Yesterday my Alien and I went grocery shopping, and managed to get some fruits and a couple of vegetables to incorporate into our meals this week. We have been trying to add more and more organic foods into our diet, and have succeeded in getting organic grass-fed free-range chicken eggs every single week. But we've been trying to get our meats and other products more organic as well, or at least as processed-free as we can.

Recently, our health has been struck with a mysterious illness that no amounts of testing has been able to even find, let alone give us a solution for. Alien has cut his smoking by more than half in quantity and frequency, and we have both cut our coffee intake to less than a cup a day. This week, we've only had coffee for ~4/7 days; A huge step given coffee, for most of our lives, has been a main source of 'hydration' so to speak. We don't know that this is affecting our health, but we figured it couldn't hurt to try. We have also both started taking daily vitamins, in conjunction with eating healthier, to try and eliminate any imbalances that could be causing problems.

After returning home last night from shopping, and settling down to a quiet evening without much happening, Alien suggested we go to the Meyer in the nearby city "Just to see what they have", as far as food and furnishings. While there we discovered a HUGE selection of natural, whether organic or not, fresh foods and meats as well as a large refrigerator of juices and healthy alternatives. As I was looking at the various options, I saw a great deal, two of these bottles for $4. This was a great size, and price, to try them out and see how I liked them and if I would be interested in buying them more frequently.

One of the four I picked up was a Strawberry Parfait Breakfast Smoothie. The front boasts 10G protein and 21 vitamins and minerals added. Before even purchasing, I recognized that it said it was a smoothie, and bottled or packaged smoothies tend to have sweeteners added to them. So I checked the ingredients to find one of the three big "secret" artificial sweeteners that are harmful to your health and hidden in EVERYTHING. Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium [Acesulfame K], and Sucrose.

As you can see, none of those are listed. More even than that, the "Magic 10", the first 10 ingredients, are essentially natural products. Score! Also listed, I can clearly see each of the vitamins it says it has added. So far, the bottle is accurate in its advertisement, and not at all artificially sweetened. For those interested in the Nutrition Facts, they will be listed below!

Now that I've bought it, time for the taste test. I refrigerated it overnight to let it cool as it IS a yogurt product, and hot yogurt just isn't appetizing. Bottle instructs to shake well as settling is natural and will happen. Check. Open the VERY tightly sealed cap, and took a small sip.

The consistency is deliciously thick, creamy, and smooth. If one could drink strawberry silk, this would be it. The thickness is similar to straight yogurt, with just a hint of a thinness to let only just enough linger to let you enjoy it a bit longer; Rather than have huge clusters of yogurt-y goodness stuck in your mouth until you drink something else. The taste has a strong first 'bite' so to speak that is the true, honest to nature bittersweet taste of a real strawberry. Not enough bite to pucker your mouth, not so much sweet to make your stomach sick. It is absolute perfection. Companion to that first kick is a soft wheat rolling into your mouth similar to when I would, as a child, eat all the raisins from my bowl of Raisin Bran first, and be left with a heaping bowl of crunchy bran. Trade the crunch for a smooth, delicate, rolling attribute and you have this second-taste. Finally, once those two have kicked your tongue to get you going in the morning, the yogurts taste gets its turn. More than providing the creamy thickness, the yogurt gives a rounded vanilla flavor to the overall taste that finishes it off perfectly.

For taste, I'd give it a 5/5. I can't imagine anything that could make this better.
For consistency, I'd also give it a 5/5. Any thicker and it would stick around TOO long, any thinner and it wouldn't be around long enough.
And for packaging, I'd give it a 10/5 if I could. The entire package is open, honest, and well designed as well as informative.

10/10 would buy!! ;D

I'd like to make a few notes now! These are available in 15.2 fl oz. bottles, meaning you get ~2 servings per container. I say that's a lie, because I could NOT leave this alone. However, the cap is recloseable and so is able to be put back in the fridge though I wouldn't recommend leaving it in there TOO long once opened as this IS a natural product and so spoilable.

