But, my potential weakness comes in the form of a shoe that says it can help work the legs and but even harder than the same excersize performed using typical shoes. Is it true? Well, I’m testing it out and I’ll let you know when I’ve tried them over a period of time.

Before that happens though, I thought I’d share how hard it is for someone with short toes to get a good fit out of this shoe!

I started by trying on the Payless brand version which was much too long in the toe area. In order to get my arch and heel in the right place of the foot bed, the toe post was about half way up my toe, instead of being in the pit of my toes. Uncomfortable!

I then went to try on Sketchers brand at a department store to see how they felt. The size 6 felt better on my toes, but still worried me.  These cost nearly $50 and that is simply out of the question right now for something that may not fit well. So, I looked on ebay and amazon. While they both had sketchers brand, what I found in my size and the particular color I want, was nearly retail price. I only shop ebay to find rare items or true bargain prices. But, I found a knock off and decided to try it.

Here’s what I got. LA Gear Trim Step The seller was awesome. I had them in 2 days. However, when I wore them last night for a short walk and at a slower pace than normal thanks to my ancient basset hound, they left me with blisters on the insides of my toes! The part of the shoe that goes over the top of my foot (the top of where my arch is) was very tight and rubbed almost to the point of blistering also.

Today I went to Target to get something completely unrelated. Guess what? They have a version called TrimStep. It looks exactly like the LA Gear version. Here’s the difference. They had a size 5 and it is the right fit.

So, four pair of shoes later and about $30 used, I have a size that is 1.5 – 2 sizes smaller than I ever wear!

Tonight I took the new pair for a walk. I walked fast on gravel and pavement and they felt good. In fact, I felt propelled forward and while these are not a soft cushy type of rubber, they felt bouncy while I walked. I felt something in my calves. Something like being worked out! My left calf was kind of yelling at me at one point so maybe they really do work?

 I plan on wearing them to work at a 9 hour a day job tomorrow to see if they also help my back which is another proposed benefit of this style of shoe.

We’ll see, and I’ll let you know.

The thing that cracks me up about this site is that they list gambling links ring on the side! You won’t see that in America on a large shopping site. They also offer shoes and computers. Kids and housewares and gifts are also apparently big sellers.

It kind of makes me think of Amazon, but it’s set up a little differently.

This page has Argos Vouchers that are good for things like free delivery of all TVs for a limited time or %50 off bedroom sets. I wonder if that’s free shipping to the US?

That page also has Argos discount codes for money off furniture and appliances like washing machines.

While we are on the subject of furniture and household appliances, I found this interior decorating how-to page which offers DIY and other tricks to help spruce up your joint. I love the post about the DIY upholstered headboard and the videos for decorating and storing stuff in a kids room.

This is a sponsored post. It is your responsibility to determine if you want to watch the movies once you visit their site.

1. I loved the color – well, the green. The brown is a coppery brown and I wasn’t sure how to wear that color with the green considering it’s a limey light green shade. So, I used the brown as a liner.

2. The consistency is a creamy stick. Kind of like a lip balm.  The green, which I wore on my lid, creased.  I don’t even think it was noon – so about 3 hours into my day – and the product had slid up my eye lid and bunched up into the crease of my lid. This was a first for me.

3. The brown which I used as a liner thanks to it’s sharper shaped end, stayed in place pretty well.

4. Covergirl often has a smell to it that I don’t like. This doesn’t seem to have that smell. That’s good.

5. The packaging is pretty cool. One color stick on each end with a clear cap so you don’t have to guess at what you get.

6. Pricing is reasonable I suppose. I’m not familiar with this type of eyeshadow so I’m probably not a great judge of price.

Overall, it’s not bad, but there were two major drawbacks for me.

1. I wasn’t sure how to use the two colors together to get a smoky look. I’m not a newby to makeup either.

2. If the product won’t stay in place, it does me no good.

 I also got some nice couponsfrom Covergirl and I used one to purchase the new lashblast lengthfrom Covergirl.

There isn’t much to share here, but here are the points I found to be true.

1. It has that Covergirl smell that I dislike and that smell sometimes gives me a headache.

2. Brown (6m) is a good color for me. I have medium brown auburn hair.

3. It didn’t really appear to add any length, but I already have fairly long lashes.

4. It wasn’t clumpy and seemed to stay put for the day.

She’s going to school online and over the phone. Coaching school. You know, she always did listen to others. Even when I really wanted her to shut up, she listened to me and made me think about what my problem was. (I’m the evil twin, duh!)  She’s running a 4 week long group coaching session where she thinks she’s going to help other people find their power and get to feeling better about themselves.  It’s really cheap. She’s worth more than she’s charging, but she thinks she aught to get some practice under her belt before charging what the big name coaches charge.

Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere! We co-exist and since I’m the creative one, she can’t get rid of me completely.

Alex – The evil twin

It seems to be the story of my life lately, however, better late than never! Right?

Linda Reynolds is the winner of the Carolina Pad pack of Road Trip notebooks. She’s been sent an email and a new winner will be picked if I don’t hear from her soon.

Here’s the comment that won - 

Linda Reynolds says:

03/22/2010 at 9:28 AM

I would use the notebooks to write 1,000 times: “Always review blog posts for typos before hitting ’send””…

Here’s what I got :

• 2 Road Trip spiral-less notebooks
• 2 Road Trip personal notebooks
• 2 Road Trip two-pocket folders

Here’s what they told me;

We’d love to see you blog about your favorite road trips or spring break memories in this review, and to encourage your readers to share their memories too! You can also giveaway a set of the Road Trip product to one lucky winner.

