Five Rubber Duckies is a book in my house that gets read often. It is just as popular with Will (my one year old) as with Madison (my 4 year old). Will enjoys the books for several reasons. First, he likes the duckies. The pages aren’t like normal book pages; they are half pages with ducks on top. The pages are thick cardboard, so even if he chews on them (and he has), they will not get wrecked. He also can’t rip them. Madison likes this book because we can work on her math skills. As you turn each page, there are two lines which rhyme. It is a story about duckies, and as you turn the page, we lose a ducky (have no fear — they don’t need foreclosure help, they are just busy doing other things).  It is a cute story and ends with 1 rubber ducky being left with a clean baby.  My kids completely adore this book and I highly recommend it!

I happened to catch Oceans Thirteen the other night on HBO and ended up staying up half the night.  I am a huge fan of the Oceans Trilogy, and this movie does not disappoint at all.  Basically, the boys shut down the venture of a backstabbing hotelier (Al Pacino) because the guy double-crossed the Reuben (Elliott Gould).  By the boys, I mean George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Don Cheadle, Shabao Qin, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, and Carl Reiner.  Without giving too much away, I want to say that Ocean’s Thirteen is more like Ocean’s Eleven.  It has the fast pace needed to keep your attention yet you know the guys won’t be looking for jobs in San Francisco. They should be set for a while again.

I recently came across a blog that I have to pass on.  It’s called the Mom2Mom Lounge.  The first thing that grabbed my eye was the clean design.  It is so organized that you can easily find what you are looking for.  The design is also pleasing to the eye (I can’t stand the ones that make me want to take forks and stick them into my eyes).  This blog shows that less is better.  Navigating the blog is super easy too. I love the Discover New Sites section.  You never know what other great finds you will find using that.

The style of writing on Mom2Mom Lounge is awesome.  You feel as if you are having a conversation with the blog author rather than being talked to.  She does employ some advertising (don’t we all?), but she blends it in so it does not distract from the content.  She uses the Comment Luv plugin, so if you do comment you will get some linky love juice (and who doesn’t want a backlink?)

All in all, Mom2Mom Lounge is a blog you should go check out.  She is going everything right — good design, engaging her readers, etc.  These are things you want to see with all blogs and don’t. Head over there and tell me what you think!

This is a show moms will enjoy as much as their kids. Lazytown is was created and is filmed in Iceland. The creator is Magnus Scheving. He is both a professional athlete and aerobic champion there (and he’s really good looking when not in his Sportacus costume). The show is about the struggle of being lazy and being healthy. Some of the characters you meet on this show include Stephanie (she’s the pink haired girl), Sportacus (the good looking health conscious superhero), and Robbie Rotten (the villian who likes to be lazy and eat unhealthy. These are all human characters. The other characters are a mix of live action puppets and computer generated animation. The main goal of this show is to promote healthy eating and lots of activity. For example, instead of looking for cruise deals, Sportacus would be off swimming. There are many learning goals that this show achieves (taken from the Noggin website):

• Value healthful habits, physical activity, and joy of effort
  • Benchmarks supported in particular include:
    • Recognize physical outcomes of healthful habits and being active.
    • Appreciate the fun inherent in physical activity.
• Cultivate healthful eating habits
  • Benchmarks supported in particular include:
    • Eat balanced diet.
    • Understand food is necessary for health and growth.
• Explore a variety of movements, indoors and outdoors
  • Benchmarks supported in particular include:
    • Run, climb, jump, balance, hop, and swing safely
    • Express self with controlled movements.
    • Practice.
• Interact with movable objects
  • A benchmark supported in particular is:
    • Bounce, roll, catch, throw, and kick balls.

If you want to get your kids to play outside more, have them watch this show.

You always hear that the Unites States is behind in fashion, and once again it has happened. The latest rage in England is the Fit Flop. Yes, Fit Flops not flip flops. These actually launched last summer there and sold out! These shoes (I think I can call them that) are the next best thing since sliced bread. Not only are they fashionable, they help work out your legs and butt. Now, who can’t use that (and this has to be perfect excuse to buy another pair of shoes)? Since all you have to do is walk around in these to work out, it is the easiest workout you will ever do. Fitflops contain micro wobbleboard™ technology which makes this all possible. They come in five colors (black, chocolate, navy, silver, and red), so you can easy match your wardrobe. For US customers, these shoes are a bit on the pricey side ($96 including shipping). However, that is definitely cheaper than a gym membership!

I am a person who never ever knows where she is. I do not have the internal sense of direction that everyone else seems to have. My guy instinct is usually not the right away. I have this problem here in Chicago (which I have an excuse since I did not grow up here), but I am still just as lost in Green Bay, Wisconsin (where I did grow up). When we were on vacation in Arizona, I had no idea whatsoever where we were. We drove up and down the main drag there several times, and I could never tell you which direction our hotel was. I swear, Bill wants to pull his hair out at times due to my inability to locate where I am. That is why I personally love GPS units. We have our own personal portable one (and yes, we did bring it to Arizona with us).

However, I use to work at Schneider National when I lived in Green Bay. They had a GPS tracking system (not sure if was the GPS Insight vehicle tracking system or not) that they used. The GPS devices were attached to all the cabs of the trucks we had. At all times, we knew where each one of the semis were. We also were able to track to make sure they were taking their breaks when they were suppose to and they were going the speed limit (and we had a rule that they couldn’t go over 55 mph. It was pretty easy to determine when they were over that internal speed limit that Schneider has set). I know when I left, they were looking at possibly outfitting all of the trailers also. That was going to be a tad bigger feat, since we had trailers all over the country. However, they didn’t even know where all their trailers even were!

This is just one of many uses for using GPS Insight. It costs around $1.50 - $2 per day per vehicle, but you can see what your employees are really doing. I can definitely see this being used in not only the trucking industry, but also in sales, the trades (like HVAC, plumbing, etc) , delivery vehicles, etc. The best part is that almost anyone can install this on their own on their vehicles. They also have GPS Insight support wiki for customers and a Blog for GPS vehicle tracking too. They make it easy for the customer to install, customize, and get help for any issues that may come up. For the business minded person, this is definitely something you should take a look at for your company.

You all know that I am super weird. Well, those of you who know me know that. When I come across Blog Stuff as cool as this, I have to let you know about it. Ever wonder how much alcohol it would take you to kill you? Or how much your dead body is worth? How about your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse? You can even take a Disney quiz (which I did remarkably well with). To completely gross yourself out, you can look at how many germs on your keyboard.

2,786,280How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Ummm, yeah that is very nasty. If you want all of these cool badges on your blog, you definitely need to check out Just Say Hi. There is just so much cool stuff. You should definitely make sure that you have at least an hour of time before you head there, because you can easily lose track of time. In case you didn’t already know this:

84%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?