Apothica Review and $25 Giveaway!

Have you heard of Apothica?  They are my newest blog sponsor and I recently tried some of their awesome products with my sponsorship funds!  They have several lines to shop from, Apothica, SkinCareRX and Skinbotanica, and you receive 5% back in rewards points with your purchases!

Each quarter SkinCareRx offers a Beauty Cache that is simply amazing and at only $29.95 you can't beat it!

The cache came with everything you see pictured above, and yes, a $20 off coupon to use for future purchases.  While there are many different products in the cache, some are full sized, other are trial sized, but you definitely get a bang for your buck.

My all around favorite is the Epionce Lite Lytic Lotion for dry/sensitive to normal skin, a close second is the Pure Fiji hydrating body lotion; coconut infusion.  The Epinonce Lotion is extremely light and has a wonderful scent, it left my face feeling wonderfully soft, the Fiji lotion has a very light coconut scent and did wonders for my itchy dry skin. 

All of the products I have tried in the cache have been excellent, the best way I can describe them is LIGHT, they're not greasy, the scents are not overbearing, and they all worked quite well.



Another product I received was the Caldrea Stainless Steel Spray, that's right....Apothica also sells home items, cleaners and candles!  All of my appliances are stainless and I have the most difficult time finding a product I like, usually when I find one, it disappears from the store shelf never to be found again!

I love this product, it works extremely well, and leaves a nice lavender, pine scent, I'm anxious to try some of the additional cleaners in this line!


The three stores are linked for easy shopping, all goes into one cart, and there is free shipping on orders over $49.  What's even better is that you can speak with a Licensed Esthetician if you have any skin care concerns or questions.  I did call into customer service and they were wonderful, extremely helpful and welcoming.  Definitely a great shopping experience!

Also carried through Skincarerx is the PMD personal microderm and Kinerase! You'll hear more from me about the PMD soon!

WOULDN'T YOU JUST LOVE TO WIN $25 TO USE AT THESE STORES?

Here's your chance!!!

For the giveaway:
Mandatory:  Leave a comment along with your email address and tell me what you would purchase with your $25 gift card, be original! You can use THIS link to shop!


Extra's: Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry or it will only count as one!

+1 Like SkinCareRx on Facebook

+1 Follow SkinCareRx on Twitter

+5 Blog about SkinCareRx and a product you love. Link to SkinCareRx

+3 follow my blog publicly via GFC

The giveaway will end at midnight on 4/30, I will use Random.Org to choose the winner and the winner will be notified via email and have 48 hrs to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

GOOD LUCK!

**Special thanks to Apothica for sponsoring my blog and offering this giveaway.  I used my sponsorship funds to purchase the skin care cache and did this review simply because I wanted to, it was not a requirement for the giveaway!

Coca-Cola Memories

What is your SODA drink of choice? Mine…..Coca-Cola all the way! I actually love the Coca-Cola Zero, has great taste, none of that diet taste to it at all!

When you do you drink soda? I used to work with a girl who kept a case of Diet Coke under her desk. She drank it warm throughout the work day! Generally, I save the soda for a bad migraine or for pizza night. Sometimes with a burger, there just seem to be certain meals that cry “SODA”, don’t you think?

My mother-in-law is a Coca-Cola fiend, I’m not fooling with you, so years ago when I went to Las Vegas I visited the Coca-Cola store and bought her a tourist case of soda and a cookbook…..have you ever seen how many recipes you can put soda in, have you tried it?

If you’re not sure of the results and how they’ll go over, make cherry jello, replace the cold water with soda, add some cherries and a dollop of whipped cream….quite delightful!

Thinking of soda, remember the great cases you could buy back in the day, a cold tall Coca-Cola straight out of the fridge….so much better than how it is now, aluminum cans, and plastic bottles, just not the same!

I remember once, after grocery shopping we returned home and my cousins were at our house. My older cousin offered to carry in the soda, now I can’t remember how it happened but he fell and of course the soda bottles broke all over and he cut himself….I not sure what I felt worse about, losing all of the soda we just spent our money on, or the fact he was hurt! Doesn’t sound very nice, but, hey, I was a kid…I knew my priorities, great Classic Coca-cola from a glass bottle, or a cousin that picked on me!

