We Had a #GetUnjunked Party!

It is no secret that I love to eat candy. I am surprised I didn’t get gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Noah because I eat so much candy. Noah has inherited my love for candy as most children do, but I don’t like him to eat a lot of it. I heard about a brand of candy called UNREAL that is made with no GMOs and has no high fructose corn syrup and I thought that would be a good candy for Noah.  UNREAL Candy also has no artificial ingredients and no preservatives. It has low glycemic index and doesn’t contain partially hydrated oils.   I believe that everything is fine in moderation. I know that some parents do not allow their children any candy, but I occasionally let my son have a treat. I would prefer that the treat not contain artificial ingredients. Thankfully, UNREAL has saved the day. UNREAL offers the 

following:

 UN54 which is chocolate candy shell peanuts

 

UN41 which is chocolate candy shell

UN5which is Chocolate covered caramel and nougat

UN8 which is Chocolate covered peanuts and caramel

UN77 which is chocolate peanut butter cups

I was invited to host a party for UNREAL Candy.   As the mother of a kindergartener, I now have contact with parents that are actually local to me.  Noah has a lot of friends from school and in our area so I thought it would be fun to host a party and share my new knowledge of Unreal with the parents and let the kids hang out and socialize and of course come home with a goody bag.

I decided to hold the party outside close to the playground because after all it was a beautiful sunny day. They just opened a brand new playground with really cool equipment too, that all the kids wanted to play on. I thought that since our guests were six year olds they could play while I talked about UNREAL . I think sometimes if you tell a child it is not full of sugar they might turn up their noses at it. That has been my experience growing up. The parents were really surprised to learn about UNREAL. A couple of them said they had seen it in CVS but wasn’t sure what it was all about.  I tried to answer any questions they had to the best of my ability while trying to tweet during the party.  After I explained what UNREAL candy was, we thought we would have the kids try some out and give their opinions.  After all that’s what they came for.  The adults were able to sample too as UNREAL  was very generous with their product.  Instead of having each child eat 5 whole candy bars in like a hour, I broke them up in groups and had each kid sample a couple pieces.  There was not an unhappy person in the bunch.

Here are some of the tweets I tweeted out during the party:

I hope everyone enjoys unjunked candy this Halloween.

They taste better than snickers!! :) -This was from a parent at the party

I love the real peanuts in the peanut candies. -this was from a little girl who was trying the UN54

No GMO's No preservatives wow

You are not yourself when you are hungry or if you have all kinds of junk in your candy.

It was hard to tweet and entertain at the same time as you can imagine. It was a lot of fun though.  The party was a total success. I think that I have encouraged some local parents to rethink their candy buying habits and switch to the UNREAL brand.  Each child went home with a few treats and info for the parents in a nice little goody bag.

This party was on behalf of Global Influence. I was compensated for my time and party expenses. All thoughts and opinions are my own.  

Website Redo Tips

As a blogger and work at home mom that spends a lot of time online, I feel that your website is your business card. I think how it looks can say something about you as a person. For example if your website is all purple chances are your favorite color is purple. I know that with everything being so fast paced online people want to change up their sites. They get bored with the appearance of their sites and want to change it. It’s kind of like your wardrobe. Every so often you wanna try something new.  You get bored always wearing the same things.   I can’t design at all so I would have to hire someone. Who can you trust to have access to your site that you consider your child that you have been running for years? How do you know if someone won’t install a virus or delete all your hard work?  It is really hard to know with all the people who do website designs. Remember that your site is like your digital marketing agency.

Things to consider when hiring someone to redo your site:

How long have they been doing this? I would try and find someone with quite a bit of experience.  Experience doesn’t always mean excellence though. I wouldn’t make that my sole deciding factor. 

What is their style? Some people can only make those sparkly blinky graphics. Those were awesome back in like 2000, but if you want to be taken seriously you need something professional looking.  Can they accommodate your style? Do they also do designs in the platform you use on your site? Some people only design Wordpress or blogger.

How much do they charge? I have seen designers charge upwards to $700 for a redo. Can you afford them? Is it in your budget?  Do you think that it is a fair price?

Do they have a portfolio? You need to see what kinds of work they have done.  You need to see what they are capable of doing, not just what they can promise.

Do they have references? I would ask for some sites and that they have done and maybe reach out to the site owner via email and ask them for their opinion of the designer. Ask if there were issues. I would prefer to ask them and not rely on testimonials.  Call me a skeptic but if you spend years working really hard on something I need to talk to a person.

What is their schedule like? Some designers have a long list of clients. Will it be days, weeks, or months before you get your design completed? Are there issues at home that will postpone it?  I would see how long it will be, if you want something done quickly.  Some people don’t mind waiting.

What is the payment schedule? Do you have to pay a deposit? Do they require payment upfront? I wouldn’t recommend working with a designer who you have to pay upfront just as a security measure.

Are they efficient in HTML? That coding stuff is so annoying. Make sure you hire someone who knows their stuff really well. You can only Google so much.

Don’t be afraid to Google the heck out of them. Learn all you can. Most designers require a button or something that says Designed by…. Look for those on sites you go to.

Good Luck finding an amazing web designer! I hope these helped.

How to Shop for the Perfect Coffee Table

Almost everyone has a coffee table.  It is a great place to put magazines and to serve drinks with a coaster. You can kick up your feet after a busy day or display art.  I think that it is essential to have in your family room or living room. Growing up we had multiple coffee tables.  We had them in both the living room and family room.  My most interesting coffee table would have to be when I was married. My ex and I had a large speaker as our coffee table.  It was actually a working speaker that was hooked up to the tv and stereo.  It was pretty cool. I didn’t really mind that it was a speaker. It worked as a coffee table and we didn’t have to put things on the floor to spill them.  It wasn’t my idea.

When you are shopping for the perfect coffee table you have all kinds of options. They come in every color and shape so how do you know what your perfect coffee table is? There are so many things to consider.  

Size is important. If you have a huge coffee table and a small space or couch a large coffee table will become an eyesore or something you will constantly bump in to. Ever hit your leg on a coffee table? It hurts so much.

You also have to think about if you have kids what would be the safest option for you.  Although glass coffee tables are pretty, having that much glass around a small child around who probably jumps off the couch or does tricks over the arm of the couch is probably going to get hurt. 

Another thing to consider is shape. What shape would you like? I know I have seen coffee tables in the shape of yin-yangs, hearts, and square ones, circle ones any shape you want. You could even have it custom made if you wanted. If you have a sectional your best bet would be a round one so it fits in the area.

You also need to decide what color you would like. What is your favorite color? What color is your paint? What color is your other furniture?  All things you would want to think about.

Style is important.  Do you want traditional, Mission, Chic or something else?  You can find whatever style you want even if it is different.  I personally like mission style. My furniture was all mission style for a while.  I know that is an upgrade from a speaker.

The last thing you need to decide is if you want it to be multipurpose. Do you want drawers? Do you want built in features like a server? My coffee table has drawers and baskets. It’s great for storing tv guides, recipes, remotes and office supplies. Now if Noah would stop getting in it and taking envelopes and tape out that would be great.

I hope I gave you some great pointers and things to consider while shopping for a coffee table.