Stuff Parents Need - Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

My Intel AIO is My Sous Chef: How a Computer Makes Me Happier in the Kitchen

September 24, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

#spon: I am in a partnership with Intel. Through this partnership I gain access to content, product, or other forms of value.

Can you be BFFs with a computer? Because I seriously want to make my Intel AIO a cup of coffee and sit down and just hang out. Ok, who am I kidding? I totally hang out with my computer all the time. It doesn’t even seem to mind that I drink its cup of coffee.

Such a generous friend, it is. Always giving. Always sharing. Always lending a hand (or at least a screen). Oh all-in-one computer, how ever did we function before you came along?

If you missed my previous post about different ways we are putting this awesome new device to work, you’ll want to check out my Intel AIO review. Spoiler alert: you’ll learn how this device functions like a desktop, a laptop, a tablet and a television. Yeah, it’s just that awesome!

Lately I’ve been particularly fond of bringing the AIO into the kitchen to be my recipe finder, holder, and of course, ingredient substitute finder (Because, seriously? who actually reads through the entire recipe to make sure you have all the ingredients first? Not this amazing chef!).

Just a few days ago I used the computer to walk me through my own recipe for pear-apple butter (Because, seriously? Who memorizes recipes, even ones they create, themselves? Not this amazing chef!). While I was working through the recipe, I had my AIO cranking out some music to keep the mood festive and fun. And I even paused the music at one point to hop on Skype for a chat with a friend. I was able to keep chopping away and spend a bit of time with company, all without leaving my kitchen. It was really great!

The more I use this computer, the more I love the generous screen size, the ease of use, and the portability. Our poor iPad languishes over in the corner now because the Intel AIO is the hot ticket item for games, for videos, and for pretty much everything else.

If you love Intel products as much as we do, or if you just want to learn more about Intel, or about the revolutionary new AIO systems, click below to join in!

On Working Out and Becoming a Lightweight (#FreshStepCats)

September 22, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

I’ve been working out faithfully for two weeks now. It feels really good to be getting into a routine and to be moving more, but to be honest, I’m already getting a little bored with the videos I’m finding online. While I’ve found some good aerobic routines, I’ve learned that I really do need to incorporate strength training into my routine. But do I really want a set of weights in my house taking up space? Especially when I have other things I need to buy for my kids and my kitties? So I decided to find something that I could make use of that also had a more practical application.

Bingo!!!!

Fresh Step® Lightweight Extreme Litter, available at Target, is now offered in a 30% lighter variety. It’s down to 15.4 pounds for the box as opposed to 25 pounds.

Hmm…..Challenge accepted!

I most definitely worked out with a box of cat litter this week. No shame in my game. Workout when you can, however you can in the time and space you can scrape together with the equipment you have on hand. In my case, that means utilizing the landing on the stairs and a box of cat litter. Welcome to real life as a parent and cat owner. Your needs do NOT come first! So if you have to choose between getting yourself a free weight set and getting your cats the best cat litter, this is going to be the end result:

While I have to make some sacrifices for my cats, they are certainly worth it. And in this case, I get to keep on working out and doing good things for myself while also doing good things for them. How could I deny these precious faces, anyway?

Stay tuned for an update about how the cats are enjoying their new litter, and about how my guns are coming along. I’ll have some new crazy cat lady photos you won’t want to miss! 🙂

Snapping Family Selfies, Seeing the Beauty, and Winning Awesome Prizes

September 22, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 1 Comment

Special thanks to Global Influence for partnering with me to make this post possible. All opinions are my own, as always!

Some days my family gets on my very last nerve. I’m sure you can relate to that sentiment. And then on other days, (perhaps days when my mood is better), I step back and just marvel at them all. What tiny little wonders I have in my home, and what a stellar partner I have in my husband. Friends, I’m not trying to be braggy, but I’ve got it good. I wish I could appreciate that fact more often.

It’s a beautiful life, even if every single moment isn’t beautiful. I’ve been working on recognizing and soaking up more of those beautiful moments, and it’s been a really good move in the right direction. I’m so much happier any time I take off my grumpy glasses and just look around at all the awesome.

