EcoTools EcoPouf Dual Cleansing Pad

This is one of those impulse buys I made one day while looking for a new mesh bath pouf at Target. I don't know about the rest of you but I just can't seem to find any that hold up, they always seem to come untied and then they just fall apart and this is one of those times I am helpless as I just can't put those things back together in a way that is at all useful beyond finishing up my current shower. I was rather intrigued when I came across the EcoTools EcoPouf Dual Cleansing Pad, after all it had a loofah on one side and a mesh pouf stitched down to the other side as well as a sturdy fabric tag to hang it by and an elastic band. I really wanted to give this a try so I looked at the price, $3.99, granted a bit more than my usual bath poufs but this looked far more durable so I figured it was worth a try. I went home excited to try this new gem out.

I will admit I haven't specifically used the loofah side as thus far I find the mesh pouf side to be good enough for a light exfoliation and I honestly just keep forgetting to go with the loofah side for a deeper exfoliation when I am in the shower. I have not yet had any problems working up a decent lather with either a bar of soap or a heavy moisturizing liquid soap, I have tried this baby out with 2 different natural bar soaps as well as with a heavier Dove body wash. Though I have only had this a few weeks now I am fairly confident that this little gem will likely become a must have in my beauty arsenal.

* I was in no way compensated for this review. I purchased this item with my own money due to my own curiosity in this product and how well it would work for my needs/wants. I am only posting this review to assist others in their own quest for the right items to add to their own beauty arsenals. 

WildRoot Naturals Vanilla Bean Lip Balm

This lip balm is where my dedication to WildRoot Naturals lip balms all started, the vanilla bean lip balm. Not only does WildRoot Naturals name imply that all of it's products are all natural but they really are, I have even witnessed some of the products being made right in front of me. I will say I still remember the heavenly smell of the stress & headache relief pillow inserts being made.

The vanilla bean lip balm is handmade with coconut oil, bees wax, organic Shea butter, organic cocoa butter, vitamin E, and vanilla bean flavoring. Those are the only things in this lip balm. This lip balm goes on smooth, smells great and really does help moisturize your lips. It doesn't feel tacky or waxy. It just feels great on your lips. To me this lip balm is a steal at only $3.00 a tube. I can honestly say I have tried dozens of other lip balms by just about everyone out there from cheap drugstore lip balms loaded with chemicals to very high end organic lip balms and everything in between, yes I have even tried a number of lip balms that were over $10 and even around $20 a piece over the years in my quest for the best lip balm for my chronically dry lips. I am thankful that the best product I have found is all-natural and affordable. I love this lip balm so much I give this out as gifts so much I bought 7 gift bags of lip balms for holiday gifts, well one bag was for me of course.

I will review some of the other varieties at a later date.

* I admit that my first tube of this lip balm was given to me to try out the product before it went to market, but that said I have lost count of how many tubes I have purchased since then (28 this holiday season alone). I received no compensation for writing this review, nor was I asked to write this review. I am only posting this review to assist others in their own quest for the right items to add to their own beauty arsenal. 

Starting up some product reviews.

I just got inspired to do some product reviews for some of the products I have tried and love as well as some things I try and don't love. I will try to include Skin Deep scores as well as a description as to what I like and/or don't like about each product. I have recently tried a few new products and have some more coming soon so it seems like a good time to start up such an adventure.

I owe my inspiration to start doing product reviews to a friend who makes my absolute favorite lip balm ever, Rebecca. If you want some truly awesome products that are great for you check her out, Wild Root Naturals. Thanks Rebecca for both the inspiration and the wonderful products you make, I love you and your products so much. 

Back to Homework Time

It has been busy around here lately as we adopted a retired greyhound whom we needed to help nurse back to health and then getting into the groove of a new school year. The new school year and the increased work load that has come along with it has been keeping me very busy. I have a very active, some say hyper active, 6 year old so finding ways to help him learn all his sight words and spelling words has been challenging to say the least. Flash cards have always worked out to some extent but aren't really something he wants to do so I embarked on a mission to find some better ways to learn all these words, especially all those spelling words.

I found an idea for a game called Bang! which uses jumbo popsicle sticks with one word on each stick and while my son enjoyed this game he really loves to win so I eventually took out the Bang sticks and just left the word sticks but to get him to try all the words we allow him to steal our sticks if he can say the word on our stick. This is a pretty big hit but he gets tired of it quickly so it wasn't the only solution necessary, especially since I still need to worry about spelling.

Enter Scrabble Junior and a vis-a-vis marker to write the words on the board. He was not so fond of this but a friends son is enjoying this game.

On to hangman, this is the real winner in our house especially since we have a travel hangman from Melissa & Doug so we can practice spelling words in the car when we travel. Of course I don't drive while I play this with him in the car. I write the number of blanks down on the white board area and tell him the word and he has to spell it. Every wrong guess I turn over a piece of the man and I do this for all 10 spelling words (without resetting the man between words) to see if he can get all 10 words before I can hang him. This has really speeded up the process of learning to spell our words.

Of course come Thursday we do still have to do a paper and pencil practice test to make sure he can do well on his test in class. Leading up to that paper and pencil practice test I do allow him to trace the words using a dry erase marker at least once everyday to get used to writing the words, no my son does not have the neatest handwriting and this helps a lot. I either use the dry erase envelopes or nice glossy page protectors to slide a sheet with the words written out in the teacher specified font on lined paper (I finally found a font for my computer so now I can print the list out in grey for him to trace over instead of me having to write it out by hand myself, no my writing isn't the greatest... it's good but not as good as a teacher).

All of that being said since he is so active and we have a lot of homework I am going to try to find more active ways to do our studying. I'll try to keep you posted on how that goes as I just began making a list of ideas that I can try for spelling, sight words and even math. 

Our new shoe cabinet

Here is a picture of our new shoe cabinet. It is so nice to have a place for the little one to put his shoes so they aren't literally all over the house, it was always like a scavenger hunt when he needed to find his shoes and we were always tripping over them. This beauty holds a minimum of 12 pairs of shoes and has a drawer at the top that we are using to store all of our sunglasses, yes we have tons of sunglasses living by the beach. All I have left to do with this little corner of the house is to add pictures to the picture frames. It's nice to have the entry way basically done. I also still need to paint the doors on the closet and the decorative cement walls, but that is it for this room.






Here you can see the wall all taped off to see how it would fit in the entry way. This picture was taken before I painted the wall and put the light switch plate back on the wall. 

Our new kitchen island, stools still to come

Here is the kitchen before we added the new island. You can see I used painters tape to mark off where the island would go. I did this to get a feel for if the island would disrupt the traffic flow or make it too difficult to access the stove, dishwasher or refrigerator. I also played with where the tape was a bit to work out a good placement for the island, probably not entirely necessary as we were only adding a freestanding island and therefore could move it later if necessary. Of course once you get your stuff on the island it is more difficult to move and I wanted to make sure everyone was going to be ok with the addition of a kitchen island. 

Here you can see the storage area where I am storing my baking pans and sheets and carriers and all of that good stuff, freeing up space for other things.

Below, you can see the back side of the island where the stools go. I ordered a pair of metal stools, slightly industrial and modern yet still look a bit like they belong in a farm house, they should be here next week.

The house is really starting to take shape and feel like a home already. 

Our new house, a work in progress. The playroom/kids guest room.

This is the playroom/kids guest room in our new house. This room took a lot of coats of primer and a lot of patching of walls and even the door to the room. This room had writing on the wall and everything, right down to bright orange walls and bright yellow trim. What a project this room was. Oh lets not forget the disgusting dark blue carpet, thankfully that was covering up a terrazzo floor. The terrazzo does need some serious work but as it is currently just being used as a playroom I figured that can wait a bit.

Our "little man" also picked out the color for his playroom, ok he really picked out 2 colors for his bedroom so I decided to put one color in each room. This room is Valspar Summer Breeze and we loved this color so much we painted our bedroom the same color. I know the room looks pretty good in this picture, but the terrazzo still has more adhesive to be removed and it has pits in areas of it and it has a rough area where it meets up with the tile in the hallway so there is still a ways to go, but it has definitely come a long ways already. I am really happy with how far this room has come in the short time we have owned this house, oh the joys of a fixer upper. I should say for those of you who are debating buying a fixer upper please really think about what you are getting yourself into and what level of time and skill you have. Also realize it will cost more and take more time than you expect, but that being said if you are confident this is a good path for you to go down remember that in the end you will have a house that really suits you.

Here is the glorious before picture. I will admit this room kind of scared me as far as just how much work needed to be done to it, but it is now in such a better place that I don't cringe when I go in the room because I know how much work needs to be done. Now I cringe for a whole other reason, the mess all over the room.  :-) I guess that is all "kids" rooms though, you just never know what kind of mess you will find in their rooms when you enter that door. In his defense though as you can see there really is nothing for him to store or put most of his toys away in so I totally understand the problem in this current situation but we do need to work it out soon as we are getting a dog in just over a week and everything is fair game to a dog, at least in the dogs mind.

 

Our new house, a work in progress. The "little man's" bedroom

This is our "little man's" bedroom. This is the first room I finished, well I use that term lightly as we still aren't fully unpacked. That actually includes putting all the clothes away as I haven't even found all the clothes or even all the hangers, yes I am currently taking all the hangers stores give me with my clothing purchases. Oh the joys of moving. 

Anyhow, this is the before picture of his room. It had decent looking roman shades although they were broken. It also wasn't quite as bright or dark of a color as several other rooms were and therefore didn't require as many coats of primer. 

The "little man" picked out the paint color for his new room, Valspar sweet mint. We actually liked it enough that we painted our bathroom the same shade and now I am really loving the name of the color because we just picked out our new dog yesterday who's name is Minted, how appropriate and funny that I just realized that his room is sweet mint and he picked a dog named Minted. 

I picked up the new bedding for his room at Target as he wanted a pirate/beach room. I loved the octopus pirate pillows so that was a bit of a splurge for his new room but given the quilts from his old room worked with the new bedding it wasn't that big of a deal. The sheets from his old room will be used in his play room/kids guest room when I finally get beds in there. 

As for the blinds we took all the window treatments in the house down and ordered new natural shades with black out liners from Lowes. The black out liners will not only provide privacy and allow the rooms to be dark for sleeping in and such but should also help cut down on the need for AC which is pretty high in Florida. I will post pictures of the blinds when they come in. I will say I loved how we could borrow the window blind book to check the colors at our house, we changed our color to a slightly lighter and brighter shade when we saw them in our house with our paint colors and all.

Removing popcorn from ceilings

Well we closed on our new house last Monday, so last Monday a lot of hard labor began for me. First on the list was taking the popcorn off the ceilings so they can be repaired and textured, yes they needed repair so I figured as long as we have to have them repaired we may as well take down the fabulous glitter popcorn and bring the house into the 21st century. Besides you can always tell where a popcorn ceiling was fixed no matter how good a job they do.

I won't lie to you, removing all that popcorn was not really an easy task but I kept telling myself I'll have some awesome looking arms when I finish will all of this work. It took me 10 days to get all the popcorn off all of the ceilings in the house. I will admit I did not actually work on the ceilings everyday of those 10 days either, probably about half of the days. My method of removal did evolve over the course of my project so I thought I would share some of the highlights and low points so you can learn from my adventure.

The first day I had a spray bottle and a putty knife. I sprayed the water using a spray bottle and scraped it off with a putty knife. It was very slow and the spray bottle kind of hurt my hand after a while, however if you are really tight on cash and not so tight on time this may be the best way for you to go as you can probably find all your supplies at the dollar store.

