THE BAD NEWS?

1. It’s still a chemical on your clothes.
2. It’s more expensive than vinegar.
3. I don’t think it will last 6 months in our house but we have the equivalent of two households doing laundry.

THE GOOD NEWS*?

1. Installation was a breeze. It just sticks to your dryer drum. After over a month of using it, it’s never fallen off.
2. It’s really unscented…really.
3. It pops our easily in case you don’t want to soften a load.
4. It’s amazing at getting pet hair out of things.  AMAZING!
5. There’s nothing to remember each load.
6. There’s no funky residue feel on your clothes which I was afraid of since it’s a big hunka fabric softener bar.

*Don’t take my word, click on the Bounce logo in the upper left of the blog to read other reviews by BlogHer members.

THE BEST NEWS?

You can get a $5 rebate when you try one by the end of this year.

*Whether we should be striving to be “in fashion” is another discussion for another time.

Until April 8th, you can enter to win a copy of Nothing to Wear? by Jesse Garza of Visual Therapy and possibly this cool new scarf (or something else from their new VT Luxe line).  Yeah…I had never heard of them either since I don’t watch TV, but now BlogHer has graciously offered me a copy of the book so I can catch up and tell you all about their new line that just debuted on QVC.

To enter the contest, hop over here.

It is beyond me why anyone would want to stay inside to clean after being cooped up all winter.

It seems to me one should take advantage of the perfect-weather days of spring to do things like

garden

or learn how to ride a bike.

One of my favorite cleaning products that keeps me from having to clean so much is the “Kaboom” Scrub Free Toilet Cleaning System.  Excuse me sounding like an infomercial but I love this thing.  It’s safe for our septic and doesn’t eat away at our toilet innards like some other products.  It’s also NOT blue and doesn’t have a strong smell (if any smell at all).  The hardest part is installing it but that wasn’t even that hard.  We have well water that leaves nasty rings in our toilet in just days if we don’t have a Scrub Free installed or if it needs to be refilled.  I seriously never have to scrub my toilet if I keep this filled.  I tend to buy refills at Bed Bath and Beyond using one of their famous 20 % coupons.

Aside: Did you know they accept expired coupons there and you can use up to 5 or 6 as  long as you have that many items?

So what are you waiting for? Go order a “Kaboom” Scrub Free Toilet Cleaning System and then go outside and enjoy the gorgeous spring weather!

But I digress.

When PJ, and then Mia, came along, I strove to provide them with healthy choices and forced required them to eat a fruit or veggie with each meal, drink milk at dinner and water at other times, and finish a given meal before other stuff could be eaten.  Sometimes that meant eating unfinished dinners at breakfast or unfinished breakfast at snack time.  That philosphy resulted in 2 slightly picky (since they really only eat carrots and cucumbers for veggies) or 2 above average (when you consider they love sushi and other ethnic foods) eaters–depending on your perspective.

Along came Ty.  The change of culture plus his aversion to certain textures plus his inability to focus or sit still plus his ability to hold food in his mouth for an amount of time that would put a gerbil to shame had me scrambling for a new feeding philosophy.

That’s when I found…

While I don’t want to subscribe to her philosphy hook, line, and sinker (mostly because it requires too much energy on my part), I really like her philosophy a lot.  I also agree with it.  I will say it feels risky to believe her and I think it’s easy to insert our doubts and mess up the practical application of the theory.  I do love that she isn’t radical about making kids eat certain things or about eliminating anything.  I think kids that are fed her way will do well as adults in the long run.  I like that she addresses manner associated with eating as important as eating.  I like that the basis for her theory is that kids should be raised towards eventually being independent and making smart decisions on their own.

In my opinion every parent or future parents should at least read this and then decide from there.

Anyone else read this book?  Thoughts?

Introducing L-Bow.  It’s pretty genius in the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that category.  They are waterproof mittens and gloves with an attached nylon liner that goes up to your elbow…get it?  L-bow?

They’ve been great for our kids and got us through last year’s 80 plus inches.  Maybe you can even rush order a pair for the stocking this year and keep your polar bear happy!

Thankfully our local library carries the book so I could check it out myself.  There was a little more to it than just the conditioner thing but that was a big part.  I was actually surprised to find out she recommends everyone become shampoo-free.

Things I {heart} about Curly Girl:

• The concepts are simple.
• It’s not expensive to try it out to see if she’s spot on or off her rocker.  Actually if you already have conditioner, it’s downright free.
• It’s practical and well organized.
• She provides recipes for natural hair care.
• It’s a quick read skim.
• It was available at my library.
• I check it out at an opportune time since I am also participating in a Bzz campaign for Dove conditioner that has a lot of the ingredients Curly Girl recommends and only one it does not.

Quick aside:  One randomly-chosen commenter on this post will receive a sample and coupon for newly reinvented Dove daily conditioner with fiber actives. Please comment by Friday, June 18th at 11:59PM EST.

Back to your normally scheduled programming Curly Girl.

If you’re as intrigued by Curly Girl as I was (and you can’t find it at a library), you can order it from Amazon.com.  I’m even including a handy link.  You’re welcome and happy conditioning!

2.  Use dripping water to defrost meats quickly.  I’m a great meal planner but I stink at looking at my plan with enough time to defrost my meat.  My best friend recently divulged that you can put your meat in the sink in a bowl of cool water and let the faucet drip into it.  The friction defrosts the meat in record time. 

What things are making your life easier and more budget-friendly?

You’ll note that a lot of the samples require you to enter an email address.  That’s where another one of my favorite sites comes in–Mailinator.  Mailinator allows you to create a legitimate email address on-the-spot without any registration.  Just enter <anythingyouwant>@mailinator.com in the email field.  If the form requires validation, you can hop over to Mailinatorwhere they hold emails to your account for a couple hours.  Then you can forget about the account and not compromise the security and spam-proofness of your normal email.  Just remember that Mailinator accounts are not secure so don’t use it if you think private information will be sent to the email.  Confused? Check out their FAQs.

Today I was reading Ty a book.  Hooray! Ty’s sitting through books. Oops. Sorry. Where was I? Anyway, I was reading Ty a book and I loved the illustrations, the way he could act it out, and the simplicity and repetitiveness of it.  It’s called I Am a Backhoe by Anna Hines.  We found ours at our local library but you can also pick it up at Amazon (or anywhere else I’m sure).