Christmas Gifts - Consumer Testing - Gift #1

This year, as I do every year, I received some awesome and at times off-the-wall Christmas gifts. I’ll be conducting my own consumer tests with some of them and reporting back over the next few blogs.

First up? The All Over Moisture Gel Booties!

This was a great gift idea for me and here is why. One of my New Year’s Resolutions (yes, I’m finally going to create some) is going to be that I resolve to take better care of my feet. I have a little bubbling foot spa and have received many nice gifts such as lotions and soaking salts because I have a real and well known desire to take better care of my poor feet! Painful joints and a foot surgery should be enough motivation for me but I don’t do a very good job of it. This will change in 2012! So the All Over Moisture Gel Booties are terrific!

Tonight I settled down and slathered my feet with Ms. Pedicure Moisture-Rich Heel Cream. Smells minty!! Then I took the All Over Moisture Gel Booties out of their package. First of all, they really ARE gel booties! The inside is all squishy and it gave me a little shiver as I was pulling them on. But they feel great! So the plan is to slip them on, write a little, read a little and then take them off and drift off into pleasant dreams with perfectly moisturized feet.

I am one of those unique people who actually read the directions on the back of packages so the first order of business was to read about these booties. One sentence alarmed me. “Remove the booties at least 3-4 hours daily (within a 24 hour period) to allow skin to breathe.”  Yikes! Are there really people out there who would wear these nonstop for days at a time?? Ewwww! I mean they feel great and all but I can tell that there is no moisture wicking properties and no breathable qualities. They are made to hold the moisture in! So to keep them on for 20-21 hours in a day? Whew!! Even the minty fresh, rich moisture heel cream wouldn’t be enough to make that a pretty proposition!

You have to believe that someone out there must have tried it and developed some funky skin situation which prompted the company to put that little tidbit of advice on the back of the package. Geez.

I have had my booties on for a little over an hour. An hour is the minimum time recommended to wear the booties for best results. As I’m taking them off, I can definitely tell that my feet are more than a bit warm from the cozy, gel-filled, non-breathable environment. But the good news is they feel really, really soft!!  I can’t wait to see what they feel like in the morning. Hopefully still soft!  I’ll be ready for sandal weather in no time! Based on the climate where we live, I have PLENTY of time to get ready!

More fun to report later!

Keep on smiling!

I'd Like to Give A Shout Out to the Inventor of the Crockpot!

I'd like to give a shout out to the inventor of the Crockpot! What a truly remarkable invention! Simply throw any type of meat and veggies into it in the morning before you go to work, turn it on and when you get home from work and open that door, your kitchen smells like your own private chef has been toiling away all day preparing a wonderful meal for you!

Notice I said turn it on as part of the directions. It's an important step. Once I threw in meat and veggies early in the morning and forgot to turn it on. It does not have the same effect. I came home to a kitchen without wonderful smells and a vessel full of room temperature, raw meat and veggies. Not what I was going for...

And now they make crockpots with lid locks so you can batten down the hatches and travel with the crockpot without spilling its contents! This came in especially handy yesterday. My Mom provided the place for Christmas dinner and I brought all the food. Along for the ride came a huge crockpot with a huge roast and a big (but not huge) crockpot with a turkey breast. They were nestled in appropriately sized boxes for stability but it was nice to know that if for some reason they should tip, veggies and meat and onion soup mix and cream of mushroom soup and chicken broth would not spew forth and cover all of the Christmas gifts that were also packed strategically in the back of our car. That would NOT be a Christmas miracle!

As a side note, this would not be appropriate for air travel. Just in case you were thinking about it.

Have you seen the variety of crockpots out there? They even make multiple crockpots with three or four crockpots all in one! I was intrigued. But with the exception of very infrequent, large gatherings, I couldn't envision using four crockpots at once very often. But they look really cool. And the colors! You can get crockpots in virtually every color of the rainbow in addition to patterns and even camo! Yes, I spend some time in the crockpot aisle.

I'd also like to give a shout out the Reynolds company for inventing Slow Cooker Liners. No more messy clean up! I am trusting you, Reynolds company. Trusting that you have run exhaustive tests to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your product is safe and will not taint our cooking!!

Thank you Hamilton Beech, Oster, Crockpot and all the other makers of crockpots and slow cookers for making me seem more talented than I really am when it comes to cooking! And thank you Reynolds for making the clean up a breeze!

Keep on smiling!

 

Merry Christmas Eve Everyone!

I can't believe it's Christmas Eve! It comes the same time each year so it shouldn't be a surprise. What's surprising is how fast it gets here every year! 

Looking back, it's been a roller coaster year for us. I lost two incredible friends this year and a lovable uncle. I look back on wonderful memories and wish they were still here to make more. But without question, they are in a better place. Lola has no doubt convinced everyone in heaven to be a vegan and is leading daily yoga classes. Rick is definitely improving the style in heaven, creating some beautiful artwork, finding new friends wherever he goes and making everyone smile and feel more loved than they thought possible - even in heaven. And Uncle Donny? He is quietly watching it all with a twinkle in his eye.

I am thankful for continued employment for the two of us and continued health for the three of us. We are very lucky. Our daughter is half way through her senior year (almost) and has made her decision on which university to attend. Yeah! Not too close but not too far! Now it's on to the scholarship hunt!

The next 48 hours are going to be hectic for us and most likely for many other folks out there! I'm an introvert so the extra people in close proximity will eventually drain me. But it's all good!

My advice to everyone, including myself, is to relax, breathe deeply and enjoy the little things along the way.

We're ready, Christmas!! Bring it on!!

Keep on smiling!

(Photo courtesy of my talented daughter!)

The Luckiest Parents Ever!

18 years ago today, our one and only baby girl was born. It turned out to be a very long day but it was so worth it because in the end we were blessed with a healthy, perfectly wonderful, baby girl. And so it has continued for 18 years.

You often hear the comment in jest, “Someday you’ll grow up and I hope you have a son/daughter just like you so you know what we’re going through!” 

But the truth is, someday I hope our daughter really does have a daughter or son, just like her. Because then she too will spend her days feeling like the luckiest parent in the world. And we will become the luckiest grandparents ever!!

Happy 18th Birthday Punkinella! I’m not sure how it is we deserved such a sweet, caring, intelligent, creative and wonderful child but we’ll take it and be thankful every day!

Can’t wait to start this new chapter of parenthood now that you are officially an adult! We love you to the moon and back and are so lucky to be your parents!

Keep on smiling!

Buddy the Elf and Mrs. Butterworth

It’s almost Christmas time and one of my all-time favorite movies (with the exception of Forrest Gump) is Elf. What do Buddy the Elf and Forrest Gump have in common? The purest hearts of any characters out there in the movie world and of course, the best quotes.

Thinking of Elf makes me think of a recent conversation with my daughter about maple syrup.

Why? Because of a classic Buddy the Elf, line. “We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.”

Here is the syrup story.

My daughter is in an AP Environmental Science class. I am quite sure the teacher is trying to create a squad of vegans because it seems like they have learned a lot about how modern farming is very cruel to animals. 

One of their assignments was to eat a different diet for a week and write a paper about it. My daughter chose a quasi-vegan diet. To follow this diet, she could not eat meat (obviously) or dairy products but she could eat eggs.  That’s why I call it quasi-vegan.  My own term, thank you very much.

Being the excellent student that she is, she went full tilt into being a quasi-vegan. She researched vegan products, found recipes and made a grocery list to get started. And off to the store we went.

One of the items on the list was maple syrup.

Me: We can check this one off the list. We have maple syrup at home.

Her: We do?
Me: Yep. We have Mrs. Butterworth’s at home.
Her: Is that really maple syrup?
Me: Of course it is. It probably has some preservatives in it but it’s still maple syrup.

Even as I said it, somewhere deep inside me a little voice started growing louder. Maybe it’s not really maple syrup.

But hey, let me practice time travel and jump way back to my childhood. Come with me, won’t you?

My very best childhood friend, Nancy, also grew up on a farm. Not only was it a dairy farm, they also processed maple syrup. It was always fun to go on a class trip to their farm to see how they made the maple syrup. We got to trudge through the snow and look at all those trees with their pails hanging off from them and those big vats of syrup being made. It was super cool. Good times.

And on another note, do you know what the very best part of traveling back and forth to Canada is? The maple candy you can buy in the gift shops at the Toronto airport. (That was a completely random thought.)

But back to the story.  Maybe Mrs. Butterworth’s is not really maple syrup. Could it be? So I walked over to the shelf, turned over the bottle and here is what it said.

Ingredients: High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, cellulose gum, molasses, potassium sorbate (preservative), sodium hexametaphosphate, citric acid, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors.

Wow. Not a speck of maple syrup to be found. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing any hexametaphosphate at Nancy’s farm.

All these years I have been content to think that the Mrs. Butterworth’s on my toast, french toast and pancakes was maple syrup. Not even close. Had I read the label more closely, I may have noticed that Mrs. Butterworth does not try to pass herself off as pure maple syrup either. Only as syrup. Complete truth in advertising.

Somewhat reluctantly I told my daughter that she was right. Mrs. Butterworth’s was not real maple syrup. Just syrup. So I bought a tiny, costly bottle of pure maple syrup for her to use in her recipe and left the store a little deflated.

The cold hard truth has exposed the hoodwinking nature of yet another childhood hero of mine. I suppose this means the bottle doesn’t really talk either, right?

I still love you Mrs. Butterworth!! You’re syrupy sweet goodness is unmatched, even if you aren’t really maple syrup!

Keep on smiling!

A Sweet Love Story

One of my coworkers is in the process of planning a 60th wedding anniversary celebration for his parents. There are eight sons in the family and no daughters so right off the bat you have to give props to these parents, right?! In addition to being happily married for 60 years, raising eight sons can be no small feat!

But here’s the story that I find really sweet.

Every year on their wedding anniversary, this man would bring his blushing bride a rose representing every year of wedded bliss. One rose the first year, two roses the second year and so on. He did this right up until their 24th wedding anniversary. With two dozen beautiful roses gracing her dining room table, she made a simple request. Please don’t continue to buy a rose for every year. Although they are beautiful, heartfelt and much appreciated, it is too many and they fade so quickly. She would rather enjoy a smaller bouquet of flowers a couple of times a year than enjoy a huge bouquet once a year.

So started the tradition. Every single week, this man would bring this woman, one beautiful rose for her to enjoy.

This tradition has continued, every single week of every single year for the past 35 years. With one exception. A few years after the tradition started, this wonderful couple lost a son. So beginning that week, this man brought this woman two roses every single week. One for the love of his life and one that they take to the shrine at the church in memory of their son.

Men like this are very hard to find. They were probably very hard to find 60 years ago as well! Some will say they no longer exist. But the romantic in me believes that they are still out there somewhere. And they are waiting for that one wonderful woman who is going to inspire them to do great things and begin beautiful traditions.

Keep on smiling!

Truman - The Chocolate Lab Alarm Clock

There are two things you should know about my little family.

1)   We get up very early in the morning. My husband is up and on his way at 3:15AM. I follow at 3:45AM and our daughter is up before 5:30AM.  Yep, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch the worms that we early birds catch! Our dog, Truman gets up with each one of us in turn and then goes back to sleep and waits for the next family member to wake up.

2)   Truman is a great dog. He is not a barker unless someone is approaching the house. He prefers to communicate through tail wagging, body wiggling, very loud sighs and occasionally quiet whining. He starts off whining very quietly when he wants someone or something and he continues to get louder until someone notices.  Sort of like some alarm clocks!

And Truman is smart.

This morning, at 3:30 AM I heard a thump on the door followed momentarily by a very faint whine. Sure enough. Truman had head-butted our bedroom door open and was now standing in the doorway of our bedroom, looking intently at the bed and starting his incredibly quiet whining. Sort of like he doesn’t want to wake everyone up. Just one person.

Why? Because he thought we had overslept!  This is not the first time he has done this. It’s like his internal clock knows exactly what time it is and that something in the household is not right!! Either that or he can read the clocks. Hmmm. Never thought of that!?

What a great trick, right?  But today is SATURDAY!!  The day we can sleep in!!

So I got up and he was oh so proud of himself. Tail wagging, shaking out his body and doing his downward dog yoga moves. It would be wrong to get mad at the dog who may have just saved us from showing up late for work or school! So I let him outside, waited for him to sniff around and come back in, filled up his water dish, patted him on the head and stumbled back to the bedroom for some much needed additional sleep, making sure the door was shut securely behind me.

Note to self. On Friday nights, remember to shut the bedroom door completely!

And Truman, someday we really might just oversleep and I trust you will be there for us! Thanks in advance you incredible dog you!

Keep on smiling!