I bet you’ve got a lot of awesome at your house, too. Look past the clutter. It’s just under the surface. See it? Now go capture it for the world to see!

Suave Family Selfie Sweepstakes

You can even turn that captured memory of your awesome family into a winning sweepstakes entry. All you need to do is snap a selfie of your family, upload it to Instagram using the following hashtags: #SuaveFamilySelfie #LB2LB and #Walmart. Then submit your Instagram link via this form: lbx.la/sffs18. Then sit back and wait to see if you won!

When Seconds Mattered and I Wasn’t Prepared

September 19, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Special thanks to The Motherhood and Energizer for partnering with me to make this Emergency Preparedness Month post possible. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own, as always.

I grew up in a part of the country where tornado sightings weren’t uncommon at all, especially in the spring months. In fact, I’m actually from Enterprise, Alabama, which some people know of because it is the place where a tornado hit a high school in 2006, killing 8 students. It was a tragedy, and also a miracle that the number of students killed was so low. After all, classes were in session. My own little sister was in the building that day, in fact.

So understandably, in many ways I am prepared when it comes to emergency weather situations. I take tornado warnings VERY seriously, and stay up-to-date on the latest weather conditions thanks to apps. I know the safest place in my home to go, and I have taught my children where that place is so that they know to go.

But I am embarrassed to admit that until this year, I wasn’t as prepared as I should be. I used to have an emergency supply kit, but I let it sort of fall apart over the years, as food in it expired and was tossed out, or as we moved and found ourselves needing some of the supplies for other purposes. We never rebuilt that kit, and frankly, I never really thought about it until April of this year, when my weather alert app went off during the night while I was home alone with our kids (Tim was 2 hours away in Atlanta at a conference).

When that alarm went off, I was completely startled. It wasn’t a tornado watch. It was a warning. Warnings mean that you need to take cover IMMEDIATELY. I woke up both girls, only half-awake myself and completely running on adrenaline. I carried them down the stairs and into our downstairs bathroom, which is a room with no windows. I put them in the tub, and then I raced to the nearest room with pillows and brought those in, as well. At that moment, I realized that I didn’t know where the flash light or the weather radio was located, and since we were in a tornado warning, I knew better than to separate myself from the girls. Seconds matter in times like these, really and truly.

It was dark outside, so there was no way to see if a funnel cloud was nearby. All I could do was hold my girls and pray. It was an incredibly scary moment in my life because when it comes to tornadoes, they are so random and so horrible, and I felt completely out of control and unable to shield my girls from what might have been headed our way.

We sat there for 45 minutes before the warning was lifted. I managed to get the girls back to sleep, but as for me, as I was completely restless. I would wake up every 30 minutes or so and frantically check the weather. I also wrote notes down about the things I needed to have with me in that room that simply weren’t there. It was foolish of me to ever assume that I could just gather those things when I needed them. You don’t have time to do that in an emergency, and you certainly don’t want to get separated from your family all for the sake of trying to find a flashlight.

September is National Preparedness Month, and that makes it a great time to take just a few minutes out of your day and get your family prepared for an emergency situation. Believe me when I say that you will thank yourself if and when the time comes that you need to reach for your kit. According to a recent Energizer survey, only 38% of Americans have emergency kits for severe weather in their homes. Let’s do something to change this statistic!

One important item that many households don’t have on hand is a hands-free light device, such as a lantern or a head lamp. We have a head lamp, but on the night in question, I discovered that it had dead batteries. Needless to say, that wasn’t very helpful!

Does your family have a plan and an emergency kit? Do you keep it in the safest room of your home, where your family is likely to gather during severe weather? Here’s a helpful site that shows you how to choose a survival kit – https://www.globosurfer.com/best-survival-kits/. Check it out!

What to Do with Leftover Essential Oils Bottles

September 18, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 47 Comments

A good friend of mine recently shared this fun tip with me for what to do with your leftover essential oils bottles. I thought the idea was pure genius, because it ensured that you will get every last drippity drop out of your bottles. Quality essential oils are not exactly cheap, so I’m all for any hack that will help me make sure no drop gets wasted!

Here’s a 1 minute video showing you exactly what I’ve done with all my empty 5 ml bottles.

