Archive for Check This Out!

Sep
01

Hampton Hotel Sweepstakes

Posted by: Laura | Comments (4)

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hampton Hotels. All opinions are 100% mine.
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We interrupt this regularly scheduled program (the one in which I tell you how to use your noodle…or rather, how to make homemade noodles) to inform you quickly of a fun opportunity!

I’m telling you just in case you like the chance of winning something cool like a free weekend getaway from Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes.  Just in case you’ve been like me lately with tomatoes and peppers and other fresh produce (and possibly homemade noodles) up to your eyeballs and a free getaway with your family sounds just a little bit lovely right now.   

Hampton Hotels are running a pretty cool sweepstakes in which they are giving away a free weekend getaway every day!!   The sweepstakes is open to everyone and you can enter every single day if you want to.

Then later (and this is so cool…you HAVE to picture it!) they are drawing for a grand prize which includes the chance to book an ENTIRE Hampton Hotel for an ENTIRE weekend.  I know!  Wouldn’t that be fun to invite all kinds of the people you love to a free hotel getaway for a weekend?!

You can head over here to sign up for the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes.

Hey, if one of you wins the prize of being able to book an entire hotel for the weekend, will you invite me to come?  ;)

 Visit my sponsor: Win a free Weekend Stay

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Just so ya know, this happens to be a sponsored post.  I am hardly ever paid for posts I write, but this time the offer was fun and I thought you’d be interested in knowing about it, so I accepted.  I promise I would never write about anything (paid for or not) that I didn’t think was worth telling you about.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programing.

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Aug
31

Excalibur Food Dehydrator

Posted by: Laura | Comments (12)

My friend Anne told me last summer that if I was going to invest in a good food dehydrator, to get an Excalibur Food Dehydrator because they were the best!

Much to my loudly squealing delight, a few weeks ago Cultures for Health sent me a Excalibur Food Dehydrator free of charge, in exchange for telling you all about it here on my blog!   Wow, wow, wow.  I love every package delivered to my door, but this big ol’ box may have made me jump a just little higher (poor UPS man).

My husband and I are having such a fun time giving our Excalibur Food Dehydrator a work-out!  This is the perfect time of year for us to give the dehydrator a whirl as we have all kinds of fresh produce needing to be preserved.

See the pretty peach fruit leather?

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Matt cut up a bunch of our red jalapeno peppers and dehydrated them.  Here they are before they went into the dehydrator…

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And then just a few hours later… 

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We then ground them up to put on pizza and in chili.  SO easy!!

Beyond fruits and vegetables, I’ve used the dehydrator to quickly dry homemade pasta!  Note to self:  Don’t cut the pasta too short when planning to put it in your dehydrator.  Or, for Pete’s sake, make good use of your Paraflexx sheets!

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The noodles still turned out great even if they were “bent out of shape”.  I’ll be sharing the recipe soon!

Our dehydrator has five drying trays, which makes it possible to preserve a lot of food all at one time.  LOVE that!  The best part about an Excalibur Food Dehydrator is that all of the food drys evenly so that we don’t have to rotate the trays or be frustrated because one is done and the others aren’t yet.  Oh, and if we only need two trays at once, we only put two trays in.  There are several different “heat settings” so that you can keep some of your food raw if you want or even make yogurt!

We are LOVING our Excalibur Food Dehydrator and appreciate that Cultures for Health was kind enough to send it to us.  We can’t wait to see what we can dehydrate next!!!

I’m sure you’d enjoy looking over the Cultures for Health site.  They have wonderful products to make cultured dairy products and cheese and sprouted grain and more…not to mention the awesome Excalibur Food Dehydrator!!

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Aug
23

The Secret to a Successful Budget

Posted by: Laura | Comments (2)

successful_budget

I hear it over and over again. 

People want to be financially free and secure.  They want to stop living “month to month”, barely getting by on the income they have coming in.  They may be a two income family who wishes to bring Mom home to stay with the kids.  They may be in debt so big they don’t ever see a way out.

Or, they simply just aren’t sure how to set up a workable budget for their family.

It does take discipline.  It does take determination.  But making and keeping a budget truly isn’t complicated.  You can do it!

The Secret to a Successful Budget can help.

Craig Ford, author of The Secret to a Successful Budget and founder of Money Help for Christians sent me a complimentary copy of this new ebook that is just being released today.  I was very impressed with how thorough the book was to help everyone set up a budget that works. 

Sometimes, financial resources are hard to read, you know?  They use big words and talk about big financial stuff that makes my eyes cross.  I don’t like resources like that.  I just want to know how to manage money wisely, you know?

The Secret to a Successful Budget is SO easy to read.  Not at all complicated.  It uses simple terminology and basic ideas to help you get a budget set up for your family….a budget you can stick to!

