Tag Archives: #Sponsored

March 19, 2018 · 11:16 pm

Cheers For “American Wrestler: The Wizard”, A True Underdog to Champion Film

I always laugh when anyone tells me someone is an “overnight success”, because nothing could be further from the truth. What they fail to see is the years of hard work, failures, perseverance and sheer determination that fueled the success they see. The successful person they see did not arrive at that level overnight. That false perception, is what causes so many to give up and quit pursuing their dream when they don’t see immediate results.

If you delve into the life of any successful person, you will find out just how hard they had to work, and all the challenges they had to rise above to reach their goals. As a parent, one of the things I stress the most with my children, is the importance of having a “failure is not an option” attitude if they want to reach their goals, because things will get hard. If a person doesn’t have that type of attitude, it is easy to give up, so it is important to know, failing is not a bad thing.

Failures can be great things even blessings because, they show us what is not working and give us time to readjust our sails and find a better way. A failure is not an indication that we should give up our dream, it is just a detour, a time to regroup and rethink our strategy. We often learn, that are failures are just a catalyst that help us find a better way. The only way to truly fail is to give up an quit.

The story of someone who faces extreme adversity and achieves great success is very empowering and uplifting. How many of us like to root for the underdog? Most of us do, and that is why movies with that type of plot are so popular. This weekend we sat down to watch American Wrestler: The Wizard, a movie based on the life of Ali Afshar.

In the film 17-year-old Ali Jahani, escapes certain death in the mine fields of Iran by relocating to a small town in California and living with his uncle.

The film takes place in the late 70’s and Ali faces a great deal of bullying and discrimination in his new school and community. He also finds himself at odds with his uncle one night, causing him to storm off into the night. Walking around town he goes up to the school and watches a wrestling match. Since he was too small for football and too short for basketball, Ali tries out for the wrestling team and makes it.

Making the team ends up being his saving grace in more ways than one. The first way it helps Ali, is that it creates common ground between him and his uncle. Ali’s uncle was going to send him back to Iran until he saw that Ali made the wrestling team. When his uncle hears Ali made the team, he tells him that he was a wrestler and begins to train Ali. Ali is thrilled that he gets to stay in the United States and begins to build a bond with his uncle through training.

Working hard and training hard, Ali becomes a star on the wrestling team and earns himself the admiration and respect of his teammates. All of that is shattered by following a tragic piece of advice his uncle offered. When all seemed to be lost, he found a way to rise above a desperate situation and once again regain his place as a star of the wrestling team. Ali’s uncle also found acceptance as the associate coach and mentor to not only Ali but all the boys on the team.

Things were going so well, until out of nowhere, tragedy strikes. Ali’s world is turned upside down, but he has to stay strong and find a way to not only succeed but to triumph above everything. This movie had us on the edge of our seat at the end rooting for Ali in one of his biggest challenges. This inspirational film drives home the message, that you can’t give up when things get tough.

The actor who plays Ali’s uncle is none other than, Ali Afshar himself. The movie also stars Jon Voight, William Fichtner and George Kosturos as Ali. You can buy this movie now and learn more on the film’s website. Let me know if you have seen this movie or if you have plans to. I would love to hear what you thought about it.

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Filed under Family, Movies, Review

Tagged as #Sponsored, American Wrestler:The Wizard, Champion, Film, Movie, review, True Story, Underdog

February 26, 2017 · 10:49 pm

10 Reasons to Dehydrate Food

Preserving foods by drying has been done since ancient times. For many centuries, it was the only way to ensure foods didn’t go bad for long trips or during warm weather. It’s still done today, only it’s more of a useful, pleasant hobby than a necessity. We now have electric dehydrators that remove moisture to create stable, nutritious snacks that some people prefer to the original food. Here you’ll find some of the many benefits of a food dehydrator.

