Michelle Smiles

Teaching my children to question authority, except mine.

Aquafina end

June21

I’m sad to say the Aquafina campaign has come to an end.  There will be no box of water arriving on my doorstep today.  This was the most fun PR campaign I’ve participated in.  It was awesome getting shipments (of a product I love!) every single week for 6 weeks.  It was so fun to hand out the coupons.  And it was great to try all of the flavors – I tend to find one I like and stick to it.

The final flavor was Peach Mango.  I have to admit that once again I wasn’t looking forward to it.  I like fresh peaches but I don’t like peach flavoring.  But I really liked the water.  It wasn’t overpowering and the flavor was nice.

My personal ranking of flavors:

1. Lemon

2. Strawberry Kiwi

3. Grape

3. Peach Mango (tie for 3rd)

5. Mixed Berry

6. Raspberry

And I found my personal preference for drinking the water was to not refrigerate it.  I prefer a lighter flavor than I got straight out of the bottle so I poured it warm over ice and it diluted a little bit and was perfect.  But most folks I talked to like to cold and straight out of the bottle – so however you like it, drink up!

I do have 2 suggestions for the Aquafina FlavorSplash folks.  First, give us an orange flavor.  Also consider apple.  I had apple from another brand once (never to find it again) and it remains my all time favorite flavored water.  It is like my Moby Dick of flavored waters – ever elusive.  Second, see what you can do about finding a natural way to sweeten your waters.  I don’t like my children to have artificial sweeteners so I didn’t let them drink any of the waters even though I know they would have liked them.  But I have to admit that I like the fake stuff because it keeps it calorie free for me.  So maybe just leave it alone.

Now for the winners I said I would announce last week (no wonder I don’t do giveaways – I kind of suck at them).  Since I am a week late, I figured I would just give away the rest of my coupons instead of doing another giveaway this week.  So the winners are: Julie P, Michele P, Alleen, and Pattie.  (Chosen randomly out of a bowl by my daughter.)  I’ve emailed you all – just send me your snail mail addresses and I’ll send you your coupon for a free 6 pack of Aquafina FlavorSplash.  Enjoy!

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for Aquafina FlavorSplash and have received various FlavorSplash samples to facilitate my participation. Mom Central will send me a gift card at the end of the program.  My opinions are my own.

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Canning Party. Oxymoron?

June17

So. The canning party.  Wait.  Before I get into that can I just tell all of you who don’t know me in real life how much money I would have placed on the fact that the words “I am hosting” and “canning party” would never belong together?  Loads.  I would have in fact bet that “canning” and “party” didn’t go together unless canning was a new term for drinking a lot.  (Foreshadowing: turns out in my world it might be.)

There are days I look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person I am.  Playdates, baby pools, couponing, gardening, bunco, and now canning.  Michelle from 5 years ago would point and laugh at Michelle today.  Michelle from 15 years ago would be too busy working and having fun to notice Michelle today.  (Crap, now I’m discussing myself in the third person – I really have lost it.) It is all good.  I made the choices that led me here and am happy with my life.  It is just a little twilight zone-ish if I give it too much thought.

But I digress…canning party.  Not an oxymoron if you do it right!  You all know about the site House Party?  It is pretty cool.  You apply to host a party.  They send free stuff for you and your guests in return for highlighting their product.  Stroke of PR genius on their part.  Good way to try new stuff for us.  Win-win.  A canning party came up right after I started my garden.  I thought I might get lots of tomatoes and need to know how to do this mysterious thing that our generation doesn’t do much of so I applied.  And was picked.  Woohoo!

I invited my friends (look at me! with friends! plural! such a braggart!)  and waited for the mocking to begin.  Strangely, no one really mocked (except my BFF who is still laughing – seriously, she is reading this and chuckling to herself waiting to get the part that I got drunk and blew up the jars…btw D, only 1 of those things happened) and a lot of people agreed to come.  A huge box arrived with my canning kit (nice kit: big pot for boiling and all of the accessories needed).  They recommended we make salsa first and send a jar home with everyone.  I spent hours chopping stuff to make 12 cups of salsa.  Carpal tunnel set in around cup 8.  I made some munchies and mixed some drinks and guests arrived.  We all ate, drank, and canned.  (Although to be honest I think we ate and drank more than we canned.)  The drinks? Went down a little too well.  The salsa was canned – surprisingly easy.  But by the time we got to the second recipe, I might have had one or six drinks too many.  Oops.  The marmalade didn’t exactly reach the consistency of jam – more of a thin syrup.

I like my salsa fresh (I make really good fresh salsa) and am not sure how it will taste canned so I haven’t opened it. And the marmalade contained so much sugar it probably shouldn’t be eaten anyway.  I haven’t tasted either but both jars are sealed safely so in theory I could eat them. And in theory, I can now can tomatoes this fall.  But my tomato plants aren’t looking like they are going to bury us in tomatoes so I might not have to test that theory

My canning tips: get help when chopping for 12 cups of salsa and drink after the canning process is complete.  Oh and make sure you educate yourself a little so you don’t give your family botulism by doing it wrong.  What did my guests learn?  Hopefully that canning isn’t rocket science and that drunk Michelle is amusing.

