Everything Else

I love this time of the year because you can usually find a lot of gadgets that you’ve been wanting come down in price. It seems however that the deals aren’t as great as far as gadgets go. That’s just my personal observation. At the same time, we’re all on tighter budgets too. Well, instead of showing you some ‘top’ gifts that are probably way off budget, here’s a list of under $50 gadgets you can consider for any mom or kids.

jWIN Electronics JX-MP224 1.5″ Color Video 4GB MP3 Player/FM Radio

$26.99

What I like: 4GB built in flash memory with expandable memory with miniSD. It even can be a voice recorder and one of the video formats accepted is .AVI. Rechargeable battery.

Sennheiser RS-110 Wireless Headphones
$37.99

This is an awesome price. Sennheiser is reputedly a good brand for headsets and audio equipment. I’ve had this unit on my radar for a long time and it usually averages $100. I eventually settled for a cheaper brand but having a wireless headset is a great mom tool like watching late night TV without waking up the kids. That’s what I use mine for most of the time.

George Foreman Vari-Temp Grill

$29.00

Last week, our family has used our 6 year old George Foreman grill twice and I will probably use it another time in a day or two because the girls asked me for grilled cheese sandwiches and I promised it to them. Easiest way to make them and a ton of other things too. I love this grill for helping me make healthy meals easily. We had a deal on hamburger recently. It was so good I stocked up but they were the 80% lean ones. I normally only buy 93% lean. The fat difference between them was a lot. Especially when I’m not used to it. So when we made hamburgers last week and we used the grill, all the fat dripped out. Yet the burgers still tasted awesome. Definitely a good gift choice especially for the price.

Conair Compact Garment Steamer

$29.93

Which mom wants to spend time ironing? Not me, you can bet your bottom dollar. Ironing ranks all the way at the bottom. Even doing dishes trumps it. But a steamer is so so much easier and faster too. We have a small one and it’s several years old but seen many uses.

HoMedics – Back Revitalizer 5 Motor Massage Cushion

$25.00

I got one for my husband a few years ago, the shiatsu one. It is great. Now they have ones with heat which would probably be a lot more relaxing.

HoMedics SoundSpa Lullaby With Picture Projection

$17.99

This is so cute! When my babies were still babies, we had one of those mobiles that made stars on the ceiling. They so love that. Even now, my youngest at 5 years old still enjoys the stars going around and around.

While not exactly a comprehensive list, I hope we’ve at least given you some ideas if you’ve been stuck what to get and not burn a hole in your wallet – that is important.

While cleaning up my hard drive this week, I ran into a really annoying issue. Somehow, some files became corrupted and I could not delete, open, rename, copy or move the files. The message I get is,

“Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk”

Well how in the world am I supposed to get rid of this thing now? Thankfully, I found a solution. It will involve firing up the good old fashioned Command Prompt. If you are not afraid of using that, it works great! Anyhow, Duncan gives pretty clear and concise instructions here even if you aren’t too comfortable with Command Prompt, you can do it.

To start Command Prompt, go to Start >> Accessories >> Command Prompt or Start >> All programs >> Accessories >> Command Prompt on Vista.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Do you ever find old pictures of family kinda creepy? Yeah I remember thinking the same thing of my great-grandma’s photo. Saw this today on ThinkGeek. It’s so creative. Basically it is a old picture that most would assume is one of your family when displayed in the house. But watch closely, it changes!

The pictures are a little ‘dark’ and probably too scary if you have small children, but for older kids, teens and even adult Halloween parties, I bet it would be fun to see what kind of reaction you get from them. They are sold for $9.99 for the 5×7 one but the Restless spirit one – my fave – is a 8 x 10 which goes for $24.99.

I’m not entirely sure since I don’t have a digital photo frame yet, but I think with some graphic animation software and a digital photo frame you should be able to achieve something similar if you’re looking for a DIY solution. That way you can make it funny instead of really scary.

There’s no denying things are rough for a lot of people now. But life goes on. We still celebrate our loved ones and friends, kids still have birthday parties and the holidays still come around at the same time of the year. It is already October and I am thinking 2+ months ahead. I’m not the type who plans too far ahead. I know of some of my super organized friends have already purchased up their kids’ Christmas presents and stocking stuffers. Kudos to them!

While our family has not had major upsets this year, that doesn’t mean we haven’t felt the pinch. This week, the kids are invited to a birthday party. So we came up with a really nice gift pack that included an assortment of various small inexpensive toys but wrapping? I normally go for gift bags because they are less troublesome but you know, gift bags can be expensive! In high school, my friend used to work for a gift store. I spent tons of hours there with her – the boss was hardly around but I think the boss didn’t mind it that much because while we where there, we helped wrap gifts for the customers – free labor but that’s another story.

So I learned to make some bags there from sturdy wrapping paper – not the cheap tissue paper thing type wrapping paper. The only thing I did not learn was to make a gift bag. So I Googled and come across several methods. Some weren’t what I was looking for, some were way too complicated. Then I stumbled upon this tutorial from Kaboose. Bingo! How simple! Wrap the paper around a box but of course! Duh! If you’re looking for a way to make your own gift bags, check them out.

Have I told you lately what  an amazing mom you are? You juggle home, family, and work responsibilities and give so much of your time to the people around you. You make sacrifices and compromises for your family and friends, which makes you a very thoughtful mom and friend. However, all that giving and doing can also take it’s tole on you.

Others may think that you have an endless amount of energy and time, but that is not the case. You have your limits just like everyone else. When your energy supply runs down, you may start feeling tired or unsure of yourself. This is a sure sign that you need to make time for yourself! And don’t say there isn’t enough time in the day because there is. You just need to figure out where that time is and what you can do during that time frame.

Get started today, grab this free ebook to help you find the time, Mama.

Go ahead and admit it. As a mom, sometimes you have too much on your plate! It’s not uncommon to feel stressed and drained of energy. If you’ve been neglecting your own needs, you may feel more like a job title (nanny, cook, chauffeur, maid, etc) than an attractive, vibrant woman. It’s time to connect with the woman inside the mom!

One of the best ways to get back on track is to do something for yourself. Sometimes your relief may come from a quick 5-minute pick me up. Other times it may come from spending a bit longer on your needs.

The bottom line is that in order to take good care of your family, you must take care of yourself! You need to reconnect with the woman inside the mom. If you don’t know where to find the time or need ideas to get started, grab a free copy of Hot Mama Makeover.

Once in a while, I love poking around in stores like Think Geek. Some of the stuff there is hilarious! Check these out.

Paper email – even the name makes you want to laugh and say “What the?”

Top secrets password notepad – ok I must admit this is a jab at those who don’t protect their passwords very well and I guess at one point or another we all slip up. It is too bad I do not work outside the home anymore. I would LOVE to see what kind of reaction I get for this one. Surely someone will tell me how unsafe it is, and someone else will actually believe those are passwords. It is still very, very funny. I might just buy one and use it to write notes and letters to friends.