Found Not Lost

Parents know all about drama and meltdowns and not necessarily all from the kids. That’s what Scott Gale had when when he lost his cool on a Mother’s Day and ended up walking home for twelve miles.

We’ve all have our meltdowns but we’re too embarrassed to talk about it. Scott Gale was not embarrassed by it, the experience opened his eyes and it’s the catalyst that  lead to his book, Your Family Constitution - A Modern Approach to Family Values and Household Structure.

In this book Scott walks you through, mostly by example, the process of evaluating your household and identifying hidden signs that your family is becoming ‘out of control’. Oh, I know, most of us are in that river in Egypt and won’t readily admit that something is wrong with our dynamics. Us? Of course not. That can’t be us.

Read on and you’ll start seeing glimpses of yourself and your family in the examples that Scott cites in Your Family Constitution. I mean, my children are in their teens now and Scott’s are still young yet I saw so many similarities that it was uncanny. When he talked about ‘losing it’ with his son I couldn’t help but cringe at the memory of either me or my husband hovering over our daughters and just going off on them. It’s not a pretty  vision and it felt even uglier. We always felt like jerks after wards.  We too went through a process of evaluating and revising the way we deal with our daughters but we didn’t quite go as far as Scott Gale did with his family.

He established a written constitution that they live by and it grows as they grow. We have one too in our house, but it’s not written down. It’s something that just hangs over us lol! It’s an unwritten code but I suppose as long as everyone is in agreement it could work. Every family probably has a constitution and don’t even know it. Well whether you have one or not, you will benefit from reading this book. It will give you tips on resolving not just everyday family issues but it will help you reconnect with your kids and enhance your family communication.

Visit the Your Family Constitution website if you’d like to learn more about the author and the book. The website also provides you with additional tools to get your started on strengthening and structuring your household. You can also buy the book directly from the website.

OR

YOU CAN WIN A FREE COPY RIGHT HERE!

Thanks to Vered of Mommy Grind who contacted me about this book, I can giveaway two copies to my readers.

Winning the book is easy, just leave me a comment and tell me:

DO YOU HAVE A FAMILY CONSTITUTION? HOW DOES IT WORK?

If you’d like additional entries you can also do one or all of the following:

1. Twitter - tweet about this review and giveaway by re-tweeting. Use the button at the end of the post to make it easier. Add me as friend @JMom and leave the link to your tweet here.
2. Share - you can also share this post on Facebook and other media using the share button at the end of this post (leave me a separate comment with a link to it if you share it with more than one media)
3. Blog - blog about this review and giveaway or include it in your giveaway list and you’ll get another entry (please come back and leave a URL so I can verify)

You have until July 12, 2009 to enter this giveaway. Winners will be chosen by Randomizer.org and will be notified by email and announced here as an update.

The publisher will be mailing the book directly to you, so you must contact me within 48-hours or I will select another winner.

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Pantene Full & Thick

My hair was long, thick and shiny when I was younger. Then I got married and had kids. I was thrilled at how my hair reacted to pregnancy. It became lustrous and I could swish it around like the models you see on television and it would swing and sparkle just like on TV. The nine months soon passed too quickly and the honeymoon was over.

Post pregnancy, my hair started falling out. Then it started getting wiry and frizzy. Whatever it was that made it shiny and thick apparently came out with the placenta. That was my first pregnancy.
Then I got pregnant two more times. After three cycles of lusciousness during pregnancy and frizziness afterward, it’s taken its toll on my crown. What used to be so thick it is barely contained in a rubber band wound twice, is now so thin, I can wind the same elastic band around it four times. Talk about post partum depression, every time I picked up a handful of hair from my pillow or from the shower drain, it brought tears to my eyes. Not that I’m vain, mind you. I’m far from being vain. I was just scared of being bald.

It’s been twelve years since my last pregnancy and my hair has never recovered. I live with the way it is now, ravaged by age and hormones, thinning and even occasionally plagued by dandruff. I switch from one shampoo to the other that claims to be able to make my hair thicker and healthier all to no avail.

One constant that I always go back to though is Pantene and I’m not just saying that because I’m getting paid to do this review. I was glad when I received my free sample in the mail; it meant I didn’t have to buy any this month because I do buy Pantene on a regular basis. It’s my backup, fallback shampoo when all the extraordinary claims of other shampoos fail me. Pantene is there to pick me back up again, help me get over the dandruff that the other shampoos failed to get rid of and although it never really stopped my hair from shedding, it does make it look fuller and thicker than it is.

The shampoo that I received in the mail and am using now is thePantene Full & Thick. It does make my hair fuller although I couldn’t tell you the science behind it. If you’re really interested in the science, read up on it on the Pantene website. I have tried most of the other types of Pantene shampoo also, and I’ve always been very happy with the results. They don’t dry out my scalp, ergo no dandruff and unsightly flakes. Good thing too because I have a bad habit of touching my hair constantly and wearing black shirts. You know what I mean don’t’ you? Black just has a way of highlighting flakes like no other.

WIN!

If you’re already a Pantene fan like I am or would just like to try it out, then this is your chance to win a year’s supply of Pantene (ARV $47.88) and a $100 Visa gift card!

This contest will run from July 1st to August 1st and here’s several ways you can win:
• Leave me a comment and tell me: If you could have any celebrity hair, whose would it be? (No duplicate comments, and you must answer this question or your other entries are void.)

Please leave me an comment for each additional entry you do:
• You may receive an additional entry by following me and mentioning this giveaway on Twitter and leaving a link to your tweet in the comments. Or simply tweet the following text:

RT @jmom Get Full & Thick Hair from Pantene plus $100! http://tinyurl.com/mu2ow8

• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US residents, aged 18 and over
• Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
• Please see the official rules here: Official Rules

Check out the rest of the BlogHer reviews for 8 additional chances to win!

It’s been a while since I plugged my food blog, so today, let’s talk food shall we?

Don’t have to pull out the diet pills yet, most of these meals are actually very healthy for you provided you consume them in moderation. Portion size is my biggest problem in my diet, but, that’s my battle. These dishes, I chose because they are quick and easy to prepare.

You can have them on the table in less than an hour. Perfect for the summer months when you don’t want to be spending all day in the kitchen. You want to be able to get in and out of there in a jiffy so you can go and do something else that is more fun. For me, that’s taking a book under the tree in the backyard and read until it gets too dark. Now only if I ever get around to writing up reviews for them, we’d be in business

Anyway, here’s a few quick recipes for you. See if you like any of them.

Easy Carbonara, Easy Wonton Soup & Chicken with Basil & String Beans

Baked Tilapia with Teriyaki Sauce & Onions, Fried Tilapia with Pasta and Asparagus & Pork Loin and Fried Rice

I recently found these book buddies while websurfing online and I thought they would be perfect to have instead of the cumbersome and hard tray that I am using now to put my laptop on while working at home. Most times, after a time with the laptop literally on top of my lap, I end up having a grid pattern on my thighs from the pattern at the bottom of the laptop tray I use.

I’ve also been reading a lot lately, which partly explains the lag in my blogging schedule. It’s just been too nice to stay in cooped up with the computer so I’ve been spending hours under the tree in our backyard, reading.

They (the book buddy) are rather attractive, don’t you think? It’s a little pricey for me though, they’re about thirty bucks each. Good thing I have a daughter who’s rather handy with the sewing machine. I think I’ll have her make me one of these pillows. It would be a good summer project, for one.

That’s one of our goals this summer; aside from all the activities designed to be fat burners, we’re also trying to come up with sewing projects. We’ve already started making some canvas shopping bags, so I think these pillows will be another worthwhile project to take on.

Do you have a green idea that would benefit your community but just haven’t had the means to implement it? This is your chance to see your idea put into action. There’s only a couple more days left in the Green Effect Contest sponsored by Sun Chips and National Geographic.

Visit the Green Effect site and submit a description of your idea by June 8, 2009 and you could win $20,000 to implement your project! Ten finalists will be chosen and announced on July 7, 2009 then from those, five final winners will be chosen. The final five winners will also be profiled in National Geographic and will travel to Washington, DC to share their projects with environmental leaders.

View the official contest rules and read sample ideas on the website if you need inspiration to get started.

Speaking of summer vacations and touch economic times, gas prices once more rose over the Memorial Day weekend. This morning, I passed by a station posting $2.49/gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

It’s looking more like a ’staycation’ is in store for us this summer. Staycation means staying close to home. It means finding ways to occupy ourselves and entertain ourselves without having to spend a lot of money. It may also mean that the girls will have to find part time jobs or volunteer opportunities to keep them busy during the day.

We are planning on at least one short trip to the beach this summer. It just wouldn’t be summer if we didn’t get sand between out toes at least once.

One of our favorite places to go, within driving distance from our home, is Wilmington, North Carolina. And with Wilmington NC real estate on a downturn just like the rest of the country, beach rentals are actually reasonable this year even during the peak months. So we’re thinking we’ll take a week, rent a house and just chill on the beach. Renting a house or condo, it turns out, may come out cheaper than staying at a hotel room for the weekend. We can cook our food so that will save on having to pay to eat out all the time and we will have all the comforts of home. We won’t have to be worrying about driving to and from the beach and having to trek sand through the lobby; we can just shake all the sand on the deck and we’d be home!

Sounds like a plan to me, don’t you think?