Back in high school I used to get super bored in classes like Physics and Algebra II. Is the anything more boring than Algebra II? I imagine there’s a room at most prisons where they lock prisoners in front of and endless loop of a video explaining the quadratic equation and exponentials and logarithms. Except that’s probably considered cruel and unusual punishment so we only make 9th graders do it. So back when I was facing that kind of torture, I used to stare at the ends of my hair, find my split ends, and slooooooowly peel them apart as far as they would go. It was horrifying and satisfying at the same time.

These days I can only dream of having that kind of time on my hands. There isn’t much time for sitting and staring into the distance as a mom. And even if I did, I’d be hard-pressed to find any split ends to peel thanks to the bottle of Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair conditioner I was sent to review. I was really skeptical when I saw “Up to 95% fewer split ends!” on the bottle, since I am not gentle with my hair. It goes up in those tangly hair bands by 10 am almost every day, gets sprayed with homemade sun-in on the regular, and I haven’t had a trim since…I don’t even remember. I’m currently trying to “grow it out”, which means I’ll let it get as long and unruly as I can stand and them chop off 6 inches, after which I’ll totally regret it and begin the process all over. But since I started using the Intensive Repair, the ends are much softer, much less damaged and almost split-end free.

p.s. Want to see your husband look at you like a crazy person? Ask him to help you take macro shots of your hair since your arm’s not long enough to do it yourself.

The Intensive Repair conditioner goes on really thick and feels super indulgent. It also does what conditioners are supposed to do – gets out and prevents tangles. (Remember when the thing you put on after shampoo was called cream rinse? This conditioner feels like that, but without the oily residue to weigh hair down.) The Fiber Active technology actually penetrates each hair strand, helping rebind damaged proteins to prevent future split ends and damage. That’s just fancy hair-care product talk for “Dude, it works.” I’m 100% planning to make this a permanent product switch and buy this on my own from now on, I like it that much.

You can enter the BlogHer giveaway below by following their directions (and get the coupon for your own bottle of Intensive Therapy), but feel free to comment on this post telling me I’m not the only weirdo who enjoyed peeling their split ends. Because that feels maybe I’m only one step away from being the strange girl who ends up in the hospital with a ball of hair in her stomach from chewing on it.

Enter to win a $1,000 Spafinder gift certificate!

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COMMENTS TO THIS POST ARE NOT SWEEPSTAKES ENTRIES. PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR ENTRY METHODS FOR THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Follow this link, and provide your email address and your response to the Promotion prompt

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This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. Winners will have 72 hours to claim the prize, or an alternative winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 9/4/2012 – 9/30/2012

Be sure to visit Dove^®Hair.com to get a coupon for $1.50 off Dove Hair Therapy products.

I’m not a food blogger, but I play one on the internet. I love reading blogs about food, pinning recipes on Pinterest (my Food and Drink and Dessert boards are my fullest by far), reading articles about food photography and – every once in a while – try my own hand at creating recipes.

I’m not an expert by any means, but when BlogHer told me about two new programs from ConAgra I knew they could feed my love of food blogging.

Before I tell you about ConAgra’s site, I wanted to say when I first read the email I was a little doubtful about working with them. But once I realized how many of their brands I had in my kitchen right at this exact moment (Alexia fries, Gulden’s mustard, Egg Beaters, Hebrew National hot dogs, Hunt’s tomato sauce, Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn, and Reddi-wip) it seemed silly to pass it up. If this isn’t your thing, that’s totally cool too and feel free to skip it.

The Dish is an online resource center for all bloggers who post food content or who WANT to post food content.

In their Seasonal Spotlight section you can find tips for keeping your blog content fresh and seasonally relevant.

Under Ask Our Team, they have put together an expert panel that includes Phil Lempert, savings expert; Dan Skinner, editor-in-chief; Abby Penich, ReadySetEat Community Manager; and several bloggers.

The Recipe Resources section is just what it sounds like – a round up of some of the best recipes from ConAgra’s recipe site ReadySetEat. Free tip: do NOT go look at the recipes when it’s 5:43 pm and you’re starving. Seriously, how much do I want this corn on the cob now? SO MUCH.

But in my opinion, the best part of their site is . Through the site you can sign up to receive coupons, samples and other exclusive content – and all you need is a blog URL. It would a great way for someone looking to expand into food blogging to find new ingredients to include and for seasoned food bloggers to get expert advice and tips to share with their readers.

There’s some great content on The Dish already, but I’m hoping they plan to expand in the coming months. I’d love to see even more focus on fresh, local ingredients that can be used in conjunction with their products to make easy family meals.