Thanks to House Party, Ball, and Jarden Home Brands for sending us a party in the box. (Add your own tequila.)  FCC: They sent me free stuff but it had nothing to do with blogging about it.  Not sure what disclaimer you want here so go pick on one of the bloggers who got free appliances or trips rather then a free canning boiling water bath pot and boxes of pectin.

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Aquafina Friday

June11

My Aquafina campaign is almost at an end.  I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.  I love having a 6 pack of water show up at my door every week in a different flavor! So far I’ve received mixed berry, lemon, strawberry kiwi, grape, and raspberry.

Raspberry is the flavor this week.  I love raspberries.  I love to throw them in a salad.  My mom makes a yummy salad dressing with them but I’m lazy and use raspberry all fruit preserves because pushing all of those strawberries through a sieve seems torturous to me.  I also love them in the cocktail I talked about in this entry.  I had a canning party last weekend (that is an entirely different subject and I promise to write about it soon…now pick your jaw up off the table) and drank a few too many of those yummy raspberry cocktails.

As for the waters, lemon was my favorite.  My second favorite was a toss up between strawberry kiwi and grape.  This week, I’m surprised to not be loving the raspberry but I just don’t like it that much.  The flavor is a little too strong I think.  It isn’t awful – I am drinking it right now…just not a flavor I would purchase.  I am a little sad to report that in my area the lemon isn’t easy to find in stores…but the other flavors seem to be pretty common.  And I am very curious to see what the last flavor of our campaign will be.

How about we make that the question for entry to win a coupon for a 6 pack and 2 lip balms (one raspberry and one mixed berry)?  What flavor do you think is the last one? I’ll draw a winner on Tuesday 6/15 around noon central time.

Don’t forget you can print your $1 off a six pack coupon right here.

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for Aquafina FlavorSplash and have received various FlavorSplash samples to facilitate my participation. Mom Central will send me a gift card at the end of the program.  My opinions are my own.

posted under Misc. | 8 Comments »

Water Winner!

May23

The winner of the coupon for the free 6 pack of Aquafina Flavor Splash and lip balm is comment #1 (I know the random number generator is random but I’ve never seen #1 be the number generated).  CMTMDT I sent you an email.

Don’t forget, those that didn’t win can print a $1 off coupon by clicking this link.

If I get some other good stuff to share, I’ll do another give away.  I’m looking forward to seeing what flavor they send me this week.

This post is in conjunction with a campaign with MomCentralI am receiving a 6 pack of Aquafina weekly for 6 weeks as well as some promotional items to give away.  I will also be compensated for my time with a gift card at the end of the promotion.  My opinions are my own.

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Aquafina Flavor Splash

May18

Do you drink enough water?  A lot of us don’t.  I drink a good bit of water every day but I’m sure that I could benefit from less iced tea and giving up my occasional diet soda. Most of the water I drink is straight out of the tap (we are fortunate to have good tap water here) but as a treat I sometimes get a flavored water to enjoy instead of soda.

I was so excited to be selected as an ambassador for Aquafina’s Flavor Splash campaign.  Every week for 6 weeks they promised to send me a new flavor to try.  Yummy flavored water appearing at my door as if by magic every week?  Sign me up!

Last week, which was the first week, they sent Wild Berry flavor.  I honestly wasn’t looking forward to that flavor.  I’ve had it from other brands and always found it over powering and too sweet and fake.  But when I cracked it open, I was pleasantly surprised.  It smelled strong but the flavor was quite mellow and pleasant.  It was a hint of berry rather than being hit over the head by it.  I liked it.

This week?  My favorite: lemon. I love lemon flavored waters and Aquafina’s is no exception.  The lemon is a pleasant background flavor and quite refreshing.

If you would like to pick up some Aquafina Flavor Splash, you can print out a $1 off coupon by clicking here and following the instructions.

Or you can leave a comment on my post here telling me what flavor you like when you drink flavored water (or that you’ve never tried it).  I have 1 coupon for a free 6 pk (I had fun last week giving out the rest to real life folks rather than my on line friends).  I’ll send that and a Wild Berry lip balm.  Just leave a comment by Friday morning at 8am central and I’ll do randomly pick a winner.

This post is in conjunction with a campaign with MomCentralI am receiving a 6 pack of Aquafina weekly for 6 weeks as well as some promotional items to give away.  I will also be compensated for my time with a gift card at the end of the promotion.  My opinions are my own.

posted under Misc. | 11 Comments »

Why yes, we are still alive

April28

Our household has been struck with a strange assortment of ailments this week so blogging just hasn’t happened.  Sabrina threw up in her bed on Monday morning and complained of her stomach hurting for an hour and then seemed fine.  (Child has the constitution of an ox…she is never sick for more than a couple of hours.)  She was quite upset that I insisted she spend a little time on the couch taking it easy.  Steve has a cold or sinus infection and is feeling crappy.  Tessa has 6 teeth coming in right now so she is pleasant.  And out of the blue on Monday night, I spiked a fever.  And I haven’t been able to get it to break.  No other symptoms (other than the associated aches and crankiness associated with fever).

