Review: Kashi Hummus Crisps Sea Salt and Olive Oil

I received a free bag of the Kashi Sea Salt and Olive Oil Hummus Crisps from BzzAgent, a site that sends you free products in return for you completing simple tasks that generate buzz about the product. One of the tasks is to blog about the product you receive, which is extremely easy to do as these crisps were AMAZING!

Serving Size 27 crisps

I was skeptical at first....I mean, I like hummus and all, but in a crisp? Not so sure. Luckily, I was wrong. These crisps are amazing. They are light and perfectly satisfy a salty snack craving. They are only 120 calories for 27 crisps, and 3 servings per bag, so if you accidentally eat the whole bag, it's no big deal. They also have 3g protein, 3g fiber, and 5g of whole grain per serving, so you can feel good about snacking on them. I love the Sea Salt and Olive Oil flavor, but they are very plain, so those of you who enjoy more flavor in your snacks, they have also have Carmelized Onion (which I have been told is also yumtastic) and Sundried Tomato, Basil, and Feta. Personally, I am not interested by these other flavors as I am kinda picky, but you may like them.

I finished the bag pretty quick, but then there was a tragic problem....I couldn't find the crisps in any of my local stores!! The horror!! Online they said there were none within 40 miles of me!! Fortunately, they are wrong, and just this week they started showing up in the stores. First place I found them was Shaws Supermarkets, but then today, they were sampling them at my local Walmart!! So I grabbed 4 bags...lol, yeah, they are that good!! They are $2.78 per bag at my local Walmart (prices vary depending on area) and there was a $1 off 1 coupon you can print which makes for a good deal on an awesome snack!

I highly recommend these crisps as a healthier alternative to traditional potato chips and other salty snacks.

How to Save Money and Get More from Comcast Easily

The other day I was randomly perusing the internet as I normally do. I stumbled up various posts on how to save money at Comcast. I know a lot of people hate Comcast, but they are our only choice, and honestly, we have never had a single complaint about the service, ever. The only complaint is cost. Holy crap. I guess it was close to $200 a month for our TV, phone, and cable. Yeah, that is not cool at all.

I am not confrontational. I don't want to threaten Comcast by saying I'm leaving as so many people online recommend to do. I hate phone calls period. I am just not that sort of person. So how else can I save money without confrontation? So online I went.

IMPORTANT NOTE: My methods will not work while you are still in your contract time with the reduced price. This plan is for when your contract expires and your bill suddenly jumps up to not just an arm and a leg, but to an arm, leg, first born child, and a kidney. 

We had the Digital Preferred package, 160 channels. I don't watch sports and neither does my husband except the occasional football game (Go Pats!), which is on network TV. I don't watch movie channels very often, I don't watch the majority of the channels we have. So why pay for them? With a few minutes of research, I found that we just needed the Digital Starter package (80 channels). I still get all the channels I watch regularly (minus Discovery Fit & Health, sadness) but that is a small sacrifice for the cost savings. I do use the HD DVR a lot. I cannot not have DVR as I go to bed early and all the good shows are on late! If I could live without that, it would make sense to drop all TV and do the Hulu for TV and Netflix for Movies like many people do. However, this plan was to get the most for the money.

The other thing with the TV was we hardly ever watch regular TV in the living room. My husband works all the time and I spend my time in the bedroom cause I have a serious case of laziness. So why pay for the fancy box that puts the guide on the TV and you can control with your iPhone? We had them change it into the tiny little box so we can get the digital channels with no frills.

We never ever use the house phone. Ever. I use it as the number to fill out forms I don't actually want to give my cell number to. Once again, why pay for something that we never use? The only reason we had it in the first place was it was cheaper than not having it! Silly bundles!

As for Internet. Don't touch my internet!!! We have perfect internet. Its the Performance speed level which is 20mbps. If we never have the faster internet, we will never know the difference as pages load plenty fast, Netflix streams great. Downloads are generally reasonable. Yay. All is well here.

