I don’t drink a lot of pop. Or, you know, soda if you don’t live in my area. When I do, it’s a special splurge for pizza night or another restaurant outing. That said, if I’m splurging, I’m going with Pepsi. I don’t need to say anything more than I prefer the taste of Pepsi to any other variety of pop. It’s my special treat sometimes.

That’s why I’m super pleased that Pepsi is starting something special of their own.

It’s called the Pepsi Refresh Project and it has the potential to be awesome. In short, Pepsi is going to be giving away more than $20 million dollars to help fund projects of all sizes that help make communities better. No. Really. $20 million dollars. My brain doesn’t even comprehend that kind of money. In fact, Pepsi is so serious about this project that they opted not to advertise in this year’s Super Bowl (February 7th) so that they could dedicate the money that they would have spent there instead to this very important social cause.

I could go buy a Pepsi right now and splurge a little bit myself in honor of this awesome project. Giving up ad space to help people? Holla.

What things count? New playground equipment. New library computers (hey, Ohio, are you reading?). Upgrades to make a historical building/theater/etc handicapped accessible. The list goes on and on. From the small projects to the bigger than big ones! Every month, you have the ability to post a project in one of six categories: health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the planet, neighborhood or education. At the end of the month, Pepsi then posts the top submissions and lets the public vote on who should win the grants which start at $5,000 and go all the way up to $250,000!

You can get involved in two ways. Visit RefreshEverything.com and either submit your idea to improve your community or vote on other ideas to help other people improve their communities. The power of social media can help improve your community, your family’s community and communities all over. Let’s show the world how we can come together for good. Get to suggesting and voting now! (As a side note, you can also connect via twitter (@Pepsi) or on Facebook to become a fan.)

(By the way? I’m suggesting something to make our community better. I know that your community could use something, couldn’t it? Think about it. Submit. You never know what can happen with the press of a submit button!)

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[Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Pepsi Refresh. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

An exciting update: I’m a Frigidaire Test Drive Mom!

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of that, however, I do want to tell you about some stuff. I told you before about the new Frigidaire appliances that are supposed to save moms time and money. I also told you about how Jennifer Garner, in all her awesomeness, paired with Frigidaire to create the Make Time for Change campaign that raises money for Save the Children. They’ve decided to kick off a new campaign to continue to help Save the Children. It’s called Spin and Win.

Basically? You visit Make Time For Change, take a spin and see if you win anything. You could win a new Frigidaire Affinity washer and dryer. (Have you seen it? Go to the site. That blue? Wow.) There are also great gift cards that encourage you to “curl up with new books” or “get outside and play.” I’m all for gift cards!

Plus? Here’s the real bonus. Every day you take a spin, Frigidaire donates $1 to Save the Children as part of their $250,000 commitment to this worthy cause. It’s kind of win-win, especially if you actually win.

Now that you know about that, I suppose I should tell you about my involvement with Frigidaire. I’m getting a new fridge! That’s right! A brand-spankin-new stainless steel wonder of an appliance. We’re thrilled. In fact, we’re so thrilled that we finally decided to finish our kitchen.

Let me explain. When we bought our house in 2006, it was “move in ready.” We painted and have since been fixing everything that the previous owners did wrong and/or covered up to sell. The kitchen cabinets were brand new and the appliances were tolerable (though we bought a new stove). But we only painted one wall in the adjoining dining room and wanted to redo the floor and never figured out the backsplash and eventually came to hate the color we painted the one wall. Did I mention we had cheap linoleum on the kitchen side and carpet in our dining room? A mess. Thanks to this partnership with Frigidaire, we’ve been inspired to finally finish our kitchen project! I’m getting new flooring (laminate honey colored oak to match our cabinets) and we’ve already painted (a nice dark tan/light brown that warms up the room) and we finally, after four years, agreed on a backsplash, though that has yet to be purchased and done! Needless to say, we’ve been watching a lot of HGTV!

Our new refrigerator is set to be delivered at the end of February. I can’t say whether we’ll have the backsplash done but the flooring and subsequent trim work should be completed by that time. In fact, the flooring might be done this weekend! And I may or may not have found new curtains for the back window. (Help?) I’m excited to share our semi-remodel with you as well as how we’re loving our new fridge over the next few months. I’m hopeful that by the time this Frigidaire Test Drive is done, we’ll have a kitchen that I love to be in since, of course, that’s the room where everyone congregates!

