You could win a small gift just by answering this question...

What are your favorite Jamberry Nails Halloween nails?  I have been wearing the Goofy Ghosts and everyone loves them.  I will be giving a small gift to one random person who answers. Winner will be announced Oct 15, 2012. Happy Picking!

http://chogan.jamberrynails.net/home/products.aspx?id=59 to view all the Halloween nails.

Homecoming Nails

Have a great weekend

A cute way to support the gymnastics person in your life

You can wear these shields in so many ways on your fingers and toes! Wear the gymnastic shield on all your fingers and toes. You could use the buy 3 get 1 sheet free deal and wear the gymnastic shield as an accent nail. You could wear your gym's colors as well.  

New nails day at Jamberry Nails!

Today is an exciting day... It is catalog release day at Jamberry Nails! 

My latest nails

These shields are a new favorite of mine. They are Metallic Gold and White Circles. http://chogan.jamberrynails.net/home/ProductDetail.aspx?id=386

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer

Summer has been filled with lots of BBQs, college preparation, job changes and excitement.

Tom's BBQ business is doing really well.  He has been going to local fairs and the Rosendale, NY farmer's market. This weekend he has a reporter from the Daily Freeman coming to interview him about his entry into the Hudson Valley Bacon Festival. I'm happy to see him succeed.

I have left my job at the nursing home (yay!). Today is my last day there. It was getting to be a toxic environment for the workers and on some floors the residents.  I was tired of getting all the complaints from residents and their families every time I went to work. I actually started dreading going to work.   Sunday I officially start working at Planet Fitness doing membership reports and working the front desk. I have been training when I was not working at the nursing home. It is such a different environment. I'm hoping to workout after work a few times a week.

My Jamberry Nails business is exploding too. I get stopped all the time by people asking me where I had my nails done. I have  permission from my director to give you a sneak peek of our charity shields in our new catalog available Sept 1, 2012.                                                                                                                                                

Jamberry Nails will donate $2 per sheet for every sheet purchased directly to the charities .

We have everything in place from my son to leave again for college. 3 terms, 3 different schools.  We hope this will be the place for him. We had to sign a 1 year lease on an apartment since the school does not provide dorms.

Today's an exciting day!

Every Friday in July Jamberry Nails is offering one of their most popular nail shields at 50% off. Today it is the popular black and white horizontal stripes nail shield. http://chogan.jamberrynails.net/home/products.aspx?id=41 Every Friday in July at 8am MT a new nail shield or product will discounted. I am happy to let you know so you can save.  Please note that this nail shield is exempt from the buy 3 get 1 free deal for today only. They also can not be associated with a party. You still will be able to get free shipping for orders over $50.

I know there are people reading this hoping to find a way to make extra money or want to replace an income from a job. I would love to help you succeed with your own Jamberry Nails business.

Many other companies say their products sell themselves, however Jamberry Nails really do. I always get comments on my nails. I usually turn those comments into customers, hostesses, or independent consultants on my team.

Email me for more information: carolnailshields@gmail.com 

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Birthday United States of America! Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776. The United  States colonies declared their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.


I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday.

You need to put a spotlight on this Dark Monk

I was thrilled when I saw that a new novel with the same characters that were in "The Hangman's Daughter". “The Dark Monk” by Oliver Potzsch was worth waiting for!  I was engaged in the characters from the beginning and continued to hope for the two star-crossed lovers to finally get together. Thank you BzzAgent for letting me read this book and give my thoughts.


The main plot of “The Dark Monk” follows Simon on a hunt for the Templar's long lost treasure and solves the Templar's riddles, while Kuisl on the hunt for a gang of highway robbers who have been ambushing and killing the merchants of the area. 


 Meanwhile Magdelena has been brought up for more time in the spotlight. She is out on her own through snowy Germany and in a jealous tizzy over Simon and his new treasure hunting partner, Benedickta.


I enjoyed trying to figure out who the bad guys were. I did figure out who the main culprit was about half way through the book(you are trying to figure it out after all!), but at the end, it was completely different than I had thought.


