Wrinkle Releaser Swap

Wrinkly laundry plagues our house.

I have no problem throwing clothes in the washer. There is no issue with putting clothes into the dryer. But once the clothes are removed from the dryer, that's where our problems begin. I hate folding and putting away laundry. I haaaaaate it with a passion. And the rest of the members of this household have no love for the task either. I'm not a dummy, I know we could just take the laundry out of the dryer immediately after it finishes it's cycle, hang everything up and avoid the majority of wrinkles, but then how would we ever keep up with all the tv shows we have stockpiled on Tivo? You have to have priorities.

Around our house, Downy Wrinkle Releaser is like liquid gold, and for as much as we use it, $6.99 per bottle makes is seem just as costly.  A couple years ago, my mom told me about Dollar General's store brand version, DG Home Wrinkle Releaser, and it only costs $1.75 per bottle. The Dollar General version works just as well as Downy's for less than half the cost. And it's easier to find. I don't know how many times I would go scouring the shelves of Walmart or Target looking for Downy Wrinkle Releaser only to find out that it was sold out. Do you know the kind of stress that can put on a person who knows they have 3 baskets of clean, but oh so wrinkled, laundry at home?

If you have never used a spray wrinkle releaser before, you are missing out. It is so convenient for most clothes.  All I do is spray the item of clothing liberally, stretch the fabric by tugging on the sides and then the top and bottom, then smooth out the fabric and let it hang dry (or pop it in the dryer for a few minutes if you are short on time). We even use it as mist while ironing dress shirts and pants. It takes out the worst wrinkles and leaves clothes smelling like they just came out of the dryer.  

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of your own hair?

I love trying new products, especially hair products, and fortunately for a lot of companies, I am also gullible when it comes to shiny packaging and over promising on results.

This is pretty much my thought process every time I walk down a haircare aisle: "What? This new shampoo/conditioner/mousse/etc. can make my hair look like a cascading waterfall of smoothness? Even in the middle of a Houston summer!?! Of course I believe that can happen! Why would I ever have reason to doubt that claim?"

Oh, one might think that the abandoned graveyard of 3/4 full bottles of various hair products taking residence up under my bathroom sink might make me think twice before I buy before researching again, but you'd be wrong. So very, very wrong.

Luckily, in my apparently never-ending quest for perfect (to me) hair, I have managed to stumble upon a few products that I have really liked. As in, I've-finishd-the-bottles-and-returned-for-more liked.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Highlights in a bottle.

John Frieda's Sheer Blonde Go Blonder Lightening Shampoo


This is my absolute favorite shampoo. I have never ending highlights because of this shampoo.

I started using this after I had finally grown out all the poor hair that I mangled by over-dyeing it. Repeatedly. It had been a 2 year process to get my hair back to looking healthy, and breaking myself of habitually dyeing it. And of course I started to get the itch to change my hair again. If you've never felt this particular itch, consider yourself lucky. This is the itch that leads you to believe that giving yourself bangs (without professional intervention) is a good idea, or that because you saw another woman with a short haircut, you could totally pull it off too regardless of past experiences with short hair, or that going from blonde to redhead to brunette (in a two week period) won't make your hair feel like hay and break off when brushed.

I had used John Frieda's Sheet Blonde Highlight Activating shampoo when I was blonde and had blonder highlights. I had used it to keep my highlights from getting brassy, and it had worked. So when I saw this, the wheels in my head started turning. This shampoo claimed to lighten hair, and in teeny letters on the bottle, it had the word that sold me -- "gradually." Gradually meant that I wouldn't end up with orange hair after one shampoo. And that is a good thing. This product is meant for all forms of blonde hair. I do not have blonde hair. So by using this, I WAS taking a risk, but as crazy as all my other hair risks had been, for me, this was pretty mild. I ended up using it as my every day shampoo for almost 5 months. It did happen gradually, but over time I noticed that I was starting to end up with highlights. I had expected all of my hair to become lightened, but this was a way better outcome. It has been about 2 years since I started using this, and I now only use this shampoo a few times a week, and I've had permanent highlights, without getting roots, pretty much the entire time. I wish the lighting was better in this picture, but this is my hair today. The highlights are there, but they are subtle and never need touching up beyond using this shampoo. Now I'm pretty sure I'd end up with some roots if I ever just stop using this product cold-turkey, but my hair still seems pretty healthy to me, so as long as it is still being produced, I'll probably continue to use it.

WHERE I BUY IT: Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens (I think pretty much anywhere)
HOW MUCH: Usually around $4.99 per bottle (I try to keep an eye out for John Frieda coupons
though because that is getting pricey to me. Yeah, I'm cheap.)

Time between haircut extender. Oh yeah.

