Ristorante Pizza


Recently, since I am a bzzagent, I got the chance to try out 2 flavors of Ristorante Pizza for free.  I didn’t go too crazy with my choices – but tried mozzarella and quatro formagio.  Both of these tasted great and were low enough in calories that I could eat 1/3 (recommended serving size) or 1/2 of the pizza myself and not feel guilty for indulging.

The crust is thin, it cuts easily and I was not at all overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the amount of toppings on the pizza.  It was just right!

There are more great toppings to choose from and I will definitely be buying some more in the future!  Check if your local grocer stocks Dr. Oetker Ristorante Pizza and see for yourself how great it is!

Book Review: Hana-Lani

Hana Lani is a book by Christine Sunderland.  There are four main characters in the book.  Henry, a widow in his 50s.  Nani, his grandmother.  Lucy, Henry’s young daughter and Meredith, a victim of a plane crash who is living with the family while she gets back on her feet.  This book is short – somewhere in the ball park of 200 pages, but it really packs a punch.

Meredith fits in to the picture when she heads to Hawaii after losing her job and finding out that her boyfriend was a jerk.  Her plane ends up crashing near Hana-Lei which is eventually going to become Lucy’s.  Lucy quickly takes a liking to Meredith and calls her “Princess” because she is so beautiful.

At first, Henry doesn’t want to be bothered with Meredith because he is trying to finish the book that he and his late wife were writing.  Eventually he ends up letting loose and seems to fall for Meredith.  He shows her around the island and slowly lets her in to his life.

I don’t want to give away much more – but there is a HUGE twist near the end.  I totally did not see it coming and was really shocked – and the book ends soon after the twist and it really left me wanting more to find out what happens to these characters – but as my mom said “You’ll just have to make up your own ending for them.”

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for writing this review.

 

About the Book

Old Nani-Lei lives in Hana-lei, her family home in rural Hawaii.  She looks after her grandson Henry, 52, and his daughter, Lucy, 6, who have returned to Maui from Berkley after the death of Maria, Henry’s wife.  Henry and Maria, both professors, had been working on A History of Ethics, and now the grieving Henry struggles to finish it.

City girl Meredith Campbell, 36, fast-paced, self-centered, and beautiful, believes her body will ensure her happiness. After losing her job and finding her lover unfaithful, she flies to Maui, sure he will follow… but her plane crashes near Hana-lani.

As their worlds collide in a natural world both beautiful and dangerous, Henry will be forced to act on his words, and Meredith will come face-to-face with her own life choices.

Presales

I should probably save this post for my book, which I have still not yet started writing, but I did start mapping out topics so at least I am moving in the right direction, but I just wanted to share some presale mis-haps that have happened in the last couple of weeks.

1. Maroon 5 – I joined their fanclub the night before the presale and everything was all well and good.  I got the code when I needed to and headed to ticketmaster.  For 30 minutes NO seats whatsoever came up.  Then a pair finally came up but I was also supposed to be at a meeting for work so I lost them.  Then the SAME pair ended up coming back after another 15 minutes of NOTHING. So I snatched them.  Not the best seats, not the worst, but last time the show sold out so badly that not even broker sites had tickets! (I have never seen such a thing before) so I had to make sure I’d be getting through the doors.

2. Big Time Rush – I didn’t join their fanclub because I saw that they had a Fan Club bundle pack going on which means you can see what seat you would get and then it tacks the $20 fanclub fee on to the ticket purchase.  I picked Rows 1-26 but the 2nd section row DD kept coming up (which I guess is technically row 26 or there abouts) but I had made a deal with myself I’d only go if I got front section seats.  Then the Credit Card presale started and I pulled up THIRD ROW… except that I do not have an american express card and you needed one to check out. So I lost it.  Then my coworker walked by so I asked if he had an American Express card and he DID.  Fortunately he is a nice guy and let me use it (and I gave him most of the cash right then and the rest the next day) and I ended up getting something like 11th row. Moral of the story? Think about getting an American Express card (as if I do not already have enough credit cards!)

As for my book – my plan was to start writing it in May when I am on the plane to Tulsa to see Hanson. (Ignore the fact that I wanted to have it “out” but the end of last year!) I have a skeleton table of contents being worked on and a TON of ideas going on in my head – just finding the time to put things down on paper is hard – especially considering I was just asked by my job to work overtime.   (The good thing is – and I’ll spill this secret – I have a LOT of posts pre-written for the next couple of months – mostly book reviews – so it hopefully will not affect my ability to continue blogging every day,  since I really only need to fill in a few blanks with The Voice and Idol posts every week.)

Luck of the Irish Giveaway

Welcome to Luck of the Irish CASH Giveaway!

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The Coffee Chic, Africa’s Blog and all other amazing bloggers have teamed up to give three lucky individuals a chance to win some cash for St. Partrick’s Day.

A total of $270 will be given away to the winners!
1st prize: $190 Paypal Cash
2nd prize: $50 Paypal Cash
3rd prize: $30 Paypal Cash

This giveaway will run from March 10 to 17, 2012. Open worldwide.