Official page for the Bolthouse Farms Strawberry Parfait Breakfast Smoothie

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Bolthouse Farms, or Meyer, and have not been commissioned or otherwise asked for this review. The opinions in this article are that of myself and myself alone and written with the sole intent of providing my personal view on a product I have found and am excited about.

And, hello once again my pretties. Haven't had a whole lot of new products or freebies or anything like that to inspire me into a blogging frenzy, and I honestly haven't even been painting my nails in the past couple of months [I know, gasp!]. But, I figured I had better update my cute little followers on some news that makes me happy at least, and maybe give a few ideas to you all as well!

First of all, my Alien and I have been bizzz-zeeeee! I will be the first to admit of course he did most of the work, but let's face it. I'm entirely too much of a klutz to be trusted with sharp pointy objects rotating at high speeds. :U Surely you can understand.

But, we finally did what we've been saying for at least 6 months that we were going to do. We hacked our "kitchen table" in half. The people that built this house apparently decided this monster of a table was a good idea. It went from the only wall in the kitchen all the way up to the living room. It was literally preventing most of our furniture from fitting in a way that we could still access the only route to the main bathroom, and our bedroom, and even the laundry room! So, we [And by we I mean my Alien] cut it. Not quite half, a bit more than that was gone; But because of certain supports and such we actually ended up widening the bit of table that would be left from where we originally wanted it. We just wanted a "dinner for two" table, not... dinner for a hoard of vikings.

The table during cutting

Before excess removal

After excess removal

As you can see, removing even what little we did gave us a whole lot of free space to work with. Not to mention, now we can't pile a bunch of crap on the table and never clean it off!







Once we got the table all cut up and moved the center support to the edge of the new table, we realized that the lip that was on the table wouldn't adhere to the new edge because the warping would pull out any nails we put IN. So, we're either going to get some new cheap molding as a place holder, or we're just going to rebuild the whole table. We haven't decided yet.

After all of the sawdust and debris was removed [Yayyy for my hand in helping!!], it was time to move on to hugely delayed project number 2. The Office room. Until this point, we've added a book case and nothing else to really call it our office. We haven't built the bookshelf wall we want, we hadn't built our computer desk, we hadn't really done a whole lot of anything. But, first step was to make a wall. Since we don't have the cash this weekend to buy the bookshelves we want for the wall creation [Those pictures come later! ;D], we killed two birds with one stone. We wanted more living room space, we needed a space blocker in the office, BAM. Leather loveseat the cats have mauled was given a new home. Also in need of a permanent home was Mr. Plant [My beau named him ;D] the pine we impulse-bought at Lowe's two weeks ago. Mark that with the living room again and voila. The couch we switched over to the wall by the front door took the space the small end table had, so that filled the space in the Office next to the love seat. Quite well I might add; And, it gave quite a perfect home for Mr. Plant!

Alien cutting blocks to stabilize the new computer desk in the Office

The above picture isn't as detailed, I may attach better ones down below. But it shows him once more hard at work, and other than errand-running occasionally or pressing on a part he couldn't press and cut, me doing little more than dancing to Sir Mix a Lot and doing the Humpty Dance. It's a thing, and it's awesome. Don't judge! ;P

Just about finished! All that was added other than further support, was the "baseboard" running against the wall on top of the new desk.

Once more re-purposing, this was our old bedroom closet door. We hated that we had this huge closet that went the width of the room [at least 10 feet], but there was a tiny door less than two feet wide that gave access to it. And clearance? Pffft! Unless you slid against the wall and shoved the clothes backward precariously on the verge of falling off the hanger rails, you couldn't access more than the ~1-2 feet you could from through the door. And, there was no lighting in there at all to boot. So, we [Again, we pretty much means me laying on the bed watching him work xD] took out the whole closet wall. We [As in me] saw the door without the handle and thought "Hey, this is a perfect desk! Couple of legs or something, and the door handle space makes a perfect cubby to drop wires through!"

