What are you waiting for? The Apocalypse? The coming of the one who shall not be named? Go ahead…. do it now, wrap that damn gift and don’t look back.  LOL!  I say this only because I’ve discovered the beautiful world of “Printing a Shipping Label Now” at the USPS.com website!

So what are you waiting for…. print a shipping label now!

https://cns.usps.com/go

watch?v=uXkNu9klFr4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

There is nothing like French House Remixes to me. … and you ask why? Simple Answer: Whatever we do, the French has to perfect it. Take Jazz, we brought it to them and then they lavished our artists with a creatively decadent lifestyles and mounds of pure unadulterated adoration that helped them take their craft to the next level. So when a French pop band makes a hit, and “the Man from Amsterdam – RogerSeventyTwo” remixes it … you have audio bliss. The French for a long time have taken a bite into our pop music culture and turned it on its head.  Reference: Stop Ou Encore / Plastic Bertrand

So let’s talk about Yelle… 

I shall quote Wikipedia (because I love them and what they do!)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelle

Yelle is a French band founded by lead singer and namesake Yelle (Julie Budet) and GrandMarnier (Jean-François Perrier). A third member, Tepr (Tanguy Destable), joined the band before the recording of its debut album. Budet and GrandMarnier began working on music together in 2000. The band came to prominence when it posted an early version of the song “Je veux te voir” on MySpace in September 2005, which later reached the top five in France. The success of the song on MySpace attracted the attention of a record label, which set them to work on its debut album, Pop Up, which was released in 2007. The group’s second album, Safari Disco Club was released in 2011.

I’m not going to pretend I listened to them when they were underground in 2005. I was preparing to do another transatlantic move from England back to the United States, I had DJ Martin Red, Corinne Bailey Rae, Goldfrapp and my own mixes on heavy rotation.

I discovered Yelle while internet surfing when my daughter was asleep in 2010.  I am a remix junkie and someone had did a house remix of one of their earlier songs that totally intrigued me. I loved the sound.  Then I was introduced to a few more remixes via the blog:  http://www.kickkicksnare.com/.  So I officially became a fan of Yelle via remixes.  To date, I have never listened to their original songs or seen their videos. I think I may challenge myself this weekend to seek out all their original versions and give all their music a listen from a “mommy needs music to cook, clean and do laundry ” perspective.

Now let’s talk about the Man from Amsterdam that did the remix… enter ROGERSEVENTYTWO.  Here’s his sound cloud  ( http://soundcloud.com/rogerseventytwo ) and I think I’m about to buy a load of stuff on Beatport >> http://www.beatport.com/. This guy is killer with the remix. I have a “beat crush” on him. Very talented at what he does.

It’s all about the remix with me. I like songs that can be twisted and turned into beautiful, beat heavy things - preferably at 118+ bpm so I can dance aimlessly while hand washing dishes when the kiddo goes to sleep on Friday night. Yes… I have my own very odd Friday Night dance party – with myself – I’m from Chicago – hold your tongue – it’s what I do.

So kudos to Rogerseventytwo for knocking this one out the park and making the play list at my odd Friday night dance session.

Well since I’m stalking youtube at the moment and feeling like Friday is just around the bend, I better make this my start to listen to all of Yelle’s original material this weekend… here is the original video and version of Ce Jeu. I find it to be very pop, 80′s slower version of Goldfrapp… but that’s just me. My mind goes 125 bpm as soon as I wake up, so does my kid. Enjoy the original video.

Au revoir!

1. I am confused about what fat loss, calorie tracker, diet app to use.  (I would like to blame my blog partner @Chicagomom72 for this quaqmire!)

2. I want this fat off my person because essentially, I am 172lbs (5’9 in height) and I should be 145lbs. I am 1.18 of the person I want to be. That is too close to 1.25 of a person. That’s bothers me and theorectically if you used pre civil-war law I’m almost close to the equivalent of two slaves (using the 3/4th rule).  Shut it… this is how my mind works. Let’s simplify, I’m an emotional eater and now I’m fat and I don’t want to pinch my own ass. Happy!

