Spot Shot

I have to give credit for finding this GREAT item to a book my sister gave me for Christmas one year. The name of the book is How the Queen Cleans Everything. The wonderful product?

Spot Shot. It's awesome at getting out stains. Let's just say that a purple grape had been on the floor of our vehicle a few days and left a stain and the stain came out easily. I find it in the cleaner aisle at Wal-Mart.

I never win anything. Well, I can't say "never" anymore. These are some cute shoes that I won for my little girl's feet. As you can tell, they are cute even though they have cupcake frosting on them in this picture. To check out more adorable shoes from the same company please visit http://www.bugabooshoes.com/

Pampered Chef

I have had the opportunity to go to some Pampered Chef parties over the years. Some of their items have been great and some not so great. I just received their carousel to hold utensils as a gift, and I love it. As you can see in the pictures, my white utensil holder had just a few things in it, and honestly I could hardly squeeze anything else in there. The black one on the bottom is the new one I have received from Pampered Chef. It takes up about the same amount of space, but it holds so much more. Now I have room in some of my drawers that I was having a hard time closing because I was able to move so many items to this carousel.

If you will, please notice the bright green knife in the middle of all the utensils. That is my new, nylon lettuce knife. While it does a great job not turning the lettuce green, it needs to be made of a thicker material. Instead of cutting the lettuce straight, it cuts at a rounded angle because the knife is not sturdy enough to keep it's form. I do think that it's going to work well on cutting brownies though. It's supposed to work well for nonstick pans.

Your Opinion Needed

I am a hands and knees kind of floor mopper, AND I have these ugly light colored vinyl kitchen floors as well as tile in the bathrooms, and hardwood floors in just about the whole rest of the house. On top of that, I have four little ones constantly trampling the floor and bringing dirt in. Honestly, I only mop my kitchen once a week although my floors could stand a lot more, but my knees just can't. "Why not use a push mop?" is the famous question. The reply? Because all they do after the first use is push dirt around, not clean it up. Imagine my interest when I saw the infomercial on the Shark Steam Mop. Wow! Does that look great! It says that it can get your floors cleaner than anything else, and it has a washable mophead........just what I would need if I were to use a push mop. After asking around, I have found a couple of people who have purchased this mop and really like it a lot. My brother being one of those people, testified to the fact that they USED to have a paint spot on their floor that they could never get up until they bought the Shark Steam Mop. Sounds great to me. Here's my delimma. I started looking at reviews of steam mops on the internet and found that the Shark has a competitor with a much higher rating. It's called the Bissell Steam Mop. What I would like to know is, are there any people out there who would like to testify to the goodness or badness of either of these mops. One thing I do know. I sure am planning on eventually getting one.......which one is the question.

If you are interested in either of these products, Target carries the Shark Steam Mop in its store, and Wal-Mart carries the Bissell Steam Mop on its website. I'm not sure if they are actually in the Wal-Mart stores.

Health Insurance

It's been a long time since I've written anything up here, and I had planned on dropping the blog as I wrote earlier. However, I kept seeing people dropping by reading the little bit that I had written before, so I decided to start back telling about good things (and sometimes bad things I've come across.)

Given the concerns about health insurance, I thought people might be interested in finding different options available to them. We have insurance through my husband's work, and they have changed companies that they use down through the years. However, the company that was easiest for us to use was United Health Care. We really liked their services a lot and had no hassle with them. My husband's company now uses Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It has been adequate with a few set backs along the way. It's just not as user friendly as the other was.

I guess the upside for Blue Cross is that they provide health care to self employed people, while United Health Care only provides health care to individuals employed through a company. For health insurance information in your state click here.

Let me recommend........

My sister has a blog designed for the same purpose as this one except that she posts things on her site once or twice a week. For some reason, I can't find the time to do that here. For that reason, I am no longer writing for this blog and wish to recommend rantsravesandrejects.blogspot.com as an alternative to my "Good Stuff."
Thanks!

TV Guardian

Our old DVD player went on the blink, so my husband went and bought a new one. When he did, he saw that it came with TV Guardian capabilities. It cost us a one time fee of $20 to sign up for it, and we love it. What TV Guardian does, is read the closed captioning on a DVD and based on how strictly you put the settings, blocks out inappropriate language. It says that it is 95% accurate. We have been happy with its performance thus far.
You can also order a TV Guardian box that will work with your TV programming. It costs more, but I think it would be worth it to keep from hearing all the inappropriate language. Check out their site for more info and prices.

Photo courtesty of: TV Guardian's Web Page