Portable

When your food has been dried, you can bring healthy snacks along wherever you go. Whether you’re driving or seeing the sites, putting a bag of dried foods in your purse or pocket gives you something healthy to snack on and keep up your energy. When in the outdoors, you can even take along dried soup ingredients and add hot water for a tasty meal.

Replace salty snacks

It’s now well-known that most store-bought snacks like chips and crackers contain a high amount of salt. They will also contain unhealthy preservatives that add toxins to the body. By drying fruits or vegetables, you can create a nutritious snack. Weaning your family off potato chips and cookies might be easier than you think if you’re offering delicious banana or apricot chips.

No chemicals

There is no need to worry about preservatives, dyes, or other chemicals. The only thing you need is a dehydrator and almost any food. Cutting your favorite fruits or meats into bite-sized slices creates a chewy dried snack that will retain its natural taste, vitamins, and minerals for months to come.

Efficient storage

Drying food can decrease its size to as little as one sixth of its original volume. Nor is there any need to make room in the freezer or refrigerator. After dehydrating, a few pounds of apples will easily fit into a sandwich bag. You can seal it up and tuck it away in a corner of the pantry to snack on long after fresh apples have spoiled.

Raw foods

Diets based on eating a majority of foods in the raw state are very popular. It makes perfect sense, since boiling and other means of cooking tends to destroy a good percentage of vitamins. This begins to happen as low as 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Dehydrators can preserve your food at even lower temperatures, which means you’re also preserving all the natural fiber and nutrition.

Reduction of waste

The ability to preserve excessive grocery purchases and even leftovers not only save you money but can save time. Dehydrated meals can be easily warmed up again with water, broths, or soup stock. Reducing waste also means lower demand, lower commercial production, and less stress on the environment. You can even go as far as growing your favorite herbs or vegetables in your own garden. You’ll never have to buy them again if you dry and preserve the overage.

Save on costs

Dehydration eliminates spoilage and waste so that you save money over time on every perishable food item you buy. You can also save money in other ways:
* Buy in bulk and dry the excess for storage.
* Purchase your own fresh herbs and dry them for flavoring.
* Provide dried fruits for delicious snacks instead of sugary commercial items.
* Make healthy snack mixes to put out at gatherings or give as gifts.

Consistent quality

With your own dehydrator, you have control over what foods you choose to dry, how much, and how often. You can cut and separate them into any portion sizes you like, or add some lemon juice or cinnamon for a little zest. You can serve your own dried foods to guests and family with the confidence that they are perfectly healthy treats with no hidden ingredients.

Buy during peak seasons

You can save more money and reduce waste even more by stocking up on fresh local produce. During the harvest season, pick up staples like tomatoes, blueberries, or even melons at roadside stands. These are generally fresher and healthier than the big chain grocery store produce that’s trucked in from all over the country. Dry them and you’ll have a delicious food source all winter long.

Fun family projects

Dehydrating and saving healthy snacks is something the whole family can get behind. It’s not hard to do with a little supervision. Everyone in the household can pick their favorite foods and take part in preparing, drying, and storing them right in the kitchen on those cold or rainy days. You might even come up with a new mouth-watering recipe for beef jerky.

Dehydrators are a convenient and simple way of preserving natural foods. In modern times it’s become the best and cheapest option. You can repurpose dried ingredients any way you like. Dehydrating food can easily become part of a healthier new lifestyle.

This is a sponsored guest post and may or may not represent the views of Mommy Ramblings

Kitchen Renovations-What You Should Know

Kitchen renovations are much different today than they ever have been before. It used to be that when someone did a kitchen renovation or a remodel the only real options they had were the design and architectural features of the room such as arches/doorways, walls/ceilings, and flooring or additional space options.

These days, though, you have many other elements you can add such as smart appliances and products for a smartly designed kitchen. If you are curious about the different smart kitchen ideas available, consider reading the article below for some cool and technology driven ideas to make your kitchen more forward friendly, convenient and comfortable.

