Recently we stayed at the Comfort Inn Beach & Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. The Comfort Inn chain has been trying to upgrade its amenities lately, and the results were noticeable.
The double beds in our room had new, pillowtop mattresses, which we liked, as well as new floral comforters and bedskirts, which we disliked. (The bedskirts [...]

In our house, we’re big on the lotion. We all have very dry skin and after a long and arduous (read: freezing) spring in New England, we’re slathering lotion on all day long. It’s like we’re living in the desert except it does nothing but rain.
But I digress. Last week the wonderful folks from Method [...]

After seeing the movie Dreamgirls, I left the theater with the firm decision that I would be purchasing false eyelashes so as to achieve Beyonce’s sexy, heavy-lashed look.
Trotting off to Sephora, I planned to buy and have installed some lovely, long lashes. However, the sales person immediately derailed my plan and said, “You don’t want [...]

Recently we took our children to that timeless, semi-tacky tourist attraction, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and our four year-old has now taken to demanding over and over again, “I want to go to Santa Cruz! I want to go to Santa Cruz!” Three out of four family members recommend the Santa Cruz Boardwalk highly [...]

I’ll admit it. I absolutely LOVE books. In fact, I’m a bit nutty about them. I’ve been reading since I was four, and it is not unusual for me to have three or four (or more!) selections going at a time. I can spend HOURS at a time in the library or my local Barnes [...]

Getting a young child to properly wash their hands is difficult, so when a friend recommended we try SquidSoap I quickly snatched up this new product. It was attractive, fun and interactive, which is everything needed to keep our son’s attention. My hope was that he’d even remember to wash his hands after using the [...]

With four kids under eight, I’m always on the lookout for good bedtime stories that hold the interest of all my kids, and I try to have a lot of them, because like all parents of preschoolers I get sick of reading the same books over and over and over again. Gossie and Gossie [...]

A few weeks ago, I posted a major prop for the Select Comfort Sleep Number bed. I have yet to decide if our previous mattress was so bad that we could have purchased a queen-sized piece of plywood and I would have given it a prop, or if in fact, the Sleep Number did quite [...]

Have you ever been leery to buy something off the internet because you’re unsure of the quality? I certainly have been and sometimes I just stick to major companies when shopping online to be on the safe side.
Since we added a new puppy to our household, I’ve been searching for a dog tag that won’t [...]

One of the more difficult aspects of new motherhood that frequently doesn’t get talked about is the social isolation that comes with spending most of your energy caring for small people who make huge demands and wait almost far too long with the rewarding smiles and coos. Yet new parents need new parent friends. It [...]

Pan? Hand it to me so I can bash the crap out of this thing.
After reading on several websites about how wonderful the Playskool Ball Popper is, “Santa” decided to buy it for my son for Christmas. Unfortunately, it’s quite possibly the worst toy we own, for a couple of reasons.
1. It has “8 [...]

I was recently offered an opportunity to sample some environmentally friendly cleaners and being the closet greenie that I am, I was more than happy to try them out.
I was sent Earth Choice Glass Control surface cleaner and Earth Choice Allergan Control for carpet and upholstery.
The first thing I noticed about the Glass Control was [...]

These days it’s difficult to find a child’s toy that isn’t made of plastic. The number one problem is that plastic isn’t durable. As rough as kids are on things, it doesn’t take long to break even the best quality toys.
HaPe International, of Switzerland, designed a game called Pandabo for children ages 4+.
Pandabo is made [...]

My hair is just frizzy enough to need to be straightened with a hair dryer and flat iron. It is just straight enough to need some serious coaxing to be curly.
The beautiful cork screw curls that I would love to have only appear on the bottom layer of my excessively thick mop. Needless to [...]

If you are hunting for an iPod but would also like to save some money, check out Tech For Less.
When I was hunting around the ‘net for my son’s birthday, I stumbled onto their site and I am happy to report I had such a wonderful experience the first time around that I just [...]