And so we have. Finally. I swear we thought of this like, LAST February. At least. Either way, YAYYYY for recycling things you come across in your own home to begin with! And it's sturdy as steel, he pressed all his weight on it and it didn't do more than flex a bit. But, given the "door" is hollow... that's not surprising!

I'll throw you a bone. Here's our "wall"!

Once he cleared the way, it was time for me to set up my "office space" so I could sit down and focus on getting the Spring planting down on the two new calendars I had him buy for us [By us I mean me this time]. Our goal is to have our back deck and greenhouse built and supplied by March 10 to get our veggies planted! I'll of course update you all once we start that. We're more or less just waiting on the weather! But, here's a before and during/after of me doing the cross-calendaring.

As you can see, it's all well and good until I get my hands in it. XD But, it was very nice to have a real desk, and lamp, to work with. With my hulk of a computer [I still have an old Dell complete with ball mouse and tube monitor that schizophrenically turns blue or yellow sometimes], I didn't have room even for the small calendar, let alone the big one! But, it's allll donnnne! Feels good man!

Unfortunately, I couldn't put those pictures side by side at the larger size. Blogger is being a total butt to me right now with these pictures, sorry guys! But, these show the whole living room now that there is a HUGE amount of space in it!

And finally in this little section, meet the full view! You can barely see the office, the kitchen table, AND the living room!

It isn't often that I post, or will post, about something that wasn't part of some freebie or deal of some sort; Or, of course, things I myself make or do. But as I am currently in the middle of tackling two sinks AND three counters AND a stove stacked and piled with dishes [Yayyyyy holidayyyys], I couldn't help but feel incredibly indebted to these little blue sponges.

Okay, I say little but these Lysol brand sponges are in fact the same size as any other dish-washing sponge.
What I love about these, is that they pretty much do and are exactly what they say on the packaging. In the below picture, you can see the claim that bacteria and such don't grow in it, preventing those horrible odors from striking a chorus. Those odors are why I've almost never wanted to do dishes. I'd rather use a dish rag than the best sponge in the world, if the sponge smelled like that. I've even left these sponges in nasty dish water overnight from where I'd had to leave a pan soaking [Such as cast iron skillets on steak night] overnight and forgot the sponge IN the pan. In the morning, I smelled the sponge to check, and there was a slight smell to it; but a good rinsing in hot water left the smell nowhere to be found.

Between the two pictures, you can see two different shapes to the sponges. The first as shown in the upper picture is a wiggly shape, where each end is equal and opposite to the other end. I found this shape was a bit hard to keep ahold of sometimes, especially with a soap that lathers quite a bit like Dawn. The second as shown in the lower picture is a slightly bent C shape, where each end is exactly equal the opposite end. While this usually means there's one comfortable way to hold it, it's a lot easier to keep in your hand.

They really do rinse off extremely easily, taking only a rub down under some hot water to get the scrubber truly clean and even this isn't usually necessary for normal washing. When brand new, the scrubber side is a good bit stiff, but after even a single washing [Washing should be used to reference a sink load at least] it softens up a lot. They have yet to scratch a single dish, pot or pan in my house and I don't see them doing so in the near future. They have an extremely long life, and in the past year or more I've only had to make two purchases of them, each purchase consisting of a two-pack of sponges. With your "standard" sponge, like Scotch Brite, I had to replace them at LEAST twice as often, usually due to afore-mentioned smell. Moreover, I replaced them long before some of them truly needed it. My issue rested with how much silverware, particularly forks and butter knives, I have to wash on a daily basis that causes some weakness/damage to the scrubber side of the sponge. The tines and ripples when rubbed in the same general places enough cause tiny bits and pieces of the scrubber and/or sponge to tear off or rip open leaving the ability for other objects to tear it off. Blame it on my OCD, but I couldn't stand the feeling of loose blue flakes between my fingers during hour long or more sessions of dish-washing.

In essence:

• Long-lasting
• Odorless unless retaining odorous liquid
• Non-scratch
• Excellent scrubbing ability
• What more could you ask for?