Now, for the getting more your money aspect. I was reading a random post about how you can trade in your older equipment for the newer versions. Hey, if you are "renting" it anyways, why not? So out came our modem, DVR box, digital fancy box and into the car they went. At the Comcast office, we left with our same DVR box (and instructions to call in 2 days to set up an appointment for the X1 5 tuner (record 4 shows, watch a 5th rather than record 2, but watch one of them) DVR box of awesomeness which will cost a whole $2 more a month, but as we are saving so much, $2 is nothing), a new basic cable box, and a new Wifi enabled modem.

So to recap we:

• Downgraded from Digital Preferred to Digital Starter
• Exchanged a higher cost per month cable box to the basic one on the unused TV
• Cancelled our house phone completely
• Kept our amazing Internet
• Upgraded our DVR box from 2 tuners to 5 for $2 a month
• Got a much better wireless router/cable modem that makes our amazing internet even better

Overall we saved likely close to $40 a month while improving our services! We will see the exact savings when the first new bill comes in. 

Just a couple points to remember....be nice. You may hate Comcast, but I have to say, they have been excellent to us for this change. The office staff was happy to follow our requests. We had some technical difficulties with setting up the new modem and cable box and both phone tech support guys were very nice (and spoke English!!). You get a lot further than being a screaming jerk. Also, keep your account in good standing. It just makes things easier and they are more willing to help you out!

10 years flew by....

Now and Then

I went to my 10 year high school reunion on Saturday evening. It was a nice simple occasion at a local Concord restaurant (The Red Blazer). Overall it was a good experience, I wish there had been some real food rather than appetizers I don't care for...but I guess there is a serious problem with how the school board handles the class's money, so I am happy there was food at all.

It was so nice to catch up with some friends I only ever talk to on Facebook. Face to face time is so much better lol.

I am fairly satisfied with where I am in life. I am happily married, we are planning to have a baby, I love my job, my husband is the main provider. It's perfect. I definitely did not see myself becoming a career bus driver after graduating....as it says in my yearbook I was interested in attending college to become a teacher. The most important thing is that I love what I do.

Attendees of the Reunion (not my pic, Stolen from Kate W's Facebook)

If I could go back and do high school again, I would have taken the Auto vocational program and upon graduating went to the Heavy Construction Academy and gone into construction. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20 and if I didn't take the path I did, then I wouldn't necessarily be in this situation. As I said before, life is pretty decent right now.

I now understand how Jeremy Clarkson feels...

And I want to be him  even more. I got to drive my dream car yesterday. Well, one of them; the Fiat 500 Abarth. It is a 160hp/170lb ft torque turbocharged  4 cylinder engine and 5 speed manual.. That may not sound that great, but you have to remember that this is a very small car. So that is a lot of power.

Boy, do you feel the power. It is definately one of the fastest cars I have ever driven, and by far the most fun, because not only does it have a boatload of power, but it handles awesome too! It has a improved suspension over the "regular" 500. Unfortunately I was unable to really get on it in some corners due to traffic and the crappy area we got to test it in.

What I couldn't get over was the amazing sound from the exhaust. It was deep and throaty, not fart can-ish at all. A true Euro tuner. Obviously, I kept the car in Sport mode (improves throttle response, adjusts  the tightness of the steering) and you just touch the throttle and the car emits amazing sounds out of the exhaust. However, while idling at a light, it is nice and quiet. I didn't find the noise to be too much at highway speeds either. It was a perfect balance.

As far as the interior, I loved the boost gauge. The shifter had a nice feel to it, definately a higher quality than the plastic of the standard 500. It was quiet, and the race inspired seats were very comfortable. Other than that, it is the same as the standard 500.

I do know when the time comes for me to trade in my current Fiat 500, I will be seriously considering the Abarth as it's replacement. In the meantime, I am thinking a Mopar Cold Air Intake and Mopar performance exhaust will be a nice addition to my Fiat.

Been a tough week

It's only Wednesday, but it has been a tough week already.

On Monday morning, I went out to my car to go to work and found my radio faceplate had been stolen. They had ripped the bezel off the dash, which was completely unnecessary, as the faceplate just comes off. Luckily the damage was minimal. I did use the opportunity to change the bulb that has been out for a couple years. To prevent further damage, I removed the radio in it's entirety. Today, I did read an article that a Scumersworth, I mean Somersworth, man was arrested for a string of theft. I am hoping they recover my radio faceplate.

Monday evening I notice my cat is really not feeling well. She was not being herself and wouldn't even touch her favorite food. I know its time. She has been struggling with what the vet thinks is intestinal cancer for over a year and a half. When she first came to my apartment from my parents, she was only given a month or so to live, so the fact she is still alive this long was a miracle. We were able to provide her a comfortable, happy place to spend her last year.

Tuesday I had to bring my car in for service which was uneventful. But then I had to take my cat to the vet for her final visit. Definitely not on my list of things I enjoy doing. I miss her so much already, it is weird her not being there. I am surprised at how much I used to check on her, as I go to now, and shes not there. :-( It is so hard to lose a pet, they are a member of the family. She was a member of my family for 16 years. Its not easy to say goodbye. She is now with her surrogate mom cat, Tiger, and feeling no pain.

As if that wasn't hard enough, I was dreading having to get up early to go to work Wednesday to do a shift I really don't like as I have to do the same loop 4 times in a row. I almost called out as I felt like crap last night, but I didn't. I figured staying busy and away from the apartment was a good plan. So I got up, got dressed, went to work. I checked to see what bus I was assigned, only to see my name not on the list. WTF? So I looked at the schedule $#!% I am doing the shift tomorrow, not today. Epic fail.

As my week has had such an awesome (not) start, just wondering how much better it can get...

Review: Sinful Colors Sinful Shine

I am a bit of a nail polish addict. So much so I bought a professional type wall rack to display it all as my crappy Sterlite shoeboxes weren't cutting it. I got this awesome rack from Amazon to corral my collection. It was shipped quick and easy to install. We did add 2 small L brackets on the bottom for stability, but they weren't necessary. Anyways, back to the reason for the post.

I received a bottle of Sinful Colors Sinful Shine in my Influenster Sunkissed VoxBox. It was the color Rebel, I wasn't thrilled with the color, it's a neutral browny gray color. However, as part of the program, I figured what the heck, I'll try it. The color grew on me and I could see it as a nice base to do some nail art on. It applied easy. Nice and smooth. It took 2 coats and it was perfect coverage. The shine is incredible. They claim it's 5x shinier than a patent leather shoe (whatever patent leather is....I'm so not fashionable lol). To me it's as shiny as a freshly waxed car. Anyway you put it it shines.  I kept the color on for about a week and the shine lasted, but the color did chip. It's worth mentioning that I did no prep to my nails, and I drive a bus, so it's not easy on my nails.

The best part of this nail polish other than the shine is the price, it's only $2.99!! I love inexpensive nail polish! If you look at my collection, there is no way I can be paying $8+ a bottle, plus I am a bargain shopper! The quality is good for the money. You can only find the Sinful Shine Collection at Walgreens,

I liked this polish so much I went and bought two more colors, Picante, a reddish pinkish bright color, and Alfresco, a pretty light blue without being baby blue. 

I would definitely recommend these nail polishes to anyone looking for a shiny colors that's easy on the wallet. There are 32 colors to choose from. 

Review: Dr Scholls For Her High Heel Insoles

Yet another product I received in my Influenster Sun VoxBox was the Dr Scholls For Her High Heel Insoles. At first I was like, what am I going to do with these, I don't even own high heels, I barely have flats that aren't sneakers or sandals! Then I remembered about a pair of Crocs flats I owned. They are very comfy, however I am not a huge fan of the little massaging nodules that Crocs are famous for as I have sensitive feet from years of wearing socks and shoes.

Pic from DrScholls.com

Once I finally got into the packaging (luckily I won't hold that against the product lol), the  insoles felt very nice. Just enough squish to them while still providing support. I was able to peel off the backing to reveal a mild adhesive that keeps the insole in place. I had to readjust the left insole several times, but the adhesive stayed useable. If my shoes had a felted insole, I think that would affect the adhesives reuseableness, but in my case it was all good.

I liked that they have arch support and massaging gel at the ball of your foot. It made my shoes even more comfortable than they already were. I know I'll be able to strut out in style while being comfortable with these insoles under my feet. I will have to try them in a couple pairs of shoes I haven't really worn due to them hurting my feet. If you have any slim shoes, I would definitely recommend trying these insoles. Plus, there are often coupons that can be combined with sales to make these an affordable option!