In The Mind of A Thirtysomething Mom

It's Not Free But Close Enough

Tonight from 5-10 at many local Basking Robbins Ice Cream Parlors, you can get a kid size scoop of ice cream for only .31.  .31 people!  You can't beat that with a stick.

What are you still doing here reading?  Head on out to your local BR!

Paula Makes No Sense, As Usual

This first part was originally written before the show aired.  Scroll under the line for my thoughts of the show.

I'll be back later with my opinions on tonights show.

Here's the song choice list.  Let's just say that I'm scared spitless. 

Neil Diamond? 

Two songs each? 

It's going to be one long night!

David C: “I’m Alive” and “All I Really Need Is You”

Brooke: “I Am … I Said” and “I’m a Believer”

Jason: “Forever in Blue Jeans” and “September Morn”

David A: “Sweet Caroline” and “America”

Syesha: “Hello Again” & “Thank the Lord for the Night Time”

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I'm just gonna get right to the reviews.  In order of appearance, what they sang and how I thought they did:

• Jason Castro- “Forever in Blue Jeans” - He started the song in a lower register and I actually liked what I heard.  Then he jumped to that "I'm channeling an alto in the Vienna Boys Choir" voice and I hated it.  If he had sang it all in the lower register, it would have been fine.  School rating, C. “September Morn” - I was so bored.  Did he even sing again?  And again with the stupid hand waving from the audience.  That is so freaking annoying.  School rating, D. 

School rating average, C-.

• David Cook- “I’m Alive” - Nice!  I'd heard the song many times before (that's what you get for having parents who listened to older music all the time), so I was familiar with it.  I liked what he did.  Need to ask though; what the heck is the A.C. for????  It's on his lead guitar and his shirt.  Gotta be something important.  Thanks to Peyton, I can now sleep at night.  If you were also wondering what the A.C. is for, you can find out in the comments section to this post.  School rating, A. “All I Really Need Is You” - LOVED IT!!!!  'Nuf said.  School rating, A+.

School rating average, A.

• Brooke White- “I’m a Believer” - Oh dear God.  Why?  Just, why?  It was campy, cheesy and screamed a mix of "I want to work on a cruise ship" and Karaoke night from Hell.  Plus, where were her feet?  Just saying.  School rating, D.  “I Am … I Said” - Much better than the first song.  Much!  I enjoyed it.  Stupid waving hands.  School rating, B. 

School rating average, C.

• David Archuleta- “Sweet Caroline” - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  Oh sorry.  I thought I was listening to a sleep inducing tape.  School rating, F.  “America” - Please.  Stop.  Now.  It's like listening to a sad Miss America contestant, that's a male.  I will admit it at least sounded better than the first song.  School rating, C. 

School rating average, D.

• Syesha Mercado- “Hello Again” - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  If you're going to insist on waving the hands people, don't rush it.  Go with the music.  School rating, F.  “Thank the Lord for the Night Time” - Much, much better than the first song!  She is totally ideal for Broadway or show tune type music.  School rating, B. 

School rating average, C-.

Other notes worth mentioning:

• Oh Lord in Heaven please make them kill the people in the front row with the hand waving.  Please?  Mr. Smoochiefrog says they should at least be waving lighters like they did in the late 80's, early 90's.  That would at least be a little less annoying.  Okay, not so much.
• Dude, whatever Paula was drinking tonight, I totally want some!  She lost her freaking mind!  She was giving notes she took on a song that hadn't even been sung yet.  Gotta love it.
• I LOVED the man-crush on Seacrest sign.  Mr. Smoochiefrog screamed in terror at the thought.  Good times.

My favorite of the night: David C., no freaking doubt!

Bottom 3: Brooke, Jason, David A.

Who will go: Jason (if there's any justice in the world)

The opinions above are just that, my opinion.  If you'd like to read more opinions on American Idol, visit my friend BooMama

Product Review: Mr. Clean

So here is where I come out of the hole I climbed into awhile back and finally give my review of the Mr. Clean cleaning products I received in February.  Yeah, I'm that pathetic.