Remember when they’d have the Pepsi or Coca-Cola challenges? They’d set up a table at the local stores and give you a drink of each and then you’d have to tell them which one was which…I haven’t seen any challenges lately, have you? I wonder if they still do them, if I remember correctly, they always gave out coupons…gotta love a good coupon!

We also used to play games, drink our cola and have popcorn and or ice cream on special evenings….most fun was when we played Aggravation! I’m certain if I thought a little longer I could come up with more fun memories, but I’d love to hear some of yours!

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Coca-Cola® blogging program. If I am one of the first 100 blogs received by SocialsMoms, I will receive a $25 gift card. For more information on the program, click here."

CFBA: Book Review: Blood of the Prodigal

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Blood of the Prodigal Plume; Reprint edition (September 28, 2010) by P.L. Gaus

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul took an interest in writing fiction in 1993, and with the advice and encouragement of author Tony Hillerman, he began writing mystery novels set among the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. The first of Gaus's mysteries, Blood of the Prodigal, An Ohio Amish Mystery, was published by Ohio University Press in June of 1999, and a total of six novels have appeared in this series: Broken English, 2000, Clouds Without Rain, 2001, Cast a Blue Shadow, 2003, A Prayer for the Night, 2006, and Separate from the World, 2008. A seventh novel in the series is in preparation.

All of Paul's stories have now been republished by Plume (a division of Penguin Group USA) as The Amish-Country Mysteries, and these editions have been embraced by Christian retailers such as CBD.com, Family Christian Stores, and LifeWay. Future mysteries in the series will still first be published in hard cover editions, as The Amish-Country Mysteries by Ohio University Press, with Plume bringing out the soft cover editions some time later.

Paul and his wife Madonna still travel frequently in Holmes County. He lectures widely about Amish culture at libraries, bookstores, literary societies, and the like, and his books have been featured at Book Expo America and similar professional shows around the country. Paul's novels have been reviewed in prominent journals and newspapers, for instance, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, Ohioana Quarterly, and the New York Times Book Review.

ABOUT THE BOOK

For Jonah Miller, shunned by his Old Order sect and cast into the wider world, the summer begins with his decision to kidnap his ten-year-old son from the home of the bishop who had exiled Miller a decade earlier. In his desperation to retrieve the boy, the bishop appeals for help to the only "English" men the sect would ever approve.

Professor Michael Branden and Pastor Caleb Troyer had been looking forward to the kind of sleepy rural summer they had enjoyed as boyhood friends growing up in the small college town of Millersburg. Instead, they plunge into the normally closed Amish culture to find the boy. When the kidnapping leads to murder, they can no longer keep the case from the law. Working sometimes at cross purposes with his friend Sheriff Bruce Robertson, Professor Branden digs through the past to uncover truths that many would prefer to leave undisturbed. Little does he suspect that even the anguished bishop, torn by an insoluble moral dilemma, tragically does not tell everything he knows about the case. Suddenly the vast tangle of Amish and Mennonite settlements that sprawl among several thousand small farms and homesteads seems less bucolic than unknowable and impenetrable.

As they inquire delicately among the peaceful ones, Branden and Troyer learn that the troubles of Jonah Miller began far earlier than the kidnapping, with his Rumschpringe - the customary wild year before taking Amish vows. But his grand Rumschpringe had exploded into a decade of drugs, whiskey, and women, in the company of people no Amish person should meet.

In the tradition of Tony Hillerman, P. L. Gaus depicts a culture that successfully stands outside the mainstream yet interacts with it in complex and fascinating ways, a culture that is every bit as susceptible to the undertow of the human spirit as any we might know.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Blood of the Prodigal, go HERE

MY THOUGHTS:
This is a very different type of an Amish read.  This is not an Amish book full of love and sweetness, but instead one that harbors ill-feelings, great loss and of course, mystery!  This book just goes to show you that we all have trauma, deception, murder and secrets.  It doesn't matter how strong your faith, what matters is how you deal with your problems.  Secrets have a tendency to blow up and they don't always lead you within
your comfort level, and there are many secrets and half truths in this story.

