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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Mexican Coke

03 Apr

Most people of a certain age remember the debacle of “New Coke.”  To this day, the story is widely used in marketing and business classes as an example of what not to do.  Conspiracy theories abound about the real reason for the switch, and one of them has to do with sugar.  Before 1985, Coca-Cola bottlers supposedly used only real sugar in their formula.  When New Coke was introduced, they switched over to high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS.  It was cheaper and had a sweeter taste, which was what they were trying to achieve with the reformulation.  Only it bombed. I can still remember the slightly “chemical” taste of New Coke and how truly awful it was.  As everyone knows, they reintroduced the original formula a few months later as Coca-Cola Classic and the company rebounded completely.  But people said there was a difference…they didn’t use real sugar anymore.  They had switched to HFCS and most people didn’t notice because it had been a while since they’d tasted the original version.

After 24+ years of drinking Coke with HFCS, I just accept the taste now.  I don’t notice that slightly chemical flavor anymore.  But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to the original version.  I still love my Coke, but it’s not quite the same and I’m not sure it ever will be again.  I’m not necessarily anti-HFCS.  I think it’s bad for you, but I won’t go so far as to call it evil like others do. Sugar is pretty bad for you in excess, too.  The problem is that HFCS is everywhere and in everything these days.  As with everything, moderation is key.

A while back, my husband stumbled upon some information that said Coke bottled in Mexico is still made with real sugar and he had been on the lookout for some since.  He didn’t tell me about it, so when he picked up a glass bottle of Coke in the Mexican food aisle at Piggly-Wiggly a couple of weeks ago and started reading the label, I was puzzled.  When he pointed the ingredient list out to me, I decided I had to try it! So we bought a bottle (for $1.19…it’s a tad pricy) and took it home.

After it was nice and cold, I poured some into a glass to try.  I was a little hesitant, but it was so good.  I am not great at explaining this, but it was “lighter” than regular Coke.  Not as thick, somehow.  Not overly sweet, just the right balance.  And it reminded me of how good Coke used to be.  I was instantly taken back to my childhood, the days when Coke was a treat for us on the rare occasions that my mom bought some or when we went out to eat.  It was that good!

I’m told that you can buy it in bulk at Costco.  We don’t have a membership there and I think the closest one is in North Durham, so it’s not very convenient.  But if you’re local and want to buy just 1 or 2 bottles, Piggly Wiggly does have them.  They’re in the Mexican food section, on the very bottom shelf in the back of the aisle, near the meat.  A friend told me that the closest thing to the original Coke formula is actually kosher Coke, which is available during Passover in some markets.  Sadly, I have a feeling Central North Carolina isn’t one of those.  I may be wrong, though.  If anyone knows where to find some kosher Coke, I’m happy to taste test it and give my opinion!

(And just for the record, I don’t believe in any of the conspiracy theories out there about New Coke.  As a former marketing professional, I just cannot see a company taking a risk like that.  Snopes.com claims that they were using HFCS before the switch, but there’s a lot of information out there that states otherwise.  I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between!)

 
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Posted in Food/Recipes, Reviews, Sanford, Sites to See

 

The Museum of Natural Sciences

27 Mar

Since intersession is almost over and we’d done practically none of the educational things I’d had big dreams of doing, we got our butts in gear yesterday and headed to Raleigh for a day at the museum.  We chose the Museum of Natural Sciences because it sounded the most interesting for a 6 year old.  Admission is free, so except for the gas we burned on the trip and the $4 parking fee (oh, and the coffee I had to buy to stave off a caffeine headache) it was free family fun!  We left Sanford after an early lunch at home and were able to see the entire museum and make it home for dinner.

I don’t have the energy to write a full review, but some of the highlights were:

  • The 5 whale skeletons.  It gives you an amazing perspective of the true size of these animals!
  • A giant ground sloth skeleton.  I never really thought much about them, but assumed they weren’t much bigger than a sloth you’d see today.  So very wrong on this one!  They were HUGE!
  • Various dinosaur bones and skeletons.  My kids love dinosaurs, so they really enjoyed these.
  • The “Meet the Animals” show where they brought out real snakes for the kids to see and touch, as well as explaining why we shouldn’t be scared of them.  (That didn’t stop me from nearly having a panic attack when he pulled out the first snake, though!)
  • Seeing many venomous and non-venomous snakes behind glass, so they’re a bit easier to identify out in the real world.  The only venomous snake that’s common in Lee County is the copperhead, by the way.  And now that I know what one looks like, maybe I won’t freak out if another benign snake gets in my house!
  • The giant *live* cockroaches.  We frequently saw palmetto bugs (which is a nice name for giant, ugly roach) when we lived in SC and those things terrified me, but they’ve got nothing on the ones we saw yesterday!
  • The Discovery Room where the kids could play and touch everything.  They really enjoyed that.
  • The Living Conservatory, which houses butterflies and other living things.