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[Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Refrigerator to facilitate my review.]

I read lots of blogs. All kinds of blogs make their way to my Google reader. I just added the FedEx Home Office Blog, entitled Out of Office. Their tagline reads “Unexpected Ideas for Creative Projects.” Yes, please.

I’ve been especially enjoying the blog since the beginning of the year. The posts have been well-written, encouraging and have inspired me to work on some of the organizational things in my own life. Keeping in touch with others is important as is keeping up with our schedule. In fact, I went ahead and made a fitness schedule like the one they talked about though, with the snow that’s been dumping on us this week, I’ve had trouble actually implementing it as of yet. Soon.

There’s also a nice link on the side that says “Print to Any FedEx Office Anywhere.” Now, I have a printer. I do. And I use it. In fact, I use it too much. But I ordered ink. The trouble is that I ordered ink during the holiday mail rush. Which means that when I went to print a contract (all 14 pages of it) on my first Monday back to work (I work at home), well, I was out of ink. And the ink wasn’t here. And it’s nice to know I have an option in utilizing FedEx. The things you learn!

But, yes, I’ve subscribed to the Out of Office blog. I have liked their ideas thus far and hope that they will hit me with some others in the near future. You should check it out as well!

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[Disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of FedEx Office. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.]

If you’ve ever dreamed of taking your photography hobby and making it into a business, you’ve got to hear about the Soar! Scholarship with Me Ra Koh. Basically, Me Ra is giving three women the chance of a lifetime. Applicants can and have submitted two minute videos explaining why they should be given this scholarship which gives them a full page of prizes including a new Sony dSLR camera, lenses, flights for training and a whole YEAR worth of stuff and time and help. It’s amazing.

Amazing.

I know that as a photographer I have thought of starting up my own business. I work for a newspaper now and really don’t feel that portraiture is really want I want to work on at this time in my life. I do know, however, the amazing opportunity that is being presented to these women by this scholarship. Especially in this difficult economy, it can be so hard to start up a business. When you think about how much photography equipment and the editing software can cost, it can seem almost impossible to a woman with a dream. Thanks to Me Ra, it’s not impossible.

The winners will be announced tomorrow. You can see ALL of the video entries right now on the Soar! Scholarship website. There are 30 pages of videos. THIRTY! That’s amazing. I know I’ll be logging on tomorrow to see who won. In fact, I’ll be following the winners on their websites over the next year to see what they learn and come up with from their training. While I may not be going into the photography business, I am a photographer and I can always learn!

Photo Credit: Jenna Hatfield, 2009.

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I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of the SOAR! Scholarship and Me Ra Koh Photography. In addition, I received an Amazon gift certificate to thank me for taking the time to participate.

I’m not good with numbers or math or anything that doesn’t involve words. That may be a lie. I was okay at those algebra word problems because they were wordy and tricky. Like me! I fear how I will help (or hinder) my sons in the future when they come to me with math questions. Thankfully, we’ve already gotten some help on some simple numbers learning topics thanks to Munchkin Math.

We were sent the Munchkin Math DVD, Shapes!!, for review. The ages on the DVD are for kids 2-8 and I can tell you one thing, it’s a hit with my two year old. My four year old who already knows that triangles have three sides, octagons have eight sides and, yes, Mommy, the refrigerator is a rectangle, isn’t all that interested. But my younger son? Loves it.

I’m all for using different forms of educational material to teach children things. Yes, we have books on shapes. In fact, we have a series of books on learning topics like shapes, colors and the like that we all absolutely adore. We could page through them for hours. But I also know that my children respond to visual learning and interactivity. As such, my younger son is enjoying Munchkin Math Shapes! I can tell because he yells out shapes, counts along and generally has a good time watching the 22 minute DVD. Unlike some other learning DVDs, this one really captures his attention. (And it doesn’t annoy me. Parenting win!)

Quite honestly, I’d love to grab the Telling Time and Counting Money DVDs in hopes that BigBrother would glean some information from those as well. (Or LittleBrother, too!) Hopefully by the time these guys hit high school they will have released titles like, “Munchkin Math, Trig!,” and, “Munchkin Math, Physics!” Right?

Munchkin Math: Shapes! is available at Amazon for $15.49 (12/22).

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[I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Munchkin Math and received a sample DVD to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate. Links are through Amazon Associates.]

