Lots of Giveaways!!

I have 2 more giveaways coming up this weekend, so be sure to read up on them and don't forget to enter the Soft Scrub giveaway for a free bottle of Soft Scrub Bath and Bowl!  Seriously awesome stuff!! 

Suave Wash Them Grow Contest and Review

My family has always used and enjoyed Suave products. I love the fact that Suave products are easy on my budget. My kids like the products because they smell good and are easy on their hair and skin.

So I am happy to help promote the Suave Kids® Wash and Grow Sweepstakes that started January 18th and runs through February 22nd.

Weekly Prizes include a Family e-Keepsake Kit (a Sponsor-selected laptop, a mini digital camcorder and a Sponsor-selected Digital Camera)and the Grand Prize is an 8-day/7-night trip for four to Orlando, Florida! Now that is a serious vacation! Wanna enter (of course you do!)? Just head over to washthemgrow.com to to get more information about the contest Bath products! Don't forget to play the online trivia game while you're there so you can receive an automatic entry into the Suave Kids® Wash Them Grow Sweepstakes. You can play once a day through February 22nd!

And by the way - There is a separate contest going on for the blogger who drives the most traffic to the sweepstakes. If I win I will get a $100 gift card to Build-A Bear Workshop and win a year's supply of Suave Kids Products. Not to shabby! But it gets better. If I win? I get to choose 10 of my readers to receive the same awesome gift I win! WHAT, WHAT!?! I KNOW! So all of you lurkers, now is the time to get on over to Suave and help a sister out, so we can all win some great stuff!

The REVIEW

The UPS guy dropped off a box of Suave Kids Body Wash on Friday, so my boys were happy to take a bath Friday night to try them out. I thought that as my 10 year old started getting older he would prefer showers over baths, but actually, the opposite has happened. He really loves my whirlpool bathtub and uses it almost nightly to "unwind." What he has to be so stressed about that he needs to "unwind" at night is beyond me, but it's his bathtime, so whatever! Both of the boys loved the bubbles, especially in the whirlpool tub!

My youngest has sensitive skin and has figured out pretty quickly that he has to be careful about what he uses ,so he chose to start out with the Suave Kids Free and Gentle Body Wash (no dyes to irritate skin!) The Oldest Chose the Berry Body Wash because "he's getting older and needs to make sure he doesn't smell like a "stinky man." I didn't want to tell him that the Berry scent would pretty much kill any thoughts of him being mistaken for a man at all, let alone a stinky one.

Tonight they both tried the other two products:

■Suave Kids Strawberry Body Wash

■Suave Kids Moisturizing Body Wash

Verdict? Oldest likes the Moistuizing Body Wash and has dubbed it HIS, not to be touched by younger sibling EVER! Youngest likes them all and will use them in rotation, depending on what his "nose feels like smelling" on any given day.

My verdict? Anything that gets my boys to take a bath without complaining is good. I love that Suave Kids Body Washes are made especially for kids' skin. They are tear-free and opthamoligist-tested, so they are gentle and leave their skin feeling soft and smooth - which the boys don't care about, but it is so nice to hug my guys and have them feel and smell like soft little boys and not stinky, scaly little critters!

Click HERE to print off a coupon for Suave Kids Body Wash!

*I was not compensated monetarily for this post.  I did receive free product from the company in order to facilitate the writing of this review.

Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl Giveaway and Review

My first duty as a Soft Scrub Club Captain is to share information with you about how new Soft Scrub products work.  I received my first product last week and actually made a video showing how well it works, but am having a hard time getting it posted.  So as soon as I work out the bugs with that, I'll get the video on here. 

In the meantime, let me tell you a bit about Soft Scrub's new Total Bath and Bowl.  It's made to clean the entire bathroom, whcih means I don't have to lug around nine bottles of product to clean one room.  Me likee!!  It can clean tough tub rings and soap residue along with sinks, counters and toilets.

The bottle has some unique design features that allow you to use the product a few different ways.  First of all, you have the option of foam or spray.  I found that on tough, small jobs, like the toilet and my shower stall, the foam was great because it clings to the areas that I need it to work much longer than the spray would, giving Total Bath and Bowl more time to loosen the tough dirt and soap scum. 

There is a little tab that you flip over and snap into place to change from foam to spray.  Very easy and user friendly!   I used the spray on the jobs that had large areas to cover, like my countertops and bathroom sinks, as well as my big garden tub.  Both the foam and the spray do their job and my bathrooms were the cleanest they have been in awhile, without me having to spend hours really scrubbing! 

