All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Category Archives: Reviews

Cold Weather and Gas Logs

As temperatures are dropping this week, I’m wishing I had a fireplace. I have never learned to really build a fire, but now that you can use gas logs, I am wishing I had one to keep warm.

Today I was looking at the R. H. Peterson Real Fyre Gas Logs at Hansen Wholesale and dreaming of having a fireplace with ventless gas logs. The ventless ones, while they look less realistic than vented gas logs, are supposed to be warmer, and as someone who hates to be cold that would be my number one priority.

And if I was looking to buy, I’d be seriously looking at Hansen Wholesale. Right now they are offering $75 off if you order a full set of logs (which I would need). They also guarantee the lowest price on ALL Gas logs by R. H. Peterson. I like those price guarantees when I’m shopping. And since they are celebrating 15 years of offering this online price guarantee, they should be pretty reliable. As an extra bonus, Hansen offers free shipping and no sales tax on gas logs! Now that’s where your savings can really add up fast!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Hansen Wholesale; however, all opinions stated in this post are 100% mine and not influenced.

Organizational Idea for Your Purses

CONTEST ENDED

Are you a purse collector? I’ve never though of myself as one, but it seems over the years, I have collected a lot of purses. As a teacher though, I’ve found what has really accumulated are my “teacher bags.”  I’ m not sure what non teachers call these (tote bags?), but I have my bag for bringing student papers back and forth, and then there’s my Saturday debate bag. Of course I also have a current reads bag where I store books I’ m wanting to read and consider adding to my curriulum.  Then there’s the softball mom bag, and I’ve got a Friday Night Football bag too. Seriously teachers have a tote for EVERYTHING, and I can’t seem to get enough. Every time I go shopping, I check out the tote bags if there are any in sight at all.  And if that’s not enough, every conference we teachers go to gives us what? A tote bag, of course.

I’ve transferred this appreciation on to my daughter, Cameron, it seems.  She might have more purses than I do and almost as many bagts too.  Yes, I’ve bought several of them, but not all by any means. When she goes out shopping with a grandmother, it is not uncommon for her to come home with a bag or two. 

There’s only one problem with our collection obsession – storage!  What do you do when you have 20 bags and another 10 purses? Oh and don’t forget your daughter’s similar collection? For us all but the newest ones are stored in suitcases (yes, we have a lot of these too) under our beds.  This means they are out of sight, anhd you know that old saying – “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” Once we have them shoved under our bed, we forget they exist.  While it’s always fun to “rediscover” them, I’d rather that our purses and bags get more use.

Now thanks to the ingenious design of the Closet Purse Hanger, all of Cameron’s purses and bags are now hanging nice and neat on a closet rod in her room (I have to get rid of some clothes or buy a new closet rod before taking advantage of this with my bags). I was curious to see if my theory of more use would prove to be true, and it has. Since pulling out all of her purses and bags from the suitcases and hanging them in her room on a mobile closet rod, she’s been switching bags every day or two.  They are getting lots of use, and she knows exactly how to put them all up once she’s done. It’s nice with Cameron’s bags too because many of them are small enough that we’ve been able to store 2 or 3 purses on one hook.

I’ve tried my tote bags on the few extra hooks that were left after hanging up Cameron’s bags, and I can’t wait to have room for them in my closet.  We are working on Spring cleaning now, and I hope to have room to start hanging my bags and purses soon because this is such a creative way and organized way to switch out purses and bags to match your mood or clothes.

Would you like to win your own set of Closet Purse Hangers?  Then today could be your lucky day because Shawane, creator of the Closet Purse Hanger, has generously offered a set of hangers for one reader, and this is one prize I can promise you’ll be putting to use as soon as it arrives.

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Head over and tell me one thing about Shawane or the Closet Purse Hanger that you did not find out reading this post.

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Looking for Some Music For the Family?

I recently received a copy of In The Nick of Time: Coconut Groove by Nicholas Deysher, and I have to say that I have a love/hate relationship with this CD.  Why? Because it’s so much fun my daughter wants to listen to it ALL THE TIME!  We really only have a CD player and that’s in the car so every trip we’ve taken since this CD came in the mail, I’ve heard, “Can I listen to Hang with Me?” “Mom, how does The Autumn Song start? Can I hear it?”  Not only do I know all the words by heart, but many people that just ride with us from time to time also know the songs.  :)  I have to admit that I enjoy the songs every time we hear them (though I do miss my country music station from time to time).  They are such catchy tunes that everyone in the car is singing along before they even realize it.

I think that it appeals to everyone because of the wide variety of musical styles that his music covers – from modern day (“Sippin on Juicy Juice, laid back with my mind on my tummy and my tummy on my mind”) to a more jazzy style beat when we meet the Old Orangutan.  If you are looking for a great find at a reasonable rate to keep the kids involved and not with a case of the “I’m bored”s then check out In The Nick of Time: Coconut Groove for the low price of $14.97 for the CD or have instant access for 9.99 to the MP3 downloads of the album.

Want to hear excerpts of the songs? You can do that here.

Below you’ll hear one of the songs on the album, “The Dinosaur Song.” Enjoy!

A New CD I Love

corneillealbumartwork

Ok..I should start this by saying that I’m a country music fan and that tends to be about all, but I’ve recently been sent 3 new CD’s to try out and tell you about, and I’ve been surprised that I actually liked each one.  One that you’ll hear about in a couple days quickly became a favorite to Cameron, and the one that I’m going to share with you today has become one of my favorites (and I really expected it to be my least favorite to be honest) – Corneille: The Birth of Cornelius.

Obviously being a country music fan, I’d never even heard of Corneille.  I popped it into my computer to listen to whiel blogging one day and have kept it in there every day since.  It’s such a nice light almost jazzy music that I find it very relaxing as I sit here and blog.

While Corneille is new to us in the United States, he’s not new to the music scene. He has sold out arenas in other parts of the world.   He was born in Germany but moved to Rwanda.  He lived there until the assasination of Rwandan President Habyarimana.  At this time Rwanda was chaotic and his entire family was killed. He was the only member of his family to survive as he was able to escape back to Germany.

When asked how surviving such an incomprehensible tragedy has shaped his outlook, and his music, Corneille is strikingly calm. “For a good ten years after the genocide,” he says, “I lived in a great deal of denial. But I managed not to get too bitter because I had parents who always made me feel special. It’s a sort of pain that you can have closure with. I know I’m not going to be able to talk to my family ever again, but they left me with memories filled with such love that I don’t have that much anger.”


When asked about beginning musical interests, he names Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and Prince.  When listening to his music, you can definitly hear the emotion of his life and the influence of these great artists. It also helps that he wrote every song on the album.

My favorite songs are Liberation and Foolish Heart. Below you’ll hear a video of one of the other songs, Too Much of Everything:

Bella Sara Package

One of the first products we received to review was a package of Bella Sara cards, and though we’d never heard of them, they were an instant success with Cameron.  She loved collecting the cards and really loved the website.

When I discovered that Team Mom was sending us a new set of Bella Sara products, I kept it a secret so that Cameron would be super surprised.  Check out the great assortment of Bella Sara products we received:

I saved them and gave them to Cameron on a day when she had to stay at school late with me so she would have something new to play with while she waited on me, and she had such a blast.  

We received 2 miniature figurines of Bella Sara horses and 2 packages of Treasures trading cards that also included stickers and temporary tattoos.  In the past we had only seen the plain trading cards so this was a real treat for Cameron.

If you’ve not seen the Bella Sara cards, they are kind of like Pokemon cards (remember those?).  You buy a set of  trading cards and trade them with your friends to have the exact horses you want.  However of course, now that the Internet is common in every home, these cards go a step further than Pokemon did. Girls create accounts at www.bellasara.com and put the codes on each card into their account to see their horses come alive. I’ve not played on the site much, but I’ve watched Cameron play it, and it’s quite interesting.  Last night I watched her clean out one of the horses stalls.

I’ve received a few different products since starting this transition into reviews and giveaways, but the Bella Sara cards may be my top recommendation.  They are such a reasonable price. The packages we’ve bought have come in 5 card packs, and the most I’ve seen a package cost is $3.95.  They make great small rewards for doing great on a test or doing chores without being asked.  

If your daughter (or granddaughter, niece, or sister) begins to love this fun game as much as Cameron, you’ll be interested to know that you can also buy a Bella Sara DS Game (this was in our stocking this year along with 3 packs of  trading cards).  I even found puzzles at our local Wal-Mart before Christmas, and today I found a Bella Sara scrapbook kit.

This looks like it may be something on its way up – will be something that every little girl wants – so if you have little girls in your family, pick up a package and see if they take to them as much as Cameron did.