Celebrate Energy Awareness Month This October With Best Buy and ENERGY STAR®

We just made two major purchases at Best Buy in the past month, a Blu-ray player and a free standing chest freezer.   It was so helpful to be able to check out the ENERGY STAR® certifications on line and in store, to make our decision easier.  Best Buy and ENERGY STAR are here to help you make your home more green, and save you some green, too.   

One of the quirky perks of being a blogger is sometimes getting paid in product.   Recently I was comped for sharing a campaign with FORTY pounds of chicken breasts!   As jazzed as I was about the perk, we have a small freezer.   Unfortunately none of the major appliance peeps I write for stepped up to comp my prose with one of those giant bottom drawer fridge/freezers I've been drooling over, so we headed to our go to place at the end of the block, Best Buy.

We were throwing money away by running an empty old fridge in the basement, just to use the little freezer for our overflow.   And it still was too small for the chicken breast bonanza.   Now we have a rockin', energy efficient, freestanding chest freezer with far more storage capacity!   

We were also one of the last holdouts with a working VCR/DVD combo unit.   Yes... I still actually had a VCR.  It finally gave up the ghost and we're loving our money saving Blu-ray player.

ENERGY STAR certifications made it easy to narrow down all the options and make an eco friendly, money saving choice.

Since 1991, the federal government has designated October as Energy Awareness Month, and Best Buy makes it super simple for you to find ENERGY STAR® certified products online and in our stores to help you save money on your energy costs.  We can also help you connect with local utility rebates on the energy-efficient products we use every day.

October is Energy Awareness Month and it’s a great time to upgrade to a new energy efficient appliance, television or computer to save money on your home energy bills.  Best Buy has more than 2,300 unique ENERGY STAR certified products available in Best Buy stores and BestBuy.com.

Beyond savings from simply having energy efficient products, local utility companies provide additional rebates that can save you up to $300.  To find rebates available in your area, check out the Best Buy online rebate finder.

The average home’s annual energy bill is $2,200 and energy efficient products can save you money.  Check out how much you can save with a new appliance by now.

ENERGY STAR is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) voluntary program that helps businesses and individuals save money and protect our climate through superior energy efficiency. Click here for more information.

Best Buy is Proud to Be an 

ENERGY STAR^®Partner

Look for the ENERGY STAR label. ENERGY STAR certified products save money, reduce energy use and protect the environment by meeting strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy.

HELP LOCALLY: 2nd Annual Circus Soirée to Benefit CircEsteem Chicago's Youth Circus

Join us for the 2nd Annual Circus Soirée, where guests will be treated to a special circus performance by CircEsteem youth and staff, a live and silent auction, and an opportunity to learn how to walk on a tightrope, juggle or roll around in a gym wheel. Circus Soirée proceeds benefit CircEsteem's HomeWork & CircusWork program, an after school program that provides tutoring, circus arts training, and healthy snacks to more than 30 youth three times a week throughout the school year. Since 2001, CircEsteem's mission has been to unite youth from diverse racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds by helping them build self-esteem and mutual respect through the practice of circus arts. Our curriculum includes clowning, juggling, stilt-walking, unicycling, and acrobatics all of which is taught by professional circus staff and is designed to allow students to progress at their own pace. By overcoming obstacles and achieving goals, our students demonstrate increased self-esteem, higher grade point averages, and new found circus skills. My favorite Circus Soirée shots were the cool juxtaposition of the kids doing circus arts and the rockin' antiques in the Architectural Artifacts space. Check out ChiIL Mama's Full Circus Soiree Photo Recap Below: Last year my husband & I video taped the whole show & shot close to 500 stills, and our son & daughter both performed.   This year our kids are taking a fall hiatus after 3 solid years of circus arts with CircEsteem.     Du-Jay just started the selective enrollment, gifted program at Lane Tech and needs to settle in to the rigorous academic demands and workload.   Sagezilla is again doing competitive gymnastics with the Chicago Comets team and has practice 4 days a week, so we needed to ease up on circus, just for the moment.   But we'll be back! The kids adore circus arts and we have seen first hand what a wonderful program CircEsteem runs and highly recommend it.   Help out if you can! We need your help to reach our goal of raising $60,000 to support our free circus programs.  There are many ways you can get involved. Buy a ticket to the event, donate an item to the silent auction, make a donation or volunteer!  It's going to be a night you won't want to miss!

Check out more of our "best of" below:

There was excellent array of food choices from jambalaya to gourmet tacos & crepes.

