Smart and Final Ambiance Coffee Giveaway!!!!

Look at all this coffee goodness!

Over the holidays I received a generous basket of coffee from Smart and Final to celebrate the launch of their new Ambiance coffees!

With the chaos of the Christmas season is was great to have a treat just for me! I got 6 different types: French Roast, Hazelnut, French Vanilla, Kona Style, Gourmet Supreme, House Blend. My personal favorites were the Hazelnut and the French Vanilla! They were very good and are the perfect base for a coffee treat in the morning.

I think my favorite was to have the hazelnut coffee was with creamer and a squirt of peppermint whipped cream. It was so warming and delightful! And don’t judge me;). While it is a very fancy drink, it is still better for you than what you get at Starbucks. Plus it is only a fraction of the price!

While that is all good, how about I get to the giveaway?

1 winner will win a gorgeous basket that is just like the one I received. But there is something even better….that 1 winner will also win a $150 GIFTCARD TO SMART AND FINAL!!!!!! Yes, I am yelling but this is big news! I can get a lot of food for the NerdFamily with $150! I am sure that you are wondering what you have to do to enter this fantabulous giveaway. Well, it is pretty easy. Just make sure that you enter quickly because the giveaway closes February 8, 2011 at Midnight pst.

Mandatory Entry: Now you must do this in order to be entered at all! Just tell me about your favorite coffee moment!

Extra Entries: This is such an awesome giveaway that I am sure you would like more ways to enter. Make sure you leave an extra comment for each entry.

(I was compensated to run this giveaway but all the opinions are mine!)

It is time for a change!

For those of you who may not know, Egypt has shut down just about all the internet in the whole nation. There was a video put up of a protester being killed and then the internet was turned off. President Obama had a press conference calling for Egypt to turn everything back on with and interesting universal rights arguement.

“I also call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they’ve taken to interfere with access to the Internet, with cellphone service and to social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century.”

Yes, that is a simplified recap;). But what is this going to mean to the whole area? With Tunisia overthrowing their dictator, revolution is in the air!

Some hope for more than just a governmental revolution. My friend Andrea, GreenBacksGal, tweeted for liberation for the women of the area.

#Egypt – the oppression you are protesting against is nothing compared to the oppression your women face every day. You MUST free your women

I am glad to see some reach so high but I am cynical as to this having such far reaching effects. What do I really hope for? That this has a rolling effect. First Tunisia, then Egypt and maybe this will get all the way to the students in Iran.

NerdDad and I were talking about what it would really take to exact the political/governmental change we hope to see. And what I came up with is something that went out of style/became illegal in the 1980’s. These revolutionaries need arms! When they have enough weapons to protect themselves from the tyrants that rule over them then and only then will we see the people of the Middle East have true self determination!

I am not saying that we should pick out who we want to win and arm them. But there has to be something we can do as a nation and international super power to help these people to determine their own fate. And I mean something other than going in and actually policing these nations. When we armed the Mujahideen to prevent Russia from just rolling their tanks over all of Afghanistan and the desires of the Afghani people in the 1980’s it seemed to help. And it wasn’t that we were just empowering a government that we wanted, or it would have been a democracy, but trying to enable them to be self determined.

I don’t know if that is the magic answer but there must be something that we can do without taking control. What would you propose?

I pray for the rebels in Egypt and Iran for their safety and for them to possibly see that everyone in their society desires the rights they are so desperately fighting for!

Should Israel Pay to Support Auschwitz?

I didn’t realize that today was International Holocaust Remembrance Day (versus Yom HaShoah which is in April and I am very familiar with) until I was reading my newsletter from the Jerusalem Post. Of course there were a couple pieces on today’s events. So as I was reading something odd jumped out to me.

At the same time, a study published on Thursday showed Israeli, Polish and German citizens believed that Israel should take part in funding the preservation of the former Nazi camp, whose buildings and artifacts are in need of restoration.

Ok, really? Is it just me or does the idea that Israel should fund the upkeep of Auschwitz seem dumb? So the idea is that concentration camps should be maintained so that the events that took place will never be forgotten. So maybe the countries that did the doing so be doing the maintaining. I think if Israelis personally want to donate money to the upkeep that is one thing but to put the responsibility for that on Israel as a nation. Well, I don’t know. It just doesn’t sit right with me.

So do you think I am way off base? I am a big girl, let me know what you think!

The Struggles of My Bloggy Life

Ok, I love my life. I love to blog. I love my kids. I love to homeschool. I love my husband. I would love to have a clean, de-cluttered house (I think, I have never had one;). I love to hang out with my friends. I love church. I love to serve at church. I love video games and comic books. I love politics. I love to read. I love to cook. I love to craft.

So with all this love I am sure you are wondering what my problem is. Well, apparently there is only 24 hours in the day and I can’t make any more hours appear;).  I want to blog for a living but I have a bunch of responsibilities. And then I have a bunch of things that I just desire to do. Even in my most ideal world, I can’t do everything I want to do. So that means that choices have to be made. I don’t get to play the video games I want to play or do craft projects that would be fun. That is just real life. But sometimes it feels like Sophie’s Choice. Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit.

