Back in our working days, DH and I always made sure we looked our best.  Without kids, we could easily spend a few hours in Ross Dress-for-Less trying out clothes to update our wardrobe.

I wore professional dresses and suits, he usually wore dress slacks, an undershirt and a dress shirt. Now that we're retired, we've changed our shopping habits to include more casual outfits.

Although I don't dress up very often, I still have most of the outfits I wore when I left my job.  They're professional and the style is pretty timeless, but a few are on their way out because (for lack of a better description), they smell when I wear them.  Long, hard hours left DH with undershirts that had yellow stains.  Those were easy and cheap to replace.  But wearing an undershirt underneath my dress just wouldn't look right.

As an accountant, there were some very long days that went into the wee hours of the morning.  I'm not sure that any deodorant would last THAT long.  However, Speed Stick now has a new product on the market to help prevent those ugly yellow stains that plague men's undershirts and ruin women's outfits.  It's Speed Stick Stainguard.

In an effort to help spread the word about making a fresh start with new deodorant and t-shirts, Collective Bias sent out a handful of bloggers to chronicle the search for some Hanes/Speed Stick co-branded product packages.  A free Speed Stick Stainguard was included in select Hanes multi-packs.  Men could ditch the old yellow-stained shirts, use Speed Stick Stainguard and have a fresh start on their wardrobe.

DH and I headed out today to our local Walmart to find these bonus packages.  After waaayyy too many minutes of circling the department, we were finally told that they had only received one end cap of them "a while back" and it was "right over there" on the main aisle.  Unfortunately (for us), it sold out quickly and they didn't receive additional stock of the bonus packs.  That was pretty discouraging.

So we ventured to the deodorant aisle and at least found the Speed Stick Stainguard product by itself.  Actually found it with no problem right alongside the other Speed Stick products.  We even found Stainguard in the Lady Speed Stick line.  After smelling both "Clean" and "Fresh" in the men's line, DH said they smelled pretty similar.  We purchased one and brought it home to try it out.

I'm sure you're curious - What did he think?  Well, since we just bought it today, he can't say because he hasn't actually tried it.  Guess we'll have to amend the post once he has a chance to put it to the test!

What I can say is that I was disappointed that our Walmart didn't stock many of the promotional packages!

Check out our Whrrl story where we take you on our trip with us!  It's very short and only takes a minute!

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My brother and I have figured out where our skills lie.  I was blessed with English and Art skills, while Andrew was blessed with Math and Science skills.  I love to travel, Andrew is okay with staying near home.   We both love plays and musicals and participated in high school.  As we've gotten older it's fun to discuss where our talents and similarities are.  As I enjoy spending time being creative, one of my favorite hobbies is Scrapbooking.

To be honest, I do not have much room to store crafty items in my house, so everything has to fit in a rolling cart with 7- 12" x 12" drawers, 3 plastic file totes, and 1 plastic medium tote.  While this makes travel easy with these containers, I have to really be on my game in keeping it all organized to easily and quickly locate items when I want to spend time creating some new pages.

My favorite part of scrapbooking is trying the new products that come out.  One of the products I hadn't tried before is Glue Dots.  I was given 3 of the Dots to try out and create a few pages with; the removable Dot N' Go, craft Dot N' Go as well as the mini Glue Dots.  The removable and craft are both on handheld dispensers and the mini Glue Dots are on perforated sheets.  Last night I was so excited I made up two pages with some flower photos not too long ago.  

Here are some photos I took of the different Glue Dots I tried out.

The top photos are of the mini Glue Dots.

The middle photos are of the craft Glue Dots, which are medium size dots.

The bottom photos are of the removable Glue Dots small size dots.

So here I am starting on my first page of photos.  The photo on the top left is the photos and paper I started with.  I narrowed it down to 5 photos and used my photo cutting tool to crop the photos to show the best parts of the flowers.  The photo on the top right is after I have cropped the photos and figured out photo placement.  The bottom left photo is showing after I had used the removable glue dots to hold the photos down.  I decided to spice up the paper with some buttons and created a button flower.  I decided to try out the mini glue dots on the buttons to affix them to the paper which worked great!  I was really impressed with the buttons being held down so tightly.  I had fun trying out the different Glue Dots on this page.  So I was ready to create my second page.

The purple flowers, OH how pretty!  You agree right?  Thanks!  I had fun cropping the photos on top to go from big to small as well as showing the difference between the buds and the flowers once they had bloomed.  Once I had the photos on the paper I went through my ribbon to find some that matched and came up with 4 different spools and ended up on deciding on this two sided ribbon.  One side is purple with green stitching, with the reverse side being green with purple stitching.  What I ended up doing was using the craft Glue Dots periodically to attach the ribbon purple side up across the page.  Then I went on to create a bow using a short piece I had cut along with a small metal brad to hold it down.  I then wrapped the bow around the middle to cover the brad holding it in place with a removable Glue Dot.  The Glue Dots are wonderful for holding everything in place.  I can't wait to add these two pages to my scrapbook.

