Wordless Wednesday

Articles To Help You Make Your Nails Look Beautiful

Most of the time, I don't care what my toenails look like. Even at Disney it didn't matter, because I wore sneakers all the time. But when we go to North Carolina I would like to walk around in sandals without feeling I need to hide my ragged nails. The garden destroys my fingernails, so I do my best to keep them looking decent, even if they aren't polished all the time.

NannyNet™ recently posted an article entitled, "25 Blogs with Tricks for Making Your Nails Look Beautiful this Summer." It has links to a variety of articles about nail care, nutrition, and polishing. You can find it at http://www.nanny.net/blog/25-blogs-with-tricks-for-making-your-nails-look-beautiful-this-summer/

Diary of a Busy Mom: Vacation

As a busy mom, there’s so much to do to get ready to leave on vacation:

·         Pick up the tickets from AAA
·         Hold the mail
·         Hold the paper
·         Arrange pet sitters
·         Clean the house (so I don’t have a mess when we return home)
·         Make sure we have enough good clothes for the trip (the kids seem to grow out of half of their things before we leave)
·         Pack
·         Help the girls pack
·         Confirm reservations before we leave
·         Confirm coverage for my clients while we’re away
·         Grocery shop so the pet sitters have what they need

Pretty much, I’m exhausted before boarding the plane. Thankfully, when we finally go away, we’re at least going somewhere where we’ll be too busy for me to work. I rarely even read when we’re in Florida.

The other nice thing about going to Disney is that I don’t have to plan meals. When we go to the Outer Banks, I’m usually cooking two meals a day. With Disney, I simply make dining reservations ahead of time for all our meals.

Once we return, I’ll have six days of laundry for four people to wash and then have to go grocery shopping again, but at least once I set foot on the plane, I’m truly on vacation.

What’s your favorite vacation spot? Is there somewhere you would love to go that you haven’t been to yet?

You've Got Mail Mondays!

This is a take on Mailbox Mondays, which was started by some smart and innovative blogger many moons ago--and I don't know who that was. My hope is that we'll be seeing a lot more products coming through than books (though I love books too). I'm also not going to just talk about books or products that come in the mail. I might mention catalogs or newspapers that might have articles of interest. I hope you'll give me feedback on this new feature, as I truly want this to be a place you enjoy visiting.

On the books front, I received:

• Promise of the Night by Michaela MacColl. This is a middle grade historical--a market I am writing for now--but I won't be reviewing this book. It is for a giveaway I am running at The Children's and Teens' Book Connection on January 26th.
• Lonestar Angel by Colleen Coble. I ordered this one to review through the Amazon Vine program. I read Coble's The Lightkeeper's Daughter and have been hoping to read more from her. Though I'm not usually one for kidnapped baby stories, this one sounds fabulous, so I thought I would give it a whirl.
• Popular Clone by M.E. Castle. My oldest daughter (the Lil Diva) loves science. I tried to get this book through the Amazon Vine program, but they were out of stock. This copy was sent by Egmont USA unsolicited. I was thrilled, and the Lil Diva said it sounded like her kind of book.
• I also requested The Innkeeper by John Piper from the Amazon Vine program. Keeping in the Christmas spirit, this story celebrates Christ's birth and the power of His resurrection. Two weeks before His Crucifixion, Jesus visits the innkeeper who made a place for Mary and Joseph on the night of His miraculous birth. I can't wait to read this one!

Also in the mail this week came a late Christmas/birthday present for my daughter-in-law. Her birthday is the 28th, so we usually wrap up everything on Christmas day. With being sick I was running behind, and there was a short delay in getting this to us.

This is the Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Clip-On Light for her Kindle. Our son bought her a Kindle Touch for Christmas, so we thought she would enjoy this. I'll have to see how she likes it and report back on it. Personally, I'm thrilled reading at night is no longer an issue for me thanks to the Kindle Fire Santa brought.

