Product Review: Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel Insoles

I was excited to receive my Influenster Sunkissed Voxbox filled with beauty products but when I saw that I was now the proud owner of Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel Insoles, I wondered, Do I even own a pair of heels? And with that opening sentence you fine readers are now in on a little secret: I am definitely not much of a lady. I like feeling pretty and all that jazz, but I need to be comfortable at the same time. Comfortable in my skin, comfortable in my clothes, comfortable in my shoes.



So here I was sitting in front of my newly opened, long-awaited, adorable Voxbox, my new goodies spread out on the floor ready to be photographed. I found a pair of heels in a storage bin in the basement--I'm not kidding when I say that they are the only pair I own and I didn't even know I owned them, heels are so uncomfortable--and inserted the gel insoles. These stick right to your shoe when you peel off the backing and they are clearly labeled: Heel Toe Left Right.





Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel Insoles promise to improve the way you feel in heels. They certainly had their work cut out for them with my hatred of wearing heels. $10.99 is a small price to pay for a product if it changes the way I feel about tall, uncomfortable shoes.



To test these insoles out I set up a backdrop outside in the 90-degree heat and went to work. A photo shoot in heels. If I could feel comfortable wearing heels while posing in front of the camera, operating the camera, and chasing a naked potty-training 2-year-old around the yard, then I could see myself purchasing a second set of heels--and a second set of Dr. Scholl's insoles.



For the first few minutes I felt extremely awkward in my shoes. The gel felt hot and squishy as if I was stepping in a mud field, albeit a comfortable mud field. But by the end of the photo shoot I was able to run and hop and jump in my heels and my feet weren't feeling awful.



So, would I recommend these Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel Insoles? I actually would. Especially if you're on your feet all day in heels. I wish I had a product like this when I worked for Corporate America and actually had to wear heels for ten hours, five days a week. These insoles probably would've made me feel much better at the end of a long day.



I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes. All opinions are my own.

Product review: Goody Hair Ouchless Ribbon Elastics

I signed up with Influenster.com last month and have been having a blast taking surveys and writing product reviews. Shortly after I signed up I qualified to receive my first Voxbox and had been checking our mailbox daily.



My Sunkissed Voxbox arrived on Monday morning, the day I was fitted with a heart monitor. As a stay-at-home-mom, purchasing beauty products is not top on my list of priorities--getting in a daily shower is as fancy as I get most days--so this Sunkissed Voxbox showing up in my mailbox was beyond exciting.

When the kids were napping I threw on a sweatshirt to hide the electrodes from my heart monitor and spent the next few hours trying out my new goodies in front of the camera.  If you'd like to see a video of what was in Influenster's Sunkissed Voxbox, check it out here or stay tuned here on the blog for more reviews.



And speaking of goodies, these are Goody's Ouchless Ribbon Elastics and they are my new favorite hair elastic. These elastics are soft and stretchy and come in a variety of great colors. I was skeptical that they wouldn't stay in my hair because it is so fine, but these awesome new ribbon elastics work just as great as thin elastics.



I love the Goody brand and have used their thin elastics for years. The problem I have with the thin elastics is when I take my hair down--especially before bed--I wear them around my wrist and I wake up with sore elastic marks. I often take off my hair elastic at night and put it on my nightstand and when I brush my teeth in the morning I simply reach for a new elastic. Picture a pile of hair elastics by my bed. My hair elastics end up everywhere around our house and since I buy so many of them, most end up in the trash or in my car or in a bin under the bathroom sink. I rarely wear one hair elastic for more than a day or two. Until now.

On Monday afternoon I removed one purple hair elastic from the package and I have been wearing it since! Eureka! A perfect hair elastic and an empty nightstand.



Aren't these neat?



My 1980's Cyndi Lauper hairdo:



I might've had a little too much fun playing with my new elastics.



One major pet peeve of mine is having to Photoshop hair elastics out of photos. This happens more than you'd think. I make a mental note to check my wrists whenever I'm in front of a camera and to check my subjects for hair elastics when I am behind the lens.

There are no more hair elastic photo bombs with Goody's Ouchless Ribbon Elastics! They double as fashionable bracelets!

Before:



And after, using a Goody Hair Ouchless Ribbon Elastic:

These ribbon elastics cost $3.99 - $4.99. I'd definitely recommend them.

I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes. All opinions are my own.

A new do in review

So I bought this at Walmart this week because it was cheap.  I think I paid about $6.76 but don't quote me on that.  I wanted to go darker but wanted a dye that washes out in 28 washes--which is like a decade in mom time--so that I didn't have to worry about covering up roots later.  Clairol's Spiced Cider 13B seemed like a nice dark brown color. 

Just your average hair dye kit: mix this and that, apply, rinse, condition, you know the drill.  When my hair was dry I was left with a nice Lucille Ball in a box red tint.  Not what I was expecting, but not awful either.

And then I waited for Sean to come home from work.  When I painted our living room bright green he mentioned that he wouldn't have noticed the change in color if I hadn't told him I was painting that day, so I wanted to see if he would notice that his wife suddenly had bright red hair.

He didn't. 

I waited two hours and then asked him if he liked my new hair color.  He said he couldn't tell the difference.  Ha!  This morning when my father-in-law came over I asked him if he liked my new red hair.  He said he couldn't tell the difference either.  I mean....it's obviously red.  I'll have to take more pictures when the color settles down in a few days to show you.  So funny!

I was not paid or asked to write this entry by Clairol or Walmart.  This experience is my own and I am writing about it for your entertainment and mine only.

Need an idea for Father's Day?

So it's that time again when that age old question pops up as it does every June:  What should I get Dad for Father's Day?