So you might be wondering if there were any negatives to these Glue Dots.  The only one I could think of is that the dispensers are not refillable.  But Glue Dots has not let us down.  They are able to be recycled!  YAY for recycling.

For more information on Glue Dots, check out their website, find them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter or see a collaboration of Summer Bonding projects on the Glue Dots page at TwitterMoms.

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When we moved back from California, our house there wasn't sold yet. The old owners (of our new home in Iowa) left their appliances behind so we figured we might as well leave our old refrigerator in California for the new owners.  Unfortunately, the realtor said that since we didn't have a buyer for the house, we shouldn't leave it.  He explained that if they didn't want it, we would have to pay an arm and a leg to have it removed from the house.  And since it was in fine working order - more or less - we figured bringing it back and putting it in the garage for overflow (read: drinks) was a better option.

Except we only plugged it in a few times and as we gradually reduced the amount of pop we drank, we had no reason to plug it in at all.  So it sat... 

Until, of course, it came time to remodel the kitchen and the white fridge that matched the old appliances no longer matched the new kitchen.  Redoing a kitchen is expensive and we wanted to save money wherever possible so we decided recycling the old black California fridge into the new kitchen (with stainless appliances) was our best option.  DH ordered a part, read a lot of do-it-yourself websites and went about fixing the old fridge to make it usable in the newly remodeled kitchen. 

We had it repaired, cleaned, sanitized and installed in the kitchen before we discovered a problem.  We had both forgotten that the ice maker didn't work.  I decided a black fridge that matched was more important than ice so we stuck with it.

But hope is not lost.  There are always opportunities online to win a refrigerator.  This isn't the first time I've blogged about the fabulous chances offered for appliances.

This time Kelly Ripa is offering a chance to win One (1) Electrolux All Refrigerator and one (1) Electrolux All Freezer. (Approximate Retail Value ("ARV") of prize: $4,298) between June 29, 2010 and September 7, 2010. Log on daily and create a virtual banana split at Kelly-Confidential.com or on the Banana Split tab on their Facebook page and you'll be entered to win the grand prize as well as daily prizes. At the same time, Electrolux will donate $1 toward the fight against Ovarian Cancer for each day you log on and create or share your banana split. You can find all the details on their rules page.  The picture with Kelly Ripa shows the refrigerator and freezer side-by-side. You can't even tell that they are two separate units.  I'm pretty sure that they play on words for "split" refers to these two individual units. 

Entering is pretty simple... If you're like me, you already clicked away from this SahmReviews.com post over to Kelly-Confidential and entered then came back to finish reading!  So thank you for coming back.  Which leads me to the next great part of this post...

With the help of BSM Media (MomSelect), Electrolux is spreading the word on this fantastic promotion.  They've provided me with a $25 American Express Gift Card to help encourage YOU to enter and help spread the word.  So here's the deal...



For the first entry (required) -
(3) Leave a comment on this post at SahmReviews.com letting me know you created a "Split for the Cause".

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The following content was provided by contributing author, Elizabeth:

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Here's the problem with my reviewing Duraflame Stax: I am married to a Canadian, former Army officer, who is capable of growing a very full beard.

You KNOW what that means. The second he spotted the Duraflame Stax by the fireplace, he gasped.

"What is THAT?!" J'accuse was in his voice. My hubby uses precision techniques to build his wood fires. He reserves entire Saturday afternoons to split logs. Although he's ridiculously easygoing, he is not the sort of man to allow his family to "shop" for fireplace logs.

"It's a product I'm reviewing for a blog," I reassure him. "Don't worry. I promise to burn them when you aren't around."

And I'm happy to. Because there are plenty of times when he isn't there to build the perfect fire, whether in our fireplace or our hand-dug firepit out back. And even though I've read my husband's self-published 92-page flyer: "Building the Perfect Fire Really Isn't That Easy," my handbuilt ones often fizzle out before really catching. I just can't get the oxygen flow right... or something!

So Duraflame Stax are handy.

Ease of setup: They come in a 3 or 6 pack. To light the fire you just take off the plastic wrap (don't burn it!) and leave the logs in their paper. You place ONLY TWO of the Stax logs, in an X formation, in the fireplace, firepit, or woodstove. Light their brown paper covers and that's it.

Our fire was going in about 3-4 minutes. It lasted about 1.5 hours for us in a nice burn (see photo). Then you can add ONE Stax log as needed. I added one more from the three pack.

