Beauty-Licious Products

The last several weeks have been CRAZY.  I've averaged 50+ hours of work each week as an intern, then have come home to be a mom to the kiddos.  My oldest daughter has been watching the younger ones, and now has a very strong appreciation of what I've been doing every day for the last 20 years.

Even now, though, I give her a bit of a break.  For instance, this morning I had to leave for work at 6:00 a.m., so I let her sleep while I played with the youngest at 5:00 a.m. and let him hang out with me while I got ready for work and we ate breakfast together.  It was precious little time spent together, as I wound up coming home 30 minutes before his bed time.  Sigh.  Only two more weeks.

In spite of it all, I've managed to squeeze in some product testing on a few "beauty-liscious" products.  They were my indulgences over the last few weeks. Ways to remind myself that I'm worth the effort, even if it's for only a few minutes.

Hello Cutie Mud Mask:  This was a fun product to try.  It is made with things like pomegranate, peppermint, and green tea extract, among other items.  I loved the peppermint smell, which was the last thing I expected from a black mud mask.  I liked having a brush to 'paint' the mud onto my face, and how my skin instantly felt tighter when the mask was removed.  Just be sure not to remove the mud with a white washcloth!  That black is hard to get out! Overall, I really liked this mask.  I'm saving it for a "pamper me" weekend with my two daughters so we can all get masks together!

24 K Gold Vitamin C Serum: This stuff is fancy!  For some crazy reason, I thought the gold would disappear, but duh! It's gold!  It doesn't disintegrate.  Luckily, it wasn't overwhelming, but it did add a little sparkle to my face.  It did a pretty good job of moisturizing the skin too. My favorite aspect though, was that it was a serum and a primer wrapped up into one.  One of my biggest pet peeves now that I'm 40 is having to layer on product after product before I even begin putting make-up on!  This enabled me to take a couple of steps out of the process.


Thin Botanicals:  Thin botanicals are a body wrap, which seems to be all the rage.  The wraps were quite simple to use, and I must say the customer service is UH-MAZ-ING.  I spoke with them several times about the wraps and was given several tips to maximize the results from the wraps, as well as other weight-loss related information. They really went above and beyond with their service.

Hair Growth Accelerator:  All I can say about these is WOW!  No seriously. WOW.  I'd normally tell you that I was so impressed that I'll be putting it on my Amazon Wish list to buy again later.  However, it's worked so well, I don't want to get any more!  I've been taking the capsules for about a month, and I've added several inches to my hair, my nails have completely quit splitting, and I've begun biting at them because they're so long (remember my hair was just below my shoulders at the end of May)!  Is it possible for something to work TOO well?  If you're looking for longer, thicker hair, or stronger, longer nails.  THIS is what you must buy.  Look no further.

Teeth Whitening:  I'd been really excited about this product because I'm pretty self conscious about my teeth.  They've got a nice yellow tinge to them, but I've heard horror stories about teeth whitening products.  I finally relented though, and gave this a try.  I loved how you could put the mouth guards into hot water and they'd soften up enough for you to create custom trays for your teeth (pretty stinking cool!).  But I quickly discovered that the bleach provided began to burn my gums and top of my mouth.  I was only able to handle it about 5 minutes before I had to take the product out and rinse my mouth out.  In their defense, my daughter had the same problem with the teeth whitening products our DENTIST gave her.  I think this is one of those hit-or-miss products that you'll just need to try yourself and see if you can handle it.

Slim Extreme 4D Thermal Cellulite Serum:  This is another product I tested because I've used Evaline products before.  In the past I've purchased their 

"Slim Extreme 3D Thermo Active Serum Shaping Waist, Abdomen and Buttocks", "Slim Extreme 3D Super-Concentrated Modeling Bust Serum - Total Push-Up Effect", and a third lotion that has a cooling effect instead of a warming effect.  Needless to say, I like their products.  This one, was also pretty good.  When your stomach is as big as mine (remember I'm still 280 lbs), you can't expect the lotions to make your stomach disappear.  But what it does do is firm the skin and tissue, as well as increase it's tone.  And this is what I'm looking for.  I want my skin to have elasticity so that, as it shrinks, it won't become some wrinkly nasty flabby mess.  I'm running a marathon here people!  Not a sprint!

Pedicure Callus Remover:  OK, so I totally cheated on this product.  I got one of these a couple years back as a Christmas gift because everyone in my family has notoriously nasty feet.  I have been hooked ever since.  So, when I had the chance to test a newer version, I totally jumped at the opportunity.  And guess what?  It was all I hoped it would be.  The callus remover turned my feet from uber nasty-icky to almost normal in just a matter of minutes.  I love these things! PLUS, this thing is rechargeable, instead of the battery-operated one I used to use.  Upgrade!!!




UPDATE:  Courtney asked for a girl's night and guess what we did?  Good times!!!

