Extra in The Ordinary

Last Friday, on Memorial Day weekend, I went out to look at Honda CRVs. I had just gone to a class on negotiations, so I was eager and nervous to try out a new strategy or two. It would definitely be my first time to try this car buying thing alone, and I would need to be diligent to make sure I got a nice deal. I thought it would take several trips out car shopping to find a good deal, but I found it on the first try, and I felt pretty good about myself. The sales manager told me he should "fire these guys and hire you". The trainee that saw it all happen said he'd never forget it. I don't know if it was because I'm female, or because I'm young, and maybe they didn't see me coming and thought I'd take the deal as is. But I'm smart, and persistent, and on that day it paid off.....big. With a little planning ahead, and the willingness to walk away if I needed to, I got a total of $3,700 in concessions on a $15,000 car in a "no-haggle price zon...

I work in the dietary supplements industry, and feel quite well taking several supplements myself. I also have 2 very healthy kids and a healthy husband, thank you to good supplements and a healthy lifestyle. Well, here is the latest antics of the FDA. Sadly, they don't always work off of the best information, or have our wellbeing in mind. They often over regulate, to the demise of small businesses in the health category. Click here to read the latest Frustrating, but there are a few bits of good news. The recommendations for vitamin c, magnesium, and vitamin d are increased. It looks like the vitamins d recommendation doubled to 800iu (if I did the conversion right from mcg to iu). Others were drastically decreased, though, which I can't figure out, but I've learned the FDA isn't trying to make sense.   They are trying to make $. So, find a few good supplements today, because it may not always be as easy to get them: Physician's Preference Vitami...

Spring break has never been so fun! This year I rented a suburban, left Husband at home in Houston, and took my girls, my sister, and her 3 kids on a road trip. In case you didn't catch that....that's 5 kids. And no daddies to help. Yes, it was a brave trip, but it was SO much FUN!! It's like the thing you're really supposed to do on spring break- usually we don't travel very far, and/or we try to get too much done at home. This year the theme was definitely:"Get out of town!!" 1) Thank you to husband for letting me and the kids desert him for 6 days . The fridge had no food in it when we left. I just didn't have time to grocery shop. So he ate out of the pantry and slim pickings of the fridge for the week. Why do men prefer that to going to the store for food? Anyways, he made like 3 batches of soap while we were gone, so I think he had some fun. 2) Round trip, this was 1200 miles. I drove it, but my SWEET sister was the parental referee. Oh m...

So, here's part 2 of our 2013 Christmas timeline! December 25th , Christmas Day was Wednesday: We opened presents early. Punkin had a stomach ache, probably from the antibiotics after the ear infection diagnosis the day before. IPK made blueberry muffins for her daddy. Good morning and Merry Christmas!! Punkin was pale and not feeling well :( Punkin's loot IPK's loot. That little purple ball is a Monstaz. All I know is it makes noise. Punkin feeling better! IPK was STOKED about Monopoly Empire Pink pants! yeah! IPK making muffins for daddy 2 sisters in new outfits from Grandma= 1 good Christmas! Christmas dinner was yum! Thank you Grandma!! December 26th , the day after Christmas was full of guns and bowling: Punkin's first time to shoot. Aim fire ready! Grandma giving bowling lessons.....the others are being silly.  Cheese! We played 2 games, lots of fun, but they were tired.  Wow- that wa...

This post is a little late, but better late than never! Over Christmas break 2013 my husband and I took off about 2 week from work, and had a great Christmas/New Years. The big event was going to Tennessee to see Grandma Mary and Grandpa Jack. The 2013 Christmas Timeline: Friday December 20th : last day of work and Punkin's class Christmas party (no pictures, or I can't find them....) Saturday December 21st : Christmas with Nana and Papa, and the rest of Husband's family Password journal! Happy Happy joy joy!! MMM smell that soap! Sunday December 22nd: Church, and then road trip to Tennessee. We didn't leave until 3:30pm, which was challenging. Most of the trip was after dark. I wanted to stop and stay the night at Baton Rouge (after a big dinner at Cracker Barrel), but he did not like this idea, so he kept driving. At 2am I performed a very risky stunt by waking up, drinking coffee, and attempting to drive and act awake. After 1 hour of ...

Ok, so if you missed my last post, we started a soap business from home. We're making the soap for ourselves anyways, and the soap is so wonderful that we decided to make it available for sale. You'd have to know that my husband is a chef, and he's using his skills on making soap, so every bar is like a symphony of scent and texture. It's good soap. Here's what we did this weekend: We figured our our packaging, and a small free gift for every order. We did a cost analysis on ingredients and packaging so we could get prices right. This may sound boring to some of you, but if you know us....we both love this sort of thing. The Coffee scrub bar was re-named the Vanilla Latte Bar, since it smells more like vanilla (but has coffee in it). The price was set at $5 per bar for 4.5 ounces. Again, I just love this bar- my favorite so far. It's probably because it has coffee in it, and that's all it takes.  Husband (the Soap Chef and CEO) made a new soap bar...

Guess what?! We are starting to make soap so that YOU can have high quality, natural goat milk soaps from pure ingredients for soft and healthier skin! A few months ago we ordered 4 goat milk soap bars online. A bar for him, a bar for her, a bar for our 2 little girls, and a bar for Molly, our dog, and we all loved it. For the little girls it was especially good. We had been using a very gentle soap for them that was probably better for babies or small kids, and not strong enough to fight bacteria and germs from daycare carried home by a 6 and 8 year old  playing in dirt, and being around other sick kids. As a result of not using the right soap for the girls, they probably got sick one too many times, and had some skin issues. Our 6 year old (Punkin), had a rash that we'd been trying to fight for weeks. We'd used creams and oils and anything we could think of, and we were just about to get a prescription for an antifungal cream when the soap came in the mail. And I'...