I figured if I’m going to suffer through an obsession, I might as well use my obsessive tendencies for a tax write-off.

And when I say “suffer,” I really mean “everything outside of the obsession suffers.” Past obsessions of mine include Downton Abbey, Dexter, and powdered donuts. Thankfully, the current obsession is kind of brain cell-enhancing (or not) and can be used as something for a tax write-off for me.

I’ve had a mental wrestling match deciding if I should actually share the current obsession because, believe it or not, I’m kind of shy. I know. You don’t believe me. But I’m shy about talking about The Sex.

Unfortunately for Patrick but fortunately for my easily-UTI’d lady bits, this obsession isn’t the actual The Sex.

My current obsession: reading romance books on my Kindle.

Let’s just go with the term “romance” as a general description because most of the “romance” I’m reading is more like “erotica” but I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud.

And P.S. – I thank Baby Jeesus and Oprah for the Kindle so my girls don’t see the ridiculous covers of the books and ask why people are naked.

I’ve read 10 books in the last 3-1/2 weeks. Basically, I’ve read more books in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 5 years, and I’m not even slightly exaggerating.

Say what you will about the 6th grade writing style, the implausibility of a college student not having an email address, and the ridiculousness of a 20-something dude being a self-made billionaire, I liked Fifty Shades of Grey. And Fifty Shades Darker. And Fifty Shades Freed. I read the 50 Shades trilogy in a week, getting next to nothing else done.

I’ve watched every episode of the Real Housewives of Everywhere, so the bar is set pretty low in terms of my taste.

Much like my appetite for baked goods, when I finished all three 50 Shades books, I needed more. I needed books like 50 Shades of Grey to satiate my hunger for asshole sex-monster rich guys being inexplicably and forever changed by the innocence of a woman who bites her bottom lip.

You know, just exactly like Bella and Edward, but not in a sparkly vampire way and in more of a blow-by-blow job description of The Sex kind of way.

The basic plot line of all of these modern-day romance stories are all taken from one outline: asshole rich guy with a superhuman body and a superhuman ability to get it up more than twice a day struggles with falling in love with a poor younger, face-of-an-angel women with self-esteem issues and live happily ever after.

To properly rate these books on my personal shallow scale of readability, I’ve rated these books on these criteria: Sex Language, Page Turn-ability, Asshole Factor, and Lip-Biting on a scale of 1-5.

(Special thanks to my friend Kristie for helping me with the criteria and for sexting me a picture of your naked boobies. For realsies. They totally got me in the mood for writing about sexytime books.)

Sex Language: How much into detail do the descriptions of The Sex go?
Page Turn-ability: Can you put this down or do you need to stay up until 3am reading?
Asshole Factor: They all turn around at some point, but how much of an asshole is the dude before he turns? (The lower the score, the more likable he is.)
Lip-Biting: Overall, how much do I like the girl and want her happy? (The lower the score, the more of a whiney bitch I think she is.)
Series Hopeful: If this is the first book in a series, how badly do I want to read the follow-up books? If it’s a singular book with no promise of a series, it gets an automatic 0 because I love a series.

I’ve done the research to find books that are like Fifty Shades of Grey. For a baseline to understand from where I’m starting with the batteries given, here’s how I rank the 50 Shades books on the whole as a trilogy:

Fifty Shades of Grey Series Overall: 4.5/5
Sex Language: 5/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5

Beautiful Disaster Overall: 4/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 3/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

Gabriel’s Inferno Overall: 3.5/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 3/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming May 2012)

Love Unscripted Overall: 4/5
Sex Language: 3/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 3/5 | Lip-Biting: 5/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming 2012)

Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel Overall: 5/5
Sex Language: 5/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 5/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (coming October 2012)

Knight (The Unfinished Hero Series) Overall: 4/5 
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 5/5 | Asshole Factor: 5/5 | Lip-Biting: 4/5 | Series Hopeful: 5/5 (unknown release)

On the Island Overall: 3/5
Sex Language: 2/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 1/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

The Marriage Pact Overall: 2/5
Sex Language: 2/5 | Page Turn-ability: 2/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 & 3/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 0/5

The Marriage Bargain (Marriage to a Billionaire) Overall: 3/5
Sex Language: 4/5 | Page Turn-ability: 4/5 | Asshole Factor: 4/5 | Lip-Biting: 3/5 | Series Hopeful: 4/5 (unknown release)

Clearly, my favorite of all the books I’ve read in the last few weeks is Bared to You. It’s pretty much a straight off inspiration of 50 Shades, but with more believability and less BDSM. When I finished it, I was scrambling to find out when the next in the Crossfire series would be released, and luckily for me, the author (Sylvia Day) is active on social media and I found out right away I had to wait until this fall for the follow-up.

