. The book below would be one of those:
The list price is almost $150 and when I went to have them buy it back (in mint condition!), they were offering me $15. Seriously?!?! Are you kidding me! You are giving me 10% back of a perfectly good book. Um no thanks. So now six years after being out of college I am still stuck with this stupid book.
I really wish I had known about CampusBookRentals.com when I was in school. This is a website that allows you to rent books for either a semester, quarter, or summer (you can also enter the exact number of days you would need the book and they will give you a custom price). For example, I entered the name of the lovely book shown above and learned that I could have rented it for the semester (130 days), for $18.41!!!! Seriously?!?! That is 88% off the list price! Oh and did I mention that shipping is free BOTH ways! For those of us that like to highlight important points, that is allowed in these rented books also. How can you beat these prices...seriously?!
When I decide I want to pursue a different career and return to college, you can bet I will be renting my books from Campus Book Rentals. No more paying absurd amounts of money for books I won't use when I am done with the class. Oh and as an added bonus, they donate a portion of their proceeds to Operation Smile. For those who don't know, Operation Smile performs surgery on children who have a cleft lip, who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. So you are saving yourself a boatload of money and helping kids at the same time. How can you beat that?!
I was contacted to do this review, but would definitely use this site personally!
If you remember a year or so ago, I posted a blog about the Netlix for Wii. It was a positive review too. I absolutely loved it. I had only signed up for Netflix about a month before posting that and was pleasantly surprised when they sent me a disc to put in my Wii that would allow me to access movies and TV shows whenever I wanted. Now of course when I had joined Netflix, I was only planning on receiving the DVDs in the mail, the instant streaming through my Wii was just a lovely, free added bonus. However, this past summer when they announced that they were going to charge 40% more for access to both mail and streaming I was highly annoyed, as were thousands of other subscribers. I worked through my annoyance though and just canceled the streaming service and stayed subscribed to the mail service. Recently though, Netflix decided to make more major changes. They decided to SPLIT the DVD and streaming services completely. Now in order to add movies to your streaming queue you would log onto the Netflix site like you always did, but to get them in the mail you were going to have to go to an entirely different site. They decided to name the mail order company "Quixster". This is what finally sent me to jump on the bus of people canceling their accounts with Netflix. So I have erased my queue and as soon as I watch "The Social Network" I will be sending it back and ending my membership with them. I'm kinda sad about this too. I loved being able to just pay one fee and get as many movies in a month that I wanted and open my mailbox to see my lovely red envelope. Too many changes in too short of a time though Mr. CEO of Netflix!
So, now to the title of my post. Recently I saw a commercial for Blockbuster Total Access which apparently is very similar to the way Netflix used to be. The commercial advertised that you can rent as many movies AND GAMES a month for under $10. Of course they have different subscription packages so obviously not all of them are under $10. However, this sounds like a great alternative for me. Actually it sounds even better because I will be able to rent games for my Wii and test them out before spending $30-50 on them just to find out they aren't as fun as I thought. I will be most definitely signing up soon and will let you all know how good or bad this service actually is!
Does anyone currently have Blockbuster Total Access now? If so, are you happy with it?
I got so caught up in work and all kinds of family when the last season of Sons of Anarchy was on TV. It really was just way too much for me and I was really sad that I wasn't able to keep up with one of my favorite shows like I wish I could have. Well, I decided to make it a priority to watch this season as something indulgent for me. Besides, you can't really enjoy life unless you take care of yourself a little too. So that's exactly what I've been doing so far while watching this season.
I used my Internet Service Provider to figure out what time it was coming on and help move around my schedule a little bit on my Google calendars to ensure that I could watch the show without worrying about other things in my life. It's no good watching TV if you're worried about other things while your'e watching it.
This Sons of Anarchy season certainly isn't disappointing so far! But then again, I didn't really expect it to. I can always expect some really great things from the show and it sure does deliver like I like it to!