We thought it was a great little trip and both of the boys enjoyed it.  I’m not sure they learned much, but it was a lot of fun and certainly more educational than sitting around and watching TV, which is what was the most likely thing to happen since it rained pretty much all day.  Worth the drive, for sure!

 
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Posted in Free Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, Sanford, Sites to See, Travel

 

IKEA!!!

23 Mar

In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s a new IKEA store in Charlotte.  I’ve been dying to go, but didn’t want to make the trip on a weekend because I’ve heard they tend to be very crowded.  And weekdays were out because there’s no way we could get down there, spend the time we’d like to really look around, and get back in time to pick up my oldest son from school.  But he’s on intersession right now and I was bound and determined to get down there one day!  After a lot of not-so-subtle hinting, my husband agreed to go last Thursday.  So we got up, got ready, and hit the road.  It took about 2 hours to get there, not counting that stop in Salisbury for lunch.

When we got there, we drove into the parking lot and found their “family friendly” parking area.  It’s a small, separate lot right next to the building.  No crossing traffic lanes with little ones in tow!  I think this is a great idea and wish more stores did it.  Once we got in, we dropped my oldest son off at their supervised play area.  I would have left my 2 year old also, but the kids have to be potty trained.  Since he’s not, he came with us.  We took the elevator up and entered furniture heaven!

I was impressed with the quality.  This is not your typical assemble it yourself furniture.  It’s not necessarily on par with a big furniture store, but neither are the prices!  Everything has a warranty that will last you long enough to get bored and want new furniture.  At these prices, you can afford to refresh your room every 10 years or so.  And it’s not just furniture…they have mattresses, kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, appliances, bedding, towels, art, dishes, cookware, and other decorating accessories.  You could outfit your entire house there!

My husband is a furniture snob.  He has built furniture for us and uses only top quality wood and is extremely meticulous about appearance.  He doesn’t care for particle board furniture or anything that’s contemporary so I expected him to hate it all, but he didn’t.  He was impressed with the quality of the kitchen cabinets and said that every room type had something he liked the look of.  We picked out a lot of things we’d buy if only we had the money…an Ektorp sofa and chairs, the Hemnes bedroom series, the Adel kitchen cabinets in medium brown, and much, much more.

They also have a restaurant, which we did not get a chance to try.  However, there’s a small food market downstairs after you check out.  We bought a couple of drinks and some snacks.  All at reasonable prices and very yummy. I wish we could have tried the Swedish meatballs, but we just weren’t there at a meal time and I couldn’t justify buying them just to say I had some.  I will time things much better the next time we go so we can have a meal there.

It’s very family friendly, which I have learned is a big plus when it’s time to go shopping with 3 kids.  They had a baby care room where I was able to change diapers and nurse privately in addition to the parking and supervised play area.  Nobody batted an eye at them when they wanted to explore the various room settings on a 2nd trip through the store.  They had a lot of fun and we enjoyed it more because of that.

Overall, we were impressed and definitely plan to go back someday when we have some money!

 
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Posted in Decorating, Family, Reviews

 

The Scoop on Cloth Diapers

15 Mar

Several people have read my gushing about cloth diapers and asked for a run down on the basics of it all.  So I’m going to try to answer those questions here!  If there’s anything I miss or you have more questions, leave me a comment.  In this economy, we’re all doing our best to save a little money here and there.  If you’ve got kids in diapers, this is a fairly easy way to do that.

First of all, my stash:  I started with a Just the Basics package from CottonBabies.  This gave me 12 prefolds (the old-fashioned flat diapers), 4 pull-on plastic covers, 2 Snappis (to fasten the diapers with), and a BumGenius (BG) One-Size to try.  I bought 2 additional wrap style covers at The Red Hen in Carrboro.  For wipes, I use old baby washcloths as well as scraps of material that a friend sewed for me.  I also just bought 6 more of the BumGenius OS diapers last week.  That gives me a grand total of 19 diapers, so I do diaper laundry every 2-3 days.

In addition to diapers, I bought a few extras.  My diaper pail is just a plastic trash can from Walmart.  It’s small enough to not take up a lot of room but it can hold all of my diapers.  It has a push button removable lid.  It’s easily cleaned, which is a big plus because it does get poop in it!  I have a small spray bottle (also from WM) to put my wipe solution in.  And I can’t live without the pail freshener from Simply Clean.  Right now the changing station is in our living room, so we make liberal use of it to keep the odor down.  I also bought a small wire utility cart to keep everything in.  It holds all of the diapers, wipes, and other supplies.