No.

We.

Are.

Not.

Me and my ass.

Me and my BIG ass.

Okay, I don’t have a big ass I have a big stomach, but sometimes people mistake it for a front ass.

HOLD YOUR TONGUE.

I’m ranting.

Is this a plea for help?

Yes.

HELP ME!

I’m carb’ing and I can’t get up.

…. wait for it. Wait….. Rant over. 

Okay, seriously please help me out. Tell me what app you use and how much you plan to lose in the new year. Yes, I am going to increase the number of times I see my therapist. That is for another post. Get out my head.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/unclutterer/~3/LUiAZo7AulA/

Okay… I just had to share. Since there is too much talk of the fiscall cliff why not pad your tush with extra savings for the fall.

Credit to @Unclutterer blog… please pay them a visit.

This was a great post by @Curlbox on Instagram. It resonates with me… deep. ~@Efabulous1

Yes.

We love Typography.

@Chicagomom72 loves it a bit more than I do… I consider myself a novice (says @Efabulous1), but I know what looks good and this my friend…. looks FABULOUS!

Check out fffound.com or specifically check out this post for more fabulous design:  http://ffffound.com/image/4493e0901d7df0608c4a0571b2ebd012b7cea7ff

It’s that time of year again, HOLIDAY PHOTO BOOKS. I love them because I can ship them to England at a moments notice to my snookums British ‘kin folks. I found a great deal for you moms and dads that are on the fence about Snapfish:

Free 8×11 Photo books and Free 100 4×6 prints.  I call that a holiday jacket pot of epic Supermom proportions!

http://promo.snapfish.com/bfbabycenter/bfbabycenterdeal/

If you need to give the gift of gorgeous pictures of your child to all of your family members, you’ve hit the lottery online. Go make books and enjoy Snapfish!

~@Efabulous1

This is going to be epic and this is for all the techie, geeky supermoms.

Part 1.

Clutch the pearls Hazel, I’m dropping my Blackberry Torch 9810 for a Motorola Atrix HD

It pains me to type that. No, it does. I have loved Blackberry from the moment I was introduced to it by another friend ( a friend that got into bed with an iPhone and never came out again…. yeesh!).  Let me say this again, I love my Blackberry Torch 9810. It is fabulous… functional… fun… and well, it’s about to die. All the tell tell signs are there! Old text message are starting to pop up for no reason. If I have over 10 notifications from Social Scope and 7 new emails, my available memory goes to like 98MB and then it’s moving slower than a geriatric patience in a jello mold contest. #VerySlowIndeed

So here is my current phone:

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-torch-9800-9810.html

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-torch-9800-9810/phone-specifications.html

It’s fabulous. Touch and QWERTY. Sexy, sleek, dynamic… and dying.

I’m weeping inside.

So yeah, I’m jumping to Android because well… Blackberry 10 is taking too damn long.  I am on Crackberry.com incessantly waiting for more news like people who have watched “The Price is Right” to the point that they dream about winning a new car. It hurts. There are these back handed videos, marketing videos and then I see 2 phones (2???) and they are not coming out until February 2013. I will be 40 years old  March 2013. Waiting on Blackberry 10 is not how I wanted to spend my the last months of the first 2 scores of my life.

Waiting.

And Waiting.

And well… waiting.

I call “UNCLE”!

So then a Black Friday ad flew across my Social Scope feed for the Samsung Galaxy III for $0.96 at Sam’s Club starting at 7am on November 23, 2012.

Holy cousin of Android. $0.96 cents. Are you freaking kidding me? Awesome. I’m in. Yay! 62GB miniSD slot… yes, I’ll have it. Then the mother kicked in …. Take my 4 year old out of her bed and wait in line for this phone because I missed the VIP sale of this phone at the same price on November 18, 2012 where I didn’t have to wait in line. I’ll be a baboon’s sidekick before I drag my kid out to Black Friday. …and So I went completely off of that promotion, but I challenge you wonderful Android loves to stand in line. It’s worth it. 62GB SD slot. SAY NO MORE!

