I entered a packed theatre last night and barely got a seat for this movie even though I arrived 30 minutes early!

As soon as I saw the trailer for 500 Days of Summer I knew it was going to be my kind of movie. It didn’t disappoint. I can say it’s the best romantic comedy I’ve seen in years.

It has everything. Love, laughs, great music (the soundtrack rocks if you dig 90′s Brit pop and alternative music),  sadness, and eye candy. Zooey Deschanel is just the cutest thing ever and everyone in the audience would have eaten from her hand. But hello!? – when did Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the little kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun grow up into such a hot man?!

Don’t be thinking this flick is all saccharin though. As it’s advertised – it’s not exactly a love story. More of an unrequited love story. That’s what makes it so charming – because we can all relate to Tom’s feelings of longing and sadness when the relationship ends. In the film, we look through his eyes at the beginning, middle and end (and not necessarily in that order!) of his relationship with Summer. You can’t help but be caught up in it. It’s full of delight throughout.

At its heart, the story is a hopeful one. You’ll just have to see it to know what I mean.

Carrie Lauth doesn’t usually write movie reviews. She usually writes about parenting and natural living on her blog, Natural Moms Talk Radio.

Previously, I ranted about gladiator sandals.  Now, I stand corrected.  For this Summer, a sleeker, more sane looking style of gladiator sandals have emerged.  I may even try a pair myself…I said may.

It all started the other day when one of my adorable coworkers wore a Summer style dress to work on an unseasonably warm day.  I saw her coral painted toenails streaking their way down the hallway.  Naturally, that drew my eye to her feet.  I was just thinking, “Wow, what cute shoes…”

Crap! I’ve been caught calling gladiator sandals “cute!”  These new versions of the sandal are more demure and I feel go with more things other than streetwalker wear Also, a lot of the gladiator sandals for this season seem to be the shorter sort instead of the ones that snake halfway up your leg and just scream HOOKER.

Who would have thought there would be a day that a gladiator sandal would fly just fine in an office environment? Well ladies, that day is here, and it’s not half bad.  I will say that going the extra mile to paint the pretty piggies and making sure that your feet are in proper shape will go a long way in pulling off the gladiator sandal look.  If I had to compare it to something, it would be a unique looking puppy, the kind that you aren’t sure if it is cute or homely, but since it is free of fleas and other unpleasantness, you decide to pet it.

Well think of the sandals in the same light.  The whole foot “package”, if you will, has to be there.  I think is important when presenting this sandal option to the world (even if it is just the folks at the office).

A few days ago, we told you about the free guide to making money from digital photography. You’ll definitely want to pick it up if you haven’t already and you’re intersted in earning extra cash with your photography.

To help you a bit further (but do read the report first), here is  a helpful list of stock photo sites that pay.

Because of the Internet, it’s now easier than ever for photographers to make money from their photographs. And you don’t even have to be an experienced professional. Some stock photo sites will accept your photos even if you’re an amateur or hobby photographer.

Below is a list of online stock photo sites where you can sell photos.

1. FreeFoto – http://www.freefoto.com/browse/99-14-0?ffid=99-14-0
2. Fotolia – http://www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors
3. Shutterpoint – http://www.shutterpoint.com/Sell-Photos.cfm
4. Stockxpert – http://www.stockxpert.com/support/help/1
5. Dreamstime – http://www.dreamstime.com/sell
6. Crestock – http://www.crestock.com/quick-tour/sell-stock-photos.htm
7. 123RF – http://www.123rf.com/login.php?redirect=/myaccount.php
8. Big Stock Photo – http://www.bigstockphoto.com/forphotographer.html
9. ImageVortex – https://www.imagevortex.com/members/register.htm?occupation=photographer
10. iStockPhoto – http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos.php
11. FreeDigitalPhotos – https://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/sell-photos-online.php
12. PhotoStockPlus – http://www.photostockplus.com/register.php
13. Shutterstock – http://submit.shutterstock.com/
14. Cut Caster - https://www.cutcaster.com/register
15. Zymmetrical - https://www.zymmetrical.com/account/profile/

This is only a partial list of the most popular stock photo sites that help you sell your photos. Each site has its own submission guidelines and policies about how much your photos will be sold for, and what percentage of each sale you will receive.

