A couple of weeks ago, my friend Anne Marie of A Mama’s Rant hosted an intimate little event which was sponsored by Glade. It was so much fun. I’ve gone to lots of blogging events in the past, and while it’s always a blast to meet other local bloggers, it’s usually crowded and noisy and hard to hear what people are saying. This event wasn’t like that at all. We gathered at the fabulous Warwick Hotel in downtown Denver and enjoyed some great appetizers and drinks while we heard about the Glade Sense & Spray products. Here’s a little info about the Glade Sense & Spray – it’s pretty neat!

Glade® Sense & Spray™ is a smart air freshener that automatically freshens only when you need it, and the new Clear Springs™ scent is specially formulated to eliminate odors. Motion-activated Glade® Sense & Spray™ helps busy moms keep their home smelling fresh with the personalized fragrance they deserve, while conserving the refill and enjoying a value-conscious lifestyle.

Glade® Sense & Spray™ is available in six fragrances. The starter kit is offered in new Clear Springs™, Clean Linen™ and Apple Cinnamon, and refills are available in new Clear Springs™, new Hawaiian Breeze™, Clean Linen™, Apple Cinnamon, Powder Fresh® and Country Garden®. This innovative air freshener is available in the air-care aisle of most food, drug and mass-merchandise stores such as Target, Wal-Mart and many more.

We had a good time making up names for new Glade scents – somebody actually suggested bacon. Haha! My suggestion was, “Newborn baby head” although I’m not sure how they’d get that scent into the can. Everyone also had a blast making gift baskets, which contained a mug ready to decorate with markers, a chenille throw blanket, a jar of homemade cocoa mix, a satin sleep eye mask, and the Glade Sense & Spray. The blanket and the basket itself were provided by IKEA – they’re awesome! Each of us was able to make two baskets – one to bring home and one to give away to a reader. Yay! A giveaway! I’m actually giving both away. The one I brought home with me is going to make an awesome teacher gift for my favorite para. Hope she doesn’t read my blog, or it’ll spoil the surprise! (Surprise! Your house stinks! No, not really. But kind of funny, huh? Hee!)

Want to win the basket I created? Here it is. This is the EXACT BASKET you will receive, if you win this little contest!

Look closely, because my basket is extra special. I’ve already decorated the mug with Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba. Now you really want it, don’t you? Imagine sipping your coffee out of this darling mug!

Also, I agonized over the decision of which color throw to put in my giveaway basket. I loved the red throw and the green, but ultimately decided the green would be prettier in the giveaway basket. Yay, green blanket from IKEA. Yay, nice smelling bathroom. Yay, Yo Gabba Gabba inspired coffee mug! If you want this basket, I would love for you to have it. All you have to do is leave a comment on this very post. That’s it. You don’t need to Tweet about it, post about it, follow my RSS feed, or anything else. (Although you can if you want to! Share the love!) Comment as often as you’d like. One winner will be chosen at random on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. (That would be the 27th, if you’re keeping track.) The basket will be shipped to you directly, so you’ll need to provide me with a shipping address.

Please see review policy and contest rules linked at the top of this page for more info.

The combo and the colours are available for a limited time only, until September 30th, 2008.

The kids and I made a cake today (German chocolate) for Kayley’s birthday (four days late, but she went camping with her dad) and I thought to myself, as I do every time I have occasion to break out the ol’ Kitchen Aid, I want to get some of those flame decals for my mixer! Aren’t they the bomb? Here’s what I said about it last year…

Okay, this probably wouldn’t fit in with my current decor, but I still think it’s so cool!! Flame Your Kitchen Aide sells custom flame decals for decorating Kitchen Aide mixers. I would have been all over this a few years ago, when I was in my “I only wear clothes from Hot Topic, now where are my Tarot cards and my clove cigarettes?” phase.

I’ve decided, screw that. I want a tricked out mixer! I want some flames! I don’t care if I’m a boring old mommy! I want a cool mixer! And you do too, right? Check out Flame Your Kitchen Aid!

