I was selected by House Party to host a Keurig Vue House Party.  I was so excited when I received the notice that I got chosen to host one. I actually did two house parties for this product.  I took it to a couple of small groups events and volunteered to bring the coffee.  It was so much fun showing the new Keurig Vue and what all it could do.

Here is some features that I love about the new Keurig Vue.

• Brewer hotter coffee.  You can choose the temperature that you want your drinks to be.
• Brews stronger.  You can choose if you want regular or strong coffee or tea.
• Brews bigger sizes.  Yes!!! You can brew a travel 16 oz mug for the road with the new Vue.
• It brews coffee, tea, hot cocoa and iced beverages, the Vue brews delicious café beverages too!

I think the Hazelnut coffee was the hit of each of the parties.  Everyone seemed to love the flavor and strength of the coffee.  I had several ladies that tried the hot chocolate.  They liked it too.    My favorite is the cappuccino.    This is a little more expensive of a drink to make but it is worth it.  I loved the froth and the taste.

If you have not signed up to be alerted about upcoming House Parties, you need to !! they are fun and you get to try wonderful items. I have never not enjoyed doing a house party.    For the Keurig House Party I got, the Vue machine, a cute apron, cookies, napkins, after coffee mints, signature mugs, coffee cups for guest and tons of coffee pods to let everyone sample.

Some of the comments I heard was……  I can’t believe how easy it is to make a cup of coffee…… I think I might like to have one of these in my office at work…… Wow, I have heard about the Keurig and thought people were just crazy about their coffee but now that I have tasted this, I see why they like this machine.   The best one…… can I take a to go cup with me?

I have one more party to do.  I am going to take the Keurig Vue to a college event.  I think coffee and college students go really well together, don’t you?

As you can see, I received the above items for free for review and to share.  You can read my disclosure policy here.

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Do you sometimes just crave orange juice?   I do.  There is sometimes that all I want is a big glass of cold orange juice.  Maybe it is my body telling me I need more vitamin C or maybe it is a comfort drink, I am not sure, but I am sure that it is wonderful.   When I buy orange juice, I try to get Tropicana Orange juice because it is 100% pure orange juice.  Plus 100% of the oranges comes from Florida.   My favorite is Tropicana Orange juice with pulp.  I love the feel of the pulp in the juice.

Did you know that Tropicana is the largest buyer of fruit in Florida?  That is a big statistic to be proud of in this economy.  Florida should be proud.  They purchase around 11.6 billion of oranges from Florida each year.  The growers probably love seeing Tropicana coming.   Tropicana works with 22 different groves throughout central and southern Florida.   Some of the relationships with the groves have been together since the 1960′s.   I love hearing stories about companies that invest back into the communities.  Tropicana is loyal to their growers.

I can remember when I was young, my family took a trip to Florida for vacation.  We stopped at the Florida line and went into the welcome center.  There was a counter set up in the welcome center that served fresh squeezed orange juice.  That taste has stayed with me for years now.  I remember my mom made me stop getting samples.  I am sure I drank orange juice before then, but I can remember the taste, the feel and the smell of the fresh orange juice.  Tropicana reminds me of that day.

As we were leaving the welcome center, I was walking through the sandy grass and walked right on a fire ant bed.  They attacked my legs. I will never forget that feeling of the ants crawling and stinging my legs.  My mom rushed me into the bathroom and washed my legs and killed the ants.   The only good thing that came out of this was, I got to go back to the counter and get another sample of orange juice.

Tropicana is having a sweepstakes right now on Facebook.  If you go and “like” their Tropicana page, you can sign up for their Tropicana Perfect Pick Sweepstakes.  They are sending one lucky person to Sarasota Florida and then 99 winners will get a years worth of orange juice.   The sweepstakes ends on April 20, 2012. While you are on the Facebook page, you can learn more about Tropicana and the growers that grow for them.

You can “like”  here.

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Tropicana blogging program, to earn My SocialMoms Rewards Points. The opinions and ideas expressed here are my own. To read more posts on this topic, click here

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Did you know that May is Mobility Awareness Month?  I know that is a month away but as our organization is in the process of remodeling a building and thinking through ways to make the building handicap friendly, so it caught my interest.

My husband and the contractor and project manager has gone to great lengths to make sure that our building is going to be welcoming to everyone.  Down to the sinks in the bathroom, they have thought through the whole layout.   One thing that I was thinking about this afternoon was vans and how we could transport youth that are in wheel chairs or walkers.   Accessible wheelchair vans are something that I think will be needing in the future.  I think that in order for us to reach out to the community the way we need and want to, we are going to need to have a wheelchair accessible van.