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Time to show some lovin’ to all the sponsors! Visit them and try to enter some of the other giveaways. Win exciting prizes!

Coupons and Freebies in TX, Learning to be Frugal, I Love Coupons & Giveaways, ExtremePersonalMeasures, Mommy’s Crazy 4 Coupons, My bric-a-brac, Couponing 4 You, Koupon Krazed, My Frugal Mom, Eye Heart, TheItMom.com, Pinching Pennies with Heather, The Mystic Kitchen, Jenns Blah Blah Blog, Pink Purses Adventures, Bloggity Blog, Savingformyfamily, Mary’s Cup of Tea, My Charmed Mom, Feed Your Pig, Andie’s Adventure, BlogGirl.Us, The Kawaii World, One Frugal Chick, Money Saving Secrets Blog, The Jolly Blogger, Whole Lotta Mama, Crazy for a Deal, Celebrate Woman Today, Kara’s Deals and Steals, Hearts content of a mama, Love home grow garden, Rona’s Fun Designs, Women’s Choice, Rona’s Reviews, GivingNSharing, Nita’s Corner, Insights by April, A Frugal Floridian, Fishful Thinking, Finds For Friends, The Homeschooling Blog, Captive Embroidery and Crafts, Our Share of Crazy, B&T Sweet and Sassy Savings, The Second Thought, Beth Ann & Jessica’s Helpful Savings, All About the Mommies, Time for Snack, Locomotion of expressions, Juliana’s Bits & Pieces, Green Baby Goods, Freebieprincess: Stick with Me and Get it Free, , Momanthology, Mommy’s Block Party, Mark Your Savings
Sidetracked Mom’s Blog, Exotic Philippines, Someday I’ll Learn, Dazzling Daily Deals, Coupon Preacher, Mom Blog Society, Concert Katie , Coupons For Wisconsin, Grandma’s Having Fun, My Randomness, ThriftyToday, oregoncouponguide, Coupon Queen of Texas, Mommy’s Memorandum, SmallTownSavingMomma, Ezeebuxs, Debbie Does Coupons, Bay Area Mommy, Fabulous Deals and Steals

Amazon Giftcard Giveaway!

Our final 50k Celebration Giveaway of the day is 2 $5 Giftcards to Amazon.com.  2 winners will be chosen, but if you do more than 1 entry it can be you winning BOTH of the giftcards!

This giveaway is also introducing our Google+ and Pinterest pages! Both are still in the early stages but we will start adding more content to them soon 🙂

Our Google Plus link: https://plus.google.com/b/104505011439551041104/

And on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/concertkatie/

I’ll be doing more with these pages as well as adding icons to the sidebar in the near future.

Giveaway ends 3/31/12 at 12:01AM EST.

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Giveaway: Slap Gear Watch

In honor of the blog hitting 50,000 hits last week, I will be giving away a blue slap gear watch! 

Slap Gear watches are designed for today’s style-conscious man or woman. Available in an assortment of vibrant fashion colors, there’s a watch to match your every mood. Slap Gear watches boast an eye-catching silhouette and a no-buckle design for a striking combination of fun and function.

Concert Katie is giving away a light blue watch from Slap Gear!  The band is a slap bracelet (think 80s) which contains a watch face.  The face of the watch pops out easily if you need to clean the band for any reason.  Since it is a slap bracelet, the band is adjustable and one size fits most!

Slap gear slap watches are the cool and colorful accessories that are as fun to put on as they are to wear! the contemporary, unisex design puts a fashion-forward twist on your favorite looks. with so many hot colors, you’ll want to collect them all. change your outfit, change your watch – just slap it on and go!

Contest ends March 31 at 12:01am EST. Open to US Residents only.

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Birthday Chronicle Review & Giveaway

Sponsored by Tomoson.comAre you looking for a great present for a milestone birthday? Look no further than  a Birthday Chronicle from Because I Tried It! They offer a wide variety of Personalized Gifts for Anyone, Anytime

My aunt is going to be turning 65 in May (don’t worry, she doesn’t have a computer (yet) so she won’t be able to find this post!) and I wasn’t sure what to get her, until I stumbled across Because I Tried It’s Birthday Chronicle.  The Birthday Chronicle looks like the front page of a Newspaper, and has the recipient’s birthday on it in multiple places.  Each “article” on the paper has something to do with the person whose birthday it is either with that day or that year. It is really cool!

I also received the Chronicle in less than 24 hours from when I emailed the information I wanted.  It arrived as a PDF and I printed it on some fancy paper to make it look more like a newspaper and less like something I printed on regular printer paper.  Once I toss it in a frame, it’ll look perfect for gift-giving!