You can read all about The Secret to a Successful Budget here.  I urge you to head over and read through the details to see if this book would be a helpful resource for you. 

Through August 31, The Secret to a Successful Budget is on sale for only $12.  If you ask me, $12 is a very small investment to make toward a very secure financial future!  In addition, you’ll receive some bonus products that you can read about here.

Head on over and check out The Secret to a Successful Budget!  It’s downloadable, which means you can be on your way toward a successful budget right away!

(disclosure)

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Aug
22

Want More to Read?

Posted by: Laura | Comments (0)

dealmoon

I just thought I’d let you know that the wonderful people over at Deal Moon have asked me to write articles for them every couple of weeks.  I’ve been doing this for a few months and why I never thought to let you know about it is beyond me.  :)

I’ve written a couple of articles which contain some simple meal ideas, as well as a few articles about books I recommend for kids.

Please do jump on over to Deal Moon if you’re interested in reading more of what I have to say.  And remember to check out Deal Moon’s main page to learn about all kinds of sweet deals!

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Aug
14

Back to School With Swagbucks

Posted by: Laura | Comments (10)

Search & Win

Once again, I must sing the praises of Swagbucks.  I was able to use the Amazon cards I’d earned from Swagbucks to order a big portion of our school books this year…for free.  Wow is that ever nice!

Swagbucks is simply a search engine that gives you “swagbucks” on many of your online searches.  There’s no catch.  I’ve been using them for about a year and a half now and haven’t had a lick of trouble.  I installed the Swagbucks toolbar to make my swag searches easier.  I do a ton of online searches everyday anyway…why not earn money while I’m doing it?  I almost always turn my swagbucks in for Amazon gift cards, but there are all kinds of other things you can exchange them for if you’re interested!

Right now they’re offering a Back to School Promotion for anyone who is new to the program.  Just by signing up you’ll receive 30 swagbucks…but if you enter the code:  BackToSchool you’ll receive a bonus 40 swagbucks to get you going (that’s 70 swagbucks!)!

Take advantage of this promotion, sign up and start earning Swagbucks!!!  See what you can save up to spend for free Christmas gifts this year!! :)

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Daily Worth

A few weeks ago (months ago?!) I mentioned that I had signed up for Daily Worth, a free daily email that offered budgeting, investing and just in general good financial tips for women.  I’ve enjoyed it so much, I wanted to bring it to your attention again.

Each day I receive a very easy to read email newsletter from Daily Worth.  It includes simple to read tips (in a woman’s language!) about how to manage money wisely.  They are not only easy to read and apply…they’re usually pretty fun to read too! 

I’m not a big fan of a cluttered inbox, so trust me in saying that if I didn’t really enjoy these email newsletters, I would NOT be telling you about them!  Instead…I actually LOOK FORWARD to receiving them, opening them and seeing what Daily Worth has to tell me today.  They usually take me a whole thirty seconds to read through. 

I’d like to encourage you to sign up to receive the Daily Worth Newsletter if you aren’t already receiving them.  I think you’ll enjoy it…and learning more ways to save money never hurt anyone, right?!

Daily Worth

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Aug
11

Check out NanaHood’s Birthday Bash!

Posted by: Laura | Comments (1)

Teresa at NanaHood has been a sponsor (and online friend) of  mine for quite some time now.  I’ve watched her site grow and now she’s celebrating her first blogging birthday!

It’s been fantastic to watch NanaHood evolve and blossom over the course of this year.  If you haven’t yet checked out NanaHood, you should!  It’s a one of a kind blog geared toward Nanas, Grandmas, Grannys…those in “the second half of the motherhood journey“.  But while I’m nowhere close to being a Nana, I still enjoy reading what Teresa has to offer each day!  There’s a little something for everyone over at NanaHood, and today she’s having a HUGE birthday bash with games and prizes!

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Head on over to NanaHood…wish her a happy birthday and join in the fun!

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Aug
10

Back-2-School Deals

Posted by: Laura | Comments (1)

~ Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship is running a sale on her great ebooks:  Healthy Snacks to Go and Kitchen Stewardship in the Big Woods.  You can get them at a whopping 30% off  until Wednesday at midnight using the coupon code:  HAPPYBIRTHDAY.

~ Discount School Supply – grab a 10% coupon code at Coupon Trunk

~ I like shopping at Maurices every once in a while.  They have fantasic sales and really cute clothes (although of course, like any other trendy store you have to look a little harder to find clothing that is modest).   There is one style of their $29 jeans that fits me really well at Maurices and I watch for them to go on sale!  If you happen to like Maurice’s too, here’s a coupon for 20% your total online order at Maurices!  PLUS they are having a ton of 75% off sales now!!!  I love taking 75% off a clearance price…and then taking 20% off that price!  I am looking at getting this skirt, which will cost an amazing $7!! with this coupon.  (They also have the skirt in dark brown and black.)

~ Although it’s not exactly withing the realm of “back to school” I wanted to be sure and tell you that Tropical Traditions is offering 15% your order if you use the coupon code:  06081015 before midnight Wednesday.  Here’s a list of my favorite Tropical Traditions products.

~Of course, don’t forget our very own Back-2-School Bash Sale going on now through midnight Thursday!

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I gave up on doing much couponing several years ago when we began our journey toward healthier eating.  However, if you look hard enough, you can find a few good coupons that help make healthy eating more affordable!  Anytime I come across any printable coupons (aka kyoopons!) I feel are worth sharing…I’ll pass the information on to you!

15509089[1]

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Here’s how to print these coupons from Coupon.com:

  1. Click through to the coupons linked above.
  2. Click “clip” on each coupon you are interested in.
  3. As soon as you have all of the coupons “clipped” that you are interested in, click the “print” button at the top right of the Coupons.com site.
  4. If you don’t already have “Coupon Printer” installed on your computer, you will need to click  the red “Install Coupon Printer” button.  Save it to your computer (I recommend saving it on your desktop).
  5. Double click on the Coupon Printer that you just saved to your computer.  Read the “Coupon Printer for Windows” pop-up and click “next”. 
  6. Click “Coupon Printer”, then click “next”.
  7. Read the License Agreement, click “I agree…”, then hit “next”.
  8. Your coupon printer will install and you can click “finish”! 
  9. You will now be able to print your coupons.  Now that you have the Coupon Printer installed…you’ll be able to skip these steps in the future!

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Jul
28

Clean Air?

Posted by: Laura | Comments (15)

 

When is the last time you changed the air filter in your heater/air conditioner?  Can’t remember?  Yes, I understand.  We’ve been the same way.  I can hear some of you right now.  “You mean we’re supposed to CHANGE those?!” 

Yes, you see, nasty stuff gets pulled in through your duct work and the handy-dandy filter catches it before it gets to your heating/air system.  If the filter gets too full of the nasty stuff, the system gets bogged down and is way less efficient.  (I don’t know about you, but when I get bogged down, I am also way less efficient.)  ;)

Maybe some of you have some sort of plan in place to remember when it’s time to change the filter in your heating and air unit, but I’m guessing that the majority of us don’t.  For us, it is hardly even on our radar of things to think about.  There are SO MANY THINGS to think about every day, you know?

And then when we finally do think about it, we have to figure out what size filter we need and figure out who carries the filter we use, and it’s just sort of a headache. 

We’ve recently been in contact with Prime Time Filters.com.  They are a fantastic company for many reasons, but the best one is that they take all of the brain cell usage out of changing your air filter!  I don’t know about you, but I feel very maxed-out on my brain cell usage.  Please, please don’t make me keep track of one more thing!!!  Prime Time Filters becomes your brain when it comes to changing your air filter!  Hallelujah!! 

Here’s how it works:  You create a subscription with Prime Time Filters.  You let them know what variety of filter you need and how often you need to change your filter.  You let them know the size you need.  THEN, Prime Time Filters (your new air filter brain!) will automatically send you the filter at the designated time.  It comes right to your door step without you having to order it or think or anything.  Then, when the nice delivery man hands it to you, you realize that it is now time to change your air filter.  You change it, and then you promptly forget all about air filters because, thanks to Prime Time Filters, you are now able to free your brain cells to remember other important facts (like the names of your children).  You will not have to think about changing your air filter again until another one arrives on your door step a few months later according to the time frame you set up in your subscription with Prime Time Filters.  What a lovely (and clean) concept!

Not only does Prime Time Filters make changing your air filter incredibly convenient, they are affordable.  Ooh, and you know what else they do?  They allow you to set up a subscription for someone else…like your parents or grandparents or an elderly neighbor who needs the service but might not be able to set it up themselves. 

I love that Prime Time Filters is a family owned and operated company.  I’ve worked with them both via email and over the phone and they are kind, helpful and knowledgeable.  We had a stink of a time figuring out what filter size we needed.  They worked patiently with us and were finally able to figure out the exact size.  These people know what they’re doing.

Here’s what the owner of the Prime Time Filters has to say:

The biggest reason people are signing up for the service is the convenience but they are quickly recognizing the benefits of cleaner air, less dust, lower utility bills and peace of mind because we’ve taken the headache out of this important task.

I highly recommend that you check out Prime Time Filters because on so many levels, they make it possible for you to breathe easier.   ;)

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