Very simple, right? All you need to do is grab a large glass container (glass is important because essential oils will eat plastic!). Fill it with Epsom salts (I found mine at Walgreens but Amazon has them competitively priced if you don’t want to go to the store).

To get the bottles fully open, including the stopper on the inside, you need to check out the essential oil bottle opener that has come out. It is inexpensive and AMAZING!!! It saves your nails and saves you some time when you are trying to take apart your bottles. HIGHLY recommend!

Since the end result is still going to be bath salts that only have trace amounts of essential oils, I don’t think it too much matters which oil bottles you add. I added every single empty bottle I currently own, and I plan to keep adding to it as I empty more bottles!

Let me know if you try this essential oils hack out and what you think!

Our FastPass Disney World Strategy

September 17, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 4 Comments

Well friends, we’ve booked our FastPasses for our upcoming trip to Walt Disney World.

Let me clarify: Tim booked our FastPasses for Walt Disney World. It turns out that the whole affair turned my stomach into knots and brought out the worst in me. You guys, I got completely overwhelmed the more I read online about tips and tricks and strategies to get the whole FastPass experience just right. I’m not too big on perfectionism at this season of my life, but my goodness did I want to get this perfect. So much so that I lost sleep over it. And that’s when I turned it over to Tim and begged him to do it for me so that I could let it go, Elsa-style!

And speaking of Elsa, we did have to let her go, or at least the idea of getting to do a meet and greet with her. I’ll explain exactly what our strategy was so that you can think about what you might like to do differently.

photo credit: insidethemagic via photopin cc

Tip #1: Every Family Has Different Needs

Let me save you some time researching: there is no such thing as the ideal FastPass plan, and that’s because every family is going to have different wants and needs. We are traveling with a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, so the fact that Space Mountain is one of the very most popular FastPass choices at the Magic Kingdom is irrelevant to us. We are not likely to ride it at all on this particular trip, so why kill ourselves trying to get FastPasses for it? Another family might be traveling with teenagers who want to ride Space Mountain as many times as possible. So it just depends on what you want! So what if your top 3 ride choices aren’t the top 3 most popular FastPasses? Get exactly what you want…not what someone else wants!

Tip #2: The Early Bird Catches the Ana and Elsa

So we are traveling to the parks at a low crowd time of year, and we are doing so quite intentionally to minimize our wait times all-around. But we still want to take advantage of those FastPass opportunities: why wait in line for 20 minutes when you can wait in line for 2 minutes, right? But if you are going during a low-crowd time, and if you REALLY want to do something that you KNOW is super duper popular (currently the very most sought after FastPass is the Elsa & Ana meet and greet), then you really DO need to be at your computer at midnight EST on the day you are allowed to book your FastPasses. Tim booked ours the morning we were allowed to book them…so, around 6:30am, and Elsa & Ana were already gone, as was priority seating at the parade. The reason these can be gone so quickly is because families who are staying on property get to book 3 FastPasses per day in advance, and they get to book those passes for their whole trip 60 days prior to the first day of the trip. So in other words, at any given point, there are always going to be vacationers there whose trips started 1, 2 or maybe 3 days before yours who have already picked out FastPasses. Make sense? So while you DON’T need to be up at midnight for most things (again, I’m only talking about lower crowd times of year, as that is my point of reference), you DO need to do it if you are going to have an absolutely heartbroken child over a particular ride or character greeting.

Tip #3: The Early Park Goer Doesn’t Need Early FastPasses

My kids are EARLY risers, so we plan on being waiting at the gates of the parks as soon as they open, and we’ll be there an hour earlier on magic hour days! One tip I’ve read again and again (to the point where I trust it to be true!) is that the park is significantly less crowded in the first few hours that it is open than it is during the rest of the day and evening. So if you can get your crew to be up and ready to go early, you really can knock out several rides in your first two or three hours in the park without having to use one of your FastPasses. Book your first FastPass for around 11am so that you can take advantage of short lines once they are no longer short for everyone!