Nexxus Split End Leave In Creme


I do not like getting my hair cut. It all goes back to a haircut trauma when I was in third grade that I will not go into, but that has obviously messed me up permanently. So when my sister raved to me about how awesome this stuff is, I became very excited. If it had the same effect on my hair as it did on hers, I was going to buy boatloads of this stuff. Well, until I saw the price. Did I mention I'm cheap? Nexxus Split End Leave In Creme costs about $10 a bottle at Walgreens. I have not price compared anywhere else because I've only bought it twice, and haven't really had a need to seek it out at other stores. You don't have to use much to see results, so I feel like I can justify the cost. My hair is fairly long, and I just use one or two pumps. You really only need it on the ends of your hair. Also, I only really feel the need to use it when I've gone past the date where I'm starting to notice that I could really use a trim. I am at that point now. I got my last hair cut in November. It's now February. I know, I know, I need to just suck it up and make the appointment. But I'm getting married in December. What if I get an insane beautician bent on revenge for some, unbeknownst to me, slight someone has lodged against her and I happen to be her next client? Don't you see just how scary this all is!?! Do you know how long it takes for hair catastrophes to grow out? I could end up with a lady mullet in my wedding pictures!

Forgive me, I've veered off course. I was trying to explain that this Nexxus split end mender does what it's supposed to. It binds the split ends to make them appear as if they don't exist! Really! The first time I used it, it made my hair look like I had just gotten it trimmed. Just like my sister had told me it would. This stuff really is awesome. Check out the ends of my hair.

This picture was incredibly hard for me to take.
I just want credit for trying.

WHERE I BUY IT: Walgreens (I just haven't looked anywhere else really)
HOW MUCH: About $10 (but worth it!)

Suave Smoothing Lower Sulfate Conditioner from the Suave Professionals Keratin Infusion line

Lately I have been using Dove brand conditioners because they smell really good, come in big bottles at Sam's Club, and have caused me no angst. All things to look for in a good conditioner.

Well one thing that did end up sucking about those big bottles is that once you reach a certain point of use, the pump no longer pumps the conditioner out (why would you make the pump too short for the bottle Dove? Why!?!) and you have to unscrew the pump cap turn the, once adored, mega bottle over and try and force the conditioner out . . . every time you are in the shower. That is too much hassle when I'm already annoyed by the fact that I had to wake up and get ready for work. I was so annoyed by the hassle of begging for tiny amounts of conditioner to break free of the mega bottle, that the next time I was at Kroger's shopping for groceries, I u-turned at the milk and headed straight for the haircare aisle. I usually don't buy hair stuff at the grocery store, because it always seems to be pricier there than at Wal-mart or Sam's Club. But I needed conditioner that was willing to come out of the bottle. This new stuff by Suave caught my eye because the bottle is a nice gold color. And when there is a whole display of it, it really stands out. Way to go marketing people at Suave! You got me! (By the way, when I looked up Suave's website to make sure I was spelling the name correctly, they had put sparkles -- sparkles! -- on the model's hair to simulate how magical this line of product is. It is a good thing I saw those sparkles after I went into the store, or I may have just bought the whole freaking line of this stuff expecting miracles. I'm not even joking.

So I bought this conditioner and I have been using it for about a two weeks. It has a very pleasant smell (to me) and I really liked that it made my hair feel smoother after the first use. Instant gratification is pretty important to me when using hair products. That whole 5 month wait time for me to see highlights from the John Frieda shampoo mentioned at the top of this post is extremely rare for me.

I would like to find out how people with curlier or courser hair how found this conditioner to be, but for me it has held up pretty well. And the air conditioning issues we have been experiencing at work, plus the wet dreary weather, have provided me a nice (Ha!) place to help act as my "variable" hair environment. I fully expect that I would have looked like a frizz ball had it not been for this conditioner. I will have to wait and test it out during the summer to get the final results in though.


WHERE I BUY IT: Kroger (but I saw it at Target too)
HOW MUCH: $3.49 (not too bad)

DISCLAIMER: I like these products because they worked for ME. They worked in a capacity that I believed to better my hair. They may not work for you in the same way they did for me. I've been taken before by products that worked for other people, but not for me. If you need proof, I'll arrange for you to see my haircare product graveyard under my bathroom sink. 

Leftovers Makeover: Spaghetti

Spaghetti is one of my favorite go to meals. I always seem to have everything I need on hand, and it's one of those meals that's good any time. It's also a meal that we always end up having leftovers. I've been trying to come up with a rotation of "piggyback" meals that let me re-use leftovers for another almost entirely different meal, so one of us doesn't end up eating leftovers all week long. Not that there's anything wrong with leftovers, it's just that sometimes there isn't quite enough to feed all three of us for a second night. So my plan is to find meals that let me use leftovers as the starting base of a new meal. With just a few additional ingredients I'll hopefully be able to make some new, tasty, and most importantly easy.