Smart Appliances For A Smart Kitchen

Most appliances in the kitchen are already pretty darn smart in terms of timers and knowing when to stop cooking a product. But, you also have a lot of other different “smart” options available to you, such as:

– Touchscreen Stove Tops: Not only is this a really cool type of cooking technology, but it can also be used in a kitchen with children as well, since it’s a very safe product to use. Essentially the cook top uses conduction to heat things like pots and pans. But, the other parts of the stove stay cool – to the touch. You can actually use the touch screen to browse the internet, look up recipes to make, check out cookbooks in digital format and more.

– Home Chat: This cool little app is meant for specific things like the fridge. It will essentially keep track of items and ingredients inside the refrigerator and you can ask it questions such as: Do we have butter and it will reply back via text yes two sticks or no we do not. This is really efficient because you can use the app even out of the house.

Smart Fridge

This is a really cool option but in the near future, we will also have an even cooler option (it’s a concept right now) that will actually order food, keep track of what’s in the fridge and alert you when you are running low, and do a plethora of other cool options. For now, though, you have these smart refrigerators. The LCD display allows you to watch TV, listen to the radio, check the news, leave memos for yourself or other family members, check out the calendar and leave notes on specific days and more. It’s quite expensive, at around $3600 but if you want a tech driven kitchen, this might be the addition for you… for now anyway, until that higher tech fridge comes along!

Pair 3D Design Application

Okay, this is a really cool app and unlike any other smart application above. It’s only an Apple App right now, though. Essentially what you do is you bring up the camera on your iPhone and the app will give you different furniture options for that camera viewer. In the camera viewer, you can see how that piece of furniture or an appliance would fit in your space, what it would look in a 3D manner and more. The app can also be used by brands and businesses as well. But it’s also a great design tool for home owners that allow you to set up a room in real-time.

Radiant Flooring

In a lot of cases, you see radiant flooring done in a bathroom. But, since more and more people are also using porcelain in the kitchen as well (its durable, budget friendly and beautiful) some manufactures have started to make radiant flooring options for the kitchen too. This is a perfect option for any flooring in the kitchen, but especially stone or tile like porcelain because even though it does have a lot of benefits, one of the disadvantages are that it can get quite cool to the touch in the winter. In order to fix this, you can use radiant heating underneath the flooring to warm it up before you ever set foot on it.

Radiant flooring can be set on a timer so that it turns on every morning before you wake up to make the floor nice and toasty so when you come down for breakfast or coffee the floor is already heated up. You can also use Wi-Fi with a lot of radiant flooring systems so as soon as you wake up you can turn on your app – and have the floor heated so by the time you make it downstairs it’s warmed. Tile flooring like porcelain is a great conductor of heat. In fact, the two best materials to use a radiant floor on are porcelain and wood. Porcelain is a really good option though because it won’t expand as it warms and cools which means it won’t crack which means your flooring will last for longer!

There you have it, kitchen renovation ideas that you should know before you start your project.

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Filed under Guest Post, Home, Home & Garden, Home Improvement, Sponsored

Tagged as #Sponsored, DIY, Guest Post, home, home improvement, Kitchen, Remodeling, Renovations

April 21, 2016 · 9:04 pm

3 Main Reasons Why Parents Should Write a Will

A will is a legal document that specifies who will acquire your real estate properties, cars, bank accounts, jewelry, and the like when you die. It is up to you to whom you will leave all of your belongings, just be sure that they are eligible to receive and that everything goes through a clear legal process.

As for parents writing a will and testament is not all about the properties, rather the assurance that your children will still be well taken care of when you are gone. You need to choose trusted people in your family to look after them in case anything happens to you.

Here are some of the reasons why parents should draft a will for their kids:

To avoid family disputes

Will and testament disputes happen to even among the closest part of the family. Challenging a will implies that one party thinks he deserves more than what is written in the will, hence if one of your children challenge your will with your other kids, their relationship might suffer from irreparable damage and as parent, this is difficult to imagine. That is why, it is important that you properly and carefully write a will to make sure your children get equal shares of the property you’d leave and avoid any family disputes in the future.