Yet I found myself in a quagmire! I still didn’t have a new phone and I had fallen out of love with my Blackberry. What to do? What to do? What to do @Efabulous1? What do you do?

I READ. I RESEARCH. I COMPARE. I SCORE.

That’s right. Consumers are plonkers because most of them don’t read. Yet, I do. I began a 2 hour quest to find the best possible Android I could afford and would make me happy without standing in a cattle call line like a meth junkie waiting for government cheese. (No disrespect to meth heads or people who like government cheese… I don’t judge!)

So long story short… I found the Motorola Atrix HD (More… click here!).

http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/MOTOROLA-ATRIX-HD/MB886-ATRIX-HD,en_US,pd.html

http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/MOTOROLA-ATRIX-HD/MB886-ATRIX-HD,en_US,pd.html?selectedTab=tab-2&cgid=mobile-phones#tab

So now you are asking yourself… why Droid, why the Motorola Atrix HD?  Let’s start with the comparison and my must haves:

1.  I have to have an SD card. It’s imperative. I’m not totally in the “cloud” as of yet.

2. I wanted to give the Android platform another “go”.

3. The Motorola Atrix beats my Torch 9810, but it can hold its weight with the Samsung Galaxy S III.

Part 2.

Well how do they size up? Torch 9810 vs Atrix HD

Here’s the comparison: http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/RIM-BlackBerry-Torch-9810,Motorola-ATRIX-HD/phones/5143,5718

Synopsis:

HD has a better display, long Talk Time, Dual Core, 1MB of RAM, 8 MP camera, 1080p HD video, Front facing Camera, supports Flash, 4g LTE, 4.0 Bluetooth, it’s a Mobile Hotspot (I had to hack my 9810 to be a mobile hotspot… not cute!) and it has micro HDMI capabilities. Same amount of onboard storage and SD storage of 32GB …. but processor and RAM mop the floor with 9810.

Part 3.

Why didn’t you get the damn Samsung? Atrix HD vs Samsung Galaxy S III

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/Motorola-ATRIX-HD,Samsung-Galaxy-S-II-Skyrocket,Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-AT-T/phones/5718,6515,7131

Synopsis:

Firstly, we all know the S3 is a superior phone but do you know the stats? Click on the aforementioned link and see that I’m not missing much.  Where does the S3 kick the pants off of the Atrix HD? It has a slightly bigger size, but weighs less, Super AMOLED  technology on the display but the HD has TFT. #IJS  S3 is kicking butt and taking names on RAM. 2048 MB RAM and the built in storage is 16GB, Atrix HD only has 8. The SD slot goes up to 64GB, Atrix HD only goes to 32GB. The camera does all this funky and fabulous stuff on the S3, no worries, I’ll get Instagram and some other apps! Front facing camera is 1.9 on S3. Nice. Video on the S3 does DivX and WMV… not so on the Atrix, I can live with that. Twitter is not a built in service on the HD. I can live with that.  And I have no NFC on the Atrix HD.  …. well so… there is not a whole lot different except RAM and Storage.

So that’s why I’m not willing to drag my 4 year old out of bed and wait for the S3 only to be writhing in jealousy and tech manic depression when the S4 comes out. I will use the Atrix HD until my 40th birthday and maybe will like it so much this time next year I will still be writing about my good days going to Droid.

Who knows!

Sometimes hiding from the world on the toilet is good for you…

Puzzles are great for a multitude of reasons! They improve social skills, fine motor skills, cognitive skills and hand-eye coordination.  Puzzles improve a child’s problem solving and reasoning skills.  It is dynamic for teaching children to see “part-whole” relationship.  Improving one’s fine motor skills is the key to writing and properly holding a pen or crayon, puzzles help improve such skills. As with most problem solving activities, puzzles are wonderful at fostering cooperative play.

Remember that the it is the small things in life that leave a lasting impression, have sit and a laugh.. while doing a puzzle with your kids!