Hills Science Diet - 30 Day Challenge!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hills Pet Nutrition. All opinions are 100% mine.

Every pet owner wants their dog to be healthy and happy, that's just a given!  Even older dogs can be happy, healthy and can still run around just like when they were a puppy!  Hills Science Diet Healthy Mobility can definitely help with that - within 30 days of starting your dog on the food you'll see an improvement in their flexibility and happiness!  

That's why Hills Science Diet started the Hills Healthy Mobility challenge!  They guarantee that within 30 days you'll see an improved difference in your dog's mobility and flexibility! They also are giving pet owners who try their challenge a chance to win free dog food for a YEAR!  (Who couldn't use that!)  When you register, you'll also get $30 in FREE coupons!  It's definitely a reason to try out a pet food that will improve your pets overall life!   Hill's Healthy Mobility Coupon

Definitely go ahead and try out the challenge, get coupons and try to win free pet food for a year with Hills Science Diet!  Check out their information on Hill's Pet Nutrition and visit them on Facebook as well for more special offers and information! Hill's Pet Nutrition on Facebook

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Through the eyes of a 5 year old...

My 5 year old took these pictures and left them as a present for me on my iPhone.  I think they're the cutest!  It really shows what a 5 year old is interested in. lol  

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My kids think I was born with the Cavemen

We had very basic TV when I was a child.  Until I was 5, we didn't have cable and just had the very basic ABC, NBC, CBS and so on.  Our TV was small and one of those tube TVs with the very large back.  When we did get cable, our cable box was hooked to the TV and had buttons on the box itself.  The buttons weren't regular buttons, rather they were those hard buttons that popped one up when you press down another. (I know I'm not explaining it right! lol)  Picture to the right of a similar box to what we had.  

There were no remote controls to our television back then, we had to get up and change the channel when we wanted to switch it.  I remember laying on the living room floor with the cable box in front of me while watching TV.  Of course, my mom would yell at me that I was too close to the television and that my eyes were going to get hurt.  (Didn't all parents say that?)  Even our cable channels were few and far between.  I believe we had about 31 cable channels at that time.  Even so, that was a huge difference from the 4 or 5 regular local channels we had previously.  Yes, even our TV, while hooked up to a cable box, still had an antenna.  There was no digital cable back then.

Believe it or not, my two girls are in disbelief when I tell them about this.  They either think I'm crazy or that I was born in the days of the cavemen and dinosaurs.  This all came about when I made the decision to get rid of DirecTV.  The prices were getting outrageous and when I called to lower my bill, they completely gave me the runaround about why they didn't want me to lower the bill.  I got so frustrated with them, I asked them to put my account on hold while I tried to find a solution for this.  Right now, my kids are watching Netflix through my Wii and I don't mind that at all.  The minimal price of Netflix is much better than the pricy satellite service.  I think it's perfect because I hardly watch TV.  I'm too busy to watch anything and mostly watch Netflix at night or watch shows that I did miss on the computer.  I don't really see the need for expensive TV service when we don't really use all of the channels that we have.  I feel like it's a waste of my hard earned money.

My girls told me that they can't live without the TV and that actually scared me.  Do my kids think that TV is everything?  I get them out of the house and they get plenty of exercise, I don't let them sit by the TV constantly and I don't use the TV as a babysitter, but every once in a while when I'm making dinner or my mom is making dinner, they would sit down and watch TV.  I really do think it's sad that this generation of children think that TV is so important to them.  It made me realize that kids these days take a lot for granted.  They don't understand how it was when we were little and they don't want to understand either.  

I'm going to have to start limiting TV time and getting my kids to exercise their creative muscles.  After all, I'm an artist and I feel that being creative is much more important than watching TV and turning your brains into mush by doing so.  I'm going to really start to make my kids realize that there is more to life than watching Wow Wow Wubbzy, Dora the Explorer, Imagination Movers and whatever else they watch.  I'll show them that creativity and using your imagination is much more important and much more fun.  That's what we had to do when I was little, and I owe that to the reason why I am so creative and artistic today.  

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Catch Me If You Can The Musical on Broadway! See it now while you can!

I was not compensated at all for this post.  I am posting my own opinions because of my feelings about the show and the cast itself.

I used to absolutely love the movie Catch Me if you Can and last year when I heard there was a show coming to Broadway based on the movie, I absolutely had to see it.  Of course, since I had been talking about it for months, my best friend decided to take me to the show for my birthday.  Well, that was back in March and since that first day that I saw this show, I have been hooked.  

Why?

As I said, I loved the movie; however the musical is a completely different angle to the story.  While the movie focuses more on the chase between Frank Abagnale and the FBI agent who tries to find him, the play focuses more on the father/son relationships that come out of the show.  The father/son relationship between Frank Abagnale and his dad and the father/son relationship that comes between Frank and the FBI agent who becomes someone Frank looks up to.  

Not only is the story inspiring and true, but the musical numbers in this show and the choreography is just amazing.  I've seen this musical quite a few times and I never get sick of it.  The chemistry between the entire cast is just absolutely amazing and the leads Aaron Tveit and Norbert Leo Butz are perfect for their parts.  The way they fall into character and become the character is just absolutely amazing.  It is like the parts were written for those two especially.

Sadly, this show is closing on September 4th, the economy is bad and many people figure that they can't afford Broadway shows.  However, they can!  There are some great discounts (Broadway Box and the TKTS booth in Times Square.)  I highly suggest that anyone traveling to New York or anyone living in New York go to see this show.  It is one that you do not want to miss.

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Gender Disappointment Exists!

I was browsing Twitter the other day when I saw this post about Gender Disappointment.  I actually could very  much relate to her post.  Now, I wasn't told that my child was supposed to be a boy when she really was a girl, all of my ultrasounds were very accurate with both of my kids.  However, after having a healthy girl already, I was hoping that my second was a boy.  I wasn't disappointed that she was a girl, I was disappointed that my intuition was wrong in the first place! (I usually have very good intuition.) 

Many people do experience the "gender disappointment" however.  This was so in the case of my ex fiance.  He wanted a boy so badly that he could teach to drag race, play soccer and so on...  When he found out she was a girl he was very upset.  (He actually told me he didn't want to be a father since she wasn't going to be a boy.  Hence why we are not together right now.)   I'm sure that is a way extreme case of "gender disappointment", but I'm sure it still happens.

Especially when you have one child already of a certain sex, sometimes you may want the opposite sex for your second child, or third child or so on.  It's normal to feel like you want one more than the other; it happens all of the time!  We definitely should be happy that we are blessed with a healthy baby, but we all have our hopes and wishes.

Funny story:  When my oldest found out I was pregnant she was unsure how to feel about it. (She was 2 at the time, though! Still my little baby!)  I asked her if she wanted a baby brother or sister and she told me... "I want a penguin instead.  Not a sister or a brother.".  That's more like species disappointment than gender disappointment!  All through my second pregnancy, my oldest wished for a penguin.  She asked me after every appointment if I was sure I wasn't having a penguin for her. lol   Thankfully, she loves her sister more than life! (And also still loves penguins.  She hasn't gotten a penguin yet, we don't live in Alaska...)  

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Hectic and Crazy Life

Sometimes I feel like I am or have to be super mom, especially lately.  Maybe my life will calm down a little bit, but I can't make myself any promises.  Last week I starte a new job with Comcast and started training last Monday.  I absolutely love the job, it's a customer service job and a new job working from home, but the training clashes with Bluefly.  So, for three days last week I was doing Comcast orientation from 9:00 am - 5:30 pm and working Bluefly from 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm.  I pretty much worked for 13 hours straight!  Absolutely exhausting. 

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