To have a trusted guardian to look after your children

The most difficult task for parents when drafting a will is choosing a guardian for their children. It is really tough to decide on this matter, but you have to do it anyway. Your children’s future well-being is at risk when unexpected things happen to you. This is the reason why you need to choose a person who you think will take good care and love your children when you are gone. Also, it is essential to name a trustee, someone who will manage any properties you pass on to your children, in your will.

To make distributing assets easier

The problem about not having a will is that the probate court might send away inquiry letters to financial institutions to handle the deceased’s financial situation. Additionally, your relatives may be requested to give out financial documents. By writing a will and testament beforehand, you can prevent all the paperwork and footwork your relatives will exert. You will save them from all the hassle and stress that they might acquire from processing various documents. Having a clear proof of distribution of your assets for the court to see will be easier and more convenient for everyone involved.

It is your obligation as a parent to secure your kids future and drafting a will as early as now is the first step in keeping your kids safe in case something unexpected happens. Nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow, so might as well be ready by securing a will.

Many people think that a will is unnecessary and just a waste of money, but no one knows the future and you can leave your kids behind in an instant. Would you rather leave them with problems or investments? As parents, we obviously know the answer.

This is a sponsored guest post and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mommy Ramblings.

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Filed under Guest Post, kids, Life Stages, Sponsored

Tagged as #Sponsored, children, Guest Post, Parents, wills

December 16, 2015 · 7:59 pm

Best Housewarming Gift Ideas to Make You the Best Guest in the Party

Attending housewarming parties is always fun and exciting. You share the excitement of the family, couple, or perhaps a single person (who is most likely rich for buying a house for himself). It is a joyous celebration! And you surely do not want to come empty-handed. It just does not feel right even though the couple might probably include in the invitation that no gifts needed. You know that’s just being polite. In reality, they would love to receive gifts, especially good ones. Well, do not be blinded by the word good. Good does not necessarily mean expensive. So there is no need to panic or worry.

Here are some best housewarming gift ideas that will make you the best guest at the party.

Customized welcome mat – living in a new home can be surreal. And often, house owners feel very sentimental and particular. They want everything to be meaningful and special. Giving them a customized welcome mat will surely be a great idea. Make sure to include something that will represent the family or probably their names on it.
Custom address stamp – couples or new house owners usually send out tons of thank you notes or cards to inform people of their new address. A custom address stamp will be very helpful for them. Also, it’s just too cute! They’ll love it without a doubt.
Personalized cutting board – it is common to give kitchenware or appliances for housewarming parties however, if you want to be remembered, make sure to come up with unique idea. How about a personalized cutting board? Include a humorous message that will remind them of you. Most moms who love to cook are particular about cutting boards – so this is a winning idea indeed.
Fire extinguisher – make sure to extend your care for their new home. Giving them a fire extinguisher will help them prepare for emergency cases. This is a very important thing but most house owners tend to overlook its importance. So be the one to remind them how important it is to have fire extinguisher in the house.
Customized Christmas ornament – Christmas holiday is just around the corner. Come up with a customized Christmas ornament that they can display on their new house.
Scented candles – they surely want to keep the house smelling fresh and fragrant all the time. Giving scented candles will be good gift idea to keep their house a comfortable haven.
Cookbook – for newly married couple, a cookbook gift will be nice. It will assist the wife to cook delicious foods for the husband and the entire family. Make sure to choose a really good cookbook. If you have personal recipes you want to share then you should compile everything and come up with a personalized cookbook.

The hosts of the party will definitely love these gifts. They will definitely think that they made the right choice inviting you to the housewarming party.

Thinking of buying your own house? Australia is perfect country to raise a family. Lend Lease’s house and land packages in Adelaide are wonderful with great neighborhood and nearby parks and walking trails for outdoor activities. Who knows, you might be the next host of a housewarming party.