Now that my current obsession is out in the open, I need suggestions on more books to read that are similar to Fifty Shades of Grey and Bared to You. Tell me what to read next.

Feed my need, fill my wanton passion, tempt me with more more MORE books to read. 

Totally related, Patrick wants to write a personal “Thank You” note to the authors of these books.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 53 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 50 shades, bared to you, beautiful disaster, erotica, fifty shades of grey, gabriel's inferno, knight, love unscripted, marriage bargain, marriage pact, on the island, reading, romance books

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

There are times in this blogging life where sometimes, we have to use our powers for good (money).

It’s kind of like when you actually pay for a magazine at the bookstore instead of reading the entire thing while you sip your coffee then put the magazine back on the rack for some other shlub to pay for it.

Basically, what I’m saying is sometimes, we bloggers have to do things to make money to make this whole blogging thing worth everyone’s time. Sometimes, that means we publish sponsored posts and include affiliate links in our posts. There’s only so many pennies I can earn from the CPM on those sidebar ads before I start writing controversial linkbait-y posts just for the negative attention-clicks. And NO ONE wants to see that happen.

I’ll always be authentic and truthful on this here blog of mine. Mostly because I have a hard time even keeping the truth straight. That said, these super awesome nerd shirts from Mental Floss are ones I totally want. Consider it a bonus that they’re linked using affiliate links.

Though this shirt may not work for me (because as we already know, my Patronus is Rachel Maddow holding a chimichanga), my Anna totally needs this shirt from Mental Floss. The kid is a reading wizard and is 1/4 of the way through Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.

I don’t know what I did to have a kid who at 7 years old reads Harry Potter books proficiently, but if I could bottle her genius, I’d make gajillions and wouldn’t have to use affiliate links or ads on my blog.

But I guess we can say Anna gets her nerdiness from us, her parents, because we gave her a name that we spell backwards.

For two days, take an extra 20% off* everything in the Mental Floss sale for the President’s Day sale, starting on 2/20/12 at 12:01am EST through 2/21/12 at 11:59pm EST. Just enter Mental Floss coupon code 20BYGEORGE at checkout.

*The sale excludes clearance, magazine subscriptions and package deals.

SO really what I’m saying is don’t hate on us bloggers for doing what we can to make a couple of extra pennies so we’re not that magazine at the bookstore who gets used and abused then put back. Click a link or banner a few times. It doesn’t hurt too much, and it makes us love you more.

Your blogger thanks you.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affiliate links, coupon code, mental floss, palindrome, patronus is a bookworm

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

UPDATE: An Eliza Parker Gift Certificate giveaway is live!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

I took my own advice before I knew it was my advice: I asked for something in return for something else.

This time, I asked for a clothing sponsorship for BlogHer ’10 from plus-size social occasion dress company, Eliza Parker, in exchange for my honest opinion on how I liked the dress.

If you’re new around here, (and really, if you are, where have you been? I’ve missed you!) you know that I’m honest to a fault. Almost to a tee. It’s pretty much a detriment to my social being, but whatevs. I’m honest, is my point.

To be honest (see: above), I was hoping, but not sure, I’d like the dress I had picked out with the help of one of the more-than-super-friendly associates over the phone. (Yes, an internet store who will help you over the phone. Like, help you style yourself and everything. It’s almost a lost art in this digital age, but I digress.)

When picking out a $189 dress, even if it’s given to you in exchange for your opinion, especially for someone like me with larger lady lumps, it’s nerve-wracking. There are SO many things to think about: belly chub, arm flaps, boob strapping, thunder thighs. And again, considering this was a $189 dress, I was hoping for the best.

Holy crap on a Baby Jeebus cracker.

I actually looked H.O.T. in my dress. No shit. For realsies. I’d even do me.

