Product Review: Aegend™ Adult/Youth Swim Goggles with Case(Blue)

***Aegend sent me these swim goggles in exchange for an honest review.***

I wasn't expecting to be too impressed. I've tried so many swim goggles. I guess I'm cynical because of my kids. I can never get them a set that last...or even work. Seriously, they break almost immediately or they don't keep the water out or both!

The marketing person I worked with said these were for adults. But this is what they look like and the Amazon description says adult and youth. Anyway, they fit my 9 year old son and worked fine. They came in the coolest case I've ever seen. You twist the end and it opens up. I seriously want something like that for my glasses, please and thank you.

The color is a very rich blue. It appealed to me, I'm into blue. The straps are easy to adjust. There's a thing to press on either edge of the goggles to adjust the strap size. And instead of having to maneuver them over your head, there's a snap in the back! Now you might think that's not a big deal, but when you are sharing them with your 9 year old, who keeps changing his mind...the easy adjustment and the snap were a godsend!

We were all set to go swimming at the next town's pool, but storms were rolling through. We ended up at the Comfort Inn in Mt. Pleasant. They were so nice about letting us swim there. $5 per person is hard to beat! It's by our house, so no driving to the next town. It is indoors, so no worry about storms. And on a Monday afternoon, there were no people there either.

I loved the goggles myself. They kept the water out of my eyes, which made swimming easier. I'd forgotten how nice that is. Luckily CW kept going back to the kid goggles they had there. But those were such a pain. I told CW I'd buy him his own pair, and offered one to Ivan. He's not sold, but I think he wants one of those face mask ones. The price is far lower than I was expecting, so yeah, CW's getting his own set!

Now let me tell you about Ivan. He has never been one for going underwater. He's been practicing. He was scared but he let me toss him in the water - which I do to CW all the time. He loved it! And he was so proud of himself. Then he got out and jumped in, another first! Then he tried jumping in 4 feet, then 5 feet. He was amazing!!!

Product Review: ORROUS & CO Legacy Collection Earrings

A representative from ORROUS & CO Legacy Collection contacted me and asked if I would review some earrings. I was sent 3 pair that I picked out, but they were given to me in exchange for an honest review. As far as I know, they only sell on Amazon.

This company is pretty well on the ball. They are good with communicating and they shipped these to me pretty fast. I've had them for a few weeks now. I have a pretty serious allergy with earrings, and honestly it gave me pause when they first contacted me. I hate getting earrings that I love and then I can't wear them. Call me surprised, but this was not the case. I really am surprised because they aren't very expensive. Good job guys! (The company said they are indeed nickel free)

They come in a velvet jewelry box protected by a card-stock sleeve. I was really impressed, they take their jewelry seriously. Even thought it is affordable costume jewelry, they took that much care with packaging. This might be a point where it is obvious I don't buy much jewelry - lol.

I will say this, if you are looking to add to your collection or need an affordable gift idea, these are pretty great.

18k Gold Plated White Shell Pearl with Cubic Zirconia Snowflake Drop Earrings

I'll be blunt, I asked for white gold on all of them. I'm not sure if they were out, but these are yellow gold. They are still really pretty, and they aren't too heavy. I do really like them.

Good communication, though. I told them the issue and they immediately sent out the pair I'd asked for. I love, love, love these in white gold. So, great product and great communication.

18k Gold Plated Cubic Zirconia Cushion Shape Halo Stud Earrings

From what I received these are my favorite, even though the post one one of them was bent! They are classy and light. I wear these during my teaching days, but they are great for dress up, too. I'm wearing them right now! No pain and I feel pretty. I contacted the company about the bent post and they apologized and immediately sent out a new pair. Great communication.

18k Gold Plated White Shell Pearl with Cubic Zirconia Clover Drop Earrings

These are my next favorite. I have worn them around, and they aren't too dangly. They sit well without a lot of movement. I think they are beautiful, and again no pain from extended wear. These would be great for a formal evening.

