Uninvited Guests: Are There Really Such People?

I laugh when I read blog posts about people having uninvited, unannounced guests, come over to their house and how they're freaking out. I honestly didn't realize that people require guests to announce their pending arrivals. I live in the south. We don't announce. We literally show up whenever. We don't call first and we somehow manage to show up when all hell is breaking loose in the hosts home. We're real. We know each other and we see each other at our craziest. We all know we have chaos in our homes. It happens. We don't apologize for a mess. We don't apologize for someone showing up unannounced. We merely say "come on in and move some shit to find a spot to sit." People are welcome to the bathroom and the refrigerator. They don't ask for a glass. They just grab it. They don't ask before grabbing a cookie. They just grab it, or in the case of my friends, the entire bag! It happens. It doesn't mean we're rude or inconsiderate. It just means that you were on our mind and we decided to stop in for a visit. 

Graze Box

So I signed up about a week ago for this cool idea called a Graze box. It comes for $6 once every week/every other week/however you set up your timetable, and contains 4 snacks, HEALTHY snacks. What instantly made me try them was that you can cancel at any time. The website tells you when your next box is coming and what date and time you have to cancel by before you'll be charged. The snacks looked amazing and you get things like Key Lime Pie in trail mix form! When you sign up, you can use a code to get your 1st and 5th boxes free and then if you give people your code, they can sign up and you earn $1 which you can use on your own boxes, or you can donate it through Graze to the Graze School of Farming. Your friends get their 1st and 5th box free. On the website, once you get your box, you can rate, using a "trash, try, like, love" scale. Trash means that you didn't like it and they won't send it to you again. Try is automatically marked on every product when you sign up and they'll send it to you once to try unless you go and click on something else. Like means that you liked it and they'll send it to you occasionally. Love, well, obviously means that you loved it and they'll send it frequently. Again, you can cancel at ANY time. There's no obligation to stay with the program.

I received my first box today. YUM! Look at all these amazing looking goodies! As you can see, in my first box, I received Key Lime Pie, My Thai, Cracking Black Pepper Cashews, and Summer Berry Flapjack. I immediately dug into the flapjack. It looks like a granola bar and it was AMAZING! It had this sweetness to it that kept it from tasting like your typical granola bar. The insert includes nutritional information including a "best by" date. The Key Lime Pie contains lime infused raisins, sponge pieces, mini meringues and green raisins. It does taste like key lime pie as long as you eat a little bit of everything together. I only liked it instead of loving it because I'm quite fond of pie being in pie form. I just couldn't get past that phase but it does taste good and does indeed taste like key lime pie. The My Thai basically only has the flavor from the sauce. I guess that's the point since the little crackers or chips are soy. The sauce has a sweet flavor to it with a kick at the end. Not really something I'd eat again. The Cracking Black Pepper Cashews taste like they sound, cashews covered in black pepper. Again, not really something I'd eat again. I can't stand too much black pepper. On anything.

If you want to sign up, just go to graze.com and put in my friend code: ROBINS7RB

Enjoy snacking!

Sargento Ultra Thin Slices

I know everyone looks at my blog and wonders why I even keep one! I know I do. I keep up with other blogs and they post daily or multiple times a day and while I aspire to be like that, I just don’t get out enough for all that and my 10-year-old son would rather go hang with friends than stay home and create things with me, although the other night we did create a pretty awesome desert diorama for extra credit at school. You can read a short blog about that here.

So anyway, this particular post is a review of Sargento’s AMAZINGLY tasty Ultra Thin Slices. I’m an Influenster member and I occasionally receive boxes of products to review. There are a few previous posts here somewhere regarding products I’ve received through Influenster and I love being able to try new and exciting products and then tell everyone about them. This past month I was the lucky recipient of the Sargento Vox Box. I was sent a coupon for free Ultra Thin Slices, one for $1.00 off and a pretty cool lunch bag. I love cheese period even though my tummy tends to disagree with it sometimes. Perhaps it’s the amount I tend to eat! Lol. That’s why these slices are pretty perfect. They really are thin but they pack a big punch of flavor!

I particularly love provolone on everything. I also love chicken so BAM! I made chicken wraps. I unfortunately didn’t get a picture. SORRY! However, it was amazing. I used a homemade tortilla wrap with some grilled chicken, lettuce, 2 slices of Sargento Ultra Thin Provolone cheese (it was a long wrap) and a little homemade ranch dressing. It was….AAAAAMAZING! The dressing didn’t cover up the cheese or anything. I’m telling you, these little things pack some flavor punch! It also didn’t upset my tummy at all! These are great for wraps or maybe finger sandwiches and meat & cheese wraps for parties and such.

Sargento has done it again in my opinion. I love their products and thanks to Influenster and Sargento, I was able to try these for free and I got an awesome lunch box which means I can take my lunch on all those field trips I attend!! It’ll save me tons of money!

Extra Credit Desert Diorama

So my mini me decided to wait until the absolute last possible minute to work on an extra credit project he has due tomorrow. He knew about it for three weeks… Way to go kid! Lol. He’s definitely taking after me. The assignment was to create a shoebox diorama of a habitat. He chose the desert.

It’s a good thing that his mother is a crafty lady and has all kinds of awesome stuff on hand. We didn’t have anything to really put in the box and a quick trip to town via my boyfriend left us pretty empty handed for “decorations” since our tiny town had NOTHING for a desert. Good thing mom had pipe cleaners in various dark colors on hand. PERFECT for the dessert and we have a dirt road right by our house that has some sand at the end of it that they put in after it kept washing away and creating huge potholes. We got creative! Green pipe cleaners became cactus. Two different browns and a tiny red one became a snake. Dark brown became a scorpion and light brown became a camel. Keegan’s imagination went EVERYWHERE on what could be put in the box.

I also have spray Elmer’s adhesive. I highly recommend this stuff! We covered the inside of the box with brown construction paper and then bundled some paper up and glued it to the bottom and then we glued down another piece so that we didn’t just have flat terrain. We sprayed the inside with the spray glue and dumped in some sand. We emptied it and repeated until we had several layers of sand and then let it dry. We poked a couple holes and started sticking in our creations. A piece of blue paper glued to the top, some cotton balls, a cotton face pad and some orange and yellow finger paint later and we had a sky! I love his creative nature and I love how into he got. I mean he was throwing out ideas left and right.

All in all, for it to be a last minute project I think he did an amazing job! I posted it on Facebook and his teacher came back with the response “100” so I’m pretty sure that means he earned full credit! Way to go kid! I’m proud of you!

Herbal Essences Body Wash

Yup, you read the title right! It's Herbal Essences Body Wash! It is pretty amazing!

Short Backstory:
I belong to a website called Crowdtap. I answer questions, share things, and test products. I'm sure everyone on my Facebook page has seen me share links for things I've completed or read about! Well I got to try out a sample of Herbal Essences Body Wash on behalf of Herbal Essences and Crowdtap! Thank you for the sample. It's amazing. It smells great. My skin is soft and smooth and feels amazing! I've always been a Bath and Body Works gal but I'm sure I could be convinced to convert.

You can see a picture of the sample below, but I assure there won't be one of me actually USING the product! You understand, yea?

Disclaimer: I have received this product free and clear from Crowdtap in exchange for sharing information and my personal opinions about said product.

Things I'm Proud of Myself For

Today was actually another book topic which I said I wasn’t going to type up however this one really means a lot to me. The original topic asks “what are you proud of yourself for?” My list is of some things that I am proud of, things I have accomplished and what makes my life worth it. 

• I have my Masters degree.
• My son loves me.
• I know how to budget better than my mother ever did.
• I always put my son first.
• I might not practice it but I’ve learned who is good for me and who isn’t.
• I made it to 30 and I’ve only been to jail once!!!
• I was maid of honor in my best friend’s wedding.
• I take care of my dad and have for four years now.
• I lived through the loss of my mother.
• I have learned what family is. It isn’t always about blood...
• I’ve survived a car wreck and a four wheeler flipping with me on it.
• I’ve had my heart broken and had the courage to go through it again.
• I have become highly organized over the years.

Important lessons I learned from my parents…

This entry was a journal prompt but I choose to type it up because it’s part of who I am. (There will be a few of these, even if I don’t type all the journal prompts.)

Important lessons I learned from my parents…

• Always say I love you before bed and before leaving someone, even if only for a matter of hours. It could be your last time seeing them.
• Never go to bed angry (I clearly didn’t pay attention to this one).
• Every woman should learn to drive a stick shift (I think men too).
• Don’t grow up believing that you have to have a man to take care of you.
• Always look both ways.
• Always wear a seatbelt (this one’s saved my life a few times).
• Judge not (I have trouble with this one).
• Live for yourself and no one else.
• Normal is over-rated.

Whoah! I'm the dirty 30!

Today, I turn 30. The big 3-0. Without my mom. Yes, it hurts but I suppose life goes on. I have discovered a pattern in my life, I start journals and I never finish. I have a pile of unfinished ones. Journals are generally pointless for me because I never go back and read them. If I even skim them, I feel even more like a loser and I get depressed. I have decided to burn them all. I'm going to try to burn away the past and live for the future. I started a 365 Days journal but honestly I suck at writing. I did one of the story prompts and realized I don't have that type of imagination. I'm good with sexual stories! Seriously! I decided that I would like to try to write something every day. It's more for me to get my feelings out instead of lashing out on those that I love. I did/do like some of the prompts, so if one of the prompts, photography prompts, or quotes moves me to do so, I'll write about it. There are always thoughts swimming in my head, I can just never manage to get them out. I guess we'll see what happens. I threw out an activity to my friends to see what they thought of me. Most of the people who answered have known me for 10 or more years. I told them to use my name and give me words for each letter to describe me. Some were... interesting! lol.

My Words

Rambunctious
Obnoxious
Bitchy
Intense
Neurotic


The words of others!
Respected
Optimistic
Beautiful
Inspirational
Naughty

Real
Obvious
Beautiful
Immersing
Nice

Rude
Obese
Beguiling
Intuitive
Naughty

Rebellious
Obstinate
Brassy
Inquisitive
Nice

Rebellious
Ostentatious
Beautiful
Insightful
Negative

Rough
Overboard
Beautiful
Instinct-able
Nympho

Real
Optimistic
Beautiful
Intelligent
Nice

100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

So, quite some time ago while going through my daily feeds, I came across an article in one of the many blogs that I follow (and idolize) regarding “100 Books to Read in a Lifetime.” I love reading and I’m always looking for suggestions, although my tastes are generally limited to mystery novels, S&M novels as of late and romantic novels, mostly the ones that take place in like the 1800s because back then women were treated with respect and men actually proved themselves worthy of the women. On this particular list, I was actually quite surprised to find that I have read quite a few of them, however, out of those that I have read, I plan to re-read simply because most of them were forced upon us in high school and I only read them because I had to. I honestly couldn’t tell you what in the world they are about! My tastes have changed the older I’ve gotten and a lot of the books I detested in school now intrigue me and I fully intend to finish this list. Again, it’s a “lifetime” list but I hope to have them all read before I’m 40. This is my pledge for my birthday (today). Yes, I am giving myself a full 10 years which is clearly shorter than a lifetime (I hope) so I’m actually testing myself here. This is an average of 10 books a year. I read relatively fast when I’m interested and I’m usually able to keep up with about three books at once so if I plan to read 10 of these a year, then if I get bored, I can still enjoy some other books while coming back to that particular one I’m working on at the time. Plus, there’s life, hopefully a job, homeschooling mini-me, and possibly another baby in the future that will take away time from reading. I’m also aspiring to get this blog going more and actually giving you guys something to read (see above where I said I “idolize” those blogs). I’m also ahead since I read a few of these books recently! So, yay!!! The list of books is below along with the ones I have read so far, underlined. I hope to also write a book review for each one as I read it, but again, that’s an “I hope.” I have the tendency to get distracted easily and I always have 100 things going on at once! Wish me luck readers! Oh, and if you decide to join me, watching the movie doesn’t count!!!! That’s cheating! Plus, you miss so many details that come up in the book, which you can’t witness on the big screen.

1.       Crime and Punishment (Dover Thrift Editions) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett

2.       Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

3.       From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

4.       The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer

5.       Helen Keller: The Story of My Life (Dover Thrift Editions) by Helen Keller, Candace Ward

6.       Beloved by Toni Morrison

7.       Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Hilda Rosner

8.       The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky

9.       Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

10.   The Road by Cormac McCarthy

11.   The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

12.   The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

13.   The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

14.   The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

15.   And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

16.   A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

17.   Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Bill Hayden, Anne Elixhauser

18.   The Odyssey (Penguin Classics) by Homer, Bernard Knox, Robert Fagles

19.   The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

20.   The Good Earth (Oprah's Book Club) by Pearl S. Buck

21.   The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver

22.   One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

23.   Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

24.   The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

25.   The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

26.   Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen

27.   Dracula (Norton Critical Editions) by Bram Stoker, Nina Auerbach, David J. Skal

28.   The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

29.   Les Miserables (Signet Classics) by Victor Hugo, Lee Fahnestock, Norman MacAfee

30.   The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

31.   Life of Pi by Yann Martel

32.   Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake

33.   The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

34.   The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

35.   The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Dover Thrift Editions) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

36.   Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel by Arthur Golden

37.   Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

38.   Great Expectations (Dover Thrift Editions) by Charles Dickens

39.   Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet) by Orson Scott Card

40.   To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

41.   Pride and Prejudice (Modern Library Classics) by Jane Austen, Anna Quindlen

42.   Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, B.M. Mooyaart, Eleanor Roosevelt

43.   Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky

44.   Watership Down: A Novel by Richard Adams

45.   Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & T​hrough the Looking-Glass (Bantam Classics) by Lewis Carroll

46.   The Stand by Stephen King

47.   In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

48.   Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition by Joseph Heller, Christopher Buckley

49.   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (P.S.) by Betty Smith

50.   East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by John Steinbeck

51.   The Color Purple by Alice Walker

52.   The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

53.   The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics) by Alexandre Dumas père, Robin Buss

54.   The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy) by Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland

55.   The Holy Bible: New King James Version (NKJV) by Thomas Nelson

56.   Frankenstein (Penguin Classics) by Mary Shelley, Maurice Hindle

57.   The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Dover Thrift Editions) by Mark Twain

58.   Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare

59.   Anne of Green Gables (Signet Classics) by L. M. Montgomery, Jennifer Lee Carroll

60.   The Giver by Lois Lowry

61.   Wuthering Heights (Norton Critical Editions) by Emily Brontë, Richard J. Dunn

62.   Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems and Drawings by Shel Silverstein

63.   Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

64.   The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Richard Howard

65.   The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

66.   Romeo and Juliet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare

67.   The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Sandra M. Gilbert

68.   Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck

69.   A Christmas Carol (Dover Thrift Editions) by Charles Dickens

70.   A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet) by Madeleine L'Engle

71.   A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Richard Maxwell

72.   Hamlet ( Folger Library Shakespeare) by William Shakespeare

73.   Night by Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel

74.   The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

75.   Lord of the Flies by William Golding, E. L. Epstein

76.   The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

77.   The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, Book 1) by Suzanne Collins

78.   Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, Book 2) by Suzanne Collins

79.   Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

80.   The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 2) by C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes

81.   The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott

82.   The Help by Kathryn Stockett

83.   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics) by Mark Twain, Guy Cardwell, John Seelye

84.   The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

85.   Animal Farm: Centennial Edition by George Orwell, Ann Patchett

86.   Gone with the Wind, 75th Anniversary Edition by Margaret Mitchell, Pat Conroy

87.   Jane Eyre (Norton Critical Editions) by Charlotte Brontë, Richard J. Dunn

88.   Fahrenheit 451: A Novel by Ray Bradbury

89.   The Hobbit (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Pre-Lord of the Rings) by J.R.R. Tolkien

90.   Little Women (Bantam Classics) by Louisa May Alcott

91.   Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, Garth Williams, Rosemary Wells

92.   The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

93.   The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition by J.R.R. Tolkien

94.   1984 (Signet Classics) by George Orwell, Erich Fromm  

95.   A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) by George R.R. Martin  

96.   The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

97.   Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré

98.   Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré

99.   Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré

100.      Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPre

March 30 Days of Lists: Finished!

So yesterday wrapped up March's 30 Days of Lists! I used an app called Rhonna Designs to create these cool pictures (I think they're cool so :-p). Anyway, I ended up printing them and making a little booklet out of them, but these are the finished pictures/lists.