After that first day I ran out and picked up a garden sprayer and a wider blade on a longer handle so I wouldn't have to climb up and down the ladder all day and could spray more ceiling area faster. I used more of a floor squeegee as this is what I saw at the small hardware store right by the house and didn't have time to run to a bigger store that morning, it took a bit of elbow grease to get it to scrape as well as the metal blade on my putty knife. The garden sprayer definitely made life a whole lot easier and for about $20 was very well worth the money. The squeegee was definitely better, but when I had almost finished my project I discovered something truly awesome when I was wondering around at Lowe's (I'm sure other stores carry this too and wish I knew of it's existence sooner).

What did I discover? It was a blade for scraping popcorn off the ceiling that had a frame around the scraper that you attach a bag to so you catch all the popcorn in a bag instead of all over the floor and yourself. It was about $20 and you could attach it to a screw on handle to lengthen it so you don't need to climb up and down a ladder all day which trust me is a good thing unless you really want to feel the burn in your legs.

Also worth mentioning is to run into your local dollar store first and see what supplies they have. I got gloves and masks and plastic tarps and spray bottles and mops and putty knives and all kinds of great supplies so I wouldn't have to worry about cleaning all those little things when I am done. Yes I know that it isn't very green to dispose of things but sometimes it is greener in it's own way and to me this is one of those times. Trust me you don't want to try to clean that popcorn off of anything you don't really need to, it is a really tedious prospect and uses a lot of water and still often doesn't really come clean. Also, that popcorn is hard on some of these things. My putty knives rusted quickly even while working on a room, that wet popcorn just sticks to things and rusted my putty knives quickly. Plastic tarps that are catching a big mess like this are definitely something better off thrown out, I just rolled the edges into the center and threw the whole mess in the trash.

This is a picture of the last room I scraped popcorn from. Yes that project is marked off my to do list.

You may want to know what you need, in case you plan to do this yourself. Well, you definitely need some water (you can use a hand spray bottle like I bought at the dollar store or you can use a garden sprayer like I opted for in the end) and a scraper (you can use a putty style knife like I bought at the dollar store or you can opt for a wider blade or maybe even go with the one that you attach a bag to to catch all the popcorn and you may want to get a longer handle so you don't need to stand on a ladder or chair).

Some things you should definitely consider are goggles, masks to cover your nose and mouth, gloves (I found some for gardening that had a really nice grip on the underside at the dollar store) tarps to protect your floors (especially carpet or wood, I wasn't as careful on the tile floors) and a mop to clean up the floors when you are done. If you get it on the walls you will want a microfiber towel or something to get it off the walls. I used a dollar store water bottle with mostly water and a little white vinegar added to it to really dissolve the mess off the walls and floors. 

Getting ready for Little Man's 3rd cruise

In just over 2 weeks we are going on our 3rd cruise with our Little Man. He is 3 and a half now, his last cruise was just before his 2nd birthday so it has been a while for all of us. So much has changed in the last 20 months so it will be a whole new experience for us. He is now old enough for the kids programs and is potty trained so he can use the pools. He has been in preschool for about 10 months so he is more accustomed to being away from mommy and daddy for extended periods of time.

What has changed?

Well we probably won't be bringing our trusty umbrella stroller with us, we have one that reclines so that he could nap easier in it. It was truly a great splurge for us, perfect for travel or even just taking the Metro around town. It folds up small enough to fit under the beds in hotel rooms and on cruise ships, saves so much room when you are already in cramped quarters. If you are wondering what stroller we have it is the Maclaren Quest, and actually we used it so much that we bought a second one for ourselves and even bought one for my sister for her daughter when we were in San Francisco utilizing the public transportation extensively. This stroller is perfect for those who are taller as the handles are much higher than on most umbrella strollers, no hunching over required for most people, but they aren't so high as to be uncomfortable for shorter people either.

We are leaving our car seat behind at the port, but this is the first time we are sailing from our home port. In the past we have always had our cabin steward store our car seat for the duration of our trip, most places in the Caribbean don't have seat belts to accommodate a car seat and if you take tour buses you will also not be able to use a car seat (just like on public transportation). It took us a little time to realize that we were always fine taking our little one on the buses and trains where we live but that taking him in a van or a bus elsewhere was really no different.  Once we got past that we had a great pair of cruises and were more than happy with the amount of stuff we saw, we just never sat in the front of the vehicle with the little one on our lap.

On our previous sailings (and other trips) we just packed the diapers and supplies in a bag and then we had somewhere for extra stuff to fit on the way home. Some people will pack those items in a box that they can dispose of after all the supplies are gone. Just make sure to bring more diapers and wipes and formula and other necessities than you think you could possibly need because it will be difficult and expensive to find additional supplies if you run out.

As far as snacks we don't really pack much to bring with us onto the ship as there is food everywhere. I have been known to stop by the breakfast buffet to grab a prepackaged serving of Cheerios to keep on hand as a snack as well as a few pieces of fruit. I also bring a sippy cup to put some orange juice into for later in the day as it is often difficult to get orange juice after breakfast and it is our little one's favorite beverage. Also if you have to mix formula just bring a reusable water bottle to fill with drinking water as the water from the tap is not potable. Don't forget a little bit of dish soap to wash sippy cups and bottles with, you may even want to bring a bottle brush to make it easier to clean things.

There are so many other little things too, but these are some of the big things when taking a cruise with a little one. If your little one prefers a bath you will also want to consider bringing along an inflatable bathtub to put in the shower, Holland America and Disney are 2 cruise lines that have bathtubs in most rooms.

Tangy Vegan Crockpot Corn Chowder

I found this recipe online the other day and whipped it up for dinner tonight. This was a delicious soup, of course I made a few alterations to the recipe as it was printed out on AllRecipes.com. Here is the recipe as I made it.











Tangy Vegan Crockpot Corn Chowder

2 (12 ounce) cans Whole Kernel Corn
3 cups Vegetable Broth
3 Potatoes, diced
1 large Onion, diced
1 clove Garlic, minced
1 tablespoon Chili Powder
2 teaspoons Salt
1 tablespoon Parsley Flakes
1 3/4 cups Soy Milk
1/4 cup Margarine

Place the corn, vegetable broth, potatoes, onion, garlic, chili powder, salt and parsley flakes in a slow cooker, cover. Cook on low for 7 hours.

Stir in the soy milk and margarine, cook on low for 1 hour. 

All new mirrors

It has been about a year and a half since we bought this house. It took some time to get the bathroom painted, new vanity mirrors hung, a shaving mirror put up on the wall, and a new picture hung on the wall. The picture is thanks to my mom who has been very generous in finding and purchasing art for us from the area I grew up, both my husband and I grew up in South Florida so it is nice to have some art from our area on the walls of our house. 

Creamy Potato Soup in a slow cooker

We finally got around to buying ourselves a slow cooker after using our rice cooker as a make shift one a few times. As we are enjoying some fairly chilly weather lately we have taken to enjoying more hot soups and other heavier meals, many that can be made in our slow cooker.

I found this Creamy Soup Recipe online. It is really good, I actually followed the directions and didn't do any substitutions or alterations when I made this. I just prepped everything in the morning and set the cooker and when it was close to dinner I added the milk and cream and put some dinner rolls in the oven (toaster/convection oven).

my weight is still going up

Let me just say that I did not sleep well last night and I am very tired. I am sure that over time these numbers will start to look better than they are right now. Remember muscle weights more than fat so as we add muscle our weight may increase, but muscle mass also burns more calories than fat. I am reminding myself of these facts so I don't get discouraged.

BMI = 25.23
Weight = 166.4
Wii Fit age = 38

My day is going by faster than I would like, well I did have a breakfast date with my husband so that did put my exercise schedule a little behind for the day. I have to go get the little man from preschool soon so I did not get my run in yet, I am hoping he will run with me after I pick him up. I did get in 2 Zen classes and 1 new cardio class, with all the training time to learn all the new moves it was like doing 2 sessions.