I had to contact them about other earrings. They are great with communicating and taking care of problems. I give the company an A+ as well.

Product Review: Shadow Witch

Do you love getting prizes in the mail? I do! Shadow Witch sent me these little beauties. My only regret is I only have my camera phone to capture them. This first shot shows these gorgeous hair combs - they look so antique...like something a flapper might wear from the 20s. Speaking of retro, she crochets pillbox hats now! She also made me these earrings, the best I've ever seen. All the pretty blues, my favorite colors! And they hang down a bit, but are so light.

Next up, she made these 2 horse protection charms for the boys. And I'm not saying they work, or whether or not I believe in the magic - we know how persnickety E-Bay is about that right now. But I do know that since hanging them up in the boys' room and telling them they were sent to protect them...they are going to bed easier. Well CW is, we are still working on Ivan. But Ivan does touch and kick around his - which is shown below. And it does calm him down that way.

And finally this little baby. I thought it was a hat for a baby-doll at first...and I thought and thought, and duh! It's a bowl! lol It's a wonderful autumn colored bowl which is now the centerpiece on my kitchen table. I'm glad I got Chris to move the mixer off it finally!

So go see Shadow Witch at her E-Bay store and see what treasures she has available. I do know she's been working on witch hats, pillbox hats, berets, . What is really sweet, are the mini-witch hats she makes, great for decoration!

Egads! I almost forgot she also sent me a huge selection of vintage cross-stitch maganzines. Christmas, Fall/Halloween, and Spring Cross Stitch magazines. I love the Stockings, but I'm not sure about the sewing part. lol Wait...I know someone who sews, maybe we can team up! Shadow Witch has vintage knitting, crochet, and cross stitch magazines. And did I mention the jewelry? Up, this woman has a little bit of everything!

Product Review: Writer's Café

Available for purchase from Writer's Café

First things first, I want to clarify my review of Jutoh the other day. I was crabby and it came out in my writing. They do NOT ignore their customers, and in fact I was given loads of support. Julian even walked me through how to split within the document, which takes away that complaint as well. And she said it doesn't import form Writer's Café because it's files are "non-linear" and it would be too difficult. However you can export your writing as a Open Office Document, which is one of the formats accepted.

Now to move on with Writer's Café. I adore this writing software. This is not the first one I have tried and I find it is far superior, especially for the inexperienced writer...which I am. There are journals for daily thoughts, notebook, writing prompts and daily tips. And the cream of the crop...Story Lines. This is a place to let your novel take flight.

On Story Line, you have different scenes which the software numbers but you can name. It is super easy to insert scenes, and starting a new one requires only the click of an icon that looks like a little note-card. Within the scene, you can enter a summary, the content (which has several formatting options), Annotations (where you can add notes), Properties (which has spots for links, tags, characters and Statistics), and the Report (which shows what your finished product looks like).

I've started a bit of a memoir using Story Line, with a different scene daily. I have ideas of starting a longer story as well. I love the writing prompts which are easily inserted into a journal and there is a timer to make sure you do your minimum writing for a day. As I said, perfect for the beginner.

I also see it's benefit if you are a more experienced author. Word is good for letters, but poor for book writing. It's a straight shot through, and as Julian said, this is non-linear. There are places for your notes, characters, stats and everything all in one place. You just have to click around to find everything you've captured for your novel. Once you are finished writing your Great American Novel (I've always wanted to use that!), it is easily exported as a text, html, or open document. file.

Now this I don't 100% understand, but they say you can run the software from a thumb drive, which makes it more portable. So you have the software and your story on there and you can take it with you to the library, work, etc and work on a few hundred words whenever you get a free moment. Plus it would be excellent for back-up if your computer took a dive.
Hey, this will be fun! If you have any questions about either software, post them in the comments section, an I will get you an answer.

Product Review: Jutoh

Available for purchase at jutoh.com

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Jutoh does make it easy to import files, and they do accept a variety of file formats. However, they do not accept Word documents - you have to make it an open office document. They also do not accept the files from their sister software Writer's Cafe, which I think is silly. You own both software, why wouldn't you let them talk to each other???

