Greening the Cleaning® Review and Giveaway!

    Exposure to toxic chemicals is a concern that all parents have when it comes to choosing cleaning products to use around their home and to expose their family members to.  We definitely share those concerns in our home and pay very close attention to the chemicals found in the household cleaning products that we use around the house.     Women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than those women who work away from home.  Studies show that toxic chemicals found in common household products are to blame for these statistics.  GTC® products are derived from renewable natural resources like plants and fruits so they are safe to use in your home and around your family.     For the purposes of this review, we had the opportunity to try out the GTC® Hand Dish Liquid, Laundry Liquid, All Purpose Cleaner, Glass Cleaner, and Cream Cleanser.  The first thing I did when I opened the box of products is to take all their caps off to smell the different cleaners.  It was … [Read more...]

CESAR® Cookie Crunchies Treats For Dogs

    We have a one year old half Labrador, half American Pit Bull Terrier named Onyx.  He is very much loved in our household and has really become another member of the family.  The only problem is that he doesn't always behave the way that he should and we have been working with him to follow simple commands using positive reinforcement.     When he complies with or obeys a command, we give him a dog treat.  Onyx, however, does not just eat any treat and has an extremely picky palate.  As a result, we were very hopeful and excited about trying new CESAR® Cookie Crunchies treats for dogs.     These baked treats come in two flavors including Rotisserie Chicken Flavor and Filet Mignon Flavor.  Each bag comes with 130 pieces and, at just 10 calories per piece, you can give your dog more treats per day without having to worry about excessive calories.  We loved the small, bite-sized shapes of the treats which are hearts, paw prints, and bones.     Since we love Onyx so much and … [Read more...]

Are You Prepared For Hurricane Irene?

        As I'm sure many of you already know, Hurricane Irene is scheduled to wreak havoc throughout the Eastern Seaboard all the way from North Carolina to New England this weekend.  Since we live in New York City, it definitely looks like we will not be dodging this bullet.  Even as I am writing this post, I am going over in my mind all of the preparations that we need to make before this storm hits our area as expected on Sunday Morning.      If you reside in an inner city like I do, you are probably as puzzled about emergency preparation as we are.  The only difference is that New Yorkers have been hit with a couple of emergency doozies in the past couple of decades so we don't take emergencies lightly.  Despite this level of awareness, I am ashamed to say that I really do not have much of an emergency plan in place should a real catastrophe occur.     In an attempt to make myself feel better and to get a better idea regarding what emergency supplies we need to prepare, I … [Read more...]

Neighbors Gone Wild

        Recently we had an altercation with our next door neighbor over the fact that he continues to let his dog defecate in front of my house and does not pick up after her.  His family just moved into the neighborhood a couple of months ago and we have suspected for awhile that he was the culprit that was leaving behind little surprises for us on our front sidewalk.  Obviously we couldn't accuse him without first having some kind of proof so we embarked on a full scale detective investigation to see exactly what was going on.     Let me preface by saying that I had a bad feeling that this particular neighbor was going to be a problem when I realized that he was a crazy nut with no boundaries.  You might think that this is a harsh way to categorize him but I bet you will change your mind when I describe to you some of the things that he has already done since he moved in...     The first thing he did was to jump into another neighbor's car while he was warming it up and … [Read more...]

Puppy 101

        Two weeks ago, I attended a puppy training class at the animal shelter where I adopted our puppy, Onyx.  We were actually obligated to attend the class because the shelter supervisor did not think that we had enough experience with puppies and made attending the class a condition of our adoption.  I have to admit that I wasn't that thrilled to have to spend my Sunday attending what I had originally predicted to be a complete waste of my time.  It turns out that I couldn't have been more wrong.     The first thing that surprised me was the amount of people who were there to take the class.  The trainer even ran out of seats at one point and had to ask some people to stand for the remainder of the class.  It also impressed me that the trainer had almost four years experience training dogs of all breeds and sizes.  She even shared with us that she has three dogs of her own and that she used many of the training techniques that she was sharing with us to train her … [Read more...]