Meatballs are an acceptable food in our house. I have one very picky child who deals with texture issues and one child who will eat anything that holds still long enough to put it in his mouth. Meatballs are acceptable by both. I consider that a food win. We’ve been hosting parties for various reasons over the past month and have a few more coming up. Mom Central clued me in to a fabulous recipe that makes either a great appetizer or, as we found out, a great, quick meal: Ultimate Party Meatballs.

Here’s the recipe.

• 1 14-ounce can Ocean Spray® Jellied Cranberry Sauce
• 1 12-ounce bottle Heinz® Chili Sauce
• 1 2-pound bag frozen, pre-cooked, cocktail-size meatballs

I know. It sounds weird, right? I mean, when I put the two together, it just doesn’t look right.

That said, I’ve been finding that jellied cranberry sauce shows up in really random recipes to give it a little extra flavor. I recently made one and so I trusted the recipe and continued to make these meatballs. Even though it looked… weird.

Directions for making the meatballs:

Combine sauces in a large saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring until smooth. Add meatballs. Cover and cook for 15 minutes or until meatballs are heated through, stirring occasionally.

Makes 30 appetizer servings.

Slow cooker Preparation: Place meatballs in a slow cooker. Combine sauces and pour over meatballs. Cover and cook 4 hours on HIGH.

Once the cranberry sauce is heated and melts into the sauce, it doesn’t look weird anymore. Trust me.

And trust me on this: they’re delicious. The sauce is sweet and tangy, closer to a sweet and sour sauce than a tomato sauce meatball kind of thing. That’s why they’re perfect for hor dourves. Throw a couple on a plate along with some crackers and cheese and you’ve got yourself an easy bunch of appetizers for your next get together. (Ahem. Christmas much?) I don’t have pictures of our last small party in which we served the meatball appetizers (in a fancy schmancy bowl!) because I was a little bit stressed with that party. Apologies.

We also found that they make great meatball sandwiches. While meatball sandwiches typically have a red, tomato sauce, we are in love with this recipe on a nice, soft hoagie roll. LittleBrother inhaled his sandwich. He didn’t set it down the whole time he was eating it. BigBrother ate most of it which is saying something! I wanted two but I kept it to one.

Any way you work it, appetizer or sammich (which is how you’d say it if you were originally from Pittsburgh), this recipe is a hit with adults and kids. I’ve already bought more stuff to make another batch for yet another get together next week. Yummy, yummy. There are some other great recipes over on the Ultimate Party Meatballs website. Go check it out.

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[Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Heinz and Ocean Spray and received the ingredients necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.]

Do you have a sports fan in your family? Are you struggling with what to get him or her with Christmas so close? Want a great idea? Good! You came to the right place.

Office Depot has a great, personalized creation that is sure to make any sports fan feel like a star. They take your sports loving gift recipient’s last name, throw it on a jersey in a photo where it hangs next to the jerseys of the great current stars of the team. Having a difficult time picturing what I’m talking about? As you may know, our family happens to be a huge Steelers family. I took my maiden name and had Office Depot put it into a Steelers picture.

Here’s the result:

Too much fun. Not a Steelers fan? (I’m not a fair weather fan. I’m still a fan even after this… interesting… season.) Office Depot can make this out of any MLB, NFL, NHL or NBA team! MLB? I bet they’d even make a Pirates one for you which, of course, is the only team that plays worse than the Steelers this year. (I still love them. I get to razz on them because I love them. Ask my husband.) Whatever the team, whatever your last name, I bet they can make a great gift for you and your sports lover. I mean, if Swearingen fits, well…

You can simply go in to your local Office Depot and they can make one of these up for you while you wait! It will run you $39.99 or you can have it framed for an extra ten dollars. Not too shabby!

To make matters all the more easy for you, we’re giving away a digital copy to be delivered directly to your own computer. (Simply print it out on photo paper straight from your printer or take your copy on a flash drive to Office Depot and have them print it out!) Leave a comment on this post with your favorite sports team (you don’t have to leave last names) or the sports team of the person you’d be gifting!

Giveaway will be live through Wednesday, December 23 at 12:00pm EST so that your gift can be delivered to your inbox in time for printing. Winner will be pulled by random.org. Tweeting about this giveaway (as much as your list will tolerate) will get you another entry in the giveaway. Please just comment to say you’ve done so!

For more great gifts, visit Office Depot.

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[Disclosure: I received a free, digital file to print if I so desired in exchange for this review and giveaway.]

