This is a sponsored post, however, the opinions are my own.
The holiday season is a great time to make new movie memories with the kids. Who isn’t excited for Sing to release later this month? It’s just in time for winter break, providing an afternoon of fun!
Keep on reading to find out more about the movie, preview some of the songs, have fun with some printables, and get your tickets to the movie now! And then, of course, enter the giveaway!
Illumination has captivated audiences all over the world with the beloved hits Despicable Me, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Despicable Me 2 and Minions, now the second-highest-grossing animated movie in history. Following the release of this summer’s comedy blockbuster The Secret Life of Pets, Illumination presents Sing this holiday season.
The event film stars Academy Award® winners Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon, alongside Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton and Grammy Award-nominated Tori Kelly.
Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Sing stars Buster Moon (McConaughey), a dapper koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal—some might even say delusional—optimist who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now faced with the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.
Five lead contestants emerge: Mike (MacFarlane), a mouse who croons as smoothly as he cons; Meena (Kelly), a timid teenage elephant with an enormous case of stage fright; Rosita (Witherspoon), an overtaxed mother run ragged tending a litter of 25 piglets; Johnny (Egerton), a young gangster gorilla looking to break free of his family’s felonies; and Ash (Johansson), a punk-rock porcupine struggling to shed her arrogant boyfriend and go solo.
Each arrives under Buster’s marquee believing that this is their shot to change the course of their life. And as Buster coaches each of his contestants closer and closer to the grand finale, he starts to learn that maybe the theater isn’t the only thing that is in need of saving.
Featuring more than 65 hit songs, Sing is produced by Meledandri and his longtime collaborator Janet Healy. Together, they have produced all of Illumination’s films since the studio’s inception. Released by Universal Pictures, Sing arrives in theaters on December 21, 2016. www.singmovie.com
Sing hits theaters December 21. Get your tickets today on Fandango!
Check out this awesome giveaway brought to you by SING!
One (1) winner receives:
$25 iTunes gift card to download the Official Soundtrack
Headphones
Open to US mailing addresses only
Prizing and samples courtesy of Universal Pictures
I am sitting here watching my beloved Michigan Wolverines stomp all over Penn State, and I can’t help remembering Grandma. Six years ago today, I went to work extremely excited. I was leaving right after work to head home for the weekend. A friend of mine had given me tickets to the Michigan-Bowling Green game up at the Big House and I was taking my mom. I have been a Michigan football fan since I was a little kid and I went to BG, so the best of both worlds. Plus, my mother’s Alzheimer’s was starting to show more and more, so I knew such outings were quickly going to end.
Halfway through the morning, my phone started screaming, because I had forgotten to turn off the sound. I saw it was my aunt, and I cringed. I looked at my assistant and said, “I know what this means, but I will wait until after dismissal to listen to it.”
My grandmother was 95 and had just come down with pneumonia after trying to recover from a broken back. We all know what usually happens with people at that age who get pneumonia. I was just so grateful that I had made it home not even two weeks prior to see her for her birthday. In fact, she kicked me out after lunch because the Michigan-Notre Dame game was on, and she thought I needed to home to watch it.
After morning dismissal, I sat on the bench and pulled out my phone to listen to my voice mail. As I had feared, Grandma had passed away that morning. She got up, went to the bathroom, got back into bed and never got up again. I am still teary thinking about that moment, which I had literally dreamed about many times, sitting in that exact spot and getting that message.
I touched base with my father and made arrangements to miss the entire next week of work. It was going to take time to get everyone together to have the memorial service. My coworkers made sure I had food before I left and gave me their well wishes. I headed home and I fumbled as I tried to now pack for a full week instead of just a weekend. Robotically I got into the car and headed west, remembering Grandma and 33 years together.
Soon after I was born, my parents decided to take a new road in life, opening their own furniture business. They had actually met at Dad’s family’s furniture store. And for many reasons, Dad wanted his own. So, while they were building the store and apartment, we moved in with my grandparents and stayed for about a year or so.
Visiting the store in progress with Grandma and Grandpa
After my parents started their store, I still spent a lot of time with my grandmother. If our parents were busy at the store, she would pick us up from school. Mom played the church organ, so Grandma picked us up after first service and fed us lunch, then we played games or read until Mom or Dad would come pick us up. She took us to the library and to Disney movies. I played dress up with her shoes until I outgrew them. I was fascinated by the differences between my city grandmother and my mom’s mother, who was a farmer’s wife.
She had a great smile.
As I started getting older, she was patient while I pored over family albums and asked a million questions about all of these people I didn’t know. My only regret is that I never wrote them down.
In high school, I still enjoyed spending time with my grandmother, which isn’t really a normal thing. My parents sold their business at the end of my senior year of high school and moved us 25 miles south. I still wanted to spend time with friends, and my grandmother let me stay over at her condo, even though I was coming in at 2 and 3 a.m. Our agreement was she wouldn’t tell my mother how long I had been out, as long as I didn’t tell my parents that her boyfriend was spending the night.
In college, I still cherished our family time at holidays. When I started teaching Montessori, I was at a school just a couple of miles away. We often got together for dinner. The only time we missed our dinner was on her birthday, September 11, 2001. We decided considering the circumstances, I was better off heading straight home as soon as possible.
That last birthday of hers that we spent together was extremely difficult. I knew when I hugged her goodbye and said that I would be back at Thanksgiving that we weren’t going to see each other again. And I remember the look in her eyes that said the same, though neither one of us would voice it.
Christmas 2009
Even after I moved to New York, I made regular visits back home. I never missed her birthday. We spent all holidays together. I would spend hours at her apartment, just sitting there. We would chat, but then sometimes sit in silence. In fact, after she died, she came back to me in a dream and told me I had to just sit there. We were just going to sit together, and if I spoke, she would leave. I opened my mouth and said, “But I have so many more questions for you.”
She replied, “I told you not to speak. Now I have to go.” And she vanished.
When my mother started showing signs of Alzheimer’s, I often confided in my grandmother, as I knew my father was also doing. She really became a surrogate mother for me at that point. We were so close, that when her brother took a turn for the worse, having contracted pneumonia after knee surgery at the age of about 88, I was the one chosen to deliver the bad news and to drive her to Hospice to say goodbye to him. When she passed away, I was nominated by the cousins to represent all of the grandchildren in a eulogy.
Losing my grandmother meant losing a part of who I was. She’s the one who taught me to love reading. She taught me to love taking walks in nature. She taught me to be strong and to help people. I lost a confidante and a friend. It also kickstarted the worst year of my life, losing my mother to the depths of Alzheimer’s, and my father then passing away eight months later. It’s always a tough anniversary for me to acknowledge, yet I do. It’s who I am. It’s my way of acknowledging my loss while celebrating her life.
I have moved on, of course, though I still miss her every day. It isn’t a choice. When life gets tough, you put one foot in front of the other and keep soldiering on. I think she would be proud of me and I still often feel her presence, especially at this time of year. I’m going to leave you with the poem that I read at her funeral. Thank you for remembering Grandma with me.
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Do you have an author whose new releases are an automatic one-click for you? For me, one such person is the amazing Bonnie R. Paulson. I was introduced to her a couple of years ago through one of her zombie series, Barely Alive. I’m not a big fan of zombies, but I was reassured that I would probably like this series, anyway, so I gave it a shot. I couldn’t put it down. As she released more books, I just kept on reading.
I love Bonnie’s books because you can’t help but get sucked into the characters and their lives. They are all so real that you feel like you know them all personally. The ones that are told in first-person truly make you feel like you are actually the character.
That’s why I am so excited for The Psycho Collection boxed set to come out. I am longing for some time to be able to really dive into this collection, because I know Bonnie’s storytelling capabilities and know that I will fall madly in love with each and every one of these stories. I hope you will, too.
So read on to find out more about this series and then download your set on your favorite reading platform. Stop back and let me know what you think!
EVERYONE HAS A LITTLE PSYCHO INSIDE…
Purchase The Psycho Collection on your favorite reading platform:
I killed my first victim at thirteen years old – my age, not his. He was going to rape me, him and a couple of his friends. And so, I killed him. And then… I killed again. And again.
At seventeen, I’m killing four to six times a year – maybe more. Don’t stress out. I only go after the pedophiles and rapists. There are more out there than I could cover in a lifetime.
Saying I did this on my own would be selfish. Enforcing justice holds a glory all its own. But now, my lifelong friend and backup, Deegan, has been arrested. I have to decide if I want to give myself up and take his place or leave him with all the damning evidence. I don’t want to stop killing. But if I let him take the fall, I can’t kill anymore. And I need to keep doing that.
But the worst part of it all? I love him.
DICTATING DEATH
Samantha wants to love him.
Maria wants to kill him.
Dr. Luke Lawson has no idea that the girl he’s dating has split personalities fighting to control her body. Samantha must keep Luke safe at all costs.
If Samantha wins, Maria will die and disappear forever – taking Samantha with her.
If Maria wins, Dr. Lawson will die and she and Samantha will move on to the next doctor – the next kill.
But Luke is special.
He could save Samantha from herself… but only if Samantha can save him.
WATCH ME BURN
Levi
I’ve been in love and it hurts.
We hurt each other.
On purpose.
I can’t escape the guilt.
Megan
I don’t want to be just friends with Levi.
But I will be.
He’s been hurt before and I just want to be there for him.
This past summer when I was looking for some summer income and was contemplating leaving my teaching job, a friend told me about UserTesting.com. She said she knew someone who was easily making a hundred or two per month by reviewing websites. I thought about it for a bit, but then forgot about it for a while.
This past winter, I decided to go ahead and try the site. Any little bit of additional income is welcome during this transition. I had also just gotten a great set of headphones with microphone for Christmas, which is absolutely necessary when working on a site like this.
How UserTesting.com Works
Basically, the way that it works is you have to take a screener survey for most of the opportunities. There may be a couple for which you are automatically qualified when they show up in your queue. Once you qualify for a test, or if it is an automatic one, you will want to make sure your headset is properly plugged in. You do a quick test to make sure everything is properly functioning and then the test begins.
You are led through a series of tasks. As you go through these tasks, you want to read the instructions out loud and then answer all of the questions. Give your thoughts and opinions. The point is to keep on talking. Say whatever is on your mind, no matter what your opinion is. The point is you are trying to shape the consumer experience. In fact, they sometimes say if you think you are talking too much, it is probably just right. Another thing to remember is that most tests will want you to interact for a full ten minutes. Keep an eye on your timer in the upper right corner by the instructions. Don’t use a bunch of filler when speaking, but give a lot of good opinions as you maximize your time.
I do UserTesting.com tests on my Windows-based computer. Note that it does not currently work on a Chromebook. You can also do them on a Mac. You do have to download their software so that the screen recorder can capture your voice and how you are interacting with the site. No worries about their downloads or having problems with any of this.
You do have the option of doing UserTesting.com on a mobile device. I have seen tests for tablets and both Android and iPhone. Unfortunately, when I tried to get my phone hooked up for these tests, the software didn’t seem to be compatible, though it should have been. I am hoping that when I eventually get a new phone, this will no longer be an issue. I always seem to have more mobile testing options than computer-based options!
How much money can you earn by doing tests on UserTesting.com? Well, most of the website tests are worth $10. Most of these tests will only take about ten minutes of your time. You can’t beat that hourly rate for sitting at home in your pajamas! Longer tests will sometimes offer more money. You may also qualify for moderated sessions where you interact in an online meeting environment to discuss websites and products. I did one that took an hour and was paid $70 for it.
The amount of money you are going to make, though, is completely dependent on how many tests you receive. I definitely do not qualify for significantly more tests than I do qualify for. I started out getting a test every ten days to two weeks. As I qualified for more, though, I found that I was qualifying for at least one a week. In recent weeks, I have had even more opportunities available. I have heard that the more quality tests you perform, the more that will come your way. There are also little extra qualifying tests that pop up at the top of your dashboard. I do recommend filling those out. That was how I got into a moderated study.
Another thing I do is to keep the UserTesting.com tab open at all times on my computer. The dashboard will automatically update any time there is a new test available. It makes a little dinging sound to alert you and then you can see what is available.
My only complaint is that it takes such a long time to upload the tests. I have had to wait anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple of hours. That gets frustrating when you actually have a dashboard full of test options. They say it can be your internet, but I have high-speed internet and few issues on any other site. They also recommend using Ethernet, but does anyone really still have that? I don’t think any of my computers are even capable of connecting to an Ethernet wire.
UserTesting.com isn’t going to replace a full-time income, but it is a fun way to earn a little extra cash on the side. It is also fun to know that you are able to actually influence products and services that are out there. (Just remember you can’t talk specifics with anyone due to confidentiality reasons!)
Check it out and then let me know what your experience is like.
One week ago, I came home from my part-time morning job in an office in a great mood. The sun was shining and the weather was finally warm enough for me to sit in my outdoor office and work on some other things. I had some captioning to finish and then launched into social media work. As soon as I logged on to Facebook, I saw a post from my manager that Prince had died.
Whaaaaaa?
“Holy $h!t” was my response and then I clicked, thinking it couldn’t possibly be true. More and more posts kept scrolling past, each one confirming something I couldn’t wrap my head around.
How could Prince be dead? At 57 (which didn’t seem like his possible age), he should still be raring to go. He never seemed like a druggie nor an excessive partier. I mean, I was devastated when Scott Weiland died a few months ago and wallowed for several days, but I wasn’t totally surprised. He had been a mess for years. But Prince?
2016 is going to go down as the infamous year where too many celebrities met an untimely passing. Too many beloved parts of my past have been leaving. Perhaps it is some kind of Armageddon that we didn’t know about? Weiland, Bowie, Rickman all shook me. But Prince rocked me to my core.
In a way, that makes sense as he rocked me to my core when I was a young girl. I was only 7 when Purple Rain, the movie, was released. Technically, I was too young to watch the movie. But my cousin, who is three years older, brought it over for us to watch one day. I was immediately transfixed, and didn’t fully appreciate why until last week.
Prince bared his soul to us in that movie. If I remember correctly, it was somewhat based on his life, or at least that was the impression that I had. He had some struggles finding himself and his music, getting lost along the way, as many musicians do. This was the first time that I saw someone who had mixed race parents, though that was lost on me at the time. He had to deal with abuse and protecting his mother. Then there was all of the politics involved with being a musician back then, landing your gig and finding your voice and making an impact on the fans. How do you stay true to your own craft while embracing the talents of others around you? That anguish of being so deep in love and wanting the other person to also be successful in his or her own ventures.
And then the music. With Prince, it was always the music. I couldn’t possibly fathom at the time the greatness that I saw on the screen before me. I just knew that I felt something in every single song that he sang. I couldn’t comprehend the power between his lyrics and the masterful musician behind the captivating music. I just knew that I loved all of the songs, but Purple Rain got to me every time. Yes, part of my young mind was probably entranced by the fact that Prince loved the color purple and wrote a song about purple rain. I was, and still am, totally attracted to the color purple. I am penning this post while wearing purple pajamas and sitting in my bed of purple bedding. I even had a purple car through the majority of adulthood. But there was so much more than that.
Watching it as an adult and really paying attention, there is so much more going on here. I knew that this was the point in the movie where he made amends for his missteps. He is apologizing to Appollonia and to Wendy and Lisa, his bandmates. This is the performance that redeems him in the eyes of the promoters and fans. That much I was able to figure out, even at a young age. But now I notice the emotion. That man wasn’t acting at that point. He is exuding raw, heartfelt emotion and love for those in his life, and is seeking repentance for his mistakes. When he sings, you can feel the power of his penance and cry inwardly for him. Or, maybe you are crying outwardly. I know I can’t watch it now without getting teary, though for me that is nothing particularly new.
Looking back now, this was perhaps the song that taught me that even pop music could have feeling. This was likely one of those moments that helped to shape who I am today, though I wouldn’t have realized it at the time. This song is often stuck in my head for one reason or another. In fact, I was just singing it to myself within a few days of Prince passing away. Once I got the news, it started to play in a loop in my head and just won’t stop. When I finally hear it on the radio or online, I get super emotional all over again.
Lately I have been seeing posts on social media complaining about people focusing more on the loss of Prince and other celebrities, instead of focusing on “real heroes” like those who gave their lives fighting for this country. Here are my thoughts on that.
Yes, we need to mourn those who give their lives to protect our rights. Yes, the media circus has been kind of crazy. I mean, I heard a ton of Prince-related conversation on NPR this week, which I was not expecting. But the thing is, celebrities like Prince are significantly more personal to us than a soldier, unless that soldier is a personal acquaintance. It sounds shallow, but it is reality. Music is the soundtrack of our lives. Songs will elicit memories, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Those memories are a part of our core being. So when one of those celebrities dies, we feel like a part of ourselves has died. You don’t have the active and live reminders of things that you cherish about yourself. It hurts.
This is not to say that I do not feel sad when soldiers die. This does not mean that I am not concerned about the flooding in Houston, which was another complaint that I saw floating around. The difference is I do not know those soldiers who have died. I may have a few acquaintances and friends who live in Houston, but I am not the one who is living there. But I do have numerous personal connections to Prince and his music.
Watching Purple Rain was one of the ways that I could pretend to be cool around my cousin, to whom I looked up because she was older, and therefore, cooler. My childhood best friend sent me a message on Facebook reminding me that the first time she had ever seen the movie was over at my house. It was one of our bonding moments and something that we alluded to for years. When Prince released Diamonds and Pearls, one of my friends was lucky enough to get her hands on the tape and dubbed a copy for me. I was over the moon when she gave it to me. When 1999 rolled around, you can bet your arse we were dancing to that all night long. (I would post a few pics from that night, but some of my college friends may not be too happy with that.)
Prince’s voice was unique, his musical stylings unable to be truly replicated. His face became as familiar to me as a personal friend or a member of my family would be. While watching videos that fateful night after I heard he had died, it was reminiscent of looking at photos of my father or grandmother, who both died five years ago. It’s that familiar face that you have memorized but want to memorize even more because you know you won’t see it anew ever again.
A week later, it still hurts. There is still a hole left inside of me and millions of his fans. We have bonded over our love and memories for a man who was the most talented musician of our lifetimes. I was never fortunate enough to see him perform live, though it was always a goal of mine some day. Instead, I will just revel in the videos that have been left behind and will still try to make sense out of all of this while reminiscing my childhood and jamming to some amazing music.