If you're looking for a different, and intriguing Amish read, this is the book for you!






*I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for review from CFBA

Knitting and Sewing Fun!

I thought I'd share a couple of my recent projects with you!  I made the cute little pincushion last night, it's perfect for using up scrap material, and the flower cloth is one that I have been working on this past week!  All in all I was pretty happy with the results.  The flower cloth looked a bit like a blob until I blocked it!

Book Review: The Invisible World

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The best selling author of A Travel Guide to Heaven (Doubleday, 2003), and Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, (Doubleday, 2007) Anthony DeStefano has a diverse background in business and media. After attending Stuyvesant High School in New York City, he graduated summa cum laude from St. John’s University in Staten Island with a degree in Philosophy/Theology. He then started a successful chain of electronics retail stores in New York. During this time he also worked as a regular op-ed columnist for the Staten Island Advance.

In 2003, Anthony’s first book, A Travel Guide to Heaven, was published by Doubleday, as well as Random House Audio, Transworld Publishers in the United Kingdom and a host of other major publishing houses in Europe, Asia and South America. The book was a runaway bestseller and has been published in 16 different languages.

Anthony has received many awards and honors from religious communities throughout the world. In 2002, he was given an honorary Doctorate from the Joint Academic Commission of the National Clergy Council and the Methodist Episcopal Church for “the advancement of Christian beliefs in modern culture.” The commission is made up of outstanding Evangelical, Orthodox and Protestant theologians and educators.
Today, Anthony is a successful businessman. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Priests for Life, the largest pro-life/pro-family organization in the world, and has worked closely with the national director of that group, Rev. Frank Pavone, for twenty years. He is also a Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a member of the National Religious Broadcasters Organization (NRB), the Royal Institute of Philosophy, in London, and the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), also based in the United Kingdom.

An avid pilot, Anthony serves as a senior member of the US Air Force’s auxiliary Civil Air Patrol. He flies his own vintage, 1959 Cessna L19-E Bird-Dog, which was formerly owned by Judge William P. Clark, National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan.

In 2010, Anthony released two children’s books for WaterBrook/Multnomah, called: This Little Prayer of Mine, and Little Star

ABOUT THE BOOK: (From inside book jacket)
Everybody has one.  It's called a "haunt detector."  It's the little alarm that goes off in our heads whenever we detect that something mysterious or supernatural has occurred.  You could be sitting around relaxing one day at home, and for no special reason you start thinking about someone.  Maybe you haven't thought about this person in years.  Then the phone rings; you pick it up, and amazingly, it's that person!  Many of us have experienced this phenomenon.

What is it?

MY THOUGHTS:
This book will take you places you don't usually dare to go, and make you think a bit differently.  One of the first things said in this book jumped out and hit me straight on, "the most important things in life can't be seen with our eyes"...WOW, how often do you really think about that fact?  To me, this book is a great eye opener and a reminder about what is important.  It's easy to get caught up in day to day life and forget about they why and the how, this book will make you stop and think.

While this book is a bit different, (I think it's because it takes you to places most people don't usually go), it is a good read, and it has definitely reminded me that there is a vast world out there that is incomprehensible to the naked eye.  Give this book a try!

*I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from the 
B and B Media Group.

CFBA: Book Review: Tea For Two

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Tea For Two Harvest House Publishers (April 1, 2011) by Trish Perry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A word from our Author: I started writing short stories—pretty bad ones. And I started taking creative writing courses to round out my degree. So I was in classes full of people just like me—lousy writers. But we were learning!

Then the Lord led me to a local writers' group, Capital Christian Writers, and the contacts and friends I made through CCW enriched my personal life and my writing life more than I can measure. Through CCW and through reading just about every book and magazine ever published by Writer's Digest, I started catching on. Now I'm writing full time and man oh man do I love it.