When Mom Central asked if we wanted to review some Hickory Farms products, I figured we’d get a little basket with one or two cheeses and a roll of oh-so-yummy meat. I was wrong. We got a soft-sided toolbox stuffed to the brim with cheeses, crackers, various meats and even some spicy mustard that is now my favorite spicy mustard. Ever. It took me awhile and the help of my husband to realize it was a toolbox though.

What was in it?

- 12 oz. Our Original Beef Summer Sausage
- 12 oz Spicy Savory Beef Summer Sausage
- 7 oz. Ham Summer Sausage
- 8 oz. Mini Beef Sausage Snacks
- 3.6 oz. Beef Sausage Snacks
- 3.6 oz Spicy Beef Sausage Snacks
- 10 oz. Hickory Cheddar Blend
- 10 oz. Jalapeno and Cheddar Blend
- 7 oz. Mission Jack Blend
- 6 oz. Smoked Gouda Blend
- 10 oz. Sweet Hot Mustard
- 5 oz. Golden Toasted Crackers
- 5 oz. Cracked Wheat Crackers
- Black Nylon Tool Bag

To be honest, we’re still not all the way done with everything that was stuffed inside that awesome nylon tool bag even though we’ve had two small get togethers and one big birthday party since it arrived in our house. It’s not because the food isn’t good. It is! The cheeses are all fabulous. Of course, I love cheese as I think it makes anything better. The boys have enjoyed most of the cheese, though neither enjoyed the jalapeno/cheddar mix. (More for me!)

Our favorite snack was one of the crackers, a little bit of the mustard, a small slice of cheese and a small slice of one of the meats. Yum! Quick snack that looks nice on a plate. Hooray!

FireDad’s response to all of this? “A tool bag? With meat? Win win.”

Of course, Hickory Farms has plenty of other win-win gifts to give this season, from a very simple block of cheese to baskets that are stuffed to the brim as well. I remember thinking that baskets of food were, meh, okay when I was younger. Now that I have parties to host and friends to feed, I love any extra help I can get! I know that I would love to receive such an awesome gift!

Hickory Farms now accepts PayPal as well, making it easy for your to purchase safely online. Easy and satisfying. Hooray! (Oh! And they even have a Facebook page! Awesome!)

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[Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a Hickory Farms gift basket to facilitate my review.]

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Cheryl&Co, a premiere cookie company that makes my mouth water. I should also probably rephrase. Not only did I get to visit the company but both BigBrother and LittleBrother got to mingle with other Ohio bloggers’ kids. If you’re not familiar with Cheryl&Co, you might be living under a rock. Or you’re my mother. Or you’re living with my mother under a rock. They are, in fact, my mother-in-law’s very favorite thing. Ever. So she’s jealous that I got to visit the company and take the grand tour.

And eat lots of buttercream frosting.

I will be honest and say that I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I prefer salty things. But I do like Cheryl&Co’s cookies. And brownies, which was the main point of today’s adventure as it is National Brownie Day. But more on that later. Let’s look at some pictures.

We were treated to a fabulous lunch and then we took the grand tour. I don’t have many pictures from the tour itself as we weren’t supposed to take pictures of the super secret equipment… like the automated ramp that large chunks of cookie dough went up and then dropped into another thing that made them into teeny-tiny balls to be frozen and cooked later. (As Vanessa Druckman said, I wanted a spoon so I could just dig in. So good.) I did capture a picture of some Christmas tree cookies as we walked by.

And we saw the brownies. It would take me eight years to make them that smooth on top. EIGHT. YEARS.

And then we got to have a turn at making fancy stuff!

When I say we got to have our hand at making fancy things, I wasn’t referring to the things above. I mean, you’ve seen my cakes. Does that really look like something I could do on my own? Not likely. Those were out for us when we walked into the test kitchen. We did, however, get to have our hand at icing our brownies and learning how to make cutouts out of white chocolate dough.

This looks more like my handy work, doesn’t it?

The best part of the day for me, aside from sugar and (ZOMG!) free babysitting, was hanging out with Christina (of A Mommy Story) and Heather (of Domestic Extraordinaire). They’re goofballs. I can say that since Christina posted a twitpic of me in my lovely (green!) hairnet. So here they are. In theirs.

Snort. Too fun.

So, yes, we had a lovely day. We came home with goodies, which included far too many cookies for this family to eat and these really, really adorable jingle-jangle-y ears for the boys.

