Scott Naturals Tube-Free Toilet Tissue Sampling

Hello there! I hope everybody is having a great weekend! Today I wanted to share with you a new product I was given for free to try from Scotts Brand on Crowdtap. I was given a 4 pack of Scott Natural Tube-Free toilet tissue.

Right away when I found out I would be participating in this product sample and review, I was excited. I really liked the idea of tube free to help reduce landfill waste. You can recycle toilet paper tubes, but let's be honest, how many people really do? Usually there is a trash can next to the toilet and it goes straight in there.

I have been using Scott's brand Naturals Tube-Free toilet tissue paper for about a week, and we are almost done with the first of the four mega rolls. It says that these four mega rolls are equivelant to twelve large rolls. They aren't joking! It took two adults one week to go through one! This toilet tissue is unscented, as it should be! Though, it has a mild recycled paper smell to it. The paper is a bit rougher than I am used to, but it is not unpleasant. I have been using Quilted Northern toilet paper previous to Scott Naturals. The toilet paper has a nice texture design that is both aestetically appealing and also seems to be quite functional for waste removal.

You can still put this toilet paper right onto your holder, but you have to work at it just a little bit to get it on there. Also, wihtout the tube, it is not quite as round and uniform as your typical toilet paper on the tube. These are also mega rolls that I recieved. There was a bit of reshaping of the roll to be done so that when you pulled the toilet paper off of the roll it actually rolled fluidly.

"Did you know that in the 45 minutes it takes to shop for groceries, nearly 1.5 million toilet paper tubes are thrown away in the U.S.?" If you'd like to explore more on Scott's web site, please click HERE!

They say seeing is believing! Check out this Scott Tube Tower video... It will really put just how much waste we are creating into perspective.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner: A Pictorial

I decided it would be a lot of fun to photograph and share the recipes for our Thanksgiving dinner! Yes, it is only Monday and Thanksgiving is not until Thursday... Well, my husband works on Thanksgiving so we decided to celebrate early at home on his day off instead! None of my photos are edited, so you will see a true mess by the end of this! Honestly though, I think most people make a mess when they are cooking all afternoon long!

Normally on Thanksgiving we just make the most basic turkey ever and slather the thing with butter, throw it in the oven and call it good! This year I decided we should probably actually try. I looked around a bit online and found THIS recipe for an herb roasted turkey. I had just purchased a Bountiful Basket from the co-op and had most of the ingredients for it already, the picture made it look appetizing, and the steps didn't seem too hard. Okay, we found a winner!

I ended up getting a turkey pan at the Dollar Tree, for a buck of course! We got a 12 lb. turkey from Winco. It was the smallest turkey we could find. Only feeding two adults and one child, a twelve pound turkey was more than enough! I had a few sprigs of fresh sage and thyme, so those are the herbs we used to stuff the turkey's cavity with and also place in the bottom of the pan and baste the turkey skin with. For the aromatics I used one orange, one Honey Crisp apple and one small yellow onion. Here is the turkey ready to go, before cooking.

At the forty five minute mark, having been cooked at 450 degrees; This is what the turkey looked like before being wrapped in tin foil to finish cooking at 350 degrees.

And lastly, here is the turkey carved up in a messy fashion, fully cooked and ready to eat. We forgot to put it on my beautiful turkey serving plate. It was just us though, so we didn't go all out with the decorations and presentation. My son was ready for a nap by the time dinner was ready. We ended up eating most things out of the pans we cooked them in!

Next, the sides. We decided to make home made mashed potatoes. If you have never made mashed potatoes, basic ones are really very easy to make! We just used regular brown Russet potatoes. Peeled about 8 potatoes, and cut them up into a handful of pieces and threw them into a pan with water. Boil the potatoes until you can squish them with a fork. When they're squishy, drain them in the sink with a collandar and then put back into the pan. Add a splash of milk and we used an entire stick of real butter. Squash them all up with a potato masher or if you prefer you can use a mixer. We used the masher because it makes clean up a lot easier. Less dishes, et cetera.

Here are the finished potatoes. We did not add pepper to the batch, we usually pepper our own to taste.

Every single year for Thanksgiving I make a green bean cassarole. They're really easy to make, filling and most people enjoy it and only eat it around the holidays. You can get the recipe for it off of the back of the container of French's french fried onions, but I made it easy for you and decided to give you a LINK! I did everything that this recipe calls for except for the last part, I did not add the extra french fried onions as a topper and cook the additional five minutes. I find there is enough of the onions in the mix that I do not need to add more. Of course, that is my personal preference. Also, they have regular cut green beans pictured and I used fancy french cut green beans.

My Bountiful Basket ended up having a bag of fresh cranberries, so we had to decide what to do with them.

My friend shared a delicious looking recipe for a dessert that I really wanted to try. I would have had to go to the grocery store again during Thanskgiving week, so I decided to go with a recipe off of the back of the bag of cranberries. There was a recipe for Cranberry Coconut Macaroons and a recipe for Holiday Cranberry Sauce. We had all of the ingredients for the cranberry sauce. While I never cared for cranberry sauce before, my husband was very excited for it. So we made that!

I could not find this particular recipe online, so I will type it out for you. The cranberry brand is Naturipe and it is a 12 oz. bag.

Holiday Cranberry Sauce

2 cups (8 oz.) fresh cranberries

1/2 cup pure apple juice

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Wash and drain cranberries. In a pot, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes. Cool and serve.

I kind of thought the smell of the sauce smelled like incense while it was cooking. It was the allspice. I also tried a fresh raw cranberry and it was extremely tart. My pet rats ate some without much fuss. I do not recommend fresh cranberries alone. Being a sport, I decided to try the cranberry sauce when it was finished. To my surprise it was extremly delicious. The sugar balanced it out. It reminded me of Craisens in a sauce. I ended up eating a bunch of it with my turkey! I would make it again for sure!

We decided to save time and buy some pre made turkey gravy. Here it is, and it was very tasty. Kind of salty, but I like salt.

Here it is, all on one plate! Ready to be eaten by this very eager cook! And I couldn't have done it without the help of my husband!

Last but not least, I made an apple pie the night before. A Dutch Apple Pie that I found a recipe for online. This is the first pie that I have ever made. I went in halfsies with my friend on forty pounds of apples. So I ended up with 20 pounds of honey crisp apples.

I followed the directions on this pretty well, except I used slightly less apples than the recipe called for because I wouldn't have been able to buy anymore in the Marie Callander's pie crust that I bought. Yes, that is kind of cheating, I bought the crust. But hey, most of this meal was home made!

At first I was dissapointed and thought I messed up the recipe, because when we cut into the pie it was very runny. Well, apparently that is because we cut into the pie directly out of the oven. It smelled so good we did not give it a chance to cool down and set. Here is the picture of our impatient runny pie.

Despite being runny, it was super delicious! To our surprise and delight the pie thickened up and cut perfectly today! Here is the perfect pie slice!

I will most definately be making this pie again and it has inspired me to try making other types of pies as well! I might even make my own crust next time!!!

Luckily, there are enough left overs for tomorrow and then some with the turkey!

I hope that you've enjoyed my Thanksgiving menu and pictures and hope that I was able to help you out and inspire you for your own dinner! Now I must go and clean up the aftermath!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I am an Influenster. Do you want to learn how to be one too?

So you want to learn more about this product review stuff, huh? Well, I'd like to tell you about Influenster! I'm still learning about it myself, but I am starting to get the hang of it and have recieved some of their "VoxBoxes" to try and review.

A few months back I "discovered" this new great site called Influenster and starting actively using it. (When in actuality I joined in 2012, but I don't remember doing it!) Influenster is a website of consumers, most of which are very active with social media. Influenster allows you to recieve full size products to test and review, take part in Twitter chats to learn more about products with experts and even celebrities, and you can even recieve great discounts from various places/companies/brands! Here is an example of the screen you will be welcomed with if you have not already clicked the above link.

When your'e on the main screen for Influenster, in the upper right hand corner you will see 3 stacked green lines. When you click that you will get a salmon colored menu. It will say reviews, The Hub, why join and about us. The "why join" and "about us" sections are very helpful and will answer many of your questions.

If you're a new user, you will need to sign up. It is really very easy to do! You can sign up with e-mail or Facebook. After you've signed up, you can also sign in both ways.

Once you've signed in, there's a few things you need to do. First go to your dashboard (you can see the button in your upper right hand corner of the screen, looks like a little black circle with a person in it) and link your social media accounts to Influenster. This is so you can share your "influence" (opinions) with your other friends and followers. After linking all accounts, you will see an impact score. This just shows how far your reach goes. Influenster doesn't share without your permissions, you manually do all of the sharing. So do not worry about that! Here is what your dashboard may look like (mine is all linked up). You will also see on the left that there are other catagories!

Make sure that you completely fill out your settings and your "about me" section. The about me is very very important! That is one of the ways they decide if you will be a good match to recieve a VoxBox! The VoxBox is the name for the box they send you with your items to review! They also have virtual VoxBoxes, which means it is a challenge that is online. You get points for doing both and you still can win prizes from Virtual Vox Boxes! Here is an example of my public profile. It shows your about me, your score, your reptuation (which I am still figuring out how to get points there, so mine is still at a zero), and you can earn badges for completing tasks/missions with brands. Another thing you need to do to make sure you are considered for a VoxBox is fill out your "snaps". Snaps are short questionairres that you take so that Influenster can get to know you. You will find your Snaps on the left hand side of your dashboard.

Now you are ready to look around! The Hub is cool because it features blogs and articles written by the top members of the commuinty, there's all kinds of interesting things to read there.

There is also a review page! This is great for discovering new products and getting and giving opinions on them.

One of the physical VoxBoxes I recently was sent to review was a Braun No-Touch Fore Head thermometer! This was a great item and you can read my review and see my photos in one of my past blogs HERE! I've also had a few virtual VoxBoxes. One was for Degree deoderant, and it was as easy as doing a few instore challenges. I did not even have to purchase the product.

Thank you all for reading about Influenster, please feel free to ask me any questions and I would be happy to help you out!

Clean Like a Pro Zep Product Sampling

I recieved some Zep cleaners to try out from Crowdtap to try and review and to share with my friends! One was the Zep Quick-Clean Disinfectant and the other was Zep All-Around OXY Cleanser and Disinfectant.

I had been cooking and using the kitchen as I normally did after receiving my Zep, except for one thing; I quit cleaning the stove and counter. Gross, Yes I know. But in order to see how well this product really worked, I wanted to have a really good example! Here is the before cleaning picture...

I decided to use the Zep All-Around OXY Cleanser and Disinfectant. Here is a picture of the product after sprayed on my yucky stove top. The product did not have much of an odor to it, and is clear.

I only let the product sit for just a second before I used a Viva Vantage paper towel to wipe it off. It did not take much effort. I'm not even sure what some of the splatters were anymore, but I know some of what was on the stove top was bacon grease.

I really thought that the Zep All-Around OXY Cleanser and Disinfectant was a great product! The Zep Quick Clean Disