Keebler® Simply Made Cookies

I recently received a sample of Keebler® Simply Made cookies in two different flavors: Butter and Chocolate Chip. I was lucky enough to try them because I am a BzzAgent.

Keebler® Simply Made Butter cookies are very tasty. I have a young toddler who is just starting to eat cookies like this on her own. These butter cookies were easy for her to eat, and she enjoyed the taste. "More cookie" is now one of her favorite phrases!

My husband and I enjoyed eating the Simply Made Butter cookies as well. They are not quite as good as homemade butter cookies, but pretty close! They really have a good, buttery taste, and the texture is not grainy like some packaged cookies can be. I enjoyed them with my afternoon coffee.

Keebler® Simply Made Chocolate Chip cookies are also good. The flavor is tasty and buttery, and there is just the right amount of chocolate chips. I preferred the Butter flavor, but the Chocolate Chip ones did not go to waste! They are not soft and chewy, so if you prefer a crumbly cookie with lots of chocolate chips, these are for you! Come to think of it, the ingredients that are added to packaged cookies to make them soft and chewy are probably not natural ingredients you would have in your pantry. So it makes sense that these Keebler® Simply Made Chocolate Chip cookies are on the drier side. I love that they are made with more wholesome ingredients.

I love baking cookies, but with a young child at home, it's certainly more convenient to open a package than to bake from scratch. Since Keebler® Simply Made cookies are made with the same ingredients I'd use at home, I feel much better about serving them to my family. I recommend trying Keebler® Simply Made cookies next time you find yourself in the cookie aisle!

Why not choose fair trade??

I received a sample of Green Mountain Coffee's Three Continent Blend coffee via BzzAgent.

The Green Mountain Fair Trade Three Continent Blend is wonderful. It is so rich, robust, and flavorful. I'd gladly drink the Three Continent Blend every day for my morning coffee. Not only does it taste great, though, this coffee is helping farmers on three different continents, and their communities. That makes it even more enjoyable to me.

Even though I won't be able to go to Peru anytime soon to see coffee growing in action, I was able to live vicariously through Kelly Clarkson by viewing her travelogue at ChooseFairTrade.com. The whole website is really well-done and interactive. I especially enjoyed seeing the statistics on the "A Fair Trade Story" page. Why wouldn't you try Fair Trade Coffee from Green Mountain?

Be sure to visit ChooseFairTrade.com and try some new Three Continent Blend soon!

Filippo Berio® Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I received a free sample of Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil through BzzAgent. My husband and I have enjoyed trying this olive oil in various dishes. We use olive oil pretty often in our kitchen already, since it is healthier than butter and other alternatives. Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil has a great taste. Here are some ways we used it:

Salads: During the summer, I'm a huge fan of making salads that don't necessarily involve lettuce (pasta, potato, caprese, bean, etc.). This week, I made a salad with orzo, chickpeas, cucumbers, dill, and a light olive oil/lemon juice dressing. It made a wonderful summer weeknight meal, and I know it was much healthier than a heavy potato salad made with mayonnaise and sour cream.

Cooking: We use olive oil for cooking most dishes. It's easy to saute just about anything with it. Recipes that call for butter to be melted in the pan can easily use olive oil instead. And the Filippo Berio Extra Virgin has a nice flavor that we appreciate.

Popcorn: We love to snack on popcorn! It's low in fat, and when you don't top it with butter, it's almost fat-free. I use a stovetop popper and good quality popcorn. I drizzle a couple a teaspoons of the Filippo Berio olive oil on the popped popcorn, then sprinkle on some tasty combination of seasonings. The olive oil helps the seasonings stick to the popcorn, and adds a nice flavor. Yum!

You can download your own printable copy of an Olive Oil Substitution Chart at filippoberio.com. You can also find tasty recipes and create ways to use olive oil. I'd definitely recommend giving Filippo Berio Extra Virgin a try!