For my headline – I chose “JoJo is 65!” and the articles include:

President Truman Notes Birth of Jojo (as he was president when she was born)
Celebrities share May 20th Birthday
Yankees Win 1947 World Series
Congress Debates Consumer Prices
News Around The World Making Headlines in 1947
The 20th Annual Academy Awards
Music, Music, Music The Top Hits of ’47
Chinese Celebrate Year of The Pig

Here is a sample of what you will receive:

I will be giving away 2 personal birthday chronicles, check out the entry form below! Contest ends March 24, 2012 at 12:01 AM EST.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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John Mayer Cancels Spring Tour

I’ll tell you this is definitely not what I wanted to read this afternoon:

Seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and musician John Mayer has canceled his recently announced U.S. tour and will take an indefinite hiatus from live performing due to the return of the granuloma in his throat. Mayer was treated for the same condition and placed on extensive vocal reast in 2011. The 18-city tour was to be his first in the United States in two years.

I had tickets to 2 of his shows – in Providence, RI and Wallingford, CT for next month and I was very much so looking forward to his returning to the stage and the release of Born & Raised which will be coming out still as scheduled May 22.  As upset as I am, I can not even begin to imagine how upset John is and I wish him a quick recovery (though not too quick) and am looking forward to seeing him live again whenever that might be.  At least I will have the new album with new material to hold me over for a while.

Now I just hope that the refund process goes relatively painlessly. (Ideally, I’d like to be able to keep the tickets that came in the mail just 2 days ago, but  we’ll see what the theaters process is for refunds and if they’d need to be sent back or not.)

Idol Top 13

Wednesday night was time for the Idol Top 13 to perform!  Ryan announced that is is guys vs girls this week and the guys will sing Stevie Wonder and the girls will sing Whitney Houston.  Then America votes count towards the bottom girl and bottom guy and the judges will choose who goes home.  I’m not sure how I like this idea and I also don’t like the artists they chose – both are VERY, VERY hard to live up to and artists in years past they say to avoid. Why force it?

 

Joshua – After I got done bitching about how no one should try Stevie – Joshua actually did a great job. It was definitely a great way to kick off the 400th show and really set the bar for the rest of the gang.

Elise – I am glad that Jimmy had her change her song because I think that her original song was going to be a bit too much for her, but I am not sure that she really knocked it out of the park with the song change.

Jermaine – His voice is so deep that I think that is what turned me off to this performance, but it wasn’t completely terrible. I think he’d do well in a boyband though. (I would)

Erika – I think she did really good! But she is also probably my favorite girl so maybe I am a bit biased 😉

Colton – I missed most of his performance because I was doing laundry – but did he sing ‘Goodbye’? hmmm…

Shannon – This was a big song choice for her, but I think she did a good job with it. But she seemed to shuffle the mic back and forth a lot which kind of bothered me. Although I’m not sure what the judges heard because I didn’t hear as much problems with it as they did, I guess I’ll have to watch it back when the dryer isn’t running.

DeAndre – I figured he would do well with Stevie and he did!  But he is the male Naima and Joshua is the male Fantasia? All the guys are girls from past seasons?  lol

Skylar – Another one I didn’t think would really have a problem with Whitney. Skylar has a big voice.

Heejun – I knew that his song had been done before – but what not to sing has it as being done FOUR times before. Wow. I’m actually disappointed that he did a good job because I need his butt to go home.

Hollie – I figured after tackling Christina, she wouldn’t have a problem going after Whitney. And she didn’t. Another good performance.

Jeremy – I am still not sold on him. This performance did nothing to change my mind at all.

Jessica – I didn’t think she would have much trouble with Whitney since she has such a big voice. I didn’t think she’d try tackling arguably Whitney’s biggest hit. But she did – and she definitely did it justice!

Phillip – Phillip is way too Dave Matthews-esque for my liking.  There goes my favorite boy…

My picks for who will be the bottom 2:

Bottom Girl: Elise
Bottom Boy: Jeremy

I think Jeremy will go home.

Looks like I was right on with my predictions!  And I’m ok with this too.

 

The Voice: Battle Rounds

Monday night it was time for the first set of Battle Rounds on The Voice! For those of you who don’t know how it works, each coach chooses 2 people from their team to go head to head singing a duet (with the help of one of the advisors). Then after the performance the coach has to decide which person to send home! This will cut our teams in half and get us ready for the live rounds!

Team Adam

1 battle team in and I already scream out “oh no!”  when I see who gets paired.
Tony Lucca vs Chris Cauley
U2 – Beautiful Day
My Pick: Tony
Adam’s Pick: Tony!

Team Blake

Adley vs RaeLyn
Tom Petty – Free Fallin’
My Pick: Adley
Blake’s Pick: RaeLyn

Team Christina

Chris vs Monique
Celine Dion – The Power of Love
My Pick: Chris
Christina’s Pick: Chris

Team Cee Lo

Cheesa vs Angie
Total Eclipse of the Heart
My Pick: Angie
Cee Lo’s Pick: Cheesa

Team Blake

Jordis vs Bryan
Alanis – Ironic
My Pick: Brian
Blake’s Pick:  Jordis

Team Christina

Anthony vs Jesse
Alicia Keys – If I Ain’t Got You
My Pick: Anthony
Christina’s Pick: Jesse

 

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