The reason you don’t want to just go ahead and book early morning fast passes is because you only get to book 3 in advance. Once you have used up those 3 fast passes, you can book additional ones while you are in the park, However, FastPass stations aren’t super plentiful, and you don’t really want to find yourself running around like crazy looking for them and chasing down FastPasses all day…kind of takes away some of the magic and fun, in my opinion! That’s not to say that you should ONLY use 3 FastPasses per park day, but in my opinion, it’s not fun to break your neck trying to secure 6 of 7. Enjoy those low crowd mornings, then make use of your FastPasses when the crowds swell, and then, if you want, get an extra FastPass or two.

Tip #4: Use Your Disney Travel Agent!!!!

My first Disney World vacation tips post included all the reasons why I’m so glad we worked with a Disney travel agent. Definitely go back and give it a read, because I’m NOT the type of person who uses travel agents, in general, and if you aren’t either, then you’ll appreciate hearing about what they can offer you, and about the fact that they are really and truly FREE.

The fun is NOT over with your Disney travel agent once you have booked your tickets and your hotel rooms, friends! S/he is available to help you along every step of the process, including developing a FastPass strategy! My agent sent me a list of all of the FastPass attractions at each park, as well as her personal recommendations for ones to consider going for based on their popularity. That was such a helpful start!

Additionally, my agent offered to book the FastPasses for us if we simply didn’t want to deal with it at all (I was sorely tempted to do this!). And she offered to look over our selections and make recommendations for changes, if needed, once booked. We DID take her up on this offer, and I’m so glad we did! She did suggest a few switches for us, and also put our mind at ease about the fact that we missed out on the priority parade seating. Because of the time of year when we are going, she said that we will not have any problem finding a great viewing spot as long as we are in the viewing area 15 minutes before the start time. She would have suggested switching out the FastPass for the priority seating if we had been able to snag it! We also had one show at Hollywood Studios on our FastPass that she said likely wouldn’t even fill up at this time of year, so we switched that out for a ride. Now we feel absolutely GREAT about our selections!

I’d love to hear from folks who have already had the experience of booking FastPasses in advance. What other tips do you have for a smooth process that doesn’t cause you to lose (much) sleep! Since I haven’t yet put my FastPasses to work, I’m only sharing advice here on the front end. Those of you who have already gone might have some ideas about things you would do differently the next time. I’m all (mouse) ears!

And if you are in the same boat as me, and currently in the planning stages of a trip to Disney World (or just dreaming of the day when you can start your planning!) take a look at our Walt Disney World vacation budget breakdown and our Disney World vacation tips for when you are just getting started.

If You Haven’t Tried FabKids, You Need To!

September 14, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Thanks to FabKids for sending along the shirt and pants outfit for review. We purchased the dress on our own. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Referral links included.

Lots of people were excited to read my first post about FabKids (if you missed it, you can find the FabKids review here). FabKids is an affordable fashion site for boys and girls in sizes 2t-12, and joining their VIP club is, without hesitation, THE way to go.

How It Works

At the start of the month, you will get your own boutique to shop in, styled based on your child’s preferences (though the entire collection is available to you if you want to browse outside of their recommendations). You can select 1 outfit (shirt and pants, top and skirt, dress and leggings, for example) for $29.95.

You have until the 5th of the month to either make your selection or to simply pass for the month. Passing is hassle-free. You don’t have to call in or anything; just click a button and you will not be charged for an outfit.

If, however, you forget to deal with it between the 1st and the 5th (and they DO send you emails to remind you!), then you will be charged and since you didn’t pick out an outfit, you will have a credit on your account for an outfit to buy in the future. No biggie.

fabkids september outfit 3

The Deals are AWESOME

This is the really incredible thing about the site, though: while $30 is already a reasonable price for brand new, in-season clothing, they also have SWEET deals. See the dress pictured above? I bought it for $7.50 (shipped!). A friend of mine snagged an outfit for her daughter for $4.98. They have B1G1 sales frequently, and they have shoes on sale quite a bit, too. The deals are SO awesome!

If you are new to the site, then you can go through my link to get your very first outfit for just $15, and that includes shipping!

