reviews

Our Family Sick Day: And Death to Evil Germs

May 10, 2013 By Nony 6 Comments

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Facebook, you know it’s been a crazy week.

Crazy as in . . . icky.

Icky as in . . . we all had a vicious stomach virus.

My daughter started throwing up on Sunday morning, and threw up 9 times. Nine. No, this wasn’t an I-don’t-feel-so-well thing. It was an is-there-something-evil-living-inside-me-that’s-determined-to-get-out? thing.

I kept the boys out of that bathroom, did some basic disinfecting, and lectured everyone on not drinking after one another or licking shoes or such.

(You’d think they’re too old for the shoe-licking lecture, but I always try to cover my bases.)

Monday happened, and she felt better. She hadn’t passed the 24-hours-puke-free mark, though, so she stayed home from school.

Monday evening, Hubby came home from work “not feeling so good” and barely made it through the first half of our first baseball game of the night. He arranged for friends to bring our Suburban back for me and rushed home. (NObody wants to puke in those baseball field potties!)

We got home at 9:30 and kid #2 went down. At midnight, it was my turn and at 2 a.m. my 11yo joined the chorus.

It was a horrible night.

So Tuesday was a Family Sick Day as we all acted like zombies. I could barely move.

Tuesday night, I began ritualistic doorknob/lightswitch/ice-and-water-in-the-fridge-door disinfecting.

The kids’ bathroom was the worst. I tried to get every splash-and-splatter, but it was bad. Somehow, in a sleepy stupor, one of the kids had rationalized it was fine to aim for the floor just to the side of the toilet instead of the toilet itself. Obviously, that had to be cleaned up immediately (by an about-to-be-sick-herself mama).

But today, I hauled out the mop bucket and thoroughly re-cleaned that bathroom floor and wall. (Yes. I mop walls sometimes.)

It JUST SO happened that a few weeks ago, Clorox® sent me a coupon and information and agreed to pay me for my time to do a review of their new Concentrated Clorox® Regular-Bleach anyway.

That’s good timing. Not the kind of good timing you ever want to see happen again, but good timing nonetheless.

Basically, the new concentrated stuff is exactly what I’ve always used when I enter into a War on Germs, but in a smaller bottle and you use less of it to do the same jobs. The directions on the bottle make it clear about the new recommended amounts, which is good since I’m a creature of habit. (Not always good habits . . . ) According to Clorox, it’s also easier to use in HE (high-efficiency) washing machines and improves whitening of clothes.

Since the concentrated Clorox® calls for 1/2 cup per gallon, I found a measuring cup I don’t often use (since I have two more I like better . . . ), labeled it “Bleach Only” and attached it to the handle of the bottle.

Now, I’m feeling better about our germ situation. Not completely un-paranoid (since I’m sure I missed something), but better.

And my favorite thing about the new Concentrated Clorox® Regular-Bleach? The bottle is smaller, so it fits PERFECTLY on my skinny-rolling-shelf in my laundry room!

Disclosure: I received a coupon for Concentrated Clorox® Regular-Bleach and information from Clorox, and payment for my time spent reviewing the product. All germ issues, pukey bathrooms, experiences and opinions are all mine.

Filed Under: germaphobia, reviews | 6 Comments

Can Bounty DuraTowel Paper Towels Hold Up for a Tough Job?

March 21, 2013 By Nony 9 Comments

I’m so excited to serve as a spokesperson for the new Bounty DuraTowel paper towels!

The basic premise behind these new paper towels is that they’re durable enough and strong enough to be used in place of a dishcloth.

Because “even after just one day’s use, dishcloths can harbor and redeposit millions of germs.”

Nobody had to convince me of that.

Do you remember those science videos you watched in high school? The ones where someone sneezes and fluorescent green germs come flying out of his or her nose?

Then, those fluorescent green germs land on a counter, attaches to the hand of someone who touches the counter, transfers from that hand to the hand of someone else, goes from the hand to a sandwich to the unsuspecting person’s mouth . . . and the unsuspecting person who doesn’t know he/she just ate an invisible, fluorescent-green-germ . . . ends up dying.

Actually, I don’t know that they actually died in the science video, but in my carry-it-out-all-the-way imagination, they totally died.

Just so you know, I live in one of those videos. I’m painfully aware of the travel-path of germs. (Science class ruined me.)

Back to germy dishcloths.

In our house, this is a constant ~~argument~~ discussion. I will only use a dishcloth one time, and then it goes to the washing machine. Since I do a once-a-week Laundry Day, by Wednesday we’re running a little low on clean one-time-use dishcloths.

So I was happy with the idea of a paper towel that could do the work of a dishcloth.