You can visit each site on this list, or better yet, sign up for the free report, “How To Make Money With Digital Photography”. It’s got tips on how to get started with selling your photos to stock photo sites, which pictures are hot sellers, and even how to take better pictures. You could be making money with the photos you already have NOW. Click here to get yours.

Recently I have discovered the wonders of digital downloads, you can download movies, music, pictures, or games. You can download onto your computer, game system, or now they even make special devices to hook to your T.V. so you can watch or listen in your living room.

I personally use my Playstation 3 for an easy all in one machine. I have put all my music, movies, favorite T.V. shows, and pictures on the PS3 for an easy access entertainment center. I no longer have to switch DVD’s or CD’s, they are all on one machine and I can watch any movie I want, switch to my favorite music, play a game, or look at pictures of my family, all without getting off my lazy butt.

I discovered all of this because my kids kept getting into my entertainment center and messing up or breaking stuff. I decided to put Plexiglas over the front so they couldn’t get in anymore, this also made it very difficult to switch whatever entertainment media I had going. This motivated me to look into digital downloads and now I am happy again.

For anyone wanting to do this they make free programs to convert your movies and music to whatever format you need, and finding out what you need to do is pretty easy on the net. It makes it much easier for little to no money and a little time. I now have it all at the push of a button, it’s too bad my kids don’t work that easy.

I am a huge music fan and have been spending a lot of time downloading all the music I enjoy. I like everything from classical to speed metal, and have almost 30gb of music on my computer to back it up. I think I have decided the best music came out of the 1990′s.

Before anyone starts thinking I have lost my mind I would like to explain my thinking and reasoning. The 50′s and 60′s gave us a lot of great music, Rock and Roll was still new and we had great groups like the Beatles and Elvis plus an upstart Motown. The 70′s started expanding on Rock and we saw new kinds of music like Club music and Rap giving us groups like Led Zeppelin, The BeeGee’s and Grandmaster Flash. The 80′s were a dark time that most would like to forget but a couple things happened like mainstream rap, heavy metal, and the kind of music that is in “The Wedding Singer”, giving us groups like N.W.A, Metallica, and George Michael.

The 90′s is where music really hit its stride, all forms of music hit big at the same time. Rap and R&B, Rock and Metal, Dance and Techno, Garage and Grunge, even Country found a mass appeal audience. Groups were incorporating in lost music like Jazz and Classical into their arsenal giving them a needed resurgence. We saw groups like Cypress Hill and Snoop Dogg, Creed and Pantera, Will Smith and  Prodigy, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and who can forget Garth Brooks.  Our current decade has given us great music but most of it seems like a dumbded down version of our 90′s music, some of the good ones are Lil Wayne, Disturbed, Justin Timberlake, and Trace Adkins. This is just a brief sum up of my thoughts; I just do not see any time in music where everything came together as well as the 1990′s.

Every once in awhile I stumble across an oldie but goody favorite movie – for example – Tombstone.  There are probably several movies with that word in the title, so I will be specific, I am talking about the one starring Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.  He was awesome in that role and dead sexy too

I’ve always thought of Val as a hit or miss actor, I don’t think he ever lived up to the great potential he had as a leading man, I know I’m not alone in this opinion.  I think he was overlooked in lieu of better looking, albeit less talented actors, booo.

So what is Val up to now? Well, perhaps more worthy causes.  He’s involved in several charities and lists himself as not only an actor, but a composer as well.  I found this last bit kind of interesting and surprising as well, I hadn’t a clue he had musical talent – but he does.  I particularly like his song “True Friend” – I honestly did not plan on liking his music, but I found his voice both haunting and reassuring.

So, yeah, I found Val Kilmer again, but no, not in a blockbuster movie, but in a whole new (and I think better) light.

Having to buy clothes for 5 kids we generally shop at Wal Mart or secondhand stores for most of our clothing needs. We have to be budget conscious and if done right you can get great clothes for a fraction of the cost you would pay at a big name store.