The other feature I loved about Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl is that the bottle is shaped so that you can flip it upside down and spray under the toilet rim.  I know...how many years did it take for someone to finally figure that out?  Yay for Soft Scrub! And it actually works!

I used it on all of my bathrooms, which were really in need of some serious cleaning.  It worked really well on the tubs, sinks, showers and countertops, it even removed some of the hard water deposits from my glass shower door!  It tackled everything but the hard water deposits (we have extremely hard water here!) at the water line of my toilet bowls.  Unfortunately, it didn't make much of a dent in those, but nothing but a jack hammer or hours of pumice stone can really handle those bad boys!  But the rest of the bowl looks sparkling clean, which is saying a lot given the fact that I live in a house full of males with poor aim!

Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl really is an all in one bathroom cleaner that saved me A LOT of time and made cleaning my bathrooms very, very easy and I can honestly say I will purchase the product again when this bottle is gone.  I am looking forward to trying out the other Soft Scrub "Total" products as they hit the market.

Win a bottle of Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl for yourself! Leave a comment telling me what part of the bathroom you hate cleaning the most! Winner will be chosen using Random.org and I will send the winner a coupon for free Soft Scrub Total Bath and Bowl. If you want extra entries you know the drill: Twitter the contest or post it on Facebook and leave me a separate comment! Contest ends on February 5th, at 12 midnight Arizona Time.

**Disclosure: I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.  I did recieve free product from the company in order to facilitate my review.

I'm A Soft Scrub Club Captain!!

Whoo-hoo! I just got picked to be a Soft Scrub Club Captain! That means I'll be sharing all the news about Soft Scrub's new products as they become available. I'm really excited and want to thank Soft Scrub for making me part of their team.

Need Some Mommy Motivation?

Yeah...what she said.

What the Application SHOULD Have Said...

Ya'll know I've been looking for work, right? So I was extremely excited when I ran across this really great job post the other day. The position is a social media assistant kind of thing and it sounded like the most Wonderful. Job. Ever. The position requires that I would be using the skills I have developed thus far in my life, including writing, marketing, customer service and internet related talents, but more importantly, I would be able to improve upon those skills with limitless opportunities to learn more and do more within the blogosphere, to which we all know I am hopelessly addicted. On top of it all, the writer of the job posting made the office sound like a really upbeat and hip place where I would truly enjoy working with everyone and where I could be myself and genuinely thrive. People, this job would be the perfect vehicle to my becoming the Social Media Maven I so aspire to be!

I know! How often does the perfect job opportunity come along at the right time in your life when you actually know what you want to do and actually have some of the skills to do it? Okay, well, actually those opportunities come along a lot for a lot of people around the world, I guess. I think it's called a promotion. The point is, at a time when I am a little "iffy" about how to jump off of the SAHM wagon and rejoin the working ranks, this particular situation seems like a perfect fit. So yeah! I was uber-excited! So much so that I sat down and immediately set to typing up the email they requested telling them why I am such an excellent candidate for the job!

It was the first time in a few months that going back to work actually felt doable and fun. And then it happened. The thing I swore I wouldn't let happen when I decided to just "go for it" with this application. My brain hiccuped and I started second guessing myself. Every word sounded wrong. Every sentence felt belabored and trite. I ceased to be a fluent writer and instead became a poster child for Moms with ADD. My fingers couldn't find the correct keys and suddenly the inner back-up band that provides the energizing and supportive music in my head quit playing "I'm Walkin' on Sunshine" and started playing "Taps."

Well, after a few hours of struggling, realizing I was nothing more than a big, fat hot mess, I just shut down and in a flurry of tears, tired and desperate to come across as anyone other than a fat, non-singing version of Amy Winehouse, I ended up sending an email that I'm pretty sure missed the mark. I let the stress of "having to get this one absolutely perfect" be my driving force and in doing so I'm afraid I may have bombed out.

A few days later I started rehearsing the things I should have told this hiring manager about myself the first time around. With no pressure, the words and ideas flowed easily and all made sense and I sounded like this really intelligent, well-rounded, capable human being with a great sense of humor and an even greater desire to succeed in this internet fueled media. I was suddenly the skilled wordsmith I purported to be in my resume and I had enough confidence to say so with no compunction about my choice to stay home and raise my kids for a few years rather than pursue a journalistic or corporate career of some kind. I was able to discuss the fact that while my inclinations toward entrepreneurship have been a discouragement to some who are afraid I might be a reluctant employee, I see those desires to build as assets that allow me to take an idea, develop it and run with it. On the other hand, I am also a very good employee and team player who is able to take direction well.

When the little interviewer in my head asked me to talk about my work history and how the various jobs prepared me for this social media position, I quickly referenced and then articulated situations from every job I have ever held, whether it was taking care of racehorses or meeting a CEO at the airport between connecting flights with his forgotten luggage, that have taught me something about working hard, about working smart and most importantly about taking care of your clients. I was able to show how all of my past experience has truly prepared me for this "perfect" position. Cleaning stalls and grooming horses taught me routine and good work habits, compassion and the importance of communicating with owners and businessmen regarding their investments. Hostessing afforded me opportunities to deal with uptight people and I learned how to resolve customer complaints quickly. Graphics allowed me to nurture my creativity and my desire to think outside of the box. Typesetting fostered a desire for precision and error free work and drove home the importance of how words look as well as how they sound. Working in an art department as an expediter helped hone my organizational and scheduling skills along with teaching me how to mediate issues between two departments. My stints in a call center environment helped me develop patience beyond what I thought I had, as well as sharpen valuable communication and problem-solving skills. That job also made me very aware of the importance of exercise because sitting on your butt all day does bad things to your body. And starting my own business doing errands for people allowed me to know my clients on a more personal level, to use my previously gained skills to create something of my own and to recognize where my weaknesses lie as a leader. I'll leave raising kids out of the equation for now, because really? I could go on for hours about how they have prepared me for a career. And it's not because they have driven me so crazy that I am ready to get away from them. Well - at least most days that's not the reason I am ready to go back to work.

In addition to all of these relevant bits of information, in my dreamworld interview I was also able to describe my goals for the future: In addition to finding a home with a company that offers me the opportunity to provide a great income/life for my family by doing something that I love, I relish the idea of staying on top of cutting edge social media technology and being involved in the medium to such a degree that I am able to influence how it continues to develop and how it can be used to help business and families thrive in a computer and internet driven era.

Everything I have done career-wise has led me to this point in my life where I am able and willing to jump whole-heartedly into a trade that is filled with wonder and excitement, and which allows me to use the skills I have developed through a lifetime of looking for my niche. And I really feel like I have found my niche.

In the end, here's what I wish I would have said: "Internet and Social Media is my element and these are my people. I feel at home and happy when I am writing 3 blog posts, Twittering while posting to Facebook and reading emails asking for product reviews, etc. I feel like I was born to it. I just need the opportunity to learn from the masters so I can take my place in the Social Media arena."

It all seems so easy now. Why wouldn't my brain think of these things 5 or 6 days ago? Actually, I know the answer to that. It's because I want to do what makes me happy. The Internet, social media, blogging, writing, being creative - they all make me happy. And in my zeal to snag the perfect job, I let myself get overworked about the whole thing.

But whatdya do? What's done is done, right? Writing about it helped me gain some needed perspective and I have a much stronger sense of who I am and a much clearer vision of what direction I want to go now, so I guess all is not lost.  What's the old saying?  The app which does not kill us makes us stronger?  I'm STILL HERE, people!!  I'm still here.

Yay! A Brand New Year!

I know, I'm behind! We've been cleaning the house (like wiping grubby fingerprints off of walls and stuff) and planning for Little Man's Baptism, which is on the 2nd. People are coming to my house afterwards for food. I'm no Martha Stewart when it comes to entertaining so I'm a little stressed. Actually a lot stressed. I wanted to do this really in-depth, touching post about the New Year. Instead I am doing this hasty little blurb, which is really not the way I want to start out 2010, on my blog or in real life. So check back in a day or two and we'll chat about what I really want to say regarding 2010. 'Kay?

So tired, it's late and I have to get up early and bake 50 potatoes for our baked potato bar after the baptism. It sounded like an easy thing...now I'm not so sure. I'll let you know how it goes later. Although I'm thinking it's got to be pretty hard to screw up a baked potato, right? Next time I'm ordering a giant sandwich so I can save myself the headache.

All right, on that note...Happy New Year!! Wishing all my readers the very best for 2010.