A Cowboy’s Wife

Moving and busy, won’t blog til my internet is working at the new house…pass it on.

Not so wordless but my man made this necklace pendant for my swap partner during the local & fair trade swap.  He put her initials.  It’s the first one he’s ever made.  I thought he did good.

Get it?  Never mind………Well, this is one hot piece of technology folks!  I have been playing with one of these TI (Texas Instruments) Nspire calculators for the last couple of weeks and WOW!  You see, my son who is a freshman this year happens to have Algebra.  He really has to work hard to pass his classes so Math is not a subject that comes easy to him.  On top of that, he’s deathly afraid of failing because that would mean no more sports and this is what motivates him in the first place to pass his classes.

When the package arrived, I opened it up right away to find this calculator, the extra snap in keyboard, software and lots of paperwork & manuals.  I have never messed with a calculator of this caliber so I was extremely shocked to see my 12yr old sitting there showing me how to do things on it.  Apparently this one is WAAAAY more fancy than the one he uses at school but with similar concepts.  We both were absolutely fascinated with it.

THE APPEARANCE

The size of the calculator is somewhat large but that seems normal to me considering it’s loaded with jaw dropping features.  The color of this Nspire calculator has come a long way from the black basic look.  Very nice blue & white colors give it a much more appealing look.  The  screen rocks.  It’s large in size the high resolution makes it super easy to read.  It has a slide-on cover that will slide on the back for safe keeping.  The highly innovative keypad allows for less used functions, like letters, to fit in between the primary buttons.  It’s very obvious what each buttons does which makes the keypads easy to read, even for a beginner.  So don’t worry, you won’t feel intimidated at all by this powerful gadget;)

THE FUNCTIONS

The new split-screen feature allows an equation to be viewed in its ordinary algebraic form, on a graph, in spreadsheet form, or with notes – simultaneously on the same screen.  There are some amazing graphing going on here people.  Your kids can play around with these graphs to give them an idea of how it will look on paper.

Since not every classroom has adapted to this new keypad, Nspire has created a keyboard that you can swap out with the primary one that features the TI-84. (like I mentioned earlier about my son using an older model in the room) .  It’s as easy as snapping it in.   I also finally discovered that dragging involves holding the center “Click button” while pressing the arrow keys on the “NavPad”.  This was a slight challenge for me at first but I figured it out quickly.  You can actually grab a point on a graph for example and move it down or wherever.  VERY cool.

Some other things that it can do that I haven’t had the chance to try are:

As a parent, my favorite function of course is being able to check my son’s answers.  I can type in the problem with his answer and it will say true or false.  LOVE IT!  Something that my husband found useful was being able to enter in sizes of boards and such and the size of what he wanted to build and it told him exactly how many boards he needed to build it.  I realize that I didn’t explain that too well but my man is not around right now for me to ask again but surely you get it a little right?..LOL

There really is so much more that I cannot fit here into this review.  It’s an amazing piece of equipment for both teachers and students. The only con I could find is the manual guide was difficult for me to understand.  I found that actually using it through trial and error, I easily picked up on how the different functions worked.

I love it, my kids love it, and I am very confident that with the help of this Texas Instruments Nspire Calculator, my son will pass Algebra and other math subject that comes his way!

Thanks so to Family Review Network for bringing this awesome opportunity to review it my way!

If any of you know me at all, I am such a Bare Escentuals gal so when some awesome goodies arrived, I knew I had to share it with you all!

First, let me say that every since I started using BE Mineral Makeup, my skin has has changed greatly.  I’m proned to acne unfortunately and BE has reduced my breakouts.  Second thing I love is that a lot of people don’t think I’m wearing makeup when I really am.  I love this because I am really getting the coverage but without the caked on dripping feeling of that other stuff.  OH, and did I mention that you can sleep in it?  Well, you can.  In fact, I’ve noticed a softer feeling face in the mornings when I do leave it on through the night.  It’s all natural people!

I have my favorites from Bare Escentuals and here they are:

SMOKEY EYES gives you that sultry look and comes complete with the eye colors, the brush and a tutorial so you apply it correctly and don’t come out looking like a raccoon:)

MINERAL VEIL is my absolute favorite product!  Remember how I reduced the noise in this picture?  Well, that’s sort of what Mineral Veil does.  You brush it over your face and it gives this soft, smooth look.  Freakin’ love it!

MULTI-TASKING BISQUE is what I use as my concealer.  You can use this for other things too, that’s why it’s called a mulit-tasking bisque.

The brushes are fabulous and worth every cent.

So guess what!  Bare Escentuals was nice enough to send me some awesome stuff to give to you and keep for myself.  Since I know that many of you haven’t tried BE, today is your day!  If you’re new to Bare Escentuals, I’ve got something for you to try and if you’re already a BE fan, then I’ve got something for you as well!

There will be a total of 13 winners!  Here’s the list:

6 Full Size Buxom Lip Glosses in the shades of Amber, Candi, Bambi, Trixie, and Dolly.  To see the shade of each gloss, check them out here.  These are valued at $18 each.

5 Trial Sizes of the Foundation with a FREAKIN’ CUTE mini Kabuki Brush to apply it!!!

1 Starter Kitc of EXTREME Glimmers with the colors Extreme Silver, Extreme Plum, Extreme Bronze!

1 Wild Spirit Starter Kit with 5 pieces. 2 Eyecolors, Liner Shadow, Blush, and CUTE mini Jessica Buxom! I almost kept this;)

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me 2 things:

1) Have you ever used Bare Escentuals before?

2) Which would you like to win?

If you are new to BE, I would love for you to try the foundation, in which case, I would also need the color you think would suit you most.  These are the 2 most common colors used with Med. Beige being number one. To learn more about the shades of everything, just go to the links above.

All this ends on Sept. 26th!

If you want to earn more entries, blog about it, stumble it, and/or twitter it.  LEAVE EACH ENTRY IN A SEPARATE COMMENT!

I had several ask for up close pictures of my hummingbirds…well, here they are:)