Got2b POWDER'ful Volumizing Styling Powder

I have been trying POWDER’ful from Got2b that I got for free from BzzAgent. I usually use it on days I don't have time to wash my hair, thought it works any time I need a little extra volume. I have found that I only need a little bit, sprinkled on my hands, for the product to work. It's easy to get too much, especially when you apply it directly to your head. Then my hair gets a little too sticky and feels dirty. But with just a little, the powder does provide a small bit of volume that I don't otherwise have (my hair is generally very, very flat!). It's really not a lot of volume - I could definitely not replicate the gorgeous model's hair on the package - it is just a little bit. I also wish it lasted a little big longer before going flat, but maybe that's just my wimpy hair.

Though I've had hair powder applied to my hair at the salon before, I had never used a styling powder at home until trying POWDER’ful. Now I'm glad I've tried it, and would recommend it to others.

Me Time with Café Escapes

With a young baby in the house and a part-time job, it's very, very hard to find "me time." But after I received some free samples of Café Escapes K-cups from BzzAgent, I was eager to make it happen!

I usually have some kind of coffee drink in the morning on my way to work. Having a Keurig brewer is great for when I'm running late and need a cup FAST! However, this BzzCampaign encouraged me to slow down and enjoy one of the new Café Escapes cups while relaxing. I thought that was a good idea. Here's me relaxing with my favorite mug - As you can see, I've got my hair pulled back, and sweatshirt on!

I had tried the Café Escapes Chai Latte before, and always found it a nice break from regular coffee. The new flavors from Café Escapes are no disappointment. Café Caramel seriously tastes like you're drinking melted caramel candy. It might be a little too sweet for some, but not me! That was my favorite for a relaxing afternoon treat. The Café Vanilla was equally good - kind of like the Chai, just with less spices. I don't have hot chocolate very often, but when I do, I much prefer dark chocolate, so the Dark Chocolate Hot Cocoa from Café Escapes is a great choice.

One thing people may not know is that when brewing a drink that contains powdered milk, like hot chocolate or any of the Café Escapes flavors, your Keurig machine needs to be flushed out afterwards. I learned this the hard way a couple years ago. I would make hot chocolate, then find that the machine kept clogging up and breaking! Luckily, the support person I talked to at Keurig told me what to do, and it's been fine since. After you brew a cup of any Café Escapes flavor, just remove the K-cup and "brew" a cup of plain water. That should clear things up enough for the next use.

I'm very glad I got to try the new (and old) flavors from Café Escapes. I will definitely keep several Café Escapes K-cups on hand for relaxing treats in the future!

Redbox Instant by Verizon

Unfortunately, I have not been impressed with Redbox Instant by Verizon so far. I received a free one month trial from BzzAgent (though anyone can sign up for a free trial here). The trial included access to streaming movies on their website, as well as four credits for renting from any Redbox kiosk.

My husband and I have not really used Redbox in the past, so we were excited to try out the new service. We used all four of our DVD credits at kiosks in our area. The great thing about that is that we learned where the kiosks are closest to our house! The Redbox website makes it easy to browse the movies available to rent at the kiosk and reserve one for a certain site. It's equally as easy to browse at the kiosk. We also liked that you could return movies to any kiosk, not just the one you picked up the movie from.

However, all of that nice stuff above is not new - it's part of regular Redbox, and has been for awhile. The new product is Redbox Instant, the main purpose of which is supposedly streaming movies online. And this is the part I found very disappointing. We found very few movies we were interested in watching among the selection available for streaming. The service claims to have new releases and a good selection, but I just did not find that to be true.

The most frustrating thing to me was the service's website. I found it confusing and difficult to tell which movies were available to stream versus to rent at the kiosk. Then I discovered that there is a whole other category: movies available to PAY to stream. These aren't part of Redbox Instant, but you can pay (usually $4.99 or more) to stream them from your computer. It needs to be clearer which category you're browsing through on the website. I would find a video I was interested in seeing, see the words "WATCH NOW" and think I could watch it as part of the Redbox Instant subscription. Only to find that when I clicked WATCH NOW, it said I had to pay.

