Cell Phone Craziness

I've had a Motorola Z9 Razor cell phone for about 11 months. For the last two months now the buttons have not been working properly. Sometimes they work fine and other times you have to press them repeatedly, say bad things, press the buttons some more and then they finally work. To make a long story short, AT&T refuses to replace the phone under the 1 year warranty they offer because of the little chip you can see in the picture. This left with me a piece of junk cell phone and over a year left on my contract. I was not happy.

Luckily for me, my husband (the poor soul who has to live me with and hear me complaining about my cell phone and AT&T) decided to be super nice and let me use his cell phone upgrade to get myself a new phone. So I am now the happy owner of a new iPhone. So far I love it and the best part is that it's touch screen so the buttons can't get stuck. And yes, we did invest in the protective case and screen cover. So far I absolutely love the phone. There is just so much that you can do with it. I think there is an app out there for everything. Now I just hope that the phones lasts for the 2 year term of the contract.

Finally, I wanted to note that I know of other people that also have the Motorola Z9 Razor cell phone and have the same problems with the keys. So my advice to anyone out there looking at cell phones is to avoid this phone. I loved it until the buttons started acting up, but seriously, what good is a cell phone without working buttons? Besides, a cell phone that won't even work for a year isn't worth a 2 year contract. I could continue on this rant, but I will spare you. I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. Ugh!

Works For Me - Presto Pizzaz Pizza Oven

Normally I'm not one to go out and buy a "specialty" kitchen appliance like this, but I received the Presto Pizzazz Pizza Oven as a gift about three years ago. At first I was a little leery of having an appliance taking up space in my kitchen that is only good for heating up pizza. Well, this thing can do so much more then that. I use it to make pizzas (of course), quesadillas, melts and even cookies once. I wasn't crazy about how the cookies turned out, but everything else cooks up beautifully.

To use the pizza oven you simply place whatever you're cooking onto the round tray. The tray rotates so that all portions of the food get time under the heating element. There are top and bottom heating elements and you have the ability to cook with just one or both of them. There are instructions with the oven for cooking the various types of pizza and how long with which elements, but for everything else you will have to do some trial and error.

The Presto Pizzaz Pizza Oven is pretty easy to store. The tray comes off for easy cleaning and storage. I keep the tray with my other baking sheets and the base of the unit gets stored on a shelf on my bakers rack. After three years the non-stick tray has a few scrapes on it, but it is still working. My husband is starting to worry though because we use this so much that we don't want to be without it if something happens. And since we're so frugal we don't want to pay full price for it either. I'm sure that whenever that day comes we'll figure out something.

Keep in mind that just because an appliance says it for this one thing, that doesn't mean that you can't use it for other things. Be creative and keep an open mind.

For more Works For Me Wednesday, head over to Rocks In My Dryer.

Review - Wii Fit

One of the items that I received for Christmas was the Wii Fit. My husband had talked about getting this for me in the past, but I was skeptical and not really interested in spending the money for a second game system when we already had the X-box 360. Well, my mom wound up getting us a Wii and Wii-Fit for Christmas and I have to say that I love it. I have been using the Wii Fit every night and I actually look forward to it. Using it definitely makes you more aware of your posture and balance. Granted I've only been using it for about a week, but the balance games are a lot of fun and I have been having a blast with the hoola hooping. In real life I can't hoola hoop for anything, but in the land of Wii I'm pretty good at it. I also love the ski jump and the penguin fish catch. Tonight I just unlocked boxing, but I was too tired to try it out after I did. So now I will have to try it out tomorrow. It's something for me to look forward to.

A word of warning; it can get a bit pricey when you go out and start buying games and accessories. The Wii was completely new to us so we went out and bought some games, another controller and rechargeable batteries. Several of the games were purchased used, but the other items weren't available used. Since Christmas we have spent over $200 on games and accessories. Yikes! It should be awhile before I need anything else for the Wii though and I always check the used games first when I'm in the store. For the next few weeks I need to stay away from Game Stop and the electronics section at Target. They are dangerous territory.

If you're looking for a fun way to add some exercise to your routine, I would definitely recomment the Wii Fit. Just keep the cost in mind because it certainly isn't cheap.

Starkist Tuna Creations

Last week I received a packet of Starkist Tuna Creations booklets and coupons in the mail from Vocalpoint. I used two of those coupons to pick up the pouches of Starkist Albacore Creations shown here. Since Vocalpoint was kind enough to send me the coupons, I figured I would write a review of the product for them.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Vocalpoint, it is a program by P&G that assists them with word of mouth advertising. When you sign up they will periodically send you coupons and/or free products to try. If you like them, simply tell others about the great products and share some of the coupons they send you. They also have surveys, message boards and activities on their website that you can participate in once you are a member. I personally love the program and recommend it. Now, back to the tuna.

These pouches of tuna come already seasoned. There are several flavors, including Lemon Pepper, Sweet & Spicy, Hickory Smoked, Herb & Garlic, Chipotle Mango and Tomato Pesto. I decided to try the Tomato Pesto. There are recipes on the back of the pouches, but I decided to try using it in one of my own recipes, the Tuna Croissant Wrap. I have been making my Tuna Croissant Wrap for a few years now and family loves it. Using it with Tuna Pesto flavored tuna would be a new experience though. Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 Pouches Starkist Albacore Creations Tomato Pesto flavor
• 1 Tube Refrigerated Croissants
• 2 oz Shredded Cheddar Cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325
• Lay out croissants on cookie sheet so that half the croissants are in each row. The rows should be touching along the bottom part of the triangle. The skinny points of the triangle should be on opposite sides. This part is hard to explain, I will have to take a picture so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.
• Roll out the base of the line of croissants to flatten out the overlapping areas. This ensures that it will bake evenly.
• Open the pouches of tuna and spread it along the center part of the line of croissants.
• Spread the shredded cheese along the top of the tuna.
• Pull the points of the croissant triangles up over the tuna and to the other side of the roll.
• Bake for about 20 minutes, or until croissants are golden brown.

Here is the finished result:

We had this for dinner and it was a hit with both my husband and my daughter. There were absolutely no leftovers. My daughter even ate all of hers and she usually only eats part of her dinner and then wants Cheerios. You can see there are only a few crumbs left on her tray.

I loved the flavor of the tuna. It was nice to have it come out of the pouch already seasoned. I didn't have to take the time to mix up my own tuna and I didn't have to dirty a bowl doing it. The seasoning was also very good. I think these pouches would also make a good emergency lunch. I will probably pick up another pouch to keep in my desk at work for those days when I forget my lunch.

Final Result: We will definitely be buying these again. They were quick, easy and delicious. Something any busy mom can appreciate.