Turtle Wax ICE™ Total Interior Care isn’t really for making your car’s exterior shiny, though – it’s designed for the inside surfaces of your car, including dashboards, plastic, carpet and fabric. It even comes packaged with its own little microfiber cloth. I tried it out on my always fingerprinted, always dusty minivan dashboard, and I have to say – this stuff is bomb. It shines things up so nicely, and a little goes a long, long way.

The state-of-the-art formula includes a combination of fluids specifically designed to address dirt and other elements that age the interior of a vehicle. It includes a micro fiber cloth for easy lint-free cleaning and removes dust, tar, ink, and food stains with just light rubbing. Even its delivery system is unique – unlike most interior products that come either in a wipe or spray form, Ice Total Interior comes in an easy-grip bottle that allows users to choose where and how much product is applied.

Here’s what really got my attention, though – I heard that there are alternate uses for this stuff, like using it to remove stains and spots on appliances and kitchen counters. You can use it on stainless steel, plastic, and even wood. According to the Turtle Wax folks, you can use it on computer screens, but I haven’t tried that! I did try shining up my tall kitchen sink faucet with the stuff, though, and it positively *gleams* – and water just beads on it, so it’s really easy to keep it clean when I’m wiping down my kitchen after dinner and stuff.

I have to say, the easy-grip bottle looks EXACTLY like a bottle of body wash, and the stuff inside smells quite nice too, although it probably won’t give you very soft skin. You can find it for around $8.99 at places like Target, Wal-Mart, Auto Zone, etc. Check it out! This mama gives it two thumbs up.

I’ve never had the French manicure thing done on my feet before. My feet feel so pretty and soft and not at all like they’re going to snag the carpet if I walk around barefoot. Still, though, I refuse to take a close up picture of my feet. Even after a pedicure, feet are just gross!

ped_egg_as_seen_on_tv.jpg, originally uploaded by amazacrazy.

As horrified as I am by the top image there of human skin shavings being dumped into the trash, I have to admit that I am absolutely dying to run out to Walgreens and buy one of these for my very own. I have some jacked up feet as of late – I’m blaming it on wearing Crocs all around Disneyland. Summertime is just hard on feet, y’know? All that walking, all that ridiculous footwear. I really want to check this out. I get so obsessed with things like this, though – I’ll probably overdo it and end up hobbling around the house with injured soles. You may be reading blog posts in the future about Ped Egg injuries! Hopefully not. I’ll let you know.

Anyway. They show it on the commercial – spray and wipe to cut through soap scum! Spray and wipe to cut through limescale! It even takes rust off of your patio. I figured it would have to do something for the red stains on the grout in our shower. I think we have rust in our water or something, because everywhere we have water, we have red stains. It looks super on the white vinyl fence that surrounds every square inch of our neighborhood. It’s as if the municipal sprinkler system has Kool-Aid in it. We have 12″ square stone tiles in our shower, and they’re just…hard to clean! They’re so…porous. And it says right on the bottle not to use it on stone, but I decided to hell with it. I don’t care if it eats away my shower walls as long as it gets rid of those ugly red streaks!

Now here’s the part I don’t understand. How do people use Easy-Off Bam without falling over dead? I sprayed the shit out of my shower, and then turned on the exhaust fan and threw open the window, and I still had to bury my face in a towel while scrubbing the shower walls to avoid passing out. I seriously think you could use this stuff as a weapon, if it weren’t too big to carry on your keychain. But damned if that stuff didn’t clean up my shower like it was brand new! It really DID cut through the soap scum on the glass door like nobody’s business. It really DID wipe the rusty red stuff right off of the way-too-porous tile and grout.

So, all’s well that ends well, I guess. Watch, I’ll be in my cozy bed tonight at 3 a.m., dreaming about Detective Scanlon from Medium giving me a foot massage, and I’ll be jolted awake by the sounds of 12″ stone tiles detaching from the wall and crashing to the floor. I’ll update this post if that should happen. In the mean time: go buy some of this stuff! It’s as ridiculous as it seems on TV! IT’S REALLY WORTH SHOUTING ABOUT! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!