I am so glad there is this awareness on our national calendar.  There is so many days that we go through and we don’t think about the difficulties that people have that are in wheelchairs go through.  I look forward to making the month of May a focus on being aware of making the mobility of all easier.

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Once a year it is so important that you check your credit report and what is making up the credit scores.   You always need to keep a check on them.  It is so easy now days for someone to swipe your credit information and open accounts .  Some times you can find out about it by the lender / store calling you but a lot of times you would never know until you go to get a line of credit or you check your report.

My mom passed away this past October and at the beginning of the year we were contacted by Best Buy saying that her credit line that she just applied for was declined.  Other than this was very upsetting, it was a little frustrating to know that someone was able to get my mother’s social security number and try to open accounts under her name.  I believe the only reason why we found out about this is because the Social Security office has already placed mom’s social security number as inactive but if this was not the case, she could have had several accounts opened up under her name and we would have never known.

I am so thankful that I have been in the habit for the past few years to just check our credit .  I always use a free credit score site to check my credit score that gives me all 3 reporting agencies to compare.

Pick a date on the calendar and make that your anniversary to check your credit scores.

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Having your identity stolen can be devastating.   It can take a long time to get everything cleaned up and back to good standing.  Having identity theft protection is becoming more and more needed.  You have to be very careful in how you handle your financial stuff along with your personal information.

I have a friend that at two different times this past year her bank card number has been stolen.  The first time, it shut her bank account down for several days and the second time it was a little less time but still a hassle.  Let alone being embarrassed when trying to purchase something and her card would not work.   It was amazing at how many charges the theft had made before it was caught and how bold the thief was in the purchases.   Let’s just say they had a blast on the card number.

There is a company called IdentityHawk that helps safe guard consumers with their identity, property and their good names.  This company allows you to check your standings and the over all health of your identity.  After seeing the issues that my friend went through along with another friend that had to hire a lawyer to take care of the issues, I am beginning to think it would not be a bad idea to have a company that scans my activity on a regular basis and alerts me when something is wrong.

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Content by Kyle Lowe

Ever since my husband and I hooked up our direct tv Naperville, our kids have been doing poorly in school. I feel terrible about letting their grades slip, and they are in for a rude awakening. When they get home from school they will not be allowed to watch any TV or play until they can prove to me they have completed every single assignment. I have asked their teachers to send me a weekly list of everything they need to get done so that they can’t get anything past me. I am also taking away all of their video games until they prove to me that they are responsible. I want them to be good students and know that school comes first in their lives. My husband and I never got to go to college, so we want them to do better. We know good habits start young, so we feel responsible for making them understand that school is a top priority. I’m glad I caught this problem early, because now I will know better how to deal with them.

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Ok Moms do you agree that you can never go to the bathroom or take a bath without being joined by almost everyone in the house?  It is so true. I remember when I was growing up we had one bathroom and when mom would go to the bathroom we would all congregate in or outside the door because there was always something we needed to ask or tell her.  Then when I had kids it all started happening to me.  But let me ask this questions…. why is it that when the dads all go to the bathroom, they can hide out in there for hours and the kids don’t bother them?  hmmm.  I think the bathroom is the hub of the home, especially when mom is in it.

Clorox has created a site that moms can go and “hide” in for a while that is packed full of fun called The Clorox Lounge.  You can be entertained by Comic relief, contest, savings ideas, and exciting give-a-ways. Sherri Shepherd, a comedian and mom hosts the site and if you have heard her, you know she is hilarious. You can see a You Tube video below of Sherri talking about The Clorox Lounge.

The Clorox Lounge is kicking off with the Last Comic Sitting competition that is going on for 8 weeks and they are giving away $10,000 to someone…. I would love $10,000.  I might have to build me a “woman cave” with $10,000.   Be sure to jump over and enjoy the site along with signing up for the giveaway.  I think Clorox has hit the nail with this site.   A great place for moms to get a break.

Speaking of break…..we moms do need a break for it might drive us to do things a little crazy.  I remember when my kids were little I tried so hard to introduce them to different foods.  I was determined to get them to like brussels sprouts.   They hated them, but I would tell them they had to eat one brussels sprout to each year they were in age.  It got really bad when my 10 year old had to eat 10.  That is when I realized, I needed a break. HA!

Jump over and “like” Clorox Ode to the Commode Facebook page to stay up to date.

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