If I didn’t already have a Christmas card, that would be it. And, yes, BigBrother is holding LittleBrother’s face so he’ll look at the camera. No, it probably wasn’t nice of him but, darn, it was cute. (Don’t be surprised if you see this on the main blog come Christmas day. I love it. There are others.) But, yes, they had a lovely day, too. Why? Apparently they watched Toy Story. It’s almost as if Cheryl&Co researched my family.

Anyway, I tell you all of this not to gloat. I tell you all of this because today is National Brownie Day. Cheryl&Co is offering 30% off of orders. TODAY ONLY. Go place your orders. Quickly. Promptly. But please don’t send any more to me right now. I’m kind of drowning in cookies. And that’s a perfectly acceptable way to drown, don’t you think? If you miss today’s 30% off sale, you can use code BRN10 on their website through January 31, 2010 for $10.00 off any purchase. Splendid.

But wait, there’s more!

We’re giving away a Cheryl&Co Ultimate Brownie Assortment. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it? What does the Ultimate Brownie Assortment Entail? 18 individually wrapped Cheryl&Co brownies with the new buttercream frosted peanut butter, classic vanilla and new hot fudge. And even toffee crunch, classic fudge, blondie and oatmeal scotchie. It’s a huge bunch o’brownies! See?

Mmm.

So how do you win? Three ways:

1. Visit Cheryl&Co, poke around and come back and tell me what you think your favorite edible product would be. Cookie? Brownie? Sugar free products? Kosher ones? Let me know. Leave your favorite product in a comment on this post. Drool that ruins your keyboard is your own responsibility. You may do this once.

2. Follow @FireMom (me!) and @CherylandCo and then tweet about this giveaway by copy/pasting this into your twitter stream: Win $50 worth of brownies from @CherylandCo and @FireMom! YUM! http://bit.ly/4wkjSg . Please come back and leave me the individual URL of your tweet. You may do this as many times as you so desire.

3. Blog about this giveaway on your public blog with a link to this post and Cheryl&Co. Please come back to leave your link. You may do this once.

A winner will be chosen one week from today, Tuesday, December 15, 2009, at 9pm EST. The winner will be contacted via email for their shipping information. The prize will be shipped from Cheryl&Co!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. In the meantime, I’ll be eating my cookies. And brownies. And the big cup of buttercream frosting that I brought home. Because I can.

But forget the tiny spoon. Large spoon. Or directly into my mouth. You know. Either way. I’m classy that way.

Also, I will upload all of my photos to twitter and make them public for other bloggers and readers to look at. I will tag them “cheryl&co” and “National Brownie Day” and I will link here when they are all online. (But I have to run.)

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[Full Disclosure: I paid for nothing today. Except for my gas. I received free cookies, brownies, an apron, some chocolates, a gift card, BABYSITTING (ZOMG!), fun, lunch, laughter and I think I ate $500 worth of frosting. I was not required to blog about this event but, duuuuude, wouldn't you?]

I’ve written about Green Works products in the past. I have always found them to be just as good as non-eco-friendly products and their new laundry detergent and stain remover are no different.

My boys have sensitive skin. Do you know where they get it from? Straight from me. And? Straight from FireDad. So they have a double genetic whammy of sensitive skin. BigBrother’s skin is a bit more sensitive in some ways (lotions, shampoo) while LittleBrother has some harsher issues when it comes to things like detergents. I also have an issue with detergent. I chose to wash my own laundry in the new Green Works detergent first just in case I was going to have a reaction. No reaction! No itchies! It’s fabulous. I do, personally, find it a bit too perfume-y for my liking but I have to admit: I have a super nose. I don’t think others would have a problem with it. It doesn’t bother me after the item has been dryed, just when I’m washing! The boys have had no reactions as well. Hooray!

As far as the stain remover, it’s just as awesome. The week that we got the stain remover, LittleBrother sat in pizza. IN KHAKI PANTS! Cue panic. I just pre-treated the pizza sauce stain, washed it like normal and, bam! No stain. I was super pleased with that fact. I’m sure it won’t be perfect but I haven’t found a stain remover that is just yet!

I do think we’ll be switching to Green Works laundry products, though I may go ahead and get the free and clear version (no perfume, no dye) of the actual detergent. There’s a $3 coupon on their website if you’d like to give it a try as well!

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[Disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Clorox Green Works and received a bottle of Green Works Natural Detergent and Stain Remover to facilitate my review and a $20 thank-you gift certificate.]