*I received these products for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Ademia Theraputic Lotion - The Ultimate Skin Healer

Although this is a weight-loss related blog, I want to write about something that, in my estimation, is just as important as weight-loss itself. That's the emotional side of why we lose weight and the necessity of sifting through our emotions in order to have a healthy mind AND body.

One of my biggest sources of emotional angst growing up has always been my father. My reasons are private, and I won't share them here,  but I still grapple with these issues, even years after his death. And I stuggle with whether I let those issues affect the care I gave him in his dying months.

Dad was a diabetic.  He was the kind of diabetic that took insulin pills, needed his blood tested several times a day, and had serious issues with his circulation.  So badly that he needed toes amputated.  His legs would swell up to three times their normal size and the skin would literally split because it couldn't handle the swelling, or he would weep fluid from his skin.  Somewhere along the line he contracted MRSA, which inhibits the body's ability to heal.

For the 11 months from the time of my mother's death until my father's own demise, his foot did not heal from his latest surgery.  He had wound care nearly every day, but because his skin was so thin and frail, it would split, then ulcerate, then leak  and so on and so forth.  The ulcers were so bad, that the nurses would use baby diapers to catch all the fluid because normal bandages could not absorb the fluid.  If he left his legs open to the air, he would drip.  Graphic enough for you?

OK, what's the point to all of this?  My father ultimately died of Gangrene.  His ulcers became so badly infected, and deep, that he died an incredibly painful (and disgusting) death.
 A few weeks back, while doing my product testing, I came across a product called the Adamia Therapeutic Lotion.

The company that sold this product touted it as a lotion that could be used on the elderly, or those who have highly sensitive skin, dry skin, cracked skin, even burn patients as a means of healing their skin.  I remembered my father and his legs and I was intrigued.  So, I ordered my free sample.  They sent me a large bottle of the lotion and I tried it on my hand that first evening.

The difference was immediate.  I used it on the rest of my skin and I noticed changes there as well.  I was impressed.

Fast forward three weeks, and I was interning - sitting in on a case management client with many of the same issues as my father.  I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to give this woman my lotion, knowing that I had something that could help her, even if a little bit.  Not only was it nice to give to someone who needed the lotion more than I do, it was cathartic.  I'm not sure why, aside from the fact that she reminded me of those heart-breaking moments with my father in pain. And though I couldn't do anything to help my father at the time except to be there for him, I was able to do something for her.

Would I recommend this lotion to other? You betcha. I hope many others have opportunities to use this product and see the effects for themselves.

Changing the Dynamics: I'm Going Back To Work!

Holy smokes!  What have I got myself into?!?

My First Day of Work!

After nearly 21 years as a stay-at-home mother, I have decided it's time to go back to college.  I'd been toying with the idea off and on for several years, but it never seemed to be the right time.  6 years ago, I was preparing to enter the work force full time.  My kids were in school full-time, my online business was BOOMING, and I was putting out feelers for people I could hire as employees.  I was ready to take the leap.  All the sudden, after 10 years of infertility, I wound up pregnant.

When we started having children the first time around, my husband and I agreed that we would not bring children into this world, if I was going to hire someone to raise them. So, I put my personal aspirations aside, and put all my energy into being the best mother I could be.  I'm certainly not the best in the WORLD by any stretch of the imagination.  But I was the best I could be.

When I wound up pregnant with our third, I put aside my aspirations again, and prepared for another round of motherhood.  Then, 6 months later, BOOM! The pregnancy bomb hit again.  We were going to have a fourth.  This time, he was special needs.  All my attention was needed to care for him, so I sold my online business and got serious about this mothering thing.

It's been nearly 5 years now, and little Jacob has one more year until he's in school full-time. This year he will be gone approximately 4 hours in pre-school and therapies.  So, after much discussion with my husband, and exhaustive research, we decided that NOW was the time for me to get my education so that I could re-enter the workforce next year when he starts school.

Luckily, I had one year of college under my belt from before we were married, and I had taken 12 courses (yes, that's 6 per semester).  Most of those classes still transfer after all these years (crazy, huh?).  So, I am going to major in Addiction Studies (or Sociology, depends on what the counselor says when I talk to her next week).

I am working toward getting my ISAS - Idaho Student of Addiction Studies certificate - which only requires 8 classes (2 quarters of classes for me) and 300 internship hours.  Rather than taking the courses and THEN interning, I'm doing this backwards.  I have 1 month to get my hours while my oldest is still home from school and I have family to care for Jacob and minimize his shell-shock of me being gone.  Then, when Elisha goes off to college, I will also go back through online classes so that I can do my work while the little ones are in bed. My daughter and I will both be Sophomores in college - AT THE SAME TIME!

At the end of my two quarters, I will in essence be just a few classes away from graduating.  Until then, I am working 40-50 hour weeks this month, as an intern, learning all the in's and out's of addiction, case management, counseling and what-not.  Wish me luck!  And pray for me!  It's been a really really REALLY long time since I've been in the work force OR in college.  And I don't want this new endeavor to affect my family too terribly much.  But I think the time is right for me and our family.

Cross your fingers!

...Oh, and by the way, I went to work with two different sized earrings on.  Yeah, that's how I roll! :)

Camping Cooking and Eating Healthy

It's no big surprise that changes occur in your eating lifestyle when you begin to dedicate your time to losing weight and creating a healthy lifestyle for yourself and your family.

All of the sudden, a quick trip to McDonalds is not really an option, and you find yourself standing in front of the fridge muttering to yourself that there's nothing to eat that takes less than 30 minutes to eat.

Needless to say, we've had a few growing pains in the cooking department. It's a long process to go from fast-food, high fat/sodium/chemical meals with virtually no prep-time and no

real nutritional value to something healthy, relatively fast, AND every member of my 6-person family will appreciate - including the 15-year-old boy who survives off Top Ramen, Mac & Cheese, hamburgers and pizza.  Sadly, he's a much better cook than me, so when he offers to make dinner, I am more than willing to let him - regardless of the caloric consequences.

BUT, in an effort to eat healthier, I've been getting creative with my recipes.  First off, I'm expanding my cooking utensils.  Normally, my cooking involved a non-stick skillet and a microwave.  Maybe a pot.  Now, I'm playing with dutch ovens, cast-iron skillets, garlic presses, and (gasp!) spices - thus the need for a garlic press.

I grew up seventh of ten children.  My mom grew up the youngest of two children.  I can only imagine how much of a shock it was for her to go from such a small family to a hoard of kids sitting around a picnic table (in the kitchen) clamouring for their food.  Sadly, cooking for such a group was not her talent.  She had many other amazing qualities, cooking was not one of them.  Add in the sheer quantity of food needed for each meal and the expense associated with such an endeavor, and I can completely understand why she tried to cut corners at every opportunity.

I remember growing up eating Cream of Wheat or home made oatmeal for breakfast.  If we were really lucky, she'd butter some bread, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top and broil it in the oven until melted.  Cereal really wasn't an option.  Primarily because it cost too much to feed so many hungry mouths with cereal. But also because, if we lucked out and she did buy cereal, my older brothers would get up at the butt-crack of dawn and eat the entire box before any of the rest of us woke up to complain.  So, yeah.  Cereal was out.

Dinners included options such as split-pea soup, char-broiled liver, potato soup (one of my favorites), taco salad, tater tot casserole, meatloaf, or one of the many concoctions she attempted out of our Food Storage.  To this day, thirty years later, I can still remember the distinct and nauseating smell of imitation meat (I think she called it TVP?) wafting through our home on any number of nights.  She did her  best to disguise the horrific taste, but there was no hiding its hideousness.

And for those of you who still store year-supplies of food, or are preppers stock-piling food for the zombie Apocalypse, I can tell you from first-hand experience that whatever you stock had better taste good.  The though that "I (or the kids) will eat it if we're hungry enough" is wrong.  There were many nights I went to bed hungry because I couldn't stomach that nasty stuff!!

But I digress...

With those happy childhood memories tucked neatly in my brain, I've decided I'm not going to force-feed my kids healthy foods that they hate.  It's gotta be healthy AND yummy.  Now I'm on a quest.

While on this quest for yummy, healthy meals, I've picked up a couple of tools to help me achieve my goals.  The first is my beloved garlic press.  I got this for free as a tester and I am NEVER giving it up.  Garlic has become a staple in our family.  It's the one spice that is universally appreciated among the family members, and I use a LOT of it.  In the past, I'd either break out a little paring knife and meticulously mince each clove of garlic into perfectly shaped pieces for the meals, or I'd break down and buy a jar of store-bought pre-cut garlic which, quite frankly, is bland and barely passes for garlic.  When I got my garlic press in the mail, I was impressed.  It's a heavy duty press - heavy enough to use as a weapon should some random burglar break into your house while you're cooking and you need to defend yourself while making your Chicken Marsala.  Yeah, you'll win.  I promise.

Anyway, The I was intrigued when KUK (the manufacturer) promised that you'd no longer have to peel the cloves - just put them in the press and squeeze.  You should have seen my delight when I took the leap of faith and squeezed the peel-intact clove of garlic between the press and aromatic garlic pure' came out the other side.  I gasped.  This thing will seriously take minutes off my prep time, and I no longer have to buy that insipid bottled garlic any more!  Grade: A+  (P.S - if you're family and reading this...I'm not sharing.  Get your own!)