My first impression was that the Bounty Duratowel is thick. It also has texture to it, and when it gets wet, it feels quite cloth-like.

I really like the size. It’s 3/4 of the size of a typical paper towel (that’s me, a former theatre teacher, guessing on the size), and I felt like it was the perfect size to get a job done but not seems to me to be just the right size.

But can it really work as well as a dishcloth? I put it to the test.

See that purple stain on my counter? (Have you ever tried getting a “good” picture of a purple stain? No? Oh.)

I’m not sure exactly how it got there, but I assume it was that same-old-story around here of something being left on the counter too long, perhaps with wetness involved. These stains are no fun, and I’ve only ever been able to get them up with heavy-duty abrasive cleansers.

The kind of cleansers I usually wouldn’t try with a paper towel.

But I did.

It worked! The stain was gone, I only used one sheet of paper towel, and the Bounty DuraTowel held up great for this job! No icky cleanser seeped through to my hands and the towel held together!

Full disclosure here: I’m a brand ambassador/spokesperson/whatever-you-want-to-call-it for Bounty Duratowel. I was provided with paper towels to try out and am being compensated. BUT, let me assure you that the neurotic how-can-a-germaphobe-be-a-slob issues, the stained counter top, the opinions and experiences . . . they’re all mine.

Filed Under: Cleaning, reviews, sponsored posts | 9 Comments

Review of the Remote Key Finder by Click ‘N Dig

February 15, 2013 By Nony 8 Comments

Back in December, after a longer-than-usual-and-totally-unsuccessful search for my car keys . . . I declared to the world that the only thing I really wanted for Christmas was a remote key finder that several of you mentioned in the comments.

I was tickled to death that Click ‘N Dig, the makers of the wireless key finders that looked the best, agreed to send me a set to review.

They sent them back in December, and I had every intention of reviewing them sooner than now.

But I didn’t. I found myself thinking, “But I haven’t had any dramatic key-losing events since I got them, so what would I write about?”

Ummmm . . . . duh.

I’m pretty sure that’s actually the point.

And it’s not like I haven’t used my key finder. I have.

A lot.

While I have a handy-dandy key hook hanging by the back door, there’s only a 50/50 chance that the keys I need will be hanging from it when I need them. But the thing that is ALWAYS there is the six-button remote. I push the red button (because the red key chain is attached to my main set of keys) and start wandering the house listening for a little beeping sound.

And every single time I do this, I find my keys within a minute.

I’ll be honest. Part of me wishes the beeps were as loud as a truck backing up, but the rest of me acknowledges that the high-pitched, five-in-a-row, need-to-listen-carefully-but-you-can-totally-hear-it beep is probably better.

It’s called “Click ‘N Dig” . . . which means you click the button, hear the beep and then start digging around where you heard it. Make sense?

I do have two negative things to mention, though they’re not big for me.

Sometimes we have to push the button a few times before the keyring beeps. Even when the keyring is right where I’m standing. Like, RIGHT where I’m standing.

It has never NOT eventually beeped for me, though, so I’ve not shed even one teensy-tinesy tear over lost keys in two whole months.

The other negative is that my keyring occasionally beeps at random while I’m out and about. It hasn’t done this at any inappropriate times, but seems to do it a LOT when I go to my husband’s office. Like, the minute I drive into the parking lot.

And one day this week, we switched cars and he said my keyring beeped a lot that day in his office. Again, the beep isn’t crazy-loud, but it is kind of annoying.

BUT, he has the blue keyring on his keys and that one doesn’t beep at all at his office. Obviously, there’s a frequency thing going on in that location. Since different colored buttons make the different finders beep, you could switch out for another color in your set if that was an issue.

So are they worth the money? I believe they are.

I have the set with three thin finders (that can be attached to remotes or phones or stuck in your purse) and three keyrings. There are cheaper sets with fewer keyrings/finders. We are using all three keyrings that came in my set, and one of the thin finders is in my purse.

I really, really like them.

They really, really do make my life easier. Once a day (sometimes more), I hit the red button and walk through the house listening for the beep to locate my keys.

If someone only used the remote key-finder for a rare, once-a-year Lost Keys Drama, the negatives such as the occasional beeping might be a big annoyance.

However, as someone who randomly puts keys down in not-at-all-logical places with no cognitive awareness whatsoever . . . the remote key finder is like a dream come true.

A dream that occasionally gets on your nerves, but that you’d never want to live without again.

Oh, and the package includes an extra set of batteries!

Click ‘N Dig provided me with the F6 model to facilitate this review. I was not paid for this review, and the opinions, experiences (and intense scatter-brainedness) are completely my own.