Diaper Changes: To be perfectly honest, I always go for the BGs first.  They are the easiest.  Basically, these diapers have a pocket in them that you stuff with an insert to soak up the wetness.  I stuff mine as I stock them in the diaper cart so they’re ready to use when I need them.  These go on just like a disposable diaper.  The best part is that they are one size…they fit kids from about 8-35 lbs.  These should last me through potty training!  When I take them off, I pull out the liner and make sure to fold the laundry tabs in and fasten them so the velcro doesn’t get caught in the washing machine or dryer.  Easy peasy!  The prefolds are a little harder because you have to develop your folding method.  There are several out there, but I use kind of a modified Angel Wing fold.  Basically, I lay her on the diaper, fold the front into thirds, pull it up, pull the back “wings” to the front and fasten with a Snappi.  This works well for us right now.  We then put a cover on, either a wrap style or a pull-on.  The key is to make sure none of the diaper is hanging out of it because the wetness will wick out and you’ll end up with wet (or dirty!) baby clothes.  It’s not hard, but it does mean you have to pay attention.  When we take these off, the prefold goes into the diaper pail and the cover (assuming there’s no poop on it) goes back into the diaper cart to be used again.  I try to rotate them so I’m not using the same one all the time.  They are waterproof, so there’s no need to wash them after each use.  To wipe her bottom, I spray a little of my wipe solution (there are a lot of recipes out there, but mine is water, vinegar, tea tree oil, and aloe vera gel) on a wipe and clean her off really good.  If she had a rash, I would use plain water to avoid irritating her skin.  Once done, the dirties go into the diaper pail and I sprinkle a little of the pail freshener on top.

Laundry:  It’s really not that hard.  I wash every 2-3 days, depending on when I get close to running out of clean dipes.  I take the pail out to the laundry room and throw everything into a cold rinse.  The pail freshener makes a great pre-soak in this cycle!  Once the cold rinse is done, I run a full wash on hot with a couple tablespoons of Simply Clean detergent.  (For most loads, a tbsp is sufficient…I like to use extra on diapers.)  Then I put them in the dryer with several dryer balls and that’s all it takes!  Occasionally it’s nice to hang them out to dry because the sun bleaches out any stains that might have accumulated, but it’s not necessary.  You do have to be careful of the detergent you use because it can build up causing the diapers to repel moisture or cause other problems and you should never ever use fabric softener.  But generally the laundry side of it is the easiest part!  Once done, I go ahead and stuff the pocket diapers so they’re ready to go and restock the cart with the clean wipes, diapers, and covers.  It’s really not at all difficult.

Other tips: Newborns are very easy to cloth diaper, especially if you’re breastfeeding.  Because they’re only taking in liquid, that’s pretty much all that comes out.  Once they start solids around 6 months you may start having more solid poops.  (And I honestly don’t remember about formula fed babies, but I’m thinking they may have more solid poop even before eating solids.)  When this happens, you need to shake off what you can into the toilet but otherwise everything stays the same.  At this point, it also starts to smell a bit more so you may want to have your pail in a bathroom or your laundry room.  The pail freshener will help a lot.  If something doesn’t work for you, like diaper style, fold, laundry methods, or anything else, there are a ton of resources out there to help you find the options that do work for you.  Just google whatever you’re needing help with and dozens of sites will come up.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to expect and how it all really works.  Like I said, it’s really not much more work.  We use disposables when we’re out and at night to make things a bit easier, but where we used to go through as many as 10 disposables a day, we now average 2 or 3.  A pack of diapers that would typically last maybe a week now lasts an entire month.  The upfront cost can be high, particularly if you go with the more expensive and easiest diapers.  But the long term financial impact is HUGE.  Not to mention the environmental impact!

 
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Posted in Money/Finances, Parenting, Reviews, Sites to See

 

Brain Dump for a Saturday

07 Mar

Life has changed for the better since Baby Violet arrived, but it leaves little time for me to blog.  At least 3 or 4 times a day something happens and I think to myself “That deserves a blog entry!” but by the time I get to sit down at the computer uninterrupted, I sit here and stare at this post screen and can think of absolutely nothing to say.  I hate feeling like my memory is shot, but I suppose that’s what having 3 small children will do to you.  So today, I’m going for a brain dump…all of the random things bouncing around in my head that don’t qualify for a long post or that I don’t have the energy to come up with a full post about.