They have such a fun variety of pieces. For our September pick, we decided to go a little wild, and went for this sparkle kitty top (the star over the eye reminds me of Jem and the Holograms!) and these wild pink heart pants. Darah adores them both, and I am pleased with how well they are holding up to wear from an active 5-year-old. Also? It’s fun to have something a little different from everyone else! 🙂

I think you’ll be really impressed with the great selection at FabKids, as well as the really awesome sales. Get yourself signed up and get ready to fall in love with hassle-free, awesome clothes for kids!

How to Get Rid of Bathroom Odors (Not That You Caused Them, or Anything…)

September 13, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 12 Comments

As always, I am sharing my own personal experience here and not attempting to diagnose or prescribe treatment for any conditions. Affiliate links may be included; I only promote what rocks my world!

Friends, I’m writing this post out of empathy and solidarity: I bet your bathroom, at least on occasion, just kind of stinks. Now I’m SURE that you did not contribute in ANY way to this unfortunate odor. Goodness knows I didn’t! A faint scent of roses follows me wherever I go, and I’m sure the same is true for you! 😉

But not everyone in my family is blessed with this gift. And so, every now and again our restroom area smells less-than-awesome. Our downstairs restroom is actually the worst, and that is because it is also the home of the litter box. We have two cats, and until a few weeks ago, they were using separate litter boxes. We have now got them both using the same litter box, but what that also means is that we have consolidated the smell factor. It takes pretty much no time at all for the room to smell bad. I knew I needed to put an immediate stop to it, because it was grossing me out, and making me feel genuinely sorry for anyone who tried to use that room. I’m not really down with people feeling grossed out in my house.

So here’s what I did to combat the odors constantly without my having to constantly clean or spray down surfaces. It takes 1 second and it lasts as long as a roll of toilet paper!

Purification is an essential oil blend from Young Living that contains lemongrass, rosemary, melaleuca, myrtle, citronella and lavandin. It absolutely excels at neutralizing odors. I’m actually already in the habit of running it once a week in my diffuser just to give the house a bit of a clean slate feel.

But now I’ve figured out how to keep smells at bay in the smelliest part of our home daily! All you need to do is put 1 drop of purification on the inside of your toilet paper roll (have you tried Marcal brand, yet? Good stuff!).

The purification is going to get right to work for you, and you should plan to add a new drop every time you get a new roll of toilet paper out (unless you go through 1 roll a month, or something, in which case you have some unique bathroom habits!).

Now, if you have a compounded problem like we do with our cat litter boxes being in this area, then you might want to also put 1 drop of purification on a cotton ball (go organic, friends! Every step counts!), and stick it in an air vent, or place it high up on a shelf where your pets or children won’t discover it.

Now breathe easy, friends!

Why Young Living?

I started my essential oils journey as a total skeptic, but after digging in, doing the research, and really using the oils, I’ve fallen in love with Young Living. Check out my story on how I got started, as well as all the other articles I have written as I have discovered more and more ways to make great use of essential oils.

If you are looking for a way to integrate natural products into your life, you will absolutely be thrilled with Young Living. I’d love to hear more about your journey and your questions, so feel free to reach out to me at stuffparentsneed@gmail.com and let me know how I can help. I was confused, at best, about essential oils, just 7 months ago, and now I can’t stop talking about them!

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The Bug That Can Blow Your House In: Are You Protected from Termites?

September 11, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Special thanks to Arrow Exterminators for partnering with me to make this post possible. All thoughts, opinions, and formerly live termite colonies are my own.

Here’s a fun statistic for all the homeowners out there: termites cause over $5 billion in structural damage every year. This is more than the damage caused by fires and storms combined. Oh, and another fun fact: most termite damage is not covered by homeowner’s insurance.

That’s awesome! And by awesome, I mean TERRIBLE!!!!!

Let me tell you, friends, when we first became homeowners, we made MANY mistakes (for example: becoming homeowners…but I digress…). But one thing we did right from the start was to get an annual termite contract. It is a bill that I honestly don’t mind paying every year because I know my biggest investment (also my worst investment, but again, I digress..) is truly protected from termites. If termites somehow make their way to my home and cause damage, my termite company is liable because of our contract. That’s a huge chunk of relief for me!