(Note: the photo used in this post to represent me in the Venice dress is clearly distorted and does not accurately portray the hotness I was protruding out of my every stretched pore. Just take me at my work. Again, see: above.)

This dress is so fancy, without being over-the-top (cause this mama don’t do over-the-top), it comes with a sash. This girl doesn’t do sashes. Until this dress. I put on that sash and sashayed my happy fine ass all around New York City with my snazzy sash.

This dress is so nice, I didn’t even wear Spanx, and I still felt unlumpy.

This dress is so nice, I could wear it to a funeral, then to a wedding, then to a funeral.

This dress is so nice, I ordered it in the size I think I am, and I could actually wear straight out of the box it came in.

This dress is so nice, I actually felt good about myself.

And that, my friends, is priceless.

(Actually, it costs about $189, and if you have the bone$ to spend on yourself, consider an Eliza Parker dress if you’re a size 10+. You can send me your thank you note after you get over your sexiness.)

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 31 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogher 10, cute plus size dresses, dress, eliza parker, new york city, plus size, plus size clothing stores, Sponsored

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Minor disclaimer:

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love receiving “sponsored” products.

There’s rarely a person, online or off, who would say they don’t like getting things sent to them in return for writing about the products. It’s kind of one of the perks to being famous on the internet a moderately successful blogger.

Yes, there are many people who disagree with me who want to be paid actual cash money for writing a review or mentioning they received “sponsored” products, but for me, if I like something, I’m going to tell you about it whether it’s sponsored or not. <<<< long sentence alert

I used to feel obligated to tell the people of the internets all about a sponsored product I received and make sure I told the world about it in a succinct and proper professional manner. But times have changed. I’m the one in control of my blog and my online persona. I get to tell you want I want you to hear. I’m not controlled by the companies and PR firms sending me the free stuffs.

Yes, I’m a rebel.

OK, not really, but I do a good job of playing a rebel in my head. I’m also insanely rich, have a pet spider monkey, and can dance like Michael Jackson in my head, but that’s a different story.

Not everyone agrees with me, and that’s OK for me. I’m not sure if it’s OK for them, but c’est la vie. <<<< totally googled that

Above disclaimer aside, I’m in LUUURRVE with the Sorrelli jewelry I received this year to wear at BlogHer ’10. LOVE. Wanna marry. Would live in a cabin by a mountain lake for eternity with this jewelry.

Before I started blogging, I found out about Sorrelli because every gay man, woman, and rich child in my hometown was wearing it with everything from t-shirts to evening gowns. It’s stunning jewelry. When I started this whole conference-going thing and realized I could ask companies to send “sponsored” products to me in exchange for my opinion and spreading the word about the products, I twittered @sorrelli and asked if they’d want to participate in “Decorate Angie for BlogHer ’09.” Because I’m Awesome, they loved the idea, and they sent me and a few other lucky ladies some jewelry.

Jump ahead to this year’s BlogHer ’10, I asked again, and since they still love me, Sorrelli said, “Heck yeah, we wanna send you some fantastical jewelries!” or something like that.

This year, I received THE. MOST. GORGEOUS. necklace and earrings combo.

SOOOO, since that picture isn’t the best representation of the gorgousness this necklace embodies (is that even proper verbage?), here’s Sorrelli’s stock photo of the earrings/necklace combo (click on pics to see more about the jewelry on Sorrelli’s site):

Flat-out beautiful, right? If I want to be noticed (see: hair is fixed, clothes without an elastic waistband), I wear one of my Sorrelli pieces. It’s impossible NOT to receive a compliment when I wear one of my necklaces. It’s also a good way to pretend I’m important, and it distracts people from my fat belly rolls.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, blogher, jewelry, sorrelli, Sponsored

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

You know you want your kids to grow up to be nerds. Don’t tell me differently. Nerds have all the cash. It’s much easier to be a nerd and make monies than it is to be a sports superstar and rake in the cash. Plus, when your kid makes it as a sports superstar, then eventually is outed as a serial cheater, TMZ will hunt you down as you leave El Pollo Loco with bags of chicken and beans. And really, you’re not looking your best when TMZ finds you with bags of chicken and beans. Just ask Grandma Woods.

I digress.

You want your kids to be nerds. Geeks. Techies.