Last night I Googled it up and found a recipe from The Domestic Lioness called "Ridiculously Tasty and Surprisingly Creamy Leftover Spaghetti Casserole" that uses leftover spaghetti, plus a few new ingredients, to make a new dish. I have to be honest, this recipe has some ingredients that made me say "Wait, did I read that right? You want me to mix what? And pour my spaghetti sauce over that?" But I have faith. It may be misguided, but I have discovered some awesome recipes by just taking a chance. I've also had some total failures that way too, but you just have to cross your fingers that it'll turn out ok, and hope you've got a Domino's nearby, or at least some peanut butter, jelly, and bread, if it doesn't.

I had to make some modifications to the recipe, mostly because I was lazy and didn't check the fridge last night to make sure I had everything specified. Also, the recipe called for the spaghetti sauce and meat to be separate layers, but I had a bunch of leftover spaghetti sauce with ground beef in it already from Sunday night. So I just figured it was all gonna end up in the same place anyway, so we'll go with it.

VERDICT:

It turned out pretty tasty. Like a super creamy lasagna. When we cut into it, everything stayed layered, so after we tasted it, I decided I liked it better all smooshed up together in my plate so that's what I did.

So here's my adaptation of The Domestic Lioness's "Ridiculously Tasty and Surprisingly Creamy Leftover Casserole":
_______________________________________________

Leftover Spaghetti Casserole:

CLICK HERE FOR THE PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ingredients:

8 oz. spaghetti noodles (about a half of a box)

8 oz. cream cheese (1 block)

8 oz. sour cream (I used light)

4 cups homemade meat sauce

fresh spinach (this is totally optional)

mozzarella cheese slices (enough for two layers)

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Heat up your leftover spaghetti noodles (cook up some new ones if you don't have enough leftovers). Mix the cream cheese in with the noodles until blended. This is easier if your cream cheese is at room temperature. If not, microwave it (wrapper removed!) for about 30 seconds to make it easier to mix with the noodles. Next, stir in the sour cream.

Yeah, that cream cheese/sour cream combo made me pause when I first read the recipe. I could get on board with cream cheese in my spaghetti, but sour cream? That one made wonder if I was about to end up making emergency PB&J sandwiches for dinner.

Pour the whole hot mess into a greased up casserole dish. You are gonna start wondering if you might have made a mistake at this point. You are going to wonder if I just ruined your dinner and wasted your precious after work TV time. Keep pressing on though. It'll be ok.

So now you've got a layer of creamy noodle mess in your casserole dish. Layer your sliced (or shredded, if you didn't forget that you used that all up last week, like I did) mozzarella cheese over the top of your noodles. Next, layer some spinach over that. However much you like is fine. If you hate spinach, skip it. If you love it, pile it on, Popeye.

Spread your meat sauce over the spinach. Now throw on another layer of mozzarella, enough to cover the meat sauce, but not so much as to give you a heart attack. You make the decision as to where you want to draw that line.

I omitted the tomatoes on the top of the casserole as stated in the original recipe, because tomatoes are evil, according to Stephen, unless they are unrecognizable as ever having lived a former life as a fresh tomato (ie, only tomato sauce, ketchup, etc. are acceptable).

I also just discovered that I am a prime candidate for the Derek Zoolander School of Kids Who Can't Read Good, because I did not realize that I mixed up the layering from the original recipe until I was typing this all up. I put the spinach on first, then meat sauce. The spinach was supposed to be ON TOP of the meat sauce. Eh, it turned out just fine anyway.

Pop that casserole into the oven for 30 - 35 minutes. We ate it with a side of garlic bread. I figured that for tonight, the spinach I sprinkled in counted as enough of a vegetable.

Peanut butter cookies that make me believe in oven wizards . . .

I was on Facebook a few days ago and saw a friend's status that read "If you have these three ingredients, go make this right now, GO!" and posted below was an awesome looking Gooey Chocolate Mug Cake for one that is made in the microwave. I did have the ingredients, and I did not have willpower, so I made the little mug cake. And it was delicious. Then, as it always is with links, I clicked and clicked some more. Eventually I ended up with the recipe for these peanut butter cookies as well. What intrigued me is that they are flourless cookies. Also, the recipe called them 90-second cookies, as in the time it takes to mix the dough up, not actual baking time. In the name of science, I decided that I absolutely HAD to make these cookies. Just to see if they actually turned into honest to goodness cookies. And they did. And they are delicious. And I still don't understand the wizardy that went on in the oven, but I'm glad it happened.