This contest is over. We have five winners: Samantha Pruitt, Erma, Julie, Robin, and Jen. Congrats!

Do you like coffee and/or tee?  Then you definitely need to try The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf company.  They have a ton of flavors to pick from, and there is pretty much something there for everyone.  Plus, they have added some holiday flavors!  Some of your holiday choices include Pumpkin Latte & Ice Blended drink, Peppermint Latte & Ice Blended drink, Espresso Mint Chip Ice Blended drink and the Winter Dream Tea® latte.  They also have Limited Edition Holiday Blend Coffee and the Winter Dream Tea. The holiday menu items will be available at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf stores from November 10 through January 6.

If you are looking for a gift for a coffee or tea lover, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf will also have limited edition gift packages including:

* “8 Days of Coffee” — eight 2-ounce bags of medium, dark roast, decaf and flavored ground coffees
* “Tea Quartet” — four of our famous whole leaf teas each in its own box with 5 tea bags
* “Coffee Duet” — a combo package of two popular 8-ounce coffee bags
* “Winter Dream Tea & Mug Set” — featuring a The Coffee Bean logo signature tea mug and popular seasonal tea
* “Holiday Blend & Mug Set” — includes The Coffee Bean logo coffee mug and a the dark and distinctive, rich flavored Holiday Blend Coffee
* “Special Dutch Chocolate & Mug Set” — a signature cocoa mug with the The Coffee Bean logo and our very own rich cocoa mix
* “Warm Winter Cocoas Set” — includes three 8-oz cocoa powder tins in the most popular flavors: Special Dutch™ Chocolate, French Deluxe™ Vanilla and White Chocolate.

If you love coffee or tea (or know someone who does), you definitely need to check them out.  That being said, I have 5 – $5 gift certificates to give out, so you can try them!  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post.  Check out the The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf site and tell me what flavor you’d like to try.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

For 5 additional entries,

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:

<a href="http://lisareviews.com"><img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk258/blm03_photos/125ad-1.png" border="0" alt="Lisa Reviews" /></a>

This giveaway will end on December 17 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US residents. Good luck!

I am all about saving the environment for my kids. However, I just wasn’t ready to jump on the eco-friendly shopping bags just yet.  I didn’t understand how many plastic bags I would save or how many less trip to the car would be made to carry in the groceries.

Ityse has changed me.  It has changed my life.  How, do you ask?  I will never go grocery shopping without these ever again.  Not only are these bags ecofriendly, they are also stylish.  I love that the bag the holds the bags looks just as stylish as any purse out there.  It isn’t obvious that you are saving the enviroment, and well, I like that.  This cute pouch houses 4 mesh bags and 1 black bag.

Did you know that the average family of four goes through around 1,000 bags grocery shopping over the year?  Isn’t that crazy?  Many cities are now either banning plastic bags or charging a 20 cent per bag tax.  In you live in one of the taxing cities, Ityse can easily save you $50 per year.  Best of all, these are made in the US.  Now, what was my turning point?  Look at this:

Now, this was a huge trip, so this was only half of it.  However, as you can see from the first picture, all five bags are full.  I was floored to see how much food was in those bags.  That is over half of my kitchen table.  Plus, everybody at the grocery store wanted to know where I got these bags.  They all loved them.  The girl bagging my groceries was even impressed.  She loved how the bags contoured around what she was putting in them.

I am glad to say that I am now doing my part to save the environment thanks to Ityse.

As I have mentioned before, my family and I take a lot of trips up to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, I live in Chicago, so that is about a four hour drive without hitting any traffic.  This can be a really long drive when you have a four year old and a one year old that you are trying to keep entertained.  There are just so many movies you can watch.  Plus, I like my kids to use their imaginiation, and these Tell Me A Story CDs do just that. Each CD has about 8 stories on it of varying lengths.  The Tell Me A Story CD is about seventy minutes long, and The Tell me A Story 2 CD is about sixty minutes.  I love that each story is told by a different narrator and has its own music.  Let me add, the music on the CDs is awesome.  Needless to say, I was surprised to see that Laura Hall is the composer (If you don’t remember who Laura Hall is, she was on Whose line is it anyway!).  These stories draw both you  and your in.  I often found myself sitting on the edge of my seat wanting to find out what was next.  We took these on our last to trip to Green Bay, and they passed the keep the kids busy test.  Madison (my four year old) actually wanted to listen to them more than once!