Start them off young with the VTech V.Smile. Let them spend their every-waking hour glued to a hand-held gaming device. It worked for my husband. He’s a major dork nerd. He makes the monies.

VTech sent me a V.Smile Cyber Pocket for my 3-year-old to play with. I won’t lie. My kids have pretty much all of the hand-held gaming devices available in the modern world. We are raising nerds. On purpose.

My 3-year-old loves the V.Smile. It’s her very own nearly-indestructible nerd creator. We already had the VTech V.Motion thanks to last year’s Christmas, so we had a few games on hand. Luckily, the games made for the V.Motion will work with the Cyber Pocket, just without the motion aspects. No loss there because the Cyber Pocket goes anywhere.

The Cyber Pocket is available on Amazon right now for only $29.99, and you can totally still get it in time for Christmas. I was able to get games at Toys R Us a few weeks ago for $9.99, and I recently saw them on sale at Target for the same price.

So really, it’s much cheaper than sending your kid to Harvard preschool. Just work out their nerd brain with the Cyber Pocket.

You want little nerd kids, don’t you? DON’T YOU? Don’t you dare lie to me. I’ll have my 5-year-old evaluate your lying facial ticks like that British guy on Lie to Me. She’s totally smarter than he is.

____________________________

Disclosure: I was sent a VTech V.Smile Cyber Pocket in exchange for telling you about the product. I like it. My kids like it. I wouldn’t have told you about it had we not liked it. Cause that’s how I roll.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cyber pocket, gaming, hand-held, system, vsmile, vtech

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

See? I don’t lie:

I can only hope that I’ll look this hot in these sexy panties (5 for $29 panties from Lane Bryant).

She totally has that “come hither and take this lace trim cami off of me” look.

Really, what’s sexier than a good sale. Not much, I’ll tell ya. Not. Much.

Except this guy:

Disclosure: I was provided a Lane Bryant gift card in exchange for the information I shared in this post. Still tho, it’s all my own opinion. I don’t lie. Nor am I shady. I’m also awesome. Obviously.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lane Bryant, Sponsored, underwear

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’ll just say it. I lucked out. Completely.

I was/am lucky enough to be given the new HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer. (Try saying that 3 times…) Being a writer for Aiming Low has its many privileges.

In receiving the printer, I was asked to write an honest, personal review of the printer as I use it in my home and with my business. That’s good, because it’s hard for me to NOT be honest. I’m a horrible actress. I’m also a horrible joke-teller, but that’s for another day.

That said, I LOVE THIS PRINTER. I’m considering introducing a bill to congress making electronics marriage legal, that would probably pass here in Florida. We’ve always been an HP printer household, so I knows my HPs. I know what to expect: that they’re good darn printers.

Seeing that I loves a list, here are my pros & cons lists for the Fancy Pants (a technical term) printer:

Pros:
• My 3 year old can use it to print Disney and Nickelodeon coloring sheets.
• The picture and graphics print quality is FAR beyond what I ever expected from a home printer.
• You don’t need a computer, just an internet connection. You don’t even need a WiFi connection – you can plug right into your modem or ethernet.
• It’s pretty. It’s shiny.
• It’s pretty much idiot-proof. (see: My 3yo can use it. Not that she’s an idiot, but really, if my 3yo can use it, any adult idiot can use it.)
• Print cartridges are cheap (~$10 each) and last longer than other printers’ I’ve used.
• It prints double-sided. As a small business owner, that’s completely awesome.
• Dual paper trays, which means you don’t have to get up off your booty every time you want to print out a photograph of your adorable (but not as adorable as mine) kids.
• Because it’s connected to the web, there are updates to the printer that download themselves. (see: idiot-proof) HP has promised to add more apps to their already-large app library. And you know, apps are the new black.

Cons:
• My 3 year old can use it to print 100 Disney and Nickelodeon coloring sheets.
• As a small business owner who prints up to 100 pages at a time, I had problems with the printer feeding more than one paper at a time.
• It’s pricey, but they just dropped the price to $340. BUT, when you trade in your old printer (ANY old printer, in ANY condition), you can save $50. That makes it under $300 for those of you who are math-slow.

So tell me, if you were in the market for a printer (and aren’t you always in the market for something way-awesome?) would you buy this printer? Why or why not? What do you look for when you buy a new printer other than it being able to actually print?