Duration: The entire fire stayed lit (with some flames, not down to embers) for about 3 or more hours. Compared to a wood fire that is a fair amount of time. In order to get a wood fire to last that long, I would have had to add one or two logs every 30 minutes or so. That is a big pile of wood and sticks.

Camping vs. Fireplace: I tried out these logs in our living fireplace and it was a good use for them if you don't have access to firewood and you don't have an in-home Canadian.

The Stax are not 100 percent wood however, but really cool "eco" logs made of sawdust, agricultural fibers, and non-petroleum renewable waxes and oils. In my mind, this makes them less desirable for campfires. Duraflame warns that they aren't designed as "cooking fuel." So, while you could make a great fire to sings songs around at the campsite, everyone would have to eat celery sticks and raw S'mores. That would be a camping tragedy.

The Green Factor: I didn't actually climb up on my roof to sniff the smoke and see how clean it was compared a wood fire, but the engineers at Duraflame say that the Stax logs burn 50 percent less emission in fireplaces and up to 80 percent cleaner in woodstoves.

They are also made from 100 percent renewable resources (except the plastic shrink wrap) which is something to consider if you are going to shop for a firelog. However, wood is also a 100 percent renewable resource, so really Stax "renewable" feature should be compared to manufactured firelogs that once used petroleum wax in them, and not to plain wood. (More interesting info about wood burning here.)

Would I recommend Duraflame Stax? Yes. If you have no axe-wielding Canadian handy and you need to buy firelogs, these were easy to use and they have good eco qualities. They go from firepit to woodstove. The only down side is that you CAN'T cook over them, so remember to pack your indentured servants (ie. kids) with you when you go camping, in case you need someone to collect wood fuel.

Visit Duraflame's website for more information.

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I feel like such a stupid parent sometimes? Seriously, why hadn't I thought of that before. When I think Go-Gurt, I figure it's not really a school lunchtime staple but more of  a handy yogurt novelty for at home. But with this new knowledge, I realized I need to rethink that.  Hence, the realization that the "Go" in Go-Gurt really means something.

Both the girls love yogurt and Go-Gurt is always a hit. When I received a coupon for a free box from MyBlogSpark to review, I promptly popped it into the freezer upon purchase.  You can't plan to eat them directly out of the freezer but I found that removing one from the freezer to start to thaw just as the kids started their lunch was perfect.  By the time they finished their sandwich or mac-n-cheese, the one sitting on the counter was perfectly thawed for a healthy after-lunch dessert.

... and a fun dessert, at that.

Feeding the kids healthy snacks is very important and knowing that I can pop one into their lunchbox without fear of it going bad is awesome.  Lunches (both home and lunchbox) tend to get a bit boring so spicing it up with a Go-Gurt is a nice alternative.

Although I think my kids are too young to have them while in the car, I think Go-Gurt snacks would work great on-the-go for older children.  They may be used to grabbing a pop tart or granola bar but Go-Gurt provides some variety for them also!

As we start to prepare for the new school year (ours starts in exactly one month), I'll be watching for school supplies to go on sale and begin thinking about healthy lunchbox alternatives.  Hopefully you'll be doing the same!

To encourage it, I'm offering a Go-Gurt prize package that includes some travel-related gear as well as a coupon for a box of Simply Go-Gurt by Yoplait.

Participants -

...must provide a US shipping address
...must provide an email in the first comment, email me directly with an email address or have email accessible from their profile.

Sometime on July 12, 2010, a winner will be chosen at random from all valid comments left. Winner has 24 hours from posting/notification to respond. If winner cannot be contacted, I will move on to the next random selection.

How to enter:

(1) Subscribe to the SAHM Reviews feed via RSS or email

(2) Visit the Go-Gurt website.

(3) Leave a comment on this post at SahmReviews.com with what flavor you would buy.

-- Three Entries: If you have a blog or website, add my button to your page. (Here's the code:)

-- Three Entries: Publish a blog post regarding this contest and link back to it.

-- One Entry (Daily): Follow SahmReviews on Twitter and Tweet this contest by clicking here or copying the following text:

"On-the-Go with @SahmReviews for a chance to win a Go-Gurt Prize Pack http://bit.ly/avzzyI". Comment with a link to your tweet.

-- One Entry: "Like" SAHM Reviews on Facebook.

-- One Entry: Follow SAHM Reviews using Google's Friend Connect feature.

-- One Entry (Daily): Read any non-giveaway review here at SahmReviews.com and leave an appropriate comment on that post. Come back here and leave a comment stating which product/post you left a comment on.

Thanks to Yoplait and MyBlogSpark for providing the prize for this giveaway. Don't forget to check your box of Go-Gurt for a code to download free music.

Click the link below to apply for a coupon for free Go-Gurt!

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