The "boozie snocones" and non boozie snocones for the under agers were a huge hit!

And there was a plethora of cool silent auction items to choose from.   
We were so stoked to win the collapsible hula hoop, private lessons with Dizzy Lizzy and an outdoor trapeze session on the lakefront!

Don't miss Circus Soirée 2 on October 17th!!   Book your tickets by the 4th.   Time's ticking....

Sagezilla's first pro-stage makeup session!

These kids & instructors have some serious talents!

At CircEsteem the older kids are paid to mentor and teach the younger ones and sliding scale classes and free tutoring make circus arts accessible to all.   HELP OUT if you can.

FOODIE TUESDAY: REVIEW New Girl Scout Cookie Creamers by Coffee-mate #ad #OriginalVideo

“Scout The Girl Scout” 

Disclosure:  Thanks to Coffee-mate for sending us creamers for review purposes.

To celebrate the new partnership between Girl Scouts and Coffee-mate, the iconic creamer company launched a nationwide casting call titled “Scout The Girl Scout,” to discover an authentic Girl Scout to star in an upcoming Coffee-mate commercial.  They received a slew of great submissions, including my daughter's.  Don't worry--no votes, clicks, likes or jumping through hoops required!   Woo hoo.   Just watch it if you want to, cause it's cute and fun.   No pressure.

My own 10 year old, Sage, is beginning her 4th year as a Girl Scout, and she was one of the hopefuls who auditioned.   Check it out above and/or Click here to check out her entry on the site.   She's second line center on the second page.   I'm sure everyone thinks their kid is one in a million, but in this case, Sage was one of 300+.    Click here for more “sweet” casting call videos.  They also ran Los Angeles and New York castings in person.   They should be announcing the winner any time now.

Sage didn't get a call back, but we did get some tasty, full sized samples in the mail.  Coffee-mate won Brownie Points in my book by choosing my very fav flavors for the roll out.  At this point they have Thin Mint and Caramel & Coconut (Samoa flavor).   Get your cookie flavor fix now, year round!

Thin Mint is my ultra favorite, but C & C is a close second.   If you're a huge coffee fiend like me, check 'em out!   It was a great pleasure to meet their PR peeps at BlogHer13, where they were giving out tiny tastes, and then to have the chance to review a couple full sized bottles.   The easy open, flip tops rock, and the tapered spout makes it easy to hit the mark even when your mornings are "mom hectic".   These creamers make for a tasty treat, without all the guilt (and calories) of scarfing a whole sleeve of thin mints.   

  

Disclosure:  Once again, thanks to Coffee-mate for sending us creamers for review purposes.

Don't Tread on Me: A New Revolution in Treadmill Desks #TreadmillDesk #ProjectSkinnyMama #HealthyLiving

This iconic 1775 Gadsden flag (unfortunately appropriated by the Tea Party in 2009) was created during the American Revolutionary War.  Nowadays, there's a new revolution afoot, the fight on fat.   And treadmill desks are set to beat the battle of the bulge!   So tread while you read me (tweed), tread and comment (comtread?), tread n tweet (treat!)... really.   We've already been joking about tworking/twerking for a while with our friends over at Chicagonista.

Though pricy (name brand models can run you $4,000) a treadmill desk is an investment in your health, cheaper than a health club, and waaaaay cheaper than health issues caused by inactivity.   If I find I'm really lovin' it and using it a lot, then I may make the full blown investment.  For starters, though, it's not too tough to DIY one up at home.   We rigged up a crazy reasonable, rockin' one with a Craigslist treadmill and parts from Home Depot!

Check back with ChiIL Mama later this month as we lead you through the details.   For now, I just wanted to say how jazzed I am to be writing to you from my very own moving sidewalk.  Yep.  I'm a mama on the move.   Coming to you live, from my very own, one of a kind, treadmill desk. 

PSM continues... That's Project Skinny Mama (PSM, not PMS, though about as fun) for those of you new here.

Over the past 5 years as my professional blogging & freelance writing careers have grown, so has my e-mail in box... And my the amount of time I spend sitting on my butt has expanded exponentially, gobbling up my former workout time... causing said butt to expand exponentially too!    Not good.   So, even though I can't hop on the treadmill without the Jetsons theme song popping into my head, I'm still pretty stoked to find a way to be even more of a multitaskin' momma.    Next up... maybe I can rig up my mountain bike that already has a stationary resistance mount, and make it a desk as well?!   Stay tuned...