  • The weather!  Gorgeous!  Yesterday was “Kites with Dads” at my oldest son’s school and it couldn’t have been more perfect.  Unfortunately, by 4PM yesterday everyone in my house except Violet had come down with a fever.  So while everyone else in the state is out enjoying the beautiful weather, we are stuck inside moaning about how bad we feel.  I think I’m going to manage to get out anyway, because it seems completely unfair that I should let a cold interfere with this day!
  • Violet has the most amazing smile.  We spend lots of time talking to her and trying to get her to give us a big toothless grin.  Almost as much fun as the little noises she makes…the girl loves to “talk” to us.  I am very much enjoying watching all of this, especially since I am about 99.999999% sure that she is our last.  (There always has to be that *tiny* bit of doubt, right?)
  • She slept for almost 7 hours the other night.  Granted it was not the 7 hours I would have liked to sleep, but 7 hours is pretty amazing!  It was 9:45PM to almost 4:30AM.  I felt like a new woman.  Sadly, she hasn’t repeated that feat!
  • Facebook.  I’m hopelessly addicted.  Is there a 12 step program?
  • If you think breastfeeding and/or breastmilk is weird or gross, skip this one.  Pumping sucks.  Really, really sucks.  I have absolutely awful pump output.  I’m going to a baby shower tomorrow and it took me 3 days to pump enough milk to make me feel like I could leave her without starving her.  I get up in the morning and pump when I’m full so I should be getting plenty but I just don’t respond to the pump.  I can pump for 15 minutes, get at best 1.5-2 ounces on each side, unhook everything and 5 minutes later my shirt is soaked.  I’ve tried hospital grade pumps, hand pumps, and everything in between.  I’ve tried nursing on one side and pumping on the other but it’s awkward and doesn’t yield much more.  Frustrating and annoying!  Luckily I don’t have to do this often.
  • I am afraid to say anything because I’m sure I will jinx it, but I *may* have a legitimate work at home job lined up.  No selling, no telemarketing, and 100% free to get started.  I’m in training right now and so far everything is going well.  It’s ironic, because just the other day I mentioned to Amy (on Facebook) that I needed a job but that my husband’s current schedule made it hard for me to find anything.  Now I don’t have that worry!  I’m praying this turns out to be something that can help us out while we get everything figured out.
  • Cloth diapers…I’m really doing them!  I have a very small stash right now, but she’s in cloth almost 100% of the time at home during the day.  I hope to add nights to that soon, but that will require a better system than what we currently have.  I have a dozen prefolds (the old fashioned flat kind) and 4 pull-on covers and 2 wrap style covers.  I also have 1 BumGenius 3.0 One-Size diaper that I absolutely adore.  We just got our tax refund back and I plan to buy some more of those once we’ve gotten caught up with all of our unpaid bills.  The advantage is that she won’t outgrow them like most other diapers and they are so easy!  Almost like a disposable…the only difference is that you have to wash them.  I’m also using cloth wipes and home-made wipe solution.  It is saving us a ton of money!
  • And to wash my cloth diapers, I have found the absolute most amazing substance on this earth.  It is referred to in my house as “laundry crack” because it smells divine and I find myself going out to the laundry room just to sniff it.  Yes, really.  I got it from Simply Clean and could not be happier with it.  It gets the stains out and my clothes come out soft without fabric softener!  I’m also using their pail freshener for our diaper pail and the room smells so yummy.  My husband likes it because the smell washes out so he doesn’t get a headache, but you can use the scented dryer balls she sells to add scent to your laundry.  So far my favorite is Honey Almond, but I really like Butt Naked, too.  I have a list a mile long of the ones I’d like to try!  There’s a place that’s selling it in Concord, but I haven’t been there…I just ordered online.  And the best part?  If you buy in bulk, it’s cheaper than any of the detergents at Walmart.  Seriously, I took a calculator and worked it all out.  We’re using up the rest of the junk we have and then switching over to this for everyone’s clothes.  It’s gentle enough for me with my allergy issues, baby’s sensitive skin, and my oldest son’s eczema.  Try it.  You’ll like it.  A LOT!
  • I found out I don’t qualify for federal financial aid for school.  I am more bummed than I can express about this, because it may mean I can’t go back to school.  I’m hoping the aforementioned job provides enough money to pay for tuition but unless my husband gets something better in the meantime I may have to wait or give up the idea completely.  Big time bummer.  I’m still hoping there may be something available from the school or the state but I’m not holding my breath considering the current economic climate.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…my brain feels better now that I’ve gotten all of that out.  Now I’m heading outside to enjoy the day until I need to take some more drugs for this cold!

 
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Posted in Back to School, Family, Health, House/Home, Me Stuff, Money/Finances, Parenting, Randomness, Reviews, Sites to See

 
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