The fancy folks at HP will be reading what YOU have to say here. (*waving HI!*) Tell them what you like/don’t like/wish-it-could-do in regards to this printer or any other printer. I bet they’ll write down, in a fancy-pants HP kind of way, what you have to say. They’re cool like that.

Gotta say it: My disclosure statement.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aiming low, hp, HP Web Printer, printer, review

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I have rules for things. Things that don’t need rules.

• Rules for naming my girls: no nicknames (“Angie” for “Angela”), no double letters (Lily Lynch), no uber-popular names (Katelyn, Emma).
• I’m a grammar nerd, and I expect other people to live up to my expectations with the written word.
• I possess the TV remote unless sports are being shown.
• Kraft Mayo.

My own rules can be hard to live by, yet I still make them.

I have a rule for Christmas/Holiday cards: no pictures of the parents. No one wants to see you. They want to see cash your kids, if anyone. Really. If you put your own picture in your Christmas/Holiday card, I will compare you to your last year’s photograph to see how much weight you’ve gained. I know you’d do the same to me.

My Christmas/Holiday cards also have to prominently feature the photograph(s). They have to be pretty, but not frilly. They need to be simple, but not boring. They need to be flat so I don’t have to think of anything witty to write on the inside of a folded card.

It takes me an estimated 3 weeks every year to search for the perfect Christmas/Holiday card. I’m not joking. It’s kind of sad.

This year, I was lucky enough to be approached by Tiny Prints to print and review Christmas/Holiday cards. Oh sweet Jeebus, that makes me narrow down my search to just one photo card site.

It still took me 3 weeks to search for the perfect card. Sad.

It took me 3 weeks because there really are THAT many incredible designs from which to choose for our Christmas/Holiday photo card. To top that, if there’s something I wanted to change on the card, the Tiny Prints graphic gurus would change it for me. (Not just for me ’cause I’m awesome, but they’ll do it for anyone.)

I finally picked a card I liked that matched my girls dresses (yeah, I do that. shut it.), that was simple, yet cute, and also featured my girls in all their cuteness. The cardstock quality is FAR beyond any other photo cards I’ve sent out in years’ past. My snail-mail-only family and friends will think I’ve hit the big-time.

Yeah. Flippin awesome.

Discount
Tiny Prints has a whole page on their website dedicated to giving customers discounts. The best one, in my awesome humble opinion, is FREE Shipping PLUS Up to $30 Off Holiday Orders with code TPSHIPSALE.

Giveaway
I loves me a giveaway. Tiny Prints is allowing me to give away a $50 gift certificate good for shopping their store. Pretty awesome, I know.

To enter, leave a comment below telling Tiny Prints which Christmas/Holiday photo card is your favorite. Leave a second comment by tweeting about the contest and leaving a comment with the tweet link below.

1 comment & 1 tweet comment are allowed per day (that’s a total of 2 entries per day for the mathematically challenged) now through Wednesday, November 18th at 11:50pm EST.

The winner will be announced here on this post, on Prizey.net, and will be contacted directly by Tiny Prints with your gift certificate code to use as you wish.

Good luck!

_______________________________________________________________

Our winner is…..
Jennifer Ferrara!

Check your email in the next few days for your gift certificate from Tiny Prints!

_______________________________________________________________

Disclosure: I was provided products from Tiny Prints in exchange for this honest review.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 76 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: christmas card, Giveaways, photo card, photograph

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I really don’t know what to think about all the “plastics” controversy. I tend to be an optimist with pessimistic tendencies, so I believe the best in people and things with hesitation. I’d like to think that the government protects us and our children from the hidden dangers found in food and products, but with the current *ahem* administration, my faith is all but gone. Recently, the plastics and lead controversies have entered my house and business. I have just added two safe products to my store: The Safe Sippy Cup and Green to Grow BPA-Free Bottles.

I’m not really writing for shameless self-promotion; I really do want to know the attraction that people have that makes them beg and plead to get these bottles.

Are the bottles and cups I use with my girls really going to give them cancer, stunt their growth, and lower their IQ? What and whom should I believe?

I’m so confused.

What do you think?

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2007. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Looking for Mamas Like? We’re still fine-tuning our new blog, so please check us out here: http://mamaslike.com

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2007. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh