I woke up this morning with even more pain in my eye. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but this pain was unbearable. It was like there were hundreds of tiny knives in my eye socket and my eyeball was rubbing against their very sharp tips. Even the slightest eyeball movements brought me to tears. I called my doctor and got an appointment for 10:15am. The second I stepped out the door to go to my appointment I thought I was going to die. I’m pretty sure the sun burned a whole right through my eye. So Lee drove me to the doctor. I have pink eye. I have had pink eye many, many, many times before, but this time it’s different. It’s not goopy and it’s one hundred times more painful. But I’ve know gone through a full day of drops and I’m already feeling tons better.

Which brings me to today’s [very late] post. I’ve agreed to review The 24-Hour Pharmacist as part of the Mother Talk blog tours. I couldn’t find a cure for pink eye, but I did find a ton of other helpful tips for other ailments that haunt me.

I’m not a big “drug” person. And by that I mean, my head has to be really pounding for me to even take some Advil. You will never find me pushing my doctor to prescribe antibiotics. And I rarely take the monthly ‘maintenance’ drugs my doctor does prescribe for me. I’m not pointing this out to convince you not to take medication. If you doctor prescribes something please don’t be like me. Take the medication! I’m just pointing this out to say I was a little skeptical about this book at first. I assumed it would be about different drugs on the market that will cure all that ails me. But I was wrong.

The 24-Hour Pharmacist is written by Suzy Cohen, a pharmacist and author of the syndicated column “Dear Pharmacist.” She breaks the book up in to sections based on sections of the body; Above the Waist, Above the Neck, Below the Waist, And Everything in Between. In each chapter she gives expert advice on everything from colds to toe fungus to heart disease and depression. But she doesn’t just spout out long lists of symptoms and tell you what drugs to take. She explains why we suffer from these diseases, describes the current drugs on the market and then gives some natural alternatives.

The very first chapter is about fatigue. I’m a working mother of five trying to get my college degree. Oh do I ever know about fatigue. So right away I was hooked, marking pages to reread later and taking note of what to look for at the pharmacy and health food stores to help energize me.

Since I suffer from a mild case of OCD I was particularly interested in Section 6; Frazzled, Frustrated, and Freaked Out. My doctor prescribed some medication but I just can’t bring myself to take it anymore. So I was thrilled to read Cohen’s suggestions. I’ve already cut out caffeine, but now I’m going to try to cut out sweeteners add in some fruits, like blueberries and oranges, and I’m thinking about trying some supplements like Omega-3 fatty acids and drinking Chamomile Tea.

I also loved every chapter in the “And Everything in Between” section. Here Cohen gives tips on safe weight loss, cosmetics and other beauty products, how to avoid a cold and more. Did you know pineapple can help your arthritis? Or zinc can help your acne? And chocolate is good for you? Too bad I don’t like chocolate.

Throughout the book, Cohen talks about how making changes to our diet and exercising can help keep us healthy. Not just help us lose weight, but help prevent anxiety and depression and a whole slew of other issues we may encounter. In the Placebos and Healing Treats chapter sums up some of the best ways to keep yourself healthy; relaxing, laughing and thinking positive.

She ends the book with a list of “drug muggers.” Did you know that some of the drugs we take to cure some ailments can actually deplete our bodies of nutrients we need? This is definitely a chapter you will want to check out so you can make sure you are taking supplements or eating food rich in the nutrients your body might be missing.

I highly recommend this book. It’s a great resource. I’ve flagged several pages to go back to later and I’ve written down a few supplements I want to try. Of course, always discuss your health with your doctor, but this book gives you some ideas to run by him/her. It’s time you start to get some control of your care.

The fine folks over at Sourcebooks sent me a free copy of The Naked Roommate to read and review.

Although I’m a college student the tips in this book weren’t really geared towards me. Sadly I’ve gotten to old to live in the dorms. The only naked roommate I see these days is my husband and I don’t mind seeing him naked. But this book has a ton of great tips for high school seniors getting ready to make the leap to college or even current college students who need a little advice.

The author, Harlan Cohen, gives advice on the hard issues, like dating, sex, alcohol and drugs, plus tips on going Greek, getting involved, skipping class and dealing with roommates and the stuff we tend to overlook, like avoiding the ‘freshman 15′ and doing laundry without losing your unmentionables. And yes, there is a tip on how to deal with a naked roommate (tip #16). My all time favorite advice is what to do if your roommate enjoys having sex in your presence. First he suggests you talk to her and let her know it bothers you and if that doesn’t work then invite friends over to watch. She might move her lovemaking to somewhere a little more private if she realizes she has an audience.

There are so many things to love of about this book, but let’s start with humor. Harlan doesn’t spend over 400 pages preaching. Instead he writes as if he’s sitting around chatting with his friend [and that friend is you, the reader]. He cracks jokes. He invites you to check out his mySpace and Facebook pages. And he never once talks down to you. This is great considering the target audience is teenagers and I think we all know how hard they are to get through to.

Another great thing about this book is the testimonials. Each tip begins with a comment from a real live college student. And the tips come from students all over the U.S., even Iowa. It was great to hear from students who are living it, have learned from their mistakes and are willing to share [anonymously]. It made the advice feel more credible since we’re hearing it from all different types of students from all different kind of schools.

But what I love best about this book are the chapters on the tough stuff; sex, alcohol and drugs. I’m one of those who thinks we can [and should] preach abstinence and ‘just say no’ to drugs and alcohol, but we also need to make sure our kids understand the consequences and know what to do if they don’t listen to our preaching. Some of our kids will experiment and they need to know what to do in those situations. Harlan does a great job of giving both sides.

In the sex section, his advice is to not have sex until you are absolutely ready and in love and won’t be ashamed of it in the morning. Several times he states you must feel comfortable enough with your partner to discuss both of your sexual histories. He discusses different birth control options plus what to do if you make a mistake. And he pounds home the point that you need to make sure you aren’t doing something drunk that you wouldn’t do sober.

In the alcohol and drug sections, he makes it clear that not everybody on campus is getting drunk and high. Kids come in to college thinking everybody gets drunk four nights a week, but the reality is more than half of students are there to [gasp] get an education. But he also has advice for those students who do decide to drink or do drugs. He suggests they figure out how to balance it all; drinking and making it to class so they don’t flunk out. He also has some suggestions for dealing with druggie roommates or alcoholic friends.

This is the stuff our college students want to hear about. They don’t want to hear their parents preaching “be safe.” They want real advice about what to do when they find themselves in these situations and Harlan gives them those answers.

I could go on and on about the great tips offered in this book, but instead I’ll just leave you with one last tip; finding your place on campus (tip #3). Throughout the book Harlan emphasizes the need to be involved. Several tips talk about joining sporting clubs or religious clubs or political clubs or starting your own club. This is one of the most important tips in the book. Too many kids spend their first few months holed up in their room not making friends. College is such an amazing experience. Not one second should be wasted and I think with the help of this book kids will be able to dive right in and make the best of it. If you have teenagers get a copy of this book. If you have toddlers, put this in your Amazon wishlist so you’ll remember to buy the latest edition when they are teenagers. I can’t wait for my teenagers to read it.

A while back Brighter Minds Media sent me a bunch of products for my kids to try out and for me to review. We were really impressed. The games and books were entertaining enough to keep the kids interest for quite a while and they were educational. Just what a parent is looking for when buying gifts for their child.

Back then I reviewed four of the books in the Extreme Monsters collection. We read the Joke Book and the first three books in the series; The Blue Moon Effect, What’s up with Wulf? and Meet Mr. Hydeous. At seven years old, Spencer loved these books. He often carried on around in his backpack to read to his friends on the bus. They were a big hit with the first grade crowd.

The books are early chapter books written for kids from ages 7 to 12. Each book has a story that captures the attention of these younger readers as well as a glossary of extreme sports terms. For example, in the glossary we discover that a Bunny-Hop refers to a BMX trick where you “lift both wheels off the ground by crouching down and then jumping upward, pulling the bike with you.” Each book also includes fun puzzles at the end of each chapter. These puzzles include questions or word scrambles or work finds that relate to the chapter the child just read. So not only are the puzzles fun, but they help the child remember and process what they just read in the chapter. And at the very end you put all the puzzles together to get a secret code which you can use online at http://www.extrememonsters.com. Spencer loves these puzzles. They are almost his favorite part of the book. And, of course, he loves playing even more games online.

So who are these Extreme Monsters? They are talented athletes who compete in action sports and have joined the competitive circuit of the Extreme Team Sports League, where they are known as the Extreme Monsters. The team is made up of Val the vegan vampire, Jinx the street-luging witch, Wulf the rollerbladding werewolf, Steiner the BMX-ing monster, and Mumford the speed-climbing mummy.

And now there is a new book in the series; Battling Bigfoot. In this book Val is disappointed to find out the makers of his favorite drink, Sweet Beat Sparkling Beat Juice have come up with a new formula. It’s no longer made from real beats but instead from unnatural ingredients including a dye that make Val break out in hives. But that’s not the worst of it. It turns our Damon Christopher’s company, Pendant Enterprises, has purchased the mountain where the beats are grown and are going to build and extreme sports park there. When the Extreme Monsters team gets to the mountain for the latest competition they discover the mountain is dry and dusty…with very few beats. As they start the race they realize something is off. Somebody is sabotaging the race. Who could it be? And why?

Like the previous books in the series this book easily keeps your child’s attention. Each chapter leaves you wanted to go on to the next to learn who’s behind the sabotage. And the puzzles are a great way to test the child’s comprehension. This book is a great one to add to your elementary school aged child’s collection.

I’ve tried a lot of photo sharing websites, all with their own pros and cons, so I jumped at the chance to review a new one; Greetingflix.com.

I really like the concept. There are tons of websites out there where you can upload your photos and then send your friends and family a link to come view them. This site takes it one step further. At Greetingflix.com you can make a little video with your pictures. They supply the template and the music. You supply the pictures. It’s really pretty fun and the finished product is great.

There were some extra features I really liked:

• Like other sites, you can upload photos and put them in to albums.
• You can upload photos from your mobile phone.
• You get 50MB of space with a free account and 1GB with a pro account.
• There are some photo editing features; such as crop, rotate, a black & white filter, a sepia filter, sharpen, brightness, contrast and saturation.
• And you can set reminders, like for Father’s Day, and you can tell it how many days before hand to send you an email reminder.
• Plus when you send your finished video to friends and family you get a follow up email letting you know your recipient opened the email.
• Oh, and they give you the code to paste your video in to your blog or Myspace page.

Here’s the video I created.

There were some downsides though:

• There aren’t a lot of templates to choose from yet. I was disappointed there was no “birthday” template. And the free templates are slim pickin’s [although they are currently making the pro templates available to everybody which is nice].
• Every time I clicked the home link I had to re-log in. But to be fair, I don’t know if maybe I have cookies disabled or if that was a coding issuing on the site.
• The templates tell you how many pictures you will need, but when you pick your photos it doesn’t tell you how many you’ve picked or how many you have left to pick. I had to count them out as I was picking and, of course, the pressure of picking out the best photos caused me to count incorrectly.
• When you don’t pick enough photos it takes you to a screen that says you didn’t pick enough, but when you go back to pick again you have to start all over
• Also when you’re picking out your photos, instead of placing the photos in order from left to right, the photos are placed in order from top to bottom. So you have to scroll down and look through the first column, then go back to the top and scroll down the second column. This isn’t a problem if you’re just looking through your album, but if you are looking for a particular photo and you sort of know where it should be in the pack it would be nice for them to go from left to right.

All in all, I was impressed. It’s nice to be able to make a nice looking slideshow [with music] to enhance your photos. And they make it easy for you. There’s no complicated software to download and the site walks you through every step. Soon they will be adding the ability to order prints and gifts which will give the other photo sites a whole new competitor. They’ve got some work to do [namely adding some more template options], but I think they’ll get there.

Go check it out. Greetingflix.com