Run accomplished and then some. I actually started my run and was a good 5 minutes plus into it when I had to tend to the little man's needs so I restarted my 30 minute run and I have a new record for my 30 minute run even after running for 5 minutes shortly before starting my 30 minutes. I am so happy. I got a good work out in 5 days in a row and I outdid my current record on my run 4 of the 5 days. Hopefully if I keep up with my exercises I will start to see a difference in the number on the scale or at least a difference in the way my clothes look and fit on me.

Status quo

Today's Wii Fit checking had the same BMI and weight as yesterday and my Wii Fit age went down to 35.  I did 2 zen classes and 2 cardio classes (1 new one) on the Kinect and I did my same 30 minute run with the Wii Fit. I didn't set a new record for my run today, but I did come in second to yesterdays new record and didn't miss it by too much (less than 0.1 miles).

Now I'm "overweight"

Today's check in on the Wii Fit yielded me the delight of being classified as "overweight." With a BMI of 25.09 and a weight of 165.6 and a Wii Fit Age of 36. Let me just say that I know how not very accurate this thing is, especially on carpet, it seems to fluctuate a lot more when you use it on carpet but it still helps me keep track to some degree of my progress. I always start off the year saying I simply don't want to gain any weight by the end of the year, as most people gain weight every year I figure that this is a great goal that puts me ahead of the average person anyhow and it is a totally attainable goal that won't stress me out. That being said the last several years, the ones where that was my goal, I actually lost more weight than previously.

So I did the same workout with the Kinect today as yesterday, I showed improvement on some of the moves. I did my same 30 minute run today as well with the Wii Fit and set my 3rd new record this week with my run.

My weight skyrocketed over night

Todays check in on the Wii Fit yielded a BMI of 24.96 and a weight of 164.7 and a Wii Fit Age of 44. Obviously I did not gain 13.2 pounds over night so as you can see these things are not perfect but are merely tools intended to encourage us along our fitness and/or weight loss goals. Of course I find it best not to focus on a magic number (weight) that I want to get to, instead I prefer to focus on how I look and feel as well as how my clothes fit. Half the reason for me getting in better and better shape is to keep up with my 3 year old, oh to have his energy. 


I did a double session on my Kinect Your Shape (2 zen classes and 2 cardio sessions), then I did a 30 minute run on my Wii Fit. I actually find the 30 minute free run to be quite motivating for me, I get to run with several of my family members who have Miis on my Wii and I just enjoy seeing all of them.

New year and hopefully an even more fit version of myself

We have just over 6 weeks till our rescheduled cruise, when we booked our cruise we booked it on the Splendor for January 16th. Well, the ship caught fire and we were lucky enough that it was supposed to be ready in time for our sailing. Of course when I finally got around to ordering new swimsuits for our vacation the very next morning we got an email that our cruise date had been canceled as it was taking longer than expected to get parts so the ship could receive all the necessary repairs. We rebooked and well we are once again booked for the first sailing after the repairs are finished, so February 20the here we come.

With the cruise coming and the holidays behind us it seemed like a great time to start working out a little more frequently. I checked in on my Wii Fit this morning which was being rather nice to me. It said my BMI is 22.95 and my weight is 151.5. It wasn't as nice with my Wii Fit Age by telling me it is 38. Anyhow, after I checked in on my Wii Fit I switched over to my Kinect Your Shape and did a little bit of a workout, then I attempted to put in my Kinect Sports but that wasn't being cooperative (we have a bad disc and need to swap it out) so I pulled the Wii Fit back out and did a 30 minute run on there.

Unclog your drains

Here is a tutorial on how to turn a 2 liter bottle into a drain declogger.

http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2010/12/man-crafts-recycled-plastic-drain-de-clogger/

Homemade Pita Chips

This is a great recipe as it is pretty cheap, fast and easy to make for a party. All you need is a cookie sheet, some pitas, salt, and olive oil.

Just rip or cut the pitas into chip sized pieces. Lay them out on the cookie sheet. Spray them with some olive oil. Sprinkle them with some salt. Put them in the oven till they are as crisp as you like them, if you prefer softer I would stick closer to 350 degrees and from crisper chips closer to 400 degrees. This should make it easier to not overcook them.