I LOVE Green Mountain Coffees! Even more now that they offer Fair Trade Certified Coffees :)

 I fell in love with my mothers Keurig brewer, and thankfully my parents gave me one for Christmas last year! Ever since I got my Keurig brewer, I have been a huge fan of Green Mountain Coffee Kcups!! They offer so many varieties, I especially love their flavored coffees (such as the winter collection which has pumpkin spice, golden french toast, and gingerbread, they are to die for!).

 BzzAgent launched the Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade Certified BzzCampaign, and I was ecstatic to receive an invite. Not only did they send me 6 kcups of Fair Trade Certified Three Continent Blend, they sent coupons for 50% off on brewers at Keurig.com! What a tremendous savings, I had a few friends that jumped on that offer very quickly.

 Fair Trade Certified coffees mean the farmers get a fair price for their coffee beans, which helps coffee farming communities to live a better life. And not just the Three Continent Blend is Fair Trade Certified, several of the Green Mountain Coffees that you know and love are now offered as Fair Trade Certified. In fact, Green Mountain Roasters (the parent company of Green Mountain Coffee) is the largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified Coffee.

Normally I prefer light roast and flavored coffees, but a bold coffee is good for a change up. The Three Continent Blend combines the flavors and aromas of South America, Africa, and Asia. I enjoyed it, but it is definitely a dark roast coffee with extra bold rich flavor. I will definitely be looking for other great Green Mountain Fair Trade Certified varieties of coffees! :)

*although I received these items FREE from BzzAgent, this is my opinion...which was not affected that I got to try these products for free*.

Excellent dry skin relief from Curel!

Wow, I haven’t blogged in quite some time! Summer always seems to get the best of me, and there is NEVER enough time in each day!! I guess another reason I hadn’t blogged lately, is other than my ongoing weightloss journey (which is random and slow going…but at least I have been maintaining my current weight loss) I have had nothing to talk about. But now I do, last month was a great month for me in being picked for some new awesome products to review from BzzAgent!! So stay tuned for more on these great products :). And in case you are new to my blog, I am a BzzAgent meaning I fill out surveys to get matched with products I get to try for FREE (my favorite price lol) or at a discount.

 The first product I recently received was Curel Advanced Ceramide Therapy Intensive Healing cream. It is a daily cream for extra-dry or sensitive skin. I suffer from dry skin, but especially on my feet and hands. This stuff is great! Most lotions and creams that claim to be for extra dry skin are so thick and goopy, even sticky sometimes…but this is light weight and absorbs quickly delivering immediate hydration. It replenishes moisture and ceramide levels and is long lasting. 9 out of 10 dermatologists recommend using it and it is pediatrician tested to be safe for kids 6 months and older. It is clinically proven to help chapping and chafing caused by dryness, and I can vouch for that. It is also hypo-allergenic and fragrance-free; so it doesn’t overpower other scents you may be wearing.

 I really enjoyed testing this lotion and will be more than likely adding it to my winter skin care regimine. Unfortunately my BzzKit was missing the $2 coupons, but this lotion is probably worth the price given the benefits.

Lean Cuisine Honestly Good frozen meals; good for you and delicious :)

Here’s another “I’m so glad/happy/proud to be a BzzAgent” blog post!! This time I was granted coupons to try new Lean Cuisine Honestly Good 100% all natural frozen meals. I have always been a huge fan of Lean Cuisine meals! I eat one virtually every day for lunch, so I was very excited to be able to try one for totally free. And as usual I was also given coupons to pass out, which I love because I love being able to share my opinion of products and things I find out about. Of course my friends and family all love that I get coupons to share too (and for this BzzCampaign I even talked to some absolute strangers and shared coupons with them). As someone who is trying to live a more healthy lifestyle and lose weight, I was excited that these meals were 100% all natural and had ingredients I could actually pronounce and furthermore know what they are! And the best part was that it was delicious and did not even taste like it was a frozen meal. I tried the Roasted Red Pepper Chicken and was very pleased with the whole meal, I loved it all. It had a whole grilled chicken breast filet. The pasta that is with it is whole grain cavatappi pasta that I used most of the roasted red pepper sauce on. Then there is sea salt and lemon-seasoned broccoli florets. I like to have frozen meals most days for lunch since they are already portioned out perfectly for me. I felt like there was more food in this meal, but it was still a usual portion and came in at 270 calories, 7 grams fat, 25mg cholesterol, 520mg sodium, 29 carbohydrates, 5g fiber, and an awesome 25g of protein. These meals can seem a little steeply priced however. When I purchased mine the regular price at our Kroger was $4.79 for one meal! This week our Meijer has them in the ad at 2 for $7 which is much better, especially if you have a coupon! If you have the money to spare, they are probably worth the full price though; the fact that they taste so good and not like frozen food might be worth it to you.

Dr. Scholl's for her Ball of Foot cushions

I am not normally the type of person to wear high heels, especially ones that are 2 inches or more. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I am 5 foot 8 inches tall and do not need any more height, but also because of the fact that heels just make you feet so uncomfortable! So I was so glad to receive the “Something Blue” VoxBox from Influenster which included Dr. Scholl’s for her Ball of Foot cushion insoles made for high heels (along with a bunch of other FREE great goodies to try out!). I have used a few of the Dr. Scholl’s for her products now, and I absolutely love the ones I have tried. They all come with a money back guarantee so if you are not satisfied, you have nothing to loose so why not give them a try. These provide immediate relief to the pain and pressure you feel when wearing high heels. The small design helps keep your foot from sliding forward in your heels, which is a major problem that I usually have to combat when wearing heels. And the small design also helps to prevent your toes from scrunching together. They stayed firmly in place when I tried them out at a recent wedding I attended. Another great detail is that they are also easily removed from your shoes without damaging them. The only problem I had with these is that I am in the minority group of women with big feet; when I say big, I mean at least a size 10! And these insoles are very small. They did cover a good portion of where my foot sits, but for me personally they could have been a bit bigger. But if they were made bigger they might also be more noticeable, especially in open toe shoes, so I do also understand why they opted to not make them bigger. All in all I still had a good experience with these and all other Dr. Scholl’s for her products that I have tried, despite the fact that they are not designed for us larger footed women.

Yummy frozen goodness thanks to Kroger (and BzzAgent)!

Since there is a Kroger very close to our house and we shop there often and regularly enjoy Kroger brand products; I LOVE getting BzzCampaigns for Kroger products. Actually I LOVE getting any BzzCampaigns :) and my friends and family love it too. As a BzzAgent, I get free or reduced cost products or coupons to try products at a free or reduced price. And most of the time I get great money saving coupons to pass along to people that I “Bzz” too about those products. It is a great fit for me since I love sharing my opinion of things ;). For this Kroger BzzCampaign I received a coupon to try a free Kroger yogurt smoothie bar and $1.00 off coupons to pass out that were good for either the yogurt smoothie bars, low fat fudge bars, or low fat ice cream sandwiches. They also have fruit bars. Oh so much goodness to choose from!

My husband and I picked out the triple berry low fat yogurt smoothie bars, and they were delicious! The 3 berries are strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry; and the 3 flavors mix perfectly. At first I thought the price of $4.29 for the box was kind of steep. But when you break down the fact that since it is a box of 12 that works out to only about 35 cents per bar it is actually reasonable. Even still there is another thing to factor in though…the fact that each bar is pretty small and that because of that a serving size is actually 2 bars. So there are really only 6 servings in the box. A 2 bar serving has 100 calories, 1.5 grams fat, 20 carbohydrates, 16g sugar and 3g protein. So they are fairly diet friendly, especially in the calories and fat department. I also like that they are made with real fruit. I find them to be very satisfying too, a very creamy frozen texture.

I will definitely be buying more of these to help me with a nice low calorie and fat snack for this hot muggy summer we are experiencing lately.

Green Giant Veggie Snack Chips BzzCampaign!

I think it is great that there are so many healthier snack chips being offered nowadays. That’s why I was so happy to be invited to the Green Giant Veggie Snack Chips BzzCampaign! For this BzzCampaign I received a full size bag of each of the 2 varieties currently offered; Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips with Zesty Cheddar and Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips with Sea Salt. They also gave us 4 sample size bags of the Sweet Potato chips and coupons to pass out. And of course it was all FREE for being a BzzAgent in exchange for my review and reporting my opinion of the products to those around me…like here on this blog :)

Normally when I would think of Green Giant, I wouldn’t be thinking of snack chips…until now. I am so glad they jumped on the bandwagon of making a healthier crunchy snack to replace greasy high calorie potato chips! 

Initially I didn’t think I would like the Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips with Sea Salt; I am used to eating sweet potatoes as a sweet dish (like candied yams) and I do not usually like things that are salty and sweet (like chocolate covered pretzels…gross!). To my surprise the first time I tried them I fell in love, these are my favorite of the two kinds offered.  They were not too sweet tasting, and the hint of sea salt added a great flavor. My husband refused to try them, but our young nieces and teenage nephew really liked them also, so they are kid friendly too.  And you can feel better about feeding them to your family knowing that they have a whopping 40% less fat than regular potato chips per serving! And they have 14 grams of whole grain goodness.

The Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips with Zesty Cheddar had a great flavor eaten plain also, but I really enjoyed dipping them in salsa. I love the fact that they are made from real vegetables such as broccoli and carrots. And they have 17 grams of whole grain per serving. I was able to get my husband to try this kind, and he enjoyed them a lot. We think they are a lot like regular Doritos, and we used them to make some awesome nachos which not only tasted good but were much better for us than using regular salty tortilla chips.

Overall I highly recommend these chips, and they can be found at a very reasonable price; my mom was ecstatic when she found them at Kroger on sale for $1 a bag, especially since I had shared an $.85 off coupon with her! 

Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash is Awesome!

 Ever since my mother introduced me to foam hand cleaners, I have been a big fan. I hate that most pump liquid hand cleaners tend to drip and get all goopy. So I was super excited to be invited to the Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash BzzCampaign! Now if you have read my previous BzzCampaign blogs, you know that by being a BzzAgent I get things to try out for FREE in exchange for my review of the product. For this I received a Lysol Touch of Foam antibacterial hand cleaner in Creamy Vanilla Orchid scent.

 First of all the scent is spectacular. Not only that, it isn’t too strong or weak of a scent. It is also available in 2 other scents; Rose & Cherry Bloom and Wild Berry Bliss. I wash my hands very frequently in the kitchen, so that is where I placed it. I love that it kills 99.9% of germs on contact. What I find even more awesome than that is the fact that the pump itself also has antimicrobial properties to resist odor causing bacteria! Since the micro-bubbles are moisturizer enriched, it doesn’t dry your hands out, they are left silky smooth and smelling great.

 My bottle has lasted a very long time (and let me repeat, I tend to wash my hands A LOT in the kitchen) so it is well worth the price. The non-drip foam is also very easy for kids to use without making a mess.