One of the aspects I liked about this one especially were some of the insights we get into Kusil’s past from when he was a mercenary, before he became the town hangman. With these flashbacks, the author reveals a little bit more about what makes Kusil tick.  Both Magdalena’s and Simon’s characters are growing. Magdalena remains a strong woman who's shunned in a man's world simply for who fathered her and Simon is ever at odds with his old fashioned and stubborn doctor father. The three get into tight spots, but use their brains and natural talents to solve the problems.


If you enjoyed "The Hangman's Daughter", you will definitely enjoy “The Dark Monk.”  If you didn't read "The Hangman's Daughter", I recommend you read it first, although the book is written in such a way that you don't need to.I can not wait until the third installment to be translated and released to the public.

Jamberry Nails Mystery Hostess Party

I am having a Mystery Hostess Party starting now and running until July 12, 2012 . All you have to do is shop from your seat, not your feet athttp://carolnailshields.com/ and click yes when asked if this order is associated with a party and chose Mystery Hostess. I will announce the winner on July 13, 2012.

You will receive 1 entry for placing an order using the Mystery Hostess Party option.
You will receive 2 entries when you purchase the buy 3 nail shields get 1 free special.
You will receive 2 entries for having a in person or catalog/online party.
You will receive 1 additional entry for sharing my Mystery Hostess party with a friend who places an order using the Mystery Hostess Party option.

Good Luck!

One thing I am wondering about today...

Do the rising temperatures equal short tempers?

Today I was driving from my house into town.  I didn't think twice when I pulled over to allow safe passage of the ambulance being followed by a police car. I pulled back on the road and continued driving like normal.

I was wondering why the traffic in front of me was slowing down.  There were 14 police cars from our local area and other agencies lining both sides of the road.  My son glanced over and saw crime scene tape.  It was the same scene on our return trip.

Once I was home I looked at our local newspaper.  At first they were reporting a domestic violence situation since the County sent a representative from the District Attorney's Domestic Violence Bureau. As more facts came in it was revealed that all of those police cars where there to investigate a death of an infant girl. No further information was released. The police are not stating if they suspect foul play.

I did some quick research on the topic of domestic violence and heat. Police department reports an anecdotal spike in cases of violence during the sweltering heat, the department's investigators said the more predictable ebb and flow of domestic abuse is associated with the seasons.  The most severe season for domestic abuse is the spring, especially for relationships where children are involved.

"You talk to victims and they will tell you they lay low during the holidays.  They don't want to ruin the holidays for the children, so they will avoid conflict during that time."  The investigator added, "Spring is when victims will make life-changing decisions.  They will look at having divorces and in order to get out of a bad situation and get the kids moved to a new location by August [when school starts], they start in the springtime."

The investigator said the main thing for victims to remember is that abuse is not acceptable in any weather conditions. If you are in a domestic violence situation please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−SAFE(7233) or TTY 1−800−787−3224.

Remember love does not have to hurt.  To the world you are just one person, but to one person you are the world.

My review of Oliver Pötzsch's The Hangman's Daughter

I am a BzzAgent who had the opportunity to read Oliver Pötzsch's The Hangman's Daughter as part of a campaign. I am not usually a fan of historical thrillers, but was willing to give it a read. Here is my review of the story.

 The Hangman's Daughter is the tale of Jakob Kuisl, a hangman with a heart in a small Bavarian town in the 1600's. He needs to get drunk before executions. His daughter, Magdalena, also has a role in the book, though she is not as prominent as I expected from the title. I wish she had a bigger role in the story. I enjoyed her spunk. I also liked Simon, the young physician.

 The majority of the book deals with the murders of orphan children in the town which results in the arrest of a midwife for witchcraft. Jakob, Simon, and Magdalena try to solve the mystery before time runs out for the midwife. Meanwhile, the majority of the village's aldermen are uninterested in the truth and are only interested in protecting their money.

I enjoyed the plot twists.  I had to keep turning the pages to find out if the midwife was actually a murdering witch. I was actually surprised who was behind the murders!

 I really enjoyed reading Oliver Pötzsch's The Hangman's Daughter. I hope you will pick it up as a summer book. Right now it is available to borrow for free from Amazon if you are a Prime Member or download it to your Kindle right now for only $3.99. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P9XMFI/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=darkmonk_bzzagent-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003P9XMFI   I am about to start reading The Dark Monk which is the follow up to The Hangman's Daughter. It was just released on June 12, 2012.

My review of ABC's The Glasshouse live feed

I am a fan of CBS's Big Brother and the live feeds during the season. I was really interested to see what the difference was with The Glasshouse.

Today the feed was only on for one hour. The cast was made aware we were watching. Instead of listening in to conversations the viewers were answering questions and the house's voice prompted the cast to go into one room depending on the answer to the question. This was supposed to let us know the cast and the cast know the viewers. To me it was boring. I spent most of the time reading twitter on my phone.

I'll give this show until its premire, but I do not have high hopes I will enjoy it.

Smoking for the concession stand

Well baseball season has officially began for the summer. This means lots of time in the car, lots of time funning and sunning at the baseball field plus concession stand duties. Well this year concession stand is going to look different. The coach asked us to take it over.

Starting tomorrow Arkansas Tom's Razorback BBQ will be cooking smoked hotdogs and pulled pork sandwiches. We may be adding other foods as the season goes on.

We are currently slow smoking 2 pork shoulders in our smoker for tomorrow.

Come see us and a great double header tomorrow at Mamakating Park.

And we still are having issues with Sprint

I still have no service when I step outside of my house. Grrrr.  I pay to have service there not just inside with the airave.  I did learn that you need to call the the tech team several times per week.  They like telling us, even though the tower is down, not working at all; this is the service you are going to get,  It is due to X excuse which changes each call, our hands our tied.

This team told us to email customer service aka the contact us on sprint.com and to email dan@sprint.com this is the CEO's office. I was very detailed with my email and to my surprise someone actually called me back.  They are looking into the issues for me. It turns out they were not being honest with the tower. Surprise, surprise! Hopefully this will be a bump in the right direction.

I'm tired of only being able to use my phone inside of my house and far out of my neighborhood.  

Feeling sad today

My "real job" is in a nursing home. In my job I get to know most of the residents and their family members. This is a good and bad thing. It is good because you always have someone who smiles at you and talks with you during your shift. Sometimes they even ask you to marry them daily because you remind them of their late wife. The bad thing is most of the residents are ill or elderly. Their circle of life is coming to an end.
Today the latter happened... Sigh. I know death is part of life, but it still makes you sad. This resident always made a point of saying hi to me. He would bring me coffee to my desk when I worked in the mornings. He hated the time my husband brought me dinner until I offered to let him try some of the smoked meat. 
Rest well my friend. I will miss you and your kindness.

Here is what I am smoking today 100% solo

Today in Arkansas Tom's Razorback BBQ: brisquit, chicken and sausage.

My Review of Gluten Free Bisquick

May is Celiac Awareness month.  Since I suffer from Celiac Disease and was diagnosed later in life, I am always happy to see items to replace what I once enjoyed.  Today I walked down the baking aisle in my local Stop and Shop store and saw Gluten Free Bisquick. Even though the box is smaller and more expensive than a normal box of Bisquick.

The texture of this Bisquick was a really fine powder.  I was worried that I would not have fluffy pancakes due to this texture. I was really surprised when I had normal looking and tasting pancakes.  Yummy!

My only complaint about the Gluten Free Bisquick is the package size. 10 pancakes took 1 cup of mix, as do most of the recipes. Once I used one cup of mix, I had half of the box gone. I was expecting a bit more use from the package.  

What Ever Happened To Customer Service?

I hate calling Sprint's Customer Service!

Today is definitely a bang my head against the wall day when it comes to Sprint's Customer Service.  I would rather go to the dentist voluntarily and have a root canal on all my teeth than speak to the customer service. Please solve my issues. I want off of this merry-go-round!