Cast Iron Cleaner: When I got this, I wasn't sure what to think.  It is essentially a 5 or 6 inch square of chain meal.  But at the moment, all I was using to clean my dutch ovens was tin foil, so this was certainly a step up. 

I thought it might be hard to clean all the gunk out from between the links of metal, but it was pretty much as easy as just rinsing it off in the sink or with a hose, etc.  the chain links were big enough that you can get in between the spaces and they don't get wedged into the holes.
Plus, it doesn't take up a lot of space.  Throw it into the camping supplies or on a hook, or with the wash clothes, or wherever, and it's good to go.  The only problem I had was that some of the links had come apart before it arrived at our house, so I had to bend them back, but it took like five seconds and it was never an issue again.
Grade:  A-


*I received these products for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

Getting Comfortable In My Own Skin

As I have mentioned before, I am deeply concerned (probably more than I should be, quite frankly) about how my weight loss is going to affect my skin.  As a result, I test out a LOT of products in search for something that will aid me in my efforts to tone and shrink my skin as I shrink my weight.

Here is my latest batch of tries:

Anti Cellulite Cream: This is the latest in a long line of anti-cellulite creams I've been trying over the months.  What makes this one different?  Well there's a couple of elements that makes this cream stand out from the crows.  First off, packaging.  The cream comes in a pump bottle, instead of a small jar (which by the way, the bottle looks pretty cool - check out the pump itself.  It looks like threads to a screw! Pretty cool.) That means you get more product for your money. Always a bonus.  Secondly, I like the peppermint smell.  I'm not much of a flowery-scented kind of girl, so the peppermint smell is a nice change.  Third, each time you use the product, you walk away with a cooling sensation - not overpowering like Vick's vapor rub.  More like a 'hey, this stuff is working' sort of sensation.  And finally, I like how on the instruction bottle it reminds you to drink lots of water with each application.  Why? Because water truly is the key to taking care of cellulite.  It hydrates your skin, allowing it to become more supple and it filters out any toxins/fat so that it can end up in your pee.  Grade: A

Lavender Essential Oil:  I like this stuff.  I think I mentioned it briefly in one of my other entries, but I couldn't remember for sure, so I'm going to add it again.  When I got the bottle, the scent was overwhelming - and it didn't remind me of Lavender.  I think that's because it was in it's purest form.  One night I decided to take a bath and I poured a few drops into my water along with some Therapeutic soap and soaked for about 20-30 minutes.  It was one of the best baths I've had in a long time.  Not onlyGrade for Lavender Oil: A.  Grade for Therapeutic Soap: A+
because I smelled good when I was done, but I stepped out of the tub and my skin was softer and my patch of psoriasis that I have on my knee was almost completely gone - the skin sluffed right off while I was towel-drying.  My sister snagged my therapeutic soap the next day, so I haven't had a chance to use it again, but the kneed stayed that way for two weeks before the 'patch' started coming back.  Now I've got to hunt my sister down and get that soap back!


Psoriarid Cream: I've taken several pictures of my hands and commented on the psoriasis spot on my knuckles.  When I went camping in the middle of July, I didn't bring any of my products with me. So when I got home, my skin was back to its original state. Very frustrating, indeed.  So, I began trying a new product- a small jar of psoriarid Cream.  The bottle is small, but you only need a touch of it (literally) to cover the area.  It's pretty oily and thick, about the consistency of shea butter, so a little goes a long way.  I began to see a difference in my skin on the second application.  And, now I only have one or two itty bitty little stubborn spots on my knuckle that refuse to heal.  Plus, all of the darkness from years of sluffing and damage has lightened until it's almost the same color as the rest of my skin.  What a difference!  Grade: A-

Hydrolic Acid Serum With Vitamin C:  I've tested a couple of Hydrolic Acid serums over the past few months.  Basically because, at 40, I'm beginning to see some fine lines, and some not-so-fine lines around my eyes and between my eyebrows.  It would have been nice if someone had told me to start using this stuff in my 20's! Now I'm playing catch-up.  This latest Serum was nice.  It comes in a glass dropper bottle, and the liquid is the consistency of thin syrup, and cloudy white in color.  It takes just a few drops to cover my face at night. And by the time I'm done, my face feels tighter, and yet softer at the same time.  Hmmm. Grade: A

Touchless Soap Dispenser:  So, like everyone else in this world, I have hand soap in my bathroom.  My problem is that my 6-year-old daughter LOVES to play with it when I send her into the bathroom to brush her teeth at night.  I swear I go through a bottle every 3-4 days.  So finally, I got frustrated and requested a touchless soap dispenser.  At least she couldn't unscrew the container and dump all the soap out into the sink  to play bubbles!  It was a hit.  He likes the power of getting soap on command - king of like 'magic', and I like not having to clean up soap residue all over my bathroom counters, tub, floors, and toilets every night. Plus, it looks a million times better! Grade: A

*I received these products for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.