When we moved into our home in Chattanooga, we reached out to Arrow almost immediately to get a free inspection and a quote for termite services. We were also waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency to totally re-do our yard, as our neighborhood had been declared a superfund site due to unsafe levels of lead in the ground (Yay, urban living!). Can I just tell you how impressed I was with the Arrow Exterminators representative once I shared that information with him? He actually advised me to NOT get a termite contract started just yet, because the ground being treated was about to go away, and fresh, clean, bug-free dirt would be coming in. This man could have made a sale on the spot, but he demonstrated that he was looking out for the customer’s best interest.

I knew it would be Arrow I would work with again when the time was right.

Ok, so fast forward a year and change. We had a beautiful new lawn, and frankly, termites fell off my radar. It was actually thanks to my annual bill coming in for my termite contract on our house in Memphis that my memory was triggered. But our grass and dirt was still only a year old, so I was pretty sure no problems would be found.

Probably nobody is going to be surprised to hear that when we received our free inspection from Arrow, a live colony WAS found. It had really just gotten started and hadn’t yet reached the wood, so no damage was done…YET.

Oh, and just because I thought this was cool…I was shown pictures from under my house (pictures that I could identify as really and truly being under my house) to show me exactly what was discovered. So this wasn’t a situation where I had to just blindly believe that there was an issue. I really liked that about the inspection process. I saw those termites with my own two eyes!

This time around, we opted to get a different type of termite service than the one we originally planned on doing. We decided to have Sentricon stations placed around the perimeter of our home. And just to give you a glimpse at how effective this method is, here’s a fact: The White House is protected by Sentricon stations. BAM!

So here’s what happens when you get this system: a professional from Arrow will come out and drill very small holes in your property (and they will connect with power and gas companies beforehand to ensure safe drilling, FYI). The holes don’t go down very far, but better safe than sorry! The stations will be about 3 feet from your exterior walls, all around your house.

Because our soil was soft, and because our house is small, the drilling and the inserting of each station into the ground took about 15 minutes. That’s it!

I was then told that while the stations are designed to be flush with the ground, should they ever get in any way dislodged, to just contact Arrow, and they would come out and get it placed back in the ground correctly, with no charge. I was glad to hear of this service, and I was also very nervous, thinking, “Oh great! These things are probably going to pop out of the ground every time we mow the grass!”

So, I made the decision to wait a good long while before doing this write up, just to see if my suspicion was correct. It’s been a month since we’ve had these placed, and we haven’t had even the slightest issue. We’ve had our kids walk and run over them, and we’ve mowed over them, and we’ve had pouring rain and scorching heat and all that jazz. They are staying put just fine!

Ok, so how do these stations work, and are they safe around pets and children? The stations have a bait technology inside of them that helps keep your home protected any time, and all the time. It smells and tastes AMAZING to termites, and termites, incidentally, are the only critters that are drawn to it. I thought that was a pretty cool feature. They get inside the station and begin feeding on the bait. The workers carry it back to the colony to be shared with others. And it doesn’t kill them immediately, but it does cause them to be unable to shed their skin. They must shed their skin to grow. And that, my friends, is how they die.

Another feature of your service is that Arrow reps will come out once a year to check the traps and note signs of activity, and once a year for a full inspection. They will be able to let you know if you have headed off a potential termite infestation, and they will refill the traps. They will also check annually for any signs of live termite colonies, though in their experience, the instances of finding live termite colonies in homes with Sentricon systems are almost non-existent. Hooray!!!!

The Sentricon System gets very high marks from the EPA. I’m not really interested in re-polluting the soil that just got cleaned up! I’m also glad to know that the chemicals around my house are toxic, but only if you are termite. There are no concerns for me, my family members, or our pets.

Finally, I just have to say again how very impressed I am with Arrow’s top-notch customer service. I have yet to interact with a professional there who wasn’t highly skilled, highly knowledgeable, and genuinely excited about his work. That says a great deal to me about this company, and it is a chief reason why I will remain one of their customers.

So, if you don’t have a termite contract on your home, or if you are less-than-thrilled with the company you currently have working for you, give Arrow a call. Inspections and evaluations are totally free, and the products they offer are worth every penny! 1-888-462-7769.