Let me give you some of my 7-8 year history with Sprint.  The Sprint cell service started out as promised.  I am in a "good" service area as shown by the coverage map given by Sprint. See the Sprint Coverage Map.  I consistently had the 2-3 bars as promised by Sprint on my contract. I rarely roamed to the Verizon cell phone tower. Over the years this has changed to roaming a bit more to roaming almost all the time with the occasional 1 bar of Sprint service. They sent me new phones, same issues. I have been told that towers where down, but told that wasn't true.

I'm sure you are wondering why I stayed with Sprint all of these years.  I'll be happy to explain.  First off I am locked into a contract. Contracts suck when the service provider limits the service. I would have to pay the break contract fee for three lines on my account. We are talking upwards of $600-$1000 in fees. I have been promised numerous times the towers will be fixed.

Today I finally made headway with these issues with Sprint. Here is what I did.

• Don't forget to take notes of the people names, badge number if given, and all of the promises they make you.
• Call in (1-888-211-4727) and start having Sprint document the issue.  
• Let them finish their script. Let's admit it, Sprint asks the same questions in the same order each time you call. They use a script.
• Ask to speak to a manager to "resolve your issue." 
• Be prepared to go around and around and around and around in circles. Stick to your guns filled with facts.  I would recommend having a glass of water nearby.  
• If that does help keep asking to speak to their manager.
• Have the manager file a ticket.
• Get that number!  They do not like to give you that number. Keep pushing to get it. It will help you in the long run.
• Here is the secret Sprint does not want you to know about!  Email okcqc@sprint.com with your Sprint phone number and that really important ticket number. This goes straight to the engineers who actually solve the issues.

I will keep you posted when my issues are finally solved. Hopefully my dead tower near my home will be resurrected soon.

Happy Mother's Day

Just a quick post today to wish all the mothers a Happy Mother's Day. Don't forget to spoil all the mothers and grandmothers today for all the things they do for you everyday.

Today is a Wow day!

Like I said earlier I am sitting on my patio enjoying the day, but I neglected to say why.  Tom, my husband  and owner of Arkansas Tom's Razorback BBQ, actually let me run the smoker from start to finish.  I asked him the other day if he thought it would be a good idea for me to practice working with the smoker and his fancy fan/computer system. We have been talking about become street vendors, so it would be a good idea for me to be trained on the entire set up and operations of the smoker, just in case I need to cook at home before a big event. I have learned all about the magic orange box that houses the controls and modem for the fan.  I have taken charge and built, and kept the fire going all day long.  I also seasoned our pork shoulder and ribs, but I have done that numerous times for our other smoking events.   The picture is from this morning showcasing my pork shoulder which turned into pulled pork, ribs, and sausage. I love running the smoker.

While I was smoking our dinner, I was keeping my husband company as he created a new warmer box for the smoker. Do you see the rounded box on top of the square box in this picture? The rounded box is the warmer box we had before.  The square box is the fire box.  Tom made the smoker box bigger to hold a bigger warmer box so it will be able to hold several of our warmer trays. He hopes to have it done by next Saturday when we have a catering event. Yikes! I hope it is done in time.

I am very proud of what I have accomplished  today. I smell like smoke, but my husband says it is sexy. I made delicious food. I have enjoyed chatting with the neighbors and watching the birds at our feeder and bird bath. To end the day we are watching the Darlington night race cuddled on the couch. A very Wow day indeed!

Thanks for stopping by...

As I sit here on my patio, I had a thought.  There are so many blogs out there why not create one with my random thoughts. I'm not talking a blog that is totally off the wall, but instead gives me a place to share my thoughts about a wide variety of topics instead of just crafting, gardening, or the like. That best explains my chosen title of Take A Peek Into Carol's World.

I hope you find my random topics engaging.  Pull up your computer, laptop, iPad, or mobile phone,  find a cozy spot with the drink of your choice and enjoy.