Before the writing began, I worked for attorneys in Washington, D. C. I worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission. And I was a stockbroker. A horrible stockbroker. How do people do that? Take responsibility for other people's financial futures? Yikes. I'm perfectly happy to take responsibility for the amount of time any one person wants to spend reading my books. If you enjoy the experience, then know that we both enjoyed it together. I love that about books.

In the midst of all that fretting over other people's money and writing about other people's lives, I racked up a few personal experiences myself. Some good, some bad, but all part of God's plan. Now I'm an empty nester living in Northern Virginia. My brilliantly funny son is in college. I have a savvy, gorgeous grown daughter, a charming son-in-law, and an amazing grandson.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Zack Cooper tries his best to raise his children, but he's losing his grip on them in their teen years. They've both had scrapes with the local law.

Tea Shop owner Milly Jewel has the perfect woman in mind to help Zack. Counselor Tina Milano meets weekly at the tea shop with her women's group. Milly encourages Zack and Tina to work together to draw the teens back before they get in even hotter water. Milly never thought things might heat up between Zack and Tina. Or did she?

Tina's connections with the Middleburg police department prove a mixed blessing for Zack and his kids. Both her best friend and old boyfriend are officers on the force.

And when Tina's women's group gets wind of her personal pursuits and clashes, they want to help. The group's meetings at the tea shop take on a slightly different flavor. Tina wonders who, exactly, is counseling whom.

Although heroine Tina Milano and her women's group are mentioned in The Perfect Blend (the first book in this series), Tea for Two is where we meet her and hero Zack Cooper. I knew I would write this book while I wrote the first, so it was fun to plant a passing mention of Zack and Tina while I wrote Steph's story in The Perfect Blend. By the time I was able to write Tina and Zack's story, I was eager to unfold their lives, conflicts, and love. I hope readers will be eager to experience what happens to them!

If you would like to read the first chapter of , go HERE.

Watch the Book Video:




MY THOUGHTS:
I enjoyed this book.  The characters had struggles that any of us could face.  Zack, "the hunky produce guy" (love the nickname) is trying to raise his children alone, he keeps a firm hand with them, and realizes when they all need help!  I love how the author adds humor to the situation, and while the teens are rebelling, she keeps them quite lovable.  The book tends to revolve around the Tea Shop and a very wise woman, owner, Milly who tends to be a 'mother' to all.

Tea For Two has some very good Christian values in it and for those of you who don't think you'd like Christian romance, or Christian books, period, give it a try, you'll enjoy it!




**I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for review from CFBA.

Book Review: The Deepest Waters

Back Cover:
  "The Deepest Waters is a story that's been waiting to be told for 150 years.  What a blessing that Dan Walsh is the one to tell it.  It is inspirational, spiritual, and miraculous-a hopeful message when the world needs it most."
   -Jason F. Wright, New York Times bestselling author, The Wednesday Letters
 

 *******

For John and Laura Foster, what began as a fairytale honeymoon in 1857 aboard the steamship SS Vandervere soon becomes a nightmare.  A terrible hurricane strikes and the grand ship is lost in the murky depths of the Atlantic.  Laura finds herself rescued with the other women and children, but how can she feel anything but despondent without her groom?  Suspecting her John is gone but still daring to hope for a miracle, Laura must face the possibility of life alone. 

MY THOUGHTS:
This is one of those books that will grab you at the first page and not let you go until the last.  Dan Walsh writes this book based on actual happenings, while not everything in the book is factual many of the events really did happen.  This is a story of love, heartbreak, hope, honor and belief.  At times it can be difficult to have hope, to trust in God, but when you meet Micah, a slave aboard Captain Mead's ship, you will find that you can have hope, peace and love even if you have been through some of the worst that the World has dealt.

John and Laura are two characters with true grit and a depth of love that you will not find everywhere, they have a strength that not only helps them but those around them, this is truly a wonderful book and one that I think will be one of my best reads for the year.  I am writing this review with droopy eyes since I could not put the story down and read all night from cover to cover!

“Available April 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

*I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for review from Revell a division of Baker Publishing.