I decided to bring in a little extra money and declutter the house and garage at the same time. This seems like the perfect time to do a little craigslisting and maybe pay for a month of therapy.
First I decided to list the double stroller. I truly don’t remember the last time we used it. I wrote an amazing, detailed ad for craigslist. I spent at least half an hour working on the ad. In the process of writing the ad I remembered exactly how cool our double stroller is. And I remembered that spring and summer are right around the corner. I started to think about how I could take the kids on long walks, carry all the drinks and snacks in the stroller, and then push them when they were too tired to walk home. So I didn’t post the ad for the stroller on craigslist after all. I did save the ad though. It will be all ready when I am finally prepared to let the stroller go.
Then I decided to list the cloth diapers. We used Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers with both kids. Now they are pretty much both potty trained. We haven’t used a cloth diaper in months. We use 4 pull-ups a day – two at nap time and two overnight. So, I pulled out all the cloth diaper stuff, sorted it and separated it into three lots of 8 diapers each. I took pictures. I wrote the ad. Then I started remembering how nice cloth diapers are and how expensive the pull-ups are. Ava walked by and desperately wanted to put on a pink one. I started talking to my husband about how perhaps we should start using cloth again for naps. Well, I did list one of the lots of diapers, but at the moment I’m hanging on to the other two. Still deciding. Money is tight right now and pull-ups aren’t cheap. Perhaps I should switch back to cloth for naps.
I still have some wraps I used when the babies are little that I haven’t listed yet, and even I can’t think of a way to use them with a two and three year old so I’m hoping I’ll get those successfully listed without changing my mind. And there’s the single stroller and matching pumpkin seat/carseat base. Again, not much use for those any more. But so far, this project isn’t exactly leading where I’d hoped.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Nutriiveda – First Thoughts and Impressions (and a little extra information)
Ok. First item of business. They are a little sneaky. Not a lot sneaky, but a little. Let me explain. Apparently, when you order your $80.00, 2 can package you are actually approving an autoship program. They do make that very clear in their confirmation email, but a lot of people don’t read those confirmation emails. So, if you do nothing, they will continue to charge your credit card and send you another shipment each month. They include the number to call to change that right in their email though so the issue is easy to fix. I just figured I’d give you fair warning.
Second small issue. The checkout process told me there would be a $7.95 shipping and handling fee. Ok. I was expecting that. It did not warn me that my state was one of the states where they also need to charge tax. So my total was $95.14 instead of the $87.95 I was expecting.
You receive two cans that have 15, 2-scoop servings each. The serving they recommend therapeutically for children is 2 scoops a day, so you’re talking a 30 day supply. That’s essentially an extra $100 dollars a month. This is not an inexpensive experiment by any means.
I did call their number. They answered with no wait and the person I spoke with was polite and helpful. She explained where the extra charge came from (taxes) and told me that if I wanted to postpone a shipment (or cancel the autoship entirely) I just needed to call at least three days before my scheduled ship date. I decided not to postpone just yet. I want to see how things go over the next three weeks or so. If I want to continue, and we’re successful at getting 2 scoops into Ava per day we’d need a monthly supply.
They also have a rewards program. They give you 10% of your product order in “Loyalty Rewards Dollars”. So for each shipment you earn 8 reward dollars. When you have enough to cover an entire order you can redeem them for a “free” product. So, essentially, it’s buy 10 and get the next one free (not counting shipping and tax). You only earn the rewards if you stay enrolled in the autoship program. So, it isn’t exactly an overwhelming deal, but if you do end up deciding you want to try it long term, there’s a bonus coming down the line. Oh, and you have to call to redeem them. They won’t do it automatically.
So, the product is nicely packaged and arrived promptly. I ordered it at 9pm on the 27th and it arrived in the mail on the 31st. They recommend you start with one scoop a day and work your way up to two. I was mixing up Ava’s yogurt/Omega-3 supplement nightly “treat” anyway, so I thought I’d just mix it in. After opening the container and looking at the size of the scoop I actually only added about 1/3 scoop to the yogurt (about half a container of yogurt). It took a couple of minutes of stirring before I felt like it had blended well. It takes some time for the mix to actually dissolve. She ate it just like she normally does. I couldn’t tell that she even noticed it was different. Michael actually had some mixed into his yogurt as well and didn’t seem to notice.
The next morning I mixed in half a scoop with about 4 ounces of yogurt and again, Ava didn’t seem to notice. So getting it into her doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. At least not when mixed in at those ratios. Ava only has yogurt twice a day though and I haven’t tried mixing a whole scoop in yet. I’m not sure that it would still be unnoticeable at that amount. We’ll see.
Now I just have to wait and see if I feel like it’s making a $100/month difference for her. We’ll see.