I am a yes girl by nature. Which means if there is something to do I will do it if it is physically possible, especially if it is a 1 time thing. So up until this semester it seems the thing I have always neglected is the house and doing projects with the kids.

But something had to change. My God, my family, my house and my blogs are my real priorities and they were all being short changed! So this semester I chose to give up my Thursday Bible Study. Before you all think that I am abandoning God, I have another Bible study that I am in. By giving up Thursday it meant that there was a day that we don’t have to go out at all! And do you know how valuable it is for homeschooling and blogging to actually be home? And I thought that would fix all my time and priority problems.

Then life got in the way. I started getting headaches. I have been having really bad headaches for about a month now. So I haven’t been writing the way I want. I have been doing projects with great companies but I haven’t been posting like I want because of the headaches. Then I got the flu and I got it in a way I have never had it before. I was dehydrated and shaky and miserable. To the point that I couldn’t even read my emails much less form sentences to return them. Then I barely got healthy enough to stand and I was off to Women’s Retreat.

I came home with a new outlook. I am in a season of NO. Do I want to go to a homeschool seminar this weekend? No. Do I want to host something at my house? No. Do I want to go to coffee (just for fun, not because you need to talk)? No.

Now this doesn’t mean that I am quitting things I already do but I am not taking anything else on without it being super special. Maybe this will bring some sort of clarity and peace to my crazy, mixed up bloggy life. And maybe I will go to the doctor for my headaches.

How do those of you who balance it all, how do you do it? Can I actually clean my house, teach my kids, play with them and be a successful blogger? Help a girl out!

Tech Tuesday: Original Video Content

So for the last Tech Tuesday I talked about places to get free television content. But there is other stuff out there to watch! Original content is something that is really developing. Right now there are just a few sources that I currently go to.

Revision 3 is a great producer of podcasts! They have podcasts on tech, pop culture, etc.

TWiT (which stands for This Week in Technology) produces shows beyond just TWiT. They cover just about everything in tech.

YouTube is of course a source of tons of original content. I have found great comedy stuff, parodies, you name it. There are some great web series available. The most notable may be The Guild.  Now that YouTube is taking the 15 minute limit off submissions I think we are going to be seeing even more original content with more full series.

I am always looking for good, quality, family friendly content so I will post as I find more! But do you have any great sources? Please share!!!

Meal Plan Monday: 1/24

So remember how last week was supposed to be crazy? Well, it was even weirder than I thought it would be. I ended up getting severely dehydrated and basically was banished to the couch for the week. Then I got better with just enough time to go to my retreat. So this week is a huge catch up week for me!

Monday: Turkey Spaghetti with Spinach
Tuesday: Quesadillas, Carrot
Wednesday: Corned Beef, Buttery Rolls, Broccoli
Thursday: Crispy Chicken Thighs, Rice, Broccoli

Friday: Leftovers

Meal Plan Monday: The Unknown Week

This week is a crazy week! Part of the crazy is that I have been sick for a few days and while I am planning on going to the doctor tomorrow, who knows how long until I am tip top. So between that, Bible study, Awana and women’s retreat this weekend, I have no idea really what this week is going to look like!

But I am going to try and plan.

Monday: Dinner being brought by a friend (Love you Sara!)
Tuesday: Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli
Wednesday: Shredded Chicken, Rice, Broccoli
Thursday: New York Steaks with Chili Beans and Broccoli
Friday: Hamburger Helper with Broccoli

Tech Tuesday: Free TV

We here at the NerdFamily house have always loved tv! But we realized that we were just watching a few good programs and a lot of filler. And we were paying $45 for the privilege. So as of January 4, 2011 we have been without cable or a satellite dish for 1 year!

So have we given up tv? Never;). There are many free options on the internet that give you many of the hit shows along with all the filler you have time for.

Hulu: They carry the most free tv. Their quality is high and you will find many cable offerings from USA, Bravo, SyFy and ABC Family. There are plenty of classic shows available and the viewer is a good quality. This is my first choice.  I only go to the rest if what I want to watch isn’t being shown on Hulu.

Fancast: This is Comcast’s viewer. I haven’t found much there that isn’t on Hulu but there are a few TLC shows.

SlashControl: is AOL’s tv viewer. They have most of the same main stream shows but they also have some different classic tv shows. This is where I found the whole series of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (one of my favorite shows ever!).

CBS.com: CBS doesn’t play nicely with Hulu. So if you want to watch their shows you have to go to their network site. The viewer isn’t as good as others and they only have 1 episode (occasionally 2) for each show.

CWTV.com: This has a lot of episodes for CW shows. At one point they had Buffy but that was a while ago;).

TNT.com: They have entire seasons of some of their original shows! NerdDad and I just watched entire seasons of the Closer and Leverage!

LifetimeTV.com: In addition to a bunch girlie Lifetime movies they also show a bunch of their original programming. Including…Project Runway!!!!

You will notice that I have only listed legal viewers. There are various illegal sites out there but…. So, it there any other (legal) places that you get your free tv? If so you really need to share;)! Next week we will talk about other types of online entertainment.