Sean is easy to shop for because he doesn't ever buy anything for himself and he enjoys getting almost anything.   I bought him a hose reel because he always mentions that he hates how our hose is always laid out on the deck, and then I picked up a $10 Made By Me Stepping Stone kit at Walmart so that the kids could give him a homemade gift.

We attempted to make our stepping stones this morning.



Note to self: don't try to mix concrete in the kitchen with a toddler.

The box says that the kit makes 4 stones, but it only comes with one plastic mold so I went scrambling trying to find some sort of plastic tin that I could use to make a second stepping stone. I found the large plastic cover to a cake that we bought at a fair last weekend. Perfect! I figured Dylan could make an extra large stepping stone and Kate could use the included mold. So I mixed three out of the four packages of concrete in that large tin for Dylan to decorate, but it hardened as I stirred it so that plan went out the window quickly. I landed a giant-size circular brick of concrete and had one bag of mix left to make two stepping stones for Sean.

So I sat Dylan down in front of the included mold and told him that we'd better do this fast.

The kit comes with a few plastic jewels and a handful of ceramic squares and we picked up some colored stones to use so that we'd have some more variation. Once we did Dylan's hand print I let him go to town artistically.



But then I felt bad that Katie didn't get to do a hand print so I used the concrete mix that had spilled and placed it in an empty butter container to make her a tiny stepping stone for Daddy.

Here are our finished products!



(Notice Dylan's has chocolate on his hand print because he sneaked some of that cake before designing his masterpiece)

These stones take 24 hours to dry so I'd recommend starting them tomorrow or Saturday to be ready for Sunday morning. And fingers crossed that I don't crack them when I take them out of their tins! I'm giving this a 'C' because of the solo plastic mold dilemma and because this would've been much nicer if they used actual stones instead of plastic knock offs. Oh! Also! It comes with paint. You can paint them after they dry. We probably won't be using that feature but it's pretty fun to have more options.



I was not indorsed in any way to write this post. All opinions are my own. Feel free to try it on for size!

Use Woolite to get your tile grout clean!

I saw this method on Pinterest and immediately wanted to try it out for myself. Our upstairs shower needed a good cleaning and although I scrub it down with a bathroom cleaner, the grout never seems to get clean.

Here are the gross before pictures of our shower grout:




The magic of the Interwebs recommended Woolite foaming carpet cleaner, but I only had Woolite pet spray carpet cleaner.



You should see how clean the shower tiles look now! I didn't even let the Woolite soak in very long, I just sprayed it on, scrubbed it with a hard bristle brush, and voila!

The after photos:




I was so impressed that I rushed to the store to buy another bottle to clean our kitchen floor.



I was not paid for this blog entry. These experiences are my own and I wanted to share them with you.

Does the Thundershirt work?

This is our girl Jasmine:



We adopted all three of our dogs from American Lab Rescue, a fantastic organization which finds southern dogs in need of homes and ships them all over the country to be adopted. Jasmine was rescued from a high kill shelter in Louisiana. We fell in love with her from her adoption photo because she had this giant tongue sticking out and looked as if she was smiling. We soon discovered that the reason she looked like she was smiling in her picture was because she was most likely panicking when the photo was being taken.

Jasmine is the sweetest and most anxious dog I have ever met. She is afraid of fire alarms and being left home alone. She is afraid of car rides and loud noises and snow plows. She panics when Sean and Dylan go upstairs to dance around in our bedroom because the sounds of their footsteps sound like thunder.

She is petrified of storms. Petrified.



Whenever it rains Jasmine immediately jumps into my lap and trembles uncontrollably until the storm clears. We tried several methods to try to calm her: anxiety medication prescribed by the vet, keeping her in a covered crate when it rains, DAP diffusers which give a calming dog pheromone scent, sensitivity training. Nothing worked until I bought her a Thundershirt.



Friends ask me all of the time, "Does the Thundershirt really work?". I've heard that it works on certain dogs but not on others but for our Jazzy girl it is a life changer. She still gets nervous and shakes during storms even when wearing her Thundershirt, but her anxiety level transforms from severe terror down to a gentle worry. When she's wearing her Thundershirt she becomes calm enough after a while that she climbs off of my lap and falls asleep on the floor. There were nights that I spent the entire night hugging her close before we bought her a Thundershirt and she trembled for eight straight hours.



We're having a rainy Friday and Jasmine is adorned in her shirt. So far there has been no thunder so she isn't too afraid, but she still enjoys wearing her shirt. She seems to feel safe.



I cannot recommend the Thundershirt enough. This simple $40 velcro garment has improved the quality of life for our dog and has given us a more peaceful household. If your dog suffers from anxiety this shirt may or may not work, but Jasmine and I give high praise for this product. Buy it.



I was not paid for this blog entry and it is no way endorsed by Thundershirt or any of its affiliates. I love this product and thought you should know about it. You can purchase a shirt for your dog at Thundershirt.com or Amazon.com.  Your dog will thank you. 

How to use a moby wrap in newborn hold

I don't vlog often but maybe I should start. I was given a moby wrap when Dylan was born and I was so confused by this long piece of material that was somehow supposed to support my baby with a series of twists and knots that it stayed in my closet for two years until my best friend Sarah came over and showed me how to use the thing.

I used a Bjorn with Dylan and Sean still uses it with Kate because he feels weird wearing a moby wrap, and that Bjorn worked fine for us but I prefer the moby because it doesn't hurt my back and it feels like wearing a favorite tee shirt. Katie loves to be worn and she usually falls right to sleep.

Moby wraps can be as confusing as trying to read a book in a foreign language but once you learn how to baby wear with a Moby it comes very natural. I definitely am a moby wrap advocate. Feel free to contact me if you'd like more information on my baby wearing experiences.