Happy Earth Day 2010!

Happy Earth Day!  How is your family celebrating?  Since it's a week day and I have to work we're not doing any big kind of celebration.  We try to make green decisions on a daily basis instead of being green on one holiday day.

We are very lucky that Calgary had a wonderful recycling program.  We get a big blue bin that we put all our recycling in.  They pick it up the same day as the garbage to take it to the recycling center.  It has really cut down on the amount of garbage we throw away!  I still see people in my neighborhood who put out 5-10 bags of garbage per week!!!!  I just want to knock on their door and say "Ummmm....exactly HOW are you making this much garbage because you really need to cut back!"

For the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of trying out some new earth friendly paper products.  Majesta brand paper products are available in Canada.  They are not a recycled paper but they make the Treesponsible promise - They plant 3 trees for every one tree that they use to make their paper products.  Their products are also free of chlorine, dyes and fragrances. 

When I got my products I was like "Yeah, yeah, yada, yada.....but how do the feel?"  I would buy all their products.  The toilet paper is not as soft as....say Charmin...but it is very soft.  Much softer than recycled toilet paper.  Their paper towels work great and are a smaller size. (I find that some paper towels are HUGE & I always feel that they are way to big for the job!)  They do seem to be a bit flimsier than my normal brand of paper towels....it was hard to get a sheet to tear off the roll cleanly.  The facial tissue was great.  I think the Majesta brand was just as soft and strong as my normal brand.

Definitely check out their website to see the different products and while you are there sign up to win $15,000 to give your house a Green Makeover!

*****I am a participant in the Majesta Moms group over at MomCentral.com.  I have been compensated by Majesta with a giftcard.  The compensation is for trying out their products and writing an honest review of their products.*******

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Product Review - Self Lathering Razors

I remember the first time I heard about razors that you could use without shaving cream. My sister used Schick's Intuition razor. I remember thinking "Pffft...as if that thing will work. It's huge & I don't see how it would shave worth a crap!" I told her it was a waste of money though she swore she liked it.

Fast forward a couple of years (during which time I continued to use my standard razor plus shaving cream routine). One day I passed a Schick Intuition razor at the grocery store while shopping for camping supplies. Hmmm.....showering while camping takes one of two forms: showering in a teeny tiny shower in our camper with 2.3 tablespoons of water or showering in a public shower building. In either situation, the fewer products you have to schlep into the shower the better. So I picked it up thinking it would be a great thing to try for camping. I used it on the camping trip & liked it. Unfortunately, I was kind of right about a few things: 1. It IS huge. 2. It does run out of lather-y stuff pretty quick. On the other hand, it worked great & really I probably keep other razors longer than I should. It also was MUCH easier to keep up with, etc, while camping. I didn't change over to the Intuition full time but I always buy it for camping.


Fast forward 6 months and I'm getting ready to head to Mexico on vacation. I again wanted to minimize the amount of "stuff" I took on the trip. Instead of the Intuition, I thought I would try the Gillette Venus Spa razor. It also is "self lathering" but it is much smaller. It also worked very well. One negative is that it doesn't come with a razor cover for travel. It also only comes with a razor holder that attaches to your shower with adhesive vs the Intuition holder which uses a suction cup.



All in all, I like both the Schick Intuition & the Gillette Venus Spa. I'm not sure I will transfer over to these razors completely but I could definitely see myself moving that way in the future. It's definitely nice when you can get one more item OUT of your shower!

So...have you ever tried these? What do you think????

You can find coupons for the Gillette Spa Razor and other Proctor & Gamble products here.

I wrote this post completely of my own accord. I bought both razors for myself with my own hard earned cash. :)

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EA Active Review

I love sharing products that I like with my friends. I haven't been doing it to much on my blog but I do it lots in real life (just ask Erin...I am incessantly telling her about something new that I've tried). I thought I might start reviewing more things here. Please let me know if you like seeing the reviews.

I first posted my review of EA Active over on the Message Boards at Everything Mom. I figured since I wrote it up, I might as well post it here too.

I bought the family EA Active for the Wii a couple of weeks ago at Costco (~$50). I LOVE it!

I used to go to the gym 4 days a week at 6am (left my house at 5:30). When I keeled over from exhaustion, I stopped and turned into a lazy bum. I knew that I needed to be doing something but I wasn't sure what. I couldn't cope with going to the gym at that awful hour.

So I've had the EA Active for 2 1/2 weeks so far. The first week I used it 3 times, last week I used it 4 and I did it tonight. It seems really easy but you can definitely feel it (I do it on the medium intensity). You get your own "personal trainer" to show you the exercises & to keep you motivated. It also comes with a calendar that keeps up with how many workouts you've done, calories burned, etc. With exercises like dancing, boxing and inline skating you don't even feel like you're working out.

There are a few things about EA Active that annoy me. These are annoying but not deal breakers & I still love the system.

1. It's hard to do some exercises while holding the Wii remote, the nunchuck & the weight band.

2. The weightband that came with the EA Active is too easy. I traded it out for another one that we had around the house & now the workout is much harder.

3. Sometimes I get frustrated b/c the system doesn't realize that I did the move that it asked me too & it will hang up. Usually I just repeat the last rep & it figures out what's going on.

All in all, these are just annoyances & the system is still great. It is WAY more fun that doing straight exercise & it totally kicks my butt. I passed 1000 calories burned on the system last night & I was super pumped!

So, have you tried it (or one of the other games like it)?

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Garnier Nutritioniste Anti Puff Eye Roller

Okay, girls, I had to tell you about this great thing I got for Christmas in my stocking. It is so cool and wonderful. I use it every morning. It is especially great on those mornings where you are really tired (or maybe a teensy weensy bit hungover). The roller ball is metal and it gets really cold (no idea how) but it feels great on your puffy eyes.



I can't speak to whether it has any real effect on dark circles or wrinkles but it definitely de-puffs. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow but I had to tell you about my new favorite product!

This product was paid for by Santa (or his helpers). I received no products or money for this review.

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