The following is a sponsored guest post and the views expressed do not necessarily express the views or ideas of Mommy Ramblings.

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Filed under Home, Home & Garden, sponsored guest post

Tagged as #Sponsored, Buying, Gift, Guest, Guest Post, house, Housewarming, New Home, party, Real Estate

August 4, 2014 · 10:56 pm

Sprint Sound Session With The HTC One & Jermaine Paul!!! #SprintMusic, #SprintMom

“I participated in an Influencer Activation Program on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Sprint Sound Session. I received a sample of the HTC One to facilitate this review and a promotional item to thank me for participating.”

Mommy Ramblings was so pleased to be invited to a Sprint Sound Session Event in NYC a few weeks ago. The Event was held in Manhattan at the elegant Lambs Club which is right in Times Square.

Times-Square

Lambs-Club-NYC

Lambs-Club-NYC Inside

Once inside we were greeted greeted by representatives of Mom Central who directed us to the event room and outdoor patio where we were introduced to reps from Sprint and HTC while enjoying delicious appetizers and drinks.

Sprint Mom Central mC rep

Sprint Mom Central. - 32

The conversation was bright, welcoming, and informative focusing on the HTC One M8 Harman Kardon Edition phone. The HTC representative demonstrated the fabulous features of the limited edition phone. He explained that the phone has dual frontal stereo speakers with built-in amplifiers and exclusive Harman Kardon AE-S headphones with extended bass response. The phone features Clari-Fi which is a revolutionary Harman technology that restores all types of compressed digital music and “rebuilds” what was lost in compression. Clari-Fi gives new life to compressed media files. Music simply sounds better!

sprint htc one

The HTC One M8 gives you the ability to take truly stunning portrait photography and pictures with unique, fun and creative special effects. In a smartphone first, HTC’s Duo Camera features a dual lens that captures depth of field information and provides an entirely new set of editing tools. After taking a photo, the UFocus capability uses the depth information collected by the dual lens camera to give you professional-looking portraits. Great for bloggers who are always taking pictures!

We then had a wonderful lunch followed by the Sprint and HTC representatives introducing their partnerships and exciting products available through Sprint, including Spotify, and the Harman Kardon sound package. The event ended with a performance by Jermaine Paul, season 2 winner of The Voice. Jermaine performed 3 songs which were awesome and ended with a photo and signing session. It was a very well put together event.

Sprint Reps

Sprint Mom Central-JP

Sprint Sound Sessions is a premium package of music and privileges for Sprint customers and includes:

Spotify – Sprint is giving customers access to Spotify’s catalogue of more than 20 million songs. Spotify allows users to play music on demand, create playlists, discover new music, share tracks with their friends, listen to songs offline, and listen to music without ads across multiple devices.
Sprint Music Plus – Sprint’s official music store and player for music tracks, albums, ringtones and ringback tones.
Music Live – an immersive and interactive experience that is continuously updated with the latest music news, current hits, new music and featured services. The “always-on” live experience enables customers to discover and engage with services that include Spotify, Music News Feed, Top Songs, NextRadio (FM Radio) – Music Downloads, Ringback Tones, Ringtones and ID-a-Song services.
NextRadio – an application for listening to local FM broadcasts on customers’ smartphones.

Sprint Mom Central Gift Bag Full

Sprint Jermaine Paul Gift Bag

Sprint Sound Sessions is the ultimate choice for customers who want a more complete and active music experience. If music is something you take seriously then you will want Sprint for you wireless provider. There are even discounted Spotify plans for Sprint Framily Plan members beginning with a 6 month free premium membership and then paying only $5-$8 a month depending on family size.

We take our music very seriously so we are really impressed with this phone. The phone also included a set of Harman/Kardon ear buds at a value of $149 complete with volume, play/pause buttons, we just love these! The styling of the phone is super sharp with its black finish accented with champagne gold. Just by looking at the phone you know it’s special! We love all the features but the sound quality is one of the best! Truly a dream come true for music lovers!

HTC 2