I understand that part of the issue with having certain movies available for streaming is with copyrights and the people who make the movies. But if similar subscription-based streaming services (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu Plus) can provide better choices, why can't Redbox Instant? I've tried all three of those other services, and as of now, I'd take any of them over Redbox Instant.

When I did stream a movie, I used my Mac laptop. The quality was great, and it took NO time to load. This is definitely an improvement over similar services - if Redbox Instant had better choices, I would recommend it for the quality.

I also tried to use my Chromebook to stream, but that didn't work, since you need Microsoft Silverlight for this service. There are a few quirky things sometimes too - like the sign-in window continuing to pop up even after you've signed in - but I can overlook those, since it's still in beta. I'm sure those will get fixed.

Also, it would be nice if we could have streamed the movies through our Sony DVD player or Wii. I understand the service is already available on some devices like those, and I assume they are working on adding more devices, hopefully including what we have.

I'm glad this free trial exposed me to the Redbox kiosks, and I think I will continue to use those - something I hadn't done before. The Redbox Instant subscription comes with four DVD credits a month, but costs $8 a month. Renting four DVD's from the kiosks directly would be a few dollars less than that. So for me, it's definitely not worth it to continue paying for Redbox Instant. I won't continue my subscription until they add more movies or somehow make the service better than similar ones already out there. I'll stick to the kiosks for now, and use Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu Plus for streaming movies and TV shows.

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream

I recently received free Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream as a BzzAgent. I had used other Neutrogena products in the past, but had not tried the Norwegian Formula, which is a concentrated glycerin-based formula meant to repair and protect very dry and damaged skin.

  

As you can hopefully tell from the pictures, I certainly fit the bill for having very dry skin. In winter, my knuckles are often so dry they crack and bleed. I have the bad habit of picking at the skin of my cuticles whenever I am nervous or bored. And I have one nail that grows in completely split down the middle (my problem nail). I would love to get professional manicures more often, but with a new baby, that isn't easy.

I usually end up taking care of my poor hands myself, often doing one or two steps a day, instead of all at once. After trimming and filing my nails to the length I like (ok, I admit, sometimes what I really mean is biting them to the right length...), I take care of my cuticles. I clip off all the little pieces that I would otherwise be tempted to pick at, using an angled cuticle trimmer like this one. I trim away all I can and try to get them as smooth as possible.

Then I move on to my problem nail. I have experimented with many products over the years to try to get this nail under control. If I don't, it gets caught in everything I touch, rips further down the nail bed, and causes me lots of pain and headaches! Here's what works for me: I trim a piece of fiberglass or silk to fit over the split, squeeze a little nail glue and powder on top, then wait for it to dry. Then I shape the nail with a file and buffer, and apply some clear polish (I like Hard as Nails from Sally Hansen).

If I'm feeling ambitious, or have a hot date that requires painted nails, I can then paint over the broken one with no problem. I will admit I don't paint my nails too often though - especially recently - so it's important that they look at least ok without any polish.

After working on my nails, I always apply some type of hand lotion. I have found that the Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream really helps my dry skin and cuticle problems. In addition to after manicures, I also apply it each night before bed, and again in the morning before going to work. The bottle says you only need a little bit, because it is so concentrated. But I find myself going back for more and more to rub into each cuticle. Once I do so, my cuticles stay soft and moisturized for longer, so I am not tempted to mess with them!

I used to use a special cuticle cream on them, and have also tried plain old Vaseline. But the Norwegian Formula keeps every part of my hands moisturized, and isn't greasy like Vaseline.

Here's what my hands look like now, after a few weeks of using Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream:

  

Hopefully you can tell that the skin around my cuticles looks much better, and the dry knuckles are almost gone! I really like the Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream, and will continue to use it. Now I just need to stop picking at my nails!