1 - 1 - 13

Guess who got snooo-oooow! 8D WE DID! Finally. A proper wintery snow, too, complete with "Let's fall on your head" snow drifts falling off the roof constantly. I'd like to apologize for not keeping up with this blog as I'd wanted to, but the health of myself and my spouse Alien have taken precedence recently. He has been in and out of the Emergency Room of the local hospital, and been subjected to thousands of dollars of tests, only to find out that we and the doctors STILL have no clue what is causing it. This last week and a half or two weeks I too have been having the same symptoms he has had for all these months [His started right at the first week of November]; That being heart palpitations, problems breathing, muscle weakness, dizziness and light-headedness when moving from any one position [Sitting, laying, standing] to any other one position, fast heart rate, and so on. Be that as it may, due to all this worrying and hospital-running and such, I haven't had time for not only blogging but freebie-grabbing as well. Which means, unfortunately, I don't have much to share in the way of new and exciting things on the horizon.

But! It's a new year gals, so let's start it off right! *Blows a noisemaker* If anyone has blog ideas they'd like to share, feel free to e-mail me! I'd love to hear them!

Pixi brand 'Flawless beauty primer'

Hello again ladies! I got another Target Beauty Bag today, and it had some fun stuff in it. Not quite as fun as the others have been, but hey! It's useful at least, and free, and the bag is VERY fashionable ;D

However, I'm disappointed in the one product I HAVE tried so far. I tried the Pixi 'Flawless beauty primer', and I don't know what the kind lady on the back of the card is talking about.

Petra, Mum & Makeup Artist says:
"This is my ultimate youthful bloom in a bottle and my new "How did I survive without?" product. If I could replicate what my skin tone and texture looked like in my 20's - this is as close as it gets! It really events out skintone (totally need that) which makes anything you put on after look even better. The added benefit is that after wear, it actually improves my complexion. What's not to love?!"

I have to disagree with Ms. Petra. My skin tone is NOT even, and I even added more and more of the sample, thinking maybe I just hadn't used enough. Before I knew it, I'd put the whole sample on my face and neck and chest [There was a LOT of it], and nothing looked different. The ONLY difference I've noticed is that my face feels slimy, and anytime I touch it I get some sparkly shiny stuff all over me. I literally just feel greasy in this; Even before I'd put the whole sample on. I just didn't notice a difference. My makeup didn't look any different, my skin doesn't FEEL or look any more even, I can't get the smell of sun-block away from my poor little nose; I just all around can't find a plus side to this. I've literally NEVER used a primer that was WORSE than this is. Which is disappointing, because Pixi was so full of promise.

Oh well, better luck next time ladies! :\

More Maven!

Hey again ladies!

I just wanted to take another opportunity to talk about Julep.
I know, I know, I just posted about them. This one will be shorter though.

I wanted to list a few of the different promos Julep has going on right now!

First, if you'd like to join click HERE. Then, take the style quiz to find out what style fits YOU. Choose wisely, this quiz decides what type of colours and products you get monthly!

Second, here are a list of promos, and what they offer.

2FREE : Gives you TWO free colours, on top of the 2-3 you already will receive in your intro box.
PENNY or COLOR2012 : Will charge you ONE penny for your intro box! Shipping of $3.99 has now been included, but once you're a Maven shipping is free!

What's in a Maven?
As a Julep Maven, you get "Nail Mail" once a month.
- This is automatically charged to the card you sign up with, at a steady price of $19.99/mo, with FREE shipping. Some months, for an extra $30 you can "Upgrade", meaning you get the whole month's collection of polishes, usually 12, for $19.99 + $30. Still, free shipping.

From the 20th to the 24th of every month, you're allowed to preview the coming month's box. If you like what you see for your style, do nothing and on the 27th you will be charged and your box shipped, same day! You'll usually receive it in 3-8 days [If you're in Canada, it often takes ~2 weeks].

If you don't like your style, but see another you like, switch it up! No charge to switch, still free shipping and the same deal-busting cost of $19.99.

If you don't like any styles, don't feel like Nail Mail that month, or just can't afford it, skip the month! During the 4 day preview window, sign in to your Maven account on Julep.com, and skip the month. No charge, no fee, no hassle.

Every month, you're guaranteed at least $40 worth of polish and products for the same price of $19.99.

For every purchase, you get Jules! What are Jules? They're a newly added "currency" for Julep Mavens. You earn and collect, and you can use them to buy polishes and boxes!

There are a ton more features and bonuses to being a Maven, and I myself have been one for almost a year. I couldn't be happier! Just click the link above, take the quiz, and pick a promo! If you hurry, you might join in time to also pay for and receive the November box! Hint: Suedes and Matte Top coat are comingggg!

Well hello everyone! I know, long time no see. A few entries back, I started explaining all the new polish I got from the lovely ladies [And Gents I'm sure! ;D] at Julep. Well, not only has it far surpassed my ability to back-track and tell you all one by one what I've gotten, but I'm also too excited!

For October's boxes, the theme was "Bewitched", and a more suiting name could not possibly have been found. First, we were shown four different crackles, each named after a witch. See if you can place them all based on the colour and the witch's personality! ;D

Let's see how you did!
Far left, is a rich black crackle. Black as the heart of Ursula!
Next to her, is a shimmery sparkly silver. As happy and sparkly as Glenda!
To her right, of an equally good nature and white as the bird of her companion stands: Hermione!
And finally, on the far right, is the most Halloween-y witch of all: Sabrina!

Well? Did you get them all? I know I did! ;D
Bought them, that is.

I know, I know, you want to know what else came WITH these ladies, right? Okay, I'll be nice and I won't keep you waiting.

I know, the image seems small. But that's okay, you'll just have to go on over to Julep and look these beauties up now won't you!

From Left to Right, here are the ladies in the set:
Pale-Clear pink: Gwyneth
Black Crackle: Ursula
Stone/Mushroom Grey: Lisa
Deep Navy Blue: Eloise
Orange Crackle: Sabrina
White Crackle: Hermione
Rust-Orange: Boris & Nicole
Silver Crackle: Glenda
Deep Maroon: Keira
Rich Blood-Red: Caroline
Black with charcoal flecks: Leslie
And our bonus was Julep Quick dry drops!

Needless to say, I bought the whole collection, as well as the glow-in-the-dark add-on, Sofia.

We also got some awesome goodies in our boxes! Candy corn, which the Beau, Alien, got, and glitter pots! Mine were Silver and White, but there were tons of colours given out! Here's my box as I opened it.

Now, the REALLY fun part, is this purchase LITERALLY doubled my Julep collection! Take a look at the bad boy I've amassed!

I'm still as in love with Julep as ever, and if you've still not signed up here's some information you might be interested in! At the bottom of this post, you'll see how to sign up if you want to!

• First, Julep is a "4-free" company, meaning all products are TOXIN FREE. Good for your nails, good for the environment. 
• Second, portions of EVERY purchase go towards foundations for women! Be it breast health, or brain health, if it's for women Julep cares!
• Third, as a Maven, you get free shipping: Always.
• And finally, you can cancel ANYTIME. If you don't want to completely cancel your membership [It IS an automatic monthly service], during the 4 day period between the 20th and the 24th when you can preview the coming month's boxes, you can skip that month! Whether it be because there's not room in the budget that month for the boxes, or you're too busy to paint your nails, or you just don't like the colours, it's okay! If you find Julep isn't for you, just give Customer Service a call, and they'll cancel your membership right away. 

How does that sound? From my experience, as you can tell, I LOVE it. I've referred 6 ladies to Julep: And they are ALL still members!!
If you want to join, click the following image, and if you use the code: COLOR2012 you can get your first box FOR ONE PENNY! And don't forget, shipping is free! ;D

CLICK HERE TO JOIN JULEP!