It's very easy to create a cover. They have a variety of backgrounds that come with the software, but it's also easy to go in and use your own image. Marissa Dobson of Sizzling PR let me play with one of her books to fully test this software. She had a cover already so all I had to do was take out the author and title text boxes and upload her cover. (Thank you, Marissa!)

When you first start up, you enter a lot of information such as author, title, publisher, etc. It's not so bad, and when you are finished it does load it to the title page. What I find a pain is that it won't save that information. It took me about 6 tries to get Marissa's book to where I liked it and each time I had to reenter that information. And I thought, why not let us save this information? Chances are the same authors will have the same publishers and so on, so why not let us save that information by author name. It would save time. Although it does save the last name and date you used, so maybe they are gearing this toward individuals rather than small publishers.

I had the hardest time with the Table of Contents. When you import a file it gives you options on how to split the file up. But once you choose, you can't create nor remove any splits. I went with "chapter" split. And it worked fine until the Epilogue and the author bio. It completely ignored them and I still haven't figured out how to create that split. You can insert a page break but that's the same thing. If you do a page break and then go back to "show on Table of Contents" it thinks you are talking about that whole section...big pain! I had to change Epilogue to Chapter 8 and her author bio to Chapter 9. Then once it imported I was able to go change the names. It's a work around, but it shouldn't be that difficult.

It allows you to format text, change styles, and do a ton of other stuff I don't even understand. You can create an epub, mobipocket, text, open document, html, htb (I don't even know), mp3 (really???) and Smashwords OpenDocument. *update* MP3 says you have to install something else and do some format changes to get it to work. I wonder if that's something you can upload to get your kindle and nook to read to you. It's also easy to edit the document AND the section you are in. There are also lots of high tech options for all you tech savvy people.

The only thing I have to compare it to is Smashwords, and Jutoh kicks their butt. It wasn't bad to create a book, and in general I quite enjoyed it. But there are some places where I think they have ignored their customers.

Witchy Products Reviews

I'm such a lucky witch. I was sent a mini white sage smudge from LadywoodSpirit's Emporium. It was so sweet of her. I actually found her on E-Bay when I ordered some little black ritual candles and a large sage smudge...we like sage in our house! Anyway we started talking, she was so conscientious about my order - it was in the mail the same day I ordered it. Then she offered to let me do a review on the white sage when she recieved her shipment. Well you know me - sage and free...doesn't get any better than that. It smokes up wonderfully. I like how the string looks natural and it's not too tight. The smell? Divine, we can smell it for ages after burning just a little. You can find her store here.

Then my very good friend, Lisa Brawner (her blog is Tribal Horse Designs) a little guy called "1 card Advice King Of SwordsTarot reading Deck Spirit Voodoo Medicine Stick Art", but honestly it has already demanded placement as my wand. My hand fits perfectly at the base and all the decoration and feathers and rocks...it's so me! I remember when she first posted it, I can't believe it didn't sell. Well that's because it was meant to be mine, right? lol She does great jewelry, anyone who has read this blog or been on my FB page for any length of time knows that. She's supplied pretty much my whole collection. But she has started playing around with feathers, making these killer hair pieces that remind me of the flapper era. And these voodoo sculptures are fairly new as well. But did you know she sells spells too? She sent me a money tree spell. I'm going to give that one a go on the full moon. Stay tuned because she has hinted at offering something as a giveaway to my readers!

And this final picture. Just a little something from my friend Nydia who creates these felt gods and goddesses with the most intricate embroidery. Kind of hard to see, I have Hecate and Hades behind the buck and hanging from the horns are 2 skulls she created. She recently sent the pink one with my order and I immediately fell in love. There was a baby Hecate - but CW laid claim. lol Yes my little altar space is a small as the rest of my home. Someday I hope to get a large enough wood table to have a permanent spot.