Love my IPhone

I love my IPhone.  It is just the 3GS, no 4 for me.  I love it and as those who know me know I am addicted to it.  I mean come on right now I am blogging from it.  No, Blogger doesn't have an app yet; however it does do mobile blogging or blog uploading via e-mail (which is what I am using).  You have to just love it.  It is great for people like me who can't sit still no matter what.  This way we can be sitting sill on the couch with our feet up but still doing something.  I can Facebook with it, I can find crochet patterns with it through Ravelry.com's mobile site, and I can order movie tickets through the Fandango app or find a good place to eat while on the go.  I can even surf my Etsy shop (SoapsNSstuff.etsy.com) through Safari.  I take lots of pictures with it and video (thinking about creating a photo blog next).  I can then text these to family and friends or do a mobile upload to Facebook for everyone to see.  Brian and I have our calendars link through the Apple Mobile Me software which makes it near impossible to forget to tell the other about appointments or plans made.  I have games for Josie that keeps her occupied in waiting rooms.  Oh and it goes without saying that I am linked to all my e-mail accounts.  If I didn't have the IPhone most of my e-mails would go unanswered.  Once I get home from work there isn't much time for responding and chatting with friends.  Even my parents have IPhones and love them.  I know I scoffed at them in the beginning but I am a full on convert now!.  So when you see me with my IPhone or I pull it out while we are talking face to face don't feel like I am being rude because I am not.  I am paying attention to you but multitasking at the same time.  It is just who I am. 

Love it - Yarn Winder

Yarn Winder

I love this yarn winder.  I got it half off at A.C Moore the other day plus I had a $10 reward coupon.  It was a steel and I really wanted it.  It winds yarn into center pull skeins.  It is great to organize left over skeins that have become a tangled mess.  It is also good for hanks of yarn that are not wrapped at all and for those skeins that aren't center pull.

Love it- Shampoo Visor

Shampoo Visor


This Shampoo Visor really works.  It really keeps the water off the face.  I really recommend it.  Just wish Josie would wear it.  She wore it once and then never again.  But don't take that as a slight against the visor.  She is just very fussy with regard to bath time.

Love it - Bottle Tops for Babies

Bottle Tops for Babies

I got a set similar to these sometime before we left for Disney last January.  They cam in really handy while there.  The fit over standard water and soda bottles to turn them into spill proof bottles.  They were great while we were in disney since sippys would get dropped, lost, dirty or spoiled while in the park.  With these we were able to still keep the babies hydrated with water but not have it all over the place.  They also thought they were hot stuff because they could have a bottle like the adults.  Just be wary on the Aquifina bottles they don't always fit tight.  :)

Love it - Car Seat Snack Tray

We got this car seat tray for Josie for Christmas and love it.  It is great on car trips since it has sides so her crayons can't roll off.  She has a place to put her cup and any snacks.  Plus there are mesh pockets on the sides to hold stuff.  I thought it would be firmer but it is really just made of foam and is firm enough to handle the load but soft enough to compress if in an accident.  In fact it has been tested in a crash and past with flying colors.



Snack Tray from One Step Ahead

Love it - Imatrex

I have to say that I love Imatrex the migraine medicine.  I was very reluctant at first to try it.  I was worried how it would make me feel  and worried that it wouldn't work.  But I am really glad that I tried it for me it really works.  I need to sleep for the first two hours after I take it normally to get through the sleepy side effect but then I am good for the rest of the day.

Hate It-Perdue Ready to Roast Chicken

Time for a "Hate it". Perdue ready to roast chickens. They are sold already in the roasting bag. I have bought two, and neither of them have cooked through when following the package directions. 100 minutes at 400 degrees should get a chicken well on its way to roasted. Neither chicken even came close. Both were about half cooked through at the 100 minute mark. That was with two full days of thawing. I've roasted a lot of poultry and never had problems like I do with these birds. It's almost like the bag insulates the chicken rather than roasting it. It's not baseball season yet, so I can say two strikes and this convenience product is out!

Soda Stream Soda Maker

I've gotta say that I love the SodaStream soda maker. It is basically a carbonator, but it really does make tasty sodas! You can buy about 20 different flavors for about $5 each, and each bottle makes about 12 liters. The flavors available include Cola, Root Beer, Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Grape, Orange, Cranberry Raspberry, Fountain Mist (like Mtn. Dew) and many others. There are even diet versions of most varieties. Not that diet is really needed. The syrups are sweetened with sugar and sucralose (Splenda), so they are lower calorie than regular sodas. An 8 ounce serving of Cola is 34 calories. I find that the cola tastes like RC cola, which is not a bad thing (other than the Moon Pie craving...). The carbonator I have is $35, but it makes 60 liters of soda (using the standard three buzzes of carbonation). You do need to use special bottles, but they are rinse and reuse and good for about two years. Once they have expired, you recycle them and order new. The CO2 carbonators are returnable. You purchase a "license" and they ship a new one with a return label for the old one.

SodaSteam is environmentally friendly and wallet friendly, too. Once you purchase the equipment (about $140 will get you the unit, 2 carbonator bottles, 4 liter carbonating bottles and 5 bottles of syrup), the soda costs about $0.25 per 12 ounces. There is no special water to buy. You can use tap, but I use the filtered water from the refrigerator. One tip for the best tasting soda is to let it "age" for about 30 minutes. This will let the syrup fully integrate and the carbonation to set in. You can drink it right away, but the soda tends to have a seltzer taste if you don't let it sit.

Kate got me this as a birthday present, and we have not been without soda since. We also have only bought soda to take to parties and for Thanksgiving when we were expecting a lot of people. Kate really likes the Ginger Ale. Cranberry-Raspberry is my current fave, but the diet cola and diet root beer are also very good. Oh, and the grape has really good flavor, too!

My second go to cleaner is....

Believe it or not my second favorite cleaner is baby wipes.  These things get out everything it seems.  In Disney one year I used a baby wipe to get a spot of red fruit punch out of a white shirt!  My sister told me to try a baby wipe and I looked at her like she was crazy (this was before I had kids but she had 2) but it worked like a charm.  I have since used them to get many a spot out of work suits while at work.  They don't leave a water mark behind when the item dries like some on the go spot pads.  My sister has used them to get dried on paint out of a carpet, Brian has used them to get sap off the car and I have used them to get vomit off a car seat.  And to think that most people just use them to get poop off of butts.