If you don’t want your kids sitting in from the of the television set all day and want them to use their imaginiation, you need to get these Tell Me A Story CDs.  They will keep your child both busy and happy!

Why do I love Dragon Naturally Speaking? Let me count the ways . . . .

Ok, so the video doesn’t tell you all ways I love Dragon Naturally Speaking. However, it does show you how easy it is to use the software. Literally, all you have to do is plug in a noise canceling headset to your computer and download the software. You place your cursor where you want to type and away you go. Now, you do have to train the software to your voice. I tend to talk fast, so it had to correct for that. Plus, if you find that it is typing same wrong word, you can train it on that specific word. This isn’t rocket science to figure out (which is good because I have a tendency to NOT read the books or pdf files that comes with software).

I was able to create that video while my kids were up and playing at my feet (and you can tell when they grabbed my leg, because the video starts wobbling. You can also hear them a little too.) However, I did want to show that you can still be involved in doing other things and be able to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. This more than triples my typing speed when I am typing and dealing with my kids (Take the Dragon NaturallySpeaking typing test if you don’t know what your typing speed is). I am actually writing this blog post using the software too. Here is the official video on how this all works:

As I stated in my video, I am finding that I can get a lot more in the little snippets of time I have during the day plus I am able to get way more done at night. I love being able to go to bed before midnight. I love being able to answer emails and do blog posts when I have Will sitting on my lap drinking from his sippy and watching cartoons. I have five blogs, so being able to write more content in less time is a huge plus for me. Plus, anyone who knows me, knows I have no problems talking. I am able to do my freelance work and reports using this also. I will be recommending this to my boss. Beside blogging, I have used it to make my daily lists of what I have to do each day plus some grocery shopping lists too! I am not the only one who thinks it is great, check out this New York Times Review.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is really for anyone who works on a computer. If you talk faster than you type, you need this. If you want to be more efficient in your work, you need this. If you just want a new toy to play with, you DEFINITELY need this. Time is money, and the time you save from using Dragon NaturallySpeaking makes it worth every penny.

I am going to let you all in on a little secret that I am doing to do for Christmas this year. See the picture on the left? Those are stamps. I made them over at PictureItPostage and will be affixing them to all my Christmas cards this year. Tell me that isn’t the cutest thing you have ever seen?  There are just so many uses for these stamps.  You can do what I did and put them on Christmas cards.  However, I can see them being used for baby announcements, engagements, holidays and graduations.  You can’t make an invitation more customized and personal than this.  Plus, you don’t see stamps like this too often.  That makes it unique, and people will love it!  You will be the talk of everyone you send these too!

How hard is it to make these?  It is not hard at all.  PictureItPostage allows you to either create these stamps on their site or you can download a program, and you can create them on your desktop.  You can customize the background color and what color the text is on them too!  It literally took me about 10 minute to completely put this together.  Shipping took no time at all.  I am 100% satisfied with this company and would highly recommend you use them also.

Also, they are having a “Get Real” Photo contest that starts October 31st. They want to see the best of the worst when it comes to photos.  They want you to send them your worst pictures that you really don’t want to see the light of day. How do you enter?  On October 31, head over to PictureItPostage and upload your photo. Beginning November 21, all visitors to the “Get Real” contest website will have a chance to vote for their favorite photos.  The winners will be announced December 8.  What can you win?  They are giving away two Canon Digital SLR Camera and five PictureItPostage coupon codes good for 100 customized photo stamps. The ten first prize winners will each receive one PictureItPostage coupon code good for one pack of customized postage stamps.  We all have horrible pictures — now have them work for you!

Make sure you check out PictureItPostage!