You decide how you want to run your contest and we will ship the product to the winner! We only ask that you encourage your readers to visit our web site (www.carolinapad.com), become a Facebook fan and follow us on Twitter (@carolinapad). Please plan on publishing the product review and contest anytime after receiving the product, but before April 2, 2010.

So, here’s what we did for spring break this year. Nothing.

My youngest daughter has emotional and developmental issues so she’s involved with a great group who offers camps during school breaks. She got to go to camp 3 days this week, one day she even got to go to the zoo.

Mid week, my oldest and I went to the gun range to practice shooting my Christmas present. A handgun! She’s a great shot, so don’t with her mama, or you’ll have a 12 year old to deal with.

All kidding aside, I’m using my notebooks to begin journaling about my going to school. I’ve decided traditional school isn’t going to work for me. The timing just can’t get worked out between my 2 kids and a part time real life job. Thanks in part to the journaling I’ve done since getting my new notebooks, I’ve decided to become a coach which means school online for a year or two.  No, it wasn’t just the notebook, I’ve done my homework about this line of work.

Here’s my feedback on these products.

I love both the light and dark shades. The design is a little less shiny on the full size notebooks than on the small notebook and the folder.

The full size notebook isn’t spiral, so it doesn’t open and lay flat which bugs me, but the pages are perforated and have holes to put into a 3 ring binder.

The small notebook is a great size. It’s not super small like the kind you can’t even get half of a full sentence jotted on, but is small enough to fit into a purse. I’m using it to do some homework for a business class I’m taking.

All in all, I like the products a lot. The design makes me want to take out the products and use them and I have hid them from my 12 year old so she won’t steal them.

So, if you’d like to win your own set from me here at www.alexshares.com leave some comments! Tell me what you did for this spring break (or any spring break for that matter) and what you might use your notebooks for.

I’ll pick a winner at random.org next Sunday.

Gabby, owner of GumdropSwap.com worked with me every step of the way to make sure my questions were answered and the process went smoothly. I had quite a few questions going in, and throughout the process as well. So, Gabby got a workout from me.

To begin with I asked if she could work with specific clothing requests like no zippers or buttons. My youngest daughter, at age 8, can’t button or zip very well so she wears pull on elastic pants and mostly pull over shirts. Gabby said she absolutely could work with that and when I got to the part of the process where I bought the new (to us) clothes, to just leave a note about the type of pants we needed.

So, the basic premise of the company is that when your kids outgrow their clothing, you can send it in to GumdropSwap if it’s in pretty good or new condition. When Gabby receives your box of clothing, she awards credits to your account which she calls gum drops.
You then use those credits to buy clothing from the site. All the clothing is in the same good or new condition and there is no restriction on brand names. You don’t have to send in only certain brands in order to get credit. Your credit is based on the condition of the clothing that you do send, regardless of brand.

If you don’t have clothing to send in, or you simply don’t want to send it in, you can also just plain shopf rom the site with your real money – no gumdrop credits needed. When you shop, there are not photos of individual pieces. You have to trust Gabby to send you a mix of styles and colors. You do order by category though, like pull on pants, dresses, button down shirts, socks and shoes.

Let me tell you about my personal experience.
When I first started, Gabby was still working on the site a little bit, and she did ask me to remember that while she knew what she was doing, the website was still pretty new to her. So, I sent in a box of clothing with a variety of used clothing from our household. I really didn’t know what to expect in credits from what I sent in even though there is a general credit rating for each type of item you can send in.
Some of the clothes I sent were pretty well used, and some were new, just tried on once. I also printed off the shipping list, marked what I was sending in, and mailed it off to Gabby.  (I did have trouble finding the mailing address, but one email to Gabby had it sorted out and my suggestion of putting the address right on the shipping list was taken into account)

A couple days later, my account had been credited with gumdrop credits. I went shopping and was a little bit confused, but quickly figured out what to do. I didn’t use all my credits on this shopping trip but was also able to use my credits towards my return shipping! So, technically the clothing I got back only cost me the price of shipping my old clothing to Gumdropswap, and the price of a membership. (my trial membership was actually free in order to test and review this service and company)

I was able to put in a note about needing non zipper and button pants. I also ordered a dress because my daughter has a couple concerts a year that she has to dress for. A week later, still did not have my return clothing, so I sent Gabby an email to ask if I had not gotten the order submitted correctly or if there were some other problem. She wrote back quickly explaining that the site wasn’t forwarding orders to her so she wasn’t aware I had placed my order! She then got my order to me within a day and also included socks for my trouble.

Now, here’s the cool thing. It looked like NEW clothing, and it was really cute! Gabby also included a nice handwritten note thanking me, and mentioned how she understands now what it must be like to try and find clothing appropriate for kids like my daughter with autism and sensory integration issues.

In addition to on-line shopping, Gumdropswap has a boutique in in downtown Bridgeport, CT.
They also offer a referral program, sales representative program and customer of the month contest!
If you decide to sign up, or even just try it out, please let them know that I sent you.

However, this may be working pretty well. My comments have been better since starting this service.

For the same amount of time it was taking me to drop on other blogs through EntreCard, I can browse the coffee house traffic site and get views in return. I’ve been on other traffic exchanges before and I really like this one because it’s for blogs only.

However, it’s new and I need more blogs to look at and read. So, if you run a blog, please come add you site!

Boys, Boys, Boys!

Nove – Just turned 8 years old, says: I really loved the Jonas DVD. You rock Jonas!! I love you Jonas! I like all of them, Joe, Nick, Kevin, Stella, and Macy? And, I don’t know where the Jonas DVD came from……… but I know it came from the mailbox, and I just wanna say………