As I posted here and here, I buckled down in March and did my annual Spring Cleaning (with lots of breaks for important stuff, like well anything other than cleaning).  I locked myself in the bathrooms armed with my new Mr. Clean Multi-Surfaces Spray with Febreze Freshness in the Lavender scent and got to work.  Now we live in a "hard water area" which means that we get this orange film on the curtains and walls of the shower.  As soon as I see it, I remove it.  Orange is so not a color I like.  The Mr. Clean Multi-Surfaces Spray with Febreze Freshness made it so easy to get the gunk off!  Seriously.  I usually use the foaming bubbles stuff, but this stuff works better.  I just sprayed, wiped with a sponge and rinsed clean.  Easy as that.  And seeing how much I *love* to clean, easy is a Godsend!  It also works on counters, stoves and other surfaces-hence the multi-surface part of the name.  :)  If needed to buy cleaning products (I don't right now since they sent them to me to review), I'd totally buy these.  Oh, it smells lovely too!  I didn't need to turn the fan on or open the window (not that you should clean locked in a room though.  Turn your fans on and open your windows!  Do as I say, not as I do!).  Mr. Smoochiefrog and the kids even liked the scent.

I got a Swiffer thingy too, but we haven't lived here long enough for dusting to be worth doing yet.  No really, it's not.  Something about Winter and being locked up inside the house.  I haven't needed to dust.  As soon as I do though, I'll let you know about 2 months after I use the Swiffer thing.  Promise.

Now if I can just get busy and use the menu planning kit and K'nex stuff so I can review those too.  Don't give up on me yet people.  It's coming, I swear.  It only took 2 months for the cleaning stuff to be reviewed.  Hopefully it won't take that long for the next one.  :)

Now if anyone wants to send me some food, like chocolate for instance, to review, I'm so down with that.  That's a review that'll be up quickly!

Money Monday

Morning ya'll!

I'll be honest here; I'm just too busy to keep this up on a weekly basis.  I know, you're like "Right.  You're a SAHM.  How can you be busy?".  Trust me, I am.  We're entering prime dance season for M and I'll be going constantly to get her to practices and rehearsals.  Top that off with still teaching her Mon-Fri as well as taking care of K and keeping the house up and I just don't have the time for my typical long drawn out posts.  Money Monday will either be taking a back seat for the next 5 weeks or if I have the chance I'll put up small tidbits of useful information.  It just depends on how crazy life gets.  Today will be a small tidbit of useful information.

This is how we handle those pesky annual bills.  You know the ones: insurance, tags, taxes, etc.

What we do is figure out how much said item will run us, divide by 12 (for a years worth of savings) and put that much away.  By the time the bill is due, the money's already saved up and we don't have to struggle to come up with it all at one time.  For example, we save $9 a month for our AAA membership.  By the time the bill is due in the fall, we've got all the money sitting there waiting for the statement to show up.  I transfer it out of ING to our main account, write a check and it's all taken care of!  It's much easier than trying to come up with $108 all at one time.  We save monthly for our car tags (they're due every 2 years), for gifts (including Christmas) and for school supplies/clothes.  You have no idea how nice it is to go to buy school supplies/clothes and have no problem getting what is needed.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment!

So you may wonder how I keep track of how much is saved for what.  I'm not a numbers genius by any means.  I don't dabble in Excel for fun, or have spreadsheets coming out of my ears. As I stated before, we have various ING accounts in which we park our money.  The good thing about ING is that you can have many accounts, each titled something different.  We have an account that I use for our transfers to ING.  Once it clears, I then disperse money from the transfer account into the correct account: tags, school, AAA, gifts.  It keeps track of it easily and I even earn interest on it!  I absolutely LOVE my ING accounts and would be happy to refer anyone who would like to start an account.  Email me and I'll hook you up.

That's all I've got for this week.  If you haven't already heard the news, the Stimulus checks will start going out this week.  Here's an article with the details.  What will you be doing with your "free" money (free is in quotes b/c you do know you'll have to claim that on next year's taxes right?)?  We'll be getting some car repairs done and putting the rest into our emergency fund.

Have a great week!

Weekly Winners 4/27/08

4/20/08-4/26/08

Church totally wiped her out last week.

Monday's Sunset

If you didn't see it on Monday, here's a cake I did this week.

K feel asleep at the table Tuesday

I know it's hard to read.  I saw it on the fence of an overpass yesterday.  It was done using Coke cans and says "Prom? J (heart) E".  I wonder if they got the answer they were hoping for.

Weekly Winners is the brainchild of Sarcastic Mom.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy!