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Welcome! I invite you to join me on this journey we call Life. It's crazy, fun, silly, sad, happy, loony, dull, exciting and everything in between

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Cleaning That is Safe For Your Family and Pets


I was sent a bottle of Pet Odor & Stain Eliminator by Unique Natural products. As a pet owner and a parent, I have tried many different products over the years. I have been mostly let down. The lofty claims of how amazing a product works are usually shot down when trying to contend with a real mess. Not this time! I am very, very impressed with this product. Everything about the claims held up. It worked terrific! It didn't damage fabric, there was no offensive odor, was very easy to use and stains and odor were GONE! 



I was sent a one quart bottle of concentrate, which makes 2.5 gallons. When I first received it my thought was to use it in our couch. We had indoor cats and well, if you've ever had an indoor pet, you know that things happen. But as it happened we had to get another vehicle a few months ago after our previous one had outlived it's useful life. We found a used Jeep. The previous own had very obviously had kids. There was stains all over the back seat, some of them were of a questionable nature. The seat had that bad odor of old stains. We bought cleaners and spend a weekend going through the whole truck, wiping and cleaning everything. I worked on that back seat with some pretty stout cleaners that were made for that. Even after soaking and scrubbing, the stains did not come out. 
So along comes Unique Natural Products.
This was the worst of the seats. Thsi was the one I had already cleaned with the "store bought" stuff!

I mixed it according to the directions and poured it on the seat, covering the whole seat.


This product is natural and after reading the bottle and reading the information on their website, I had no problem with touching it. I smeared it around to make sure i had all areas of the seat covered. (I did wash them afterwards though). I can say, I am a little skin sensitive to a lot of cleaners and they cause my skin to dry to the point of peeling, and this did nothing. No dryness, no cracking, no reactions at all.



After making sure the whole seat was covered, I covered it with a damp towel as the instructions said..... and then I waited ......


About 24 hours later... Whala! I could not believe it! I had scrubbed and abused that seat trying to clean it with those products that are made for auto upholstery! 




It worked so well  on the tough, mystery stains, I decided to try it on a plain old water stain. right after I finished the first seat, the Big Mr. was coming home one night and inadvertently laid down a bottle of water thinking the lid was on it. The next morning there was a stain covering the whole front passenger seat! I still had some of the solution in my jug and it is good for up to 7 days, so I was already ready to treat this one. 


From plain old water!



so I saturated the seat with the solution, covered with a damp towel.....


And again.. .WHALA! It was still damp on that back part but when it dried, CLEAN!


I'll say it again... I am VERY impressed with Unique Natural Products! It is a safer alternative around people and pets and it does what it says it will do. Stains and odors were vanished and the seats were left clean and smelling fresh. If you have kids or pets (or both!), this is a very beneficial product to have in your home.  


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I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Does Distance Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

   I've been MIA for a few days and I apologize. I have a hard time blogging about personal stuff. I have tried to work on it, but it has been a slow process for me. And this week the deeply personal stuff knocked me on my butt.
 The Mr. left Sunday morning for a business trip. If you actually count 3 AM as morning? I DO NOT! Anyway, we are an hour away from the airport so he had to go early to get through security and all that.. I thought I was looking forward to him being gone, us having some time apart, but the minute I closed the door after he left, I burst out crying. I went back to our room and just cried some more. He sent me some messages as he made his way through the process and let me know the flight was on time. I watch and photograph planes flying over our house all the time. Our house is under one of the main flight paths out of that airport so I went outside and waited and watched. I watched the sun coming up through the fog. Almost on cue I could hear a plane flying over, going the direction I knew he'd be going. However I couldn't see it to get a photograph because clouds moved in and were covering everything. At the sound of that plane, I burst into tears... again. I had to get back into the house. Something inside hurt SO bad. You see it has not been one of the best years for us. To be honest I was to the point of trying to decide if we were truly meant to be or if what we had once had was gone or run it's course. We have not been communicating very well and it was stressing us both. I have felt pure despair for some time now.
     We have been together since the night we met on the school bus.. He was a drummer in the Band and I was the Aid. It was my job to help the Flag Girls with their outfits and to also lay out and change out flags and props throughout the routine while the band was on the field I had been doing this since school started, nearly a full month, and somehow we had not yet met. But on that particular night, it was raining and the band director would not let the band off the bus because we had band competition the next morning and he didn't want the uniforms to get messed up. So we were all just talking, playing word games, etc. I was at the back of the bus with the flag girls and a friend started calling out to me from the middle of the bus. I made my way up there and she introduced us. He had heard me laugh above the roar of the crowd and wanted to meet me! Looking back, it was incredibly brave of him to even ask her to introduce us because he was the most shy person! He had only had one other "girlfriend" before and it was on of those innocent things most of us encounter in the early times of high school. Where you say you are boyfriend and girlfriend but don't really see each other outside of school. To add to that, I was an outsider. I had moved from the west to the south only five months earlier. I looked different, dressed different and certainly talked different. Once we were introduced, we didn't stop talking all evening! And we have been together every since. Less than two weeks after I knew him, I knew we would be married some day. He later told me that he had felt the same thing, also less than two weeks after we met. We got married five years to the day that we met. I have to say, on the whole it has been good. We were ONE. We made it through those first years, squabbles with family, moving several times, even infertility treatments and money troubles. Through it all  I knew I could count on him and I tried my best to be the same for him. I didn't ever want to disappoint him. so to be in a place where we could barely speak to each other has been foreign territory. Painful territory. We have only been apart like two other times since we met.. and it was me that went away. So like I  said, I thought I would be glad for him to be gone for a bit to give us both some breathing room, give us both time to think.... I was wrong. I miss him. I miss him BAD!
I love good old pen and paper and wrote him some little notes for him to open each day that he would be gone, but I gotta say, thank goodness for technology! We have been able to talk on the phone and we have a program on each of our laptops so he can take pictures with his phone then uploads them to my laptop so me and the little guy can look at them. The same program also allows us to chat. So last night I couldn't sleep and left him a message. As my own little olive branch I signed with "love you". I woke up this morning to see a message from him and the sentence "I hope you know I love you too", You guessed it... I cried... AGAIN! My heart has felt so much lighter today! If there had been a way to get to him, me and the little guy would have been there waiting for him. Even as I'm a romantic, I'm also a realist. I know problems don't just magically disappear. But they seem smaller now, something more manageable. The trip was a good thing. Long distance has brought us back together. Emotionally if not yet physically. All I know is I feel HOPE.  I can't wait to put my arms around my husband again! The very thought brings tears to my eyes..... AGAIN! :)

Morning Glory the morning The Mr. left for his trip

Monday, July 22, 2013

Some Great Amazon Deals Going On

Getting ready for kids to return to school? Got a kid going to college? Need stuff for your business or home office? Maybe you just want to get some thing for your self . Check out the deals from Amazon and save some money on the things you need and want. Here is a list of some of the great deals ongoing now. There's a wide variety of deals. Just click the link that interests you to go directly to that category


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Disclosure ~ I was not compensated for this post but it contains affiliate links

Congratulations To The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

I know you've already heard, but I want to add my Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their first child, a son. I admire how they both are so graceful even as they are followed every step every day. They are a lovely couple and I think they will be wonderful parents. Prince William had a wonderful example in his mother. 


As the Announcement states, the newest heir to the throne weighed in a 8 pounds 6 ounces.



This is the third time in my lifetime to witness some of the pomp surrounding a royal baby being born.. The first was Prince William and then his brother Prince Harry. I was very young and only got to see the images once the networks began airing them. Of course with social media and the internet, we get to be even closer to England than ever before. I only hope and pray that the same over-joyed public and media will give them the courtesy of privacy so they can bond with and raise their child. 

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!
You're in for the adventure of a lifetime! :) 




Coming Soon ...... A Royal Baby!

I have to admit, I am intrigued by the Royal Family. I don't care for celebrities and all the fuss that is made over them, especially when they are famous for nothing. But there is something fascinating about the Royals. And I admire the way Prince William carries himself and how he still finds ways to honor his mother, Princess Diana. So I am watching with the rest of the world, for the announcement that Prince William and Duchess Kate's baby has been born. They both seem to be wonderful people and I am excited for them!
BREAKING: Palace Emails World Media That Royal Baby About To Be Born

Do you think they will have a boy or a girl?

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Cow Killers!!?!?!?!

Have you ever heard of an insect that could kill a cow?  Until a few years ago, I had never heard the term. And then I walked outside one day and saw what had to be the biggest ant in North America! It was so unique looking that I caught it in a jar to show Big G when he got home. Since he likes ants, I thought this one would intrigue him too... I was wrong. He kind of freaked that I had caught it and proceeded to tell me he had killed one a few weeks prior because it looked mutant and he was afraid it would bite Little G. Over the course of the next days I caught a few more! I thought they were so cool looking and their behavior wasn't typical of the ants we normally encounter. Right after catching the first one I had begun searching trying to find out what they were. Five or so years ago, it was a little difficult to search for something when you had nothing to go on! I typed in colors, physical descriptions, everything I could think of and I finally typed in something right because a photo suddenly popped up in my search. There was my ant! Except it wasn't an ant....it was a ...... WASP!?!?! What the.... yep. A wasp. 

One of my first "pet" wasps 

And they apparently have a VERY painful sting. Hence the nickname, Cow Killer. They are also known as Red Velvet Ants because their bodies DO look like they are covered in velvet and they do look like ants on steroids.  Once I knew the name I asked a few people around us and of course the farmers here in our rural area knew all about them! Then I started hearing the horror tales of how bad the "bites" (stings) were. It didn't deter me. I kept them. I learned that the ones I found were the females. The males fly, the females don't. I initially had them in a glass jar. I put dirt in it and sticks for them to climb on and once I learned that they ate nectar, I started putting fresh wisteria flowers in there for them to eat. 


Red Velvet Ant on a Wisteria cluster

I had punched holes in the lid and one day as I was changing their wisteria blooms, I had set the lid on top, but didn't close it by screwing it on.... those little critters crawled up a stick that was in the jar and began pushing on the lid! The scary thing was they were able to MOVE it!  I went and bought an aquarium for them to live in. I also bought a mesh lid with clamps! This was a great arrangement until the wisteria blooms were not as plentiful... so I did what any crazy person would do... I taught them to drink from one of those water bottles for small animals! I mixed up sugar water like i do for hummingbirds and filled the water bottle. It didn't take long....
Red Velvet Ant drinking from a water dispenser
Cool Huh? I had them all Summer and into the Fall of that year. It was so neat watching them. At night they burrowed into the dirt and during the day we watched them eat, climb and run around. We didn't see any more of them until a few days ago. I walked out the front door and there was one running across the walkway. 
Our 2013 Red Velvet Ant
The aquarium came back in from the garage. I didn't waste time with a jar! Within a few minutes Little Guy and I were watching her run around exploring the habitat. And it is just as exciting to watch her as it was the first ones. And I haven't been stung a single time, so I can't testify to whether they can actually kill a cow... or any other animal for that matter. :) 

What weird critter have you had for a pet?