The AAA Times arrived so that we can get started planning our 2012 vacation. This is the newspaper put out by AAA for its members. Not only does it talk about their vacation packages--which we took advantage of last summer for our Disney trip--but it also updates members on other AAA news and offers informative articles.

In this issue, it discusses how RMV services will now be available at their West Springfield branch. Thank God, because budget cuts have forced some of our full and express service RMV branches to close. I don't visit the RMV often, but when I do I don't want to wait in line forever. They now offer AAA driver education at Chicopee Comprehensive High School. There's a fabulous article titled, "5 Ways to Maintain Your Health and Save," an article on Philadelphia, a front page article titled, "Celebrate the Wonders of Winter," that highlights different winter festivals, and an article about the dangers of driving while drowsy.

On Thursdays, the mailman delivers our weekly copy of The Wilbraham-Hampden Times. This is our local paper published by Turley Publications.  The front page, as usual for the end of the year, published photos from the top stories. What tops the list this year? The June 1st tornado--the likes of which hasn't been seen in our area for around 50 years. Though it might seem hard to believe, some families are still picking up the pieces from that mess. Why is that you may ask? Well, it could be thanks to the next two top stories: the October storm that traveled up the Northeast coast, blanketing our area with over a foot of snow and leaving many without power for a week or more, and the July microburst from July 27th, that damaged some of the same areas hardest hit by the June tornado.

What was nice to see is that two of our neighbors made the news as well: one as a hometown hero and the other for leading our high school's football team to the playoffs.

Finally, this week brought my Spring/Summer 2012 children's, adults, and gifts catalogs from Chronicle Books. They are one of my favorite children's publishers. They were the first publisher I began working with when I started The Children's and Teens' Book Connection.

Hope you enjoyed my first of hopefully many You've Got Mail Mondays. Feel free to share something you received in your mailbox last week.


This is an unpaid, unsponsored post.

Is Olive Garden Becoming the Disney of Restaurants?

I've been meaning to write up this post for weeks now. Our favorite family restaurant is Olive Garden. Not only is the food great, I can honestly say I've never received bad service in any Olive Garden we've visited--ever!

The last time we visited our local Olive Garden, it was just the hubby and me. This rarely happens, but it was school vacation week and the girls were sleeping over at their grandparents' house. It was after normal dinner hours--probably close to 7:30 PM by the time we arrived, but the place was still fairly busy. The hostess greeted us within moments of our arrival, took our name, and gave us a pager.

We probably waited about 5 minutes, and a gentleman, who appeared to be the manager on staff, apologized for our wait as the hostess guided us to our table. Our waiter, I think his name was Owen, arrived moments later.

We had a wonderful time. Owen took our drink order first. When he returned with our drinks he took our meal order. If I remember correctly, I had the Mixed Grill, which is, "skewers of grilled marinated steak and chicken with a rosemary demi-glace, served with grilled vegetables and Tuscan potatoes." The hubby had the Venetian Apricot Chicken. This dish featured, "grilled chicken breasts in an apricot citrus sauce" and served with broccoli, asparagus and diced tomatoes. We rounded our entrees out with a house salad and breadsticks.

The food, as always, was absolutely amazing. It arrived in record time, and Owen checked on us from time to time to see if we needed anything. We decided to forgo dessert, but after we paid the bill and several members of the staff wished us goodnight, I got to wondering if Olive Garden was quickly becoming the Disney of restaurants.


The training program at Disney is unmatched, from my understanding. One of my college classmates gave a presentation for our public speaking course on their training program, which she had attended when she worked there.
 
If you've ever been to Disney, you'll know just what I mean. They have been trained to excel at customer service; to anticipate your needs before you even realize you need anything; to fix any problem that could possibly arise--and do it all with a smile.
 
That's how I felt that evening as we strolled out of Olive Garden, my belly full of great food after a relaxing and enjoyable dinner out with my better half. I don't know anything about their training program, but I know we'll keep going back to visit as long as they keep up the great work.
 
 
Blogger's note: These are my honest opinions. I was not compensated in any way for sharing these thoughts.