Sabrina is ready to lose her mind because every morning she asks where we are going today and for the past 2 days she has received the disappointing news that we aren’t going anywhere because mommy is sick.

Sick mommy and sick daddy = no cooking.  Monday night, I picked up Chinese because I figured the soup and the spicy mustard might aid in clearing out Steve’s sinuses (and it did briefly).  Tessa loves fried rice and mai fun so she was quite happy.

I’m hoping to break this stupid fever today and be back to normal tomorrow.

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Huh

April20

Guess this blogger needs to start acting like one!  I hit my upload photos button because I usually have a few miscellaneous photos around for days like this one when I haven’t posted in awhile and still don’t have much to say.  I can usually at least keep the grandmas happy with a little cuteness thrown up here.

Today all I found was this photo which most of you saw on facebook last week.  Sabrina picked out her own outfit – she was immensely proud.  I laughed at the somewhat mismatched and odd choice.

There is one other photo but I hesitate to post it.  I usually poke fun at people who deserve it because they are stupid and annoy me…or I poke fun at myself.  But at Home Depot this weekend we saw a women in such an odd/unattractive outfit that Steve nonchalantly snapped a photo with his phone.  She was a voluptuous woman.  She was wearing a black sports bra, black bike shorts, white tube socks pulled up to her knees, and black tennis shoes.  I just can’t post the photo…I’m afraid of how hard karma might kick me in the ass in return.  So you’ll have to stick to the cuteness that is Sabrina.

Speaking of cute – her ballet recital is coming up in a few weeks.  Her class is bunnies.  Their costumes are insanely cute.  And their little dance – they all wiggle their little tails and I could just keel over from the cute!  Photos will follow.

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Why?

April16

p1020998There is a certain Target I tend to avoid because this is their double cart (as opposed to the type where both children are at glare level eye level and next to each other).  I’m guessing that even those without children can come up with 10 reasons these carts are a bad idea.  Who looked at this cart and said “Brilliant!  This is the perfect double cart!”

Obvious problems:

  • The children are at crotch level.  It is difficult to put the fear of God into them with The Look when they can so easily avoid your eyes.
  • Because they are below eye level, those little hands can snake out and grab things on low shelves without you realizing it until you hear the crash
  • Sitting knee to knee just begs kicking
  • And poking
  • And hair pulling
  • And slapping
  • All of those actions lead to whining within in 3.2 seconds of the straps being buckled
  • Which makes my eyelid start to twitch
  • And leads to me becoming that mom – you know that one that you first hear hissing at their children about the loss of treats and other privileges if they don’t stop that right! now! and 2 aisles later hear her yelling at her children that she isn’t! kidding! as her voice cracks because she knows the wheels are coming off the bus and she has lost

Don’t get me wrong, the double cart is a necessary evil for those of us with multiple young children.  I don’t love any of them but some are better than others.  And this design is the worst in my estimation.  I think they should come with a free shot of tequila and a lime.

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Saturday afternoon

March28

This was taken with my phone yesterday afternoon.  (Oh the scandal – drinking in the middle of the day!)  Our waiter (who was all of about 19) got quite a kick out of the 2 tipsy moms having a little fun.  More photos tomorrow.

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Party like it is 1995

March26

medeeI’ve slacked on posting again so I’ll catch you up in bullets:

* After telling her to suck it up for 24 hours because she has fooled me in the past, I took Sabrina to the Minute Clinic and discovered she has an ear infection.  Mom of the Year Award nominations are open now.

* Instead of $4 antibiotics, we got an Rx for $111 antibiotic drops.  Lovely.

* Several people have asked about Tessa (thank you for thinking of her).  She is fine – we go back for a weight check next in about 10 days.

* Some of the seeds are sprouting our garden – quite exciting!

* I’ve been to Micheal’s and Hobby Lobby this week.  I went to a Premier Jewelry party last weekend that has me feeling crafty again.  I made myself a cute bracelet and wore it to bunco tonight.  One of the women from last weekend’s party asked if it was Premier.  I was tickled.  It takes very little these days.

* My husband is sweet for many reasons but this week he has been very tolerant of me getting out of the house.  Last night, I went out for an hour or two to Mom’s Night Out.  Tonight was Bunco.  Tomorrow…well tomorrow deserves its own bullet.

* Tomorrow, I’m meeting up with my BFF in Louisville (because it is half way between us not because we think Louisville is a hopping city…but it might be, who knows?).  We got ourselves a hotel room.  We plan to eat yummy meals without cutting up anyone’s food.  We plan to drink adult beverages without having to operate a motor vehicle or go home to care for small people.  We plan to sleep without interruption. We might stay up until the wee hours drinking or we might have 3 drinks and be passed out by 9pm.  Who knows?  Either way, a good time will be had by all.

* That photo up there is my BFF and I circa 1995 on vacation together back before husbands and kids.  Back then, everything we did together was an adventure and resulted in an epic story.  Perhaps we’ll add to the story vault this weekend.

* I think I still own that shirt.  I really need to go shopping.

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