As an aside, I tried it myself. I mixed two scoops in to about 11 ounces of non-fat milk. This is the recommended amount for an adult meal replacement shake. Now, admittedly, I’m a picky eater. Truly. I am. But I only managed to drink about half of it and poured the rest down the sink. I didn’t like it. I wanted to. I really did. But, at least in milk, I felt it had a really chalky aftertaste. If I can think of something else to mix it with perhaps I’ll try it again. (I don’t like yogurt, so that’s out.) So that was my opinion. Then again, for our purposes, my opinion doesn’t matter. Ava needs to eat it and she will when it is mixed into yogurt.
Bottom Line(s):
Ava ate it without noticing when mixed in with yogurt. She’ll even eat both the Omega-3 supplement and the Nutriiveda supplement mixed in at the same time.
Their shipping is prompt and their customer service is polite and helpful.
Remember to cancel the autoship if you don't want it.
I personally think it tastes awful. (We’re using vanilla.)
Time will tell about whether it seems to help therapeutically for us.
Oh, and as a bonus, I found a more detailed web page testimonial on Nutriiveda for Apraxia.
Second small issue. The checkout process told me there would be a $7.95 shipping and handling fee. Ok. I was expecting that. It did not warn me that my state was one of the states where they also need to charge tax. So my total was $95.14 instead of the $87.95 I was expecting.
You receive two cans that have 15, 2-scoop servings each. The serving they recommend therapeutically for children is 2 scoops a day, so you’re talking a 30 day supply. That’s essentially an extra $100 dollars a month. This is not an inexpensive experiment by any means.
I did call their number. They answered with no wait and the person I spoke with was polite and helpful. She explained where the extra charge came from (taxes) and told me that if I wanted to postpone a shipment (or cancel the autoship entirely) I just needed to call at least three days before my scheduled ship date. I decided not to postpone just yet. I want to see how things go over the next three weeks or so. If I want to continue, and we’re successful at getting 2 scoops into Ava per day we’d need a monthly supply.
They also have a rewards program. They give you 10% of your product order in “Loyalty Rewards Dollars”. So for each shipment you earn 8 reward dollars. When you have enough to cover an entire order you can redeem them for a “free” product. So, essentially, it’s buy 10 and get the next one free (not counting shipping and tax). You only earn the rewards if you stay enrolled in the autoship program. So, it isn’t exactly an overwhelming deal, but if you do end up deciding you want to try it long term, there’s a bonus coming down the line. Oh, and you have to call to redeem them. They won’t do it automatically.
So, the product is nicely packaged and arrived promptly. I ordered it at 9pm on the 27th and it arrived in the mail on the 31st. They recommend you start with one scoop a day and work your way up to two. I was mixing up Ava’s yogurt/Omega-3 supplement nightly “treat” anyway, so I thought I’d just mix it in. After opening the container and looking at the size of the scoop I actually only added about 1/3 scoop to the yogurt (about half a container of yogurt). It took a couple of minutes of stirring before I felt like it had blended well. It takes some time for the mix to actually dissolve. She ate it just like she normally does. I couldn’t tell that she even noticed it was different. Michael actually had some mixed into his yogurt as well and didn’t seem to notice.
The next morning I mixed in half a scoop with about 4 ounces of yogurt and again, Ava didn’t seem to notice. So getting it into her doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. At least not when mixed in at those ratios. Ava only has yogurt twice a day though and I haven’t tried mixing a whole scoop in yet. I’m not sure that it would still be unnoticeable at that amount. We’ll see.
Now I just have to wait and see if I feel like it’s making a $100/month difference for her. We’ll see.
As an aside, I tried it myself. I mixed two scoops in to about 11 ounces of non-fat milk. This is the recommended amount for an adult meal replacement shake. Now, admittedly, I’m a picky eater. Truly. I am. But I only managed to drink about half of it and poured the rest down the sink. I didn’t like it. I wanted to. I really did. But, at least in milk, I felt it had a really chalky aftertaste. If I can think of something else to mix it with perhaps I’ll try it again. (I don’t like yogurt, so that’s out.) So that was my opinion. Then again, for our purposes, my opinion doesn’t matter. Ava needs to eat it and she will when it is mixed into yogurt.
Bottom Line(s):
Ava ate it without noticing when mixed in with yogurt. She’ll even eat both the Omega-3 supplement and the Nutriiveda supplement mixed in at the same time.
Their shipping is prompt and their customer service is polite and helpful.
Remember to cancel the autoship if you don't want it.
I personally think it tastes awful. (We’re using vanilla.)
Time will tell about whether it seems to help therapeutically for us.
Oh, and as a bonus, I found a more detailed web page testimonial on Nutriiveda for Apraxia.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
A B C
I’m working on making my own alphabet border as a decoration for our playroom. I thought it would brighten the room a little. Michael knows his letters and is working on his letter/sound correspondences. This project is a good way to talk about that a little. I’m trying to choose a picture (or pictures) for each letter that is appealing to my kids. If the letter corresponds to one sound in some words and another sound in other words I’m trying to represent both sounds on the border. So, A has both acorn and apple and C has both cow and city. I’ll post more pictures as I get more of the border done.
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