ReadySetEat has tons of great, fast, easy recipes that can be sorted by very useful categories (vegetarian, healthy, etc) but I’d like to see The Dish feature more of them, especially grouped by type – for example, Mexican recipes featuring a veggie option, a beef option and a chicken option.

Or even one recipe that can be used all three ways. Hey, that’s actually a great idea for a recipe series – see, The Dish has already started inspiring me to blog better!

Does The Dish/First Look, First Taste sound like something you’d be interested in? You can visit The Dish here, sign up for and follow them on Twitter at @ConAgraDish.

Want to be entered for a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card from BlogHer and ConAgra Foods? Just leave a comment below telling me which section of The Dish sounds the most interesting to you!

Rules:

No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post b) Tweet about this promotion with hash tag #sweepstakes and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 8/22/2012-9/8/2012.

Be sure to visit ConAgra Foods’ brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

Reading Tip: For an authentic chatting-over-coffee experience while reading this post, be sure to imagine me giggling every time I say “Butt Paste”.
When BlogHer asked if I’d be interested in trying Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, they wanted to know if I had a cute and funny diaper disaster story to share. I almost laughed out loud at the question – of COURSE I have diaper disaster stories. I have two kids! There was the time I was trying to be super cool and wore my baby into a tattoo shop to make an appointment and he promptly poopsploded right through the sling. Or I could tell you what happens when you have two kids in diapers and you accidentally mix up the sizes in your middle-of-the-night diaper changing fog. It’s not pretty.

But then The Incident happened. I will refrain from using names so as to make this story less Googleable in the future, although after what she did that’s being EXTREMELY generous. Let’s just call her Shmaroline.

Shmaroline has recently moved to a big-girl bed, which makes her feel very grown up and important. She loves her big-girl bed, especially because it means when she wakes up in the morning she can get out of bed and play with her dolls and blankies and other toys on the floor. Unfortunately, the transition to the big-girl bed came at exactly the same time as her interest in using the potty. And along with the interest in using the potty came a desire to NOT wear a diaper.

If you’re a parent, you can probably already see where this is going. Feel free to skip ahead, unless your child has been terrible today and you need to be reminded “Hey at least I didn’t have to scrub poop out of the carpet today!” Because yes. That is exactly what happened. My adorable baby girl woke up, silently removed her jammies and diaper, and crapped right on the floor. Which is terrible! Horrible! Totally disgusting! Definitely a Diaper Disaster!

And then she decided to stomp in it. (I’m sorry. So so sorry.) I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard her making her normal, happy, morning baby noises so I sent Evan in to let her out of the room. He took one look at her, slammed the door and ran back to the bathroom yelling “Mommy! Big mess Mommy! Shmaroline pooped!” Luckily, they both think a morning bath is a special treat – and I had a bottle of carpet cleaner waiting on top of Shmaroline’s bookcase. Wait, that actually wasn’t very cute. But it was definitely a disaster!

Mmmmm butt paste

Luckily, one of the things that ISN’T a disaster right now is Caroline’s diaper rash (Shocking news: Shmaroline was actually Caroline all along!). Despite lots of long car trips and super hot summer days, her bottom is as soft as a, uh, baby’s bottom. I got my tube of Boudreax’s Butt Paste right after we returned from Virginia and it worked wonders on the redness from 7 hours in the car seat. Since then I’ve been putting just a tiny dab on every night after bath and we’ve had zero issues. I’ve found it to be easier to put on and wipe off than other diaper creams I’ve tried and it doesn’t have that super-distinctive diaper cream smell I associate with most zinc oxide products. It even worked on the dreaded “Look Mom, I just ate an ENTIRE pint of blueberries on top of those strawberries I had for breakfast – now can I have some grapes?” rash. Boudreax’s was created by a pharmacist in 1978 and is recommended by pediatricians.

Got a diaper rash story? Leave a comment below and you will be entered into a sweepstakes to win a $100 gift card!

Visit Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on Facebook to learn more about the ultimate “secret weapon” when it comes to preventing and treating diaper rash. Check out BlogHer.com to find other reviews and more ways you can enter to win!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This sweepstakes is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 7/12 – 8/31/12.

It’s kind of hilarious that this post is sponsored by Connecticut Tourism, since my entire blog could pretty much be seen as a commercial for Connecticut Tourism. Between trips to the aquarium, the seaport, parks, and various bodies of water all I do is post about the fun we have living here. I’m constantly amazed at how much there is to do in an hour radius of my house. I’ve lived here 7 years and I’m still discovering new places and activities all the time!

A few months ago, my friend Erin said “Hey, so I’m getting four days off over Memorial Day weekend, would it be cool if I came up to visit you?” and I say “It would be THE COOLEST.” I warned her two kids kind of put a damper on the crazy, carefree, childless life she was used to but she assured me she loved my ginger babies and would be happy to hang out doing ginger baby-friendly stuff. Luckily, we managed to do plenty of things that were fun for EVERYONE – although I needed 18 hours of sleep and a diet of nothing but carrot sticks to recover from SO MUCH FUN.

Here’s a quick (but extremely picture heavy) rundown of all the things we did over Memorial Day weekend. I PROMISE it’s worth at least scrolling through so you can check out the giveaway at the bottom: Saturday morning we drove down to Mystic where we walked around looking at shops, watched the drawbridge go up and down and ate delicious ice cream at Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream(I highly recommend the lemon custard with shaved chocolate).

On the way home we stopped at two local vineyards – Stonington Vineyards and Maugle Sierra Vineyards– for wine tastings. E kindly volunteered to make wise choices and be DD so Erin and I could try all the wines. I came home with three bottles, include the most delicious Riesling ever.

In the evening, we took the stroller and walked down to the Norwich waterfront where the Rotary Club was having a carnival. My daredevil son enjoyed half a dozen rides while Erin and Caroline and I enjoyed a delicious fried dough.

*That tall thing in the distance is Mohegan Sun Casino*

On Sunday, I took Erin to the Jewett City Flea Market, which is in a huge old mill building. We wandered around looking for treasures and wondering WHO exactly is going to buy something like this:

But we found plenty of cool stuff too:

On Sunday evening our awesome baby sitter came over to put the kids to bed so all the grown ups could get dinner and drinks at Mohegan Sun. We had dinner at Sol Toro Tequila Grill and spiked milk shakes at Bobby’s Burger Place. Then we played craps and tried a few slot machines until we decided we’d lost enough money. I always feel so glamorous at the casino, even if I’m playing penny slots.

black & blue mojito

After sleeping in for a little bit on Monday we went out for family brunch and then walked down to the green where the town was having Memorial Day festivities – and my kids got to see a zillion firetrucks.

Even reliving all that as I was writing it was exhausting. We did a lot! And we only did a TINY bit of the stuff we could have done – we didn’t go out on the boat, or to the beach, or to the Nautilus Museum, or Mystic Aquarium or Seaport, or any of the other vineyards, or go get fresh seafood, or down to Clinton for antiques and outlet shopping.

Which Connecticut destination would you like to visit? Leave a comment below and you will be entered into a sweepstakes from BlogHer to win $1,000 to help you plan your trip! (more…)

I think this post makes it official – I’ve hit the big time as a blogger. I love doing reviews anyway, but “free beer” is pretty much the dream. Although since I don’t like regular beer very much this was even better – Michelob ULTRA Light Cider is a less sweet, lower calorie alternative to traditional ciders. It was the perfect drink to share with friends on a warm evening, straight from the bottle or over ice.

E came home from work a couple weeks ago and said “So the guys decided it’s my turn to host a barbeque this weekend. They’ll be here around 5.” Lucky for him the house was already clean. And thanks to the week of backbreaking work last summer we have an amazing patio space to accommodate his coworkers and their families. I was also excited that I had just picked up a six pack of 12 oz Michelob ULTRA Light Cider, which ended up being a great choice for a casual backyard party.

Even though summer is making it harder, I’m still trying to choose healthy food whenever I can, so I made chicken and veggie kabobs and a light tabbouleh salad to go with the cheeseburgers and nachos. Since Michelob ULTRA Light Cider has only 120 calories per serving I felt good about enjoying one (or two) with dinner.

After trying it, I would absolutely buy this product again. Michelob ULTRA Light Cider was light and crisp and you could definitely tell it is made of fresh-picked apples. I know “cider” makes most people think of fall, but in this case it was more like a fruity white wine. Like I said above, I’m not a huge beer fan so this is a great alternative. The brewing process for cider is similar to that of beer, with the main difference being the ingredients used: cider is made from apples, while barley and hops are generally the main ingredients in beer. Michelob ULTRA Light Cider is made with all-natural ingredients, including apples, and is naturally sweetened with stevia. It’s also naturally gluten-free!

You can get more information on Michelob ULTRA Light Cider on the Sponsor’s site here. It includes a great tool to find it in your area (and here’s a hint: some stores have a separate cider section, so be sure to look there!) You can also check out the Michelob ULTRA Light Cider page on BlogHer.com. Or come on over and I’ll share one with you on the patio.