My wife just went to a multi-family garage sale and spent $118 on about $700 worth of clothes, most of the stuff still had the tags on it. One example was she got two Nike brand U of M outfits for my boys that still had the tags on them for $4 each, They were normally almost $40 each. If we do shop at stores it is mostly for clearance items when you get good buys, like Hanna Montana PJ’s for my 5 year old for only $1.50 and a pair and slippers for $2.00.  This is how we shop for clothes for our kids and they have more than enough for quite some time, thanks to my wife’s shopping obsession.

After watching my wife do our clothing shopping I do not understand why people pay so much for kid’s clothes. I have seen specialty shops selling onesies  for $35 a pair or one pair of socks for $10, Just because of a name or it is made from a different cotton blend. I can understand spending a little more for adult clothes because you wear them for a long time, don’t grow out of them and generally don’t destroy them like kids do. To spend that much on kids clothes seems ridiculous to me, they spill stuff on them, stain them, rip them, and even if they stay in good condition they grow out of them in a very short period of time. I am also pretty sure that as long as it is soft they don’t care what the fabric is made from. I don’t think there is any good reason for this except for parents to try and outdo each other and do the whole “I love my kid more because I spent more”. If that were the case, put it in a college savings account or some kind of investment opportunity, instead of wasting it on vanity now.

I gained almost 100 pounds going from a very active life to a stay at home dad and being to ignorant to adjust my diet accordingly. So I had to go on a diet to try and get myself back at least to where I don’t look like a very bad “before” picture.

I am not able to do much exercising because my kids still require a great deal of attention and that doesn’t leave much time for stuff like that. Now that warm weather is here we can take the kids for walks and play outside more than before, which does help, but still not enough. I started out on Weight Watchers and lost about 50lbs and hit some kinda wall and couldn’t lose any more weight, got discouraged and gained 10lbs back. I just started out on the South Beach diet and am doing OK but have only lost about 3lbs.

Weight Watchers wasn’t bad, you could eat most things as long as you watched your portions and tried to eat healthy, but it quit working even when I cut my points back. South Beach is like Atkins but less restrictive as long as you eat leaner. Why isn’t there a diet where I can eat a Baconator with cheese or a Whopper without ruining my diet? Why does everything bad taste so good and all the stuff that I can have taste like crap? I Don’t know how much longer my willpower will hold out and I will make all the restaurants in the area sacrifice their consumable inventory to me.

I have a love/hate relationship with consignment stores.  I frequent five (yes, 5) consignment shops.  Obsess much? Yes, I do, thanks for asking.

It is the hunt that I love.  I find myself alternating between loving the store, its owner, and myself (for having the gut instinct to stop and shop at that PRECISE moment in time) and sometimes I find myself hating the store (stupid used crap!), the owner (this witch overprices everything!) and myself (omg, why am I spending my lunch money on another scarf?)

It almost becomes a personal thing for me.  I am convinced there is some other size 20 woman in my town who is hell bent on making sure she snatches up that size before I get there each time.  I know that the consignment shop gets that size in, because I’ve bought items there before, but there are days that they are clean out of everything in my size.  So then I end up shopping for the kids instead.

I do like the concept of consignment shops, one woman’s trash, another woman’s treasure, and then there is also the side benefit of feeling like you are being very Mother Earthish and “Living Green”…I’m sure what is closer to the truth for most women is the fact that you can save a TON of money by consignment shopping.

Most consignment shops, and the ones I go to, only take clothes that are in great shape, are trendy, guaranteed to be “in style” etc.  They are priced 60 plus percent below retail.  “Well I can get that deal on a clearance rack!”…sure you can…if you don’t work and have time to go search all the clearance racks in all the land – every day.  For people that are otherwise short on time, there’s the consignment shop – where EVERYTHING is priced at the clearance level.  One stop shopping!

So support a locally owned business (another perk of consignment shopping) – visit a local consignor today!

If you’ve got a love of photography, did you know you could actually make money with your digital photos? You don’t even have to be an expert photographer…you can still do it.

Here’s a free report that shows you how to make money with your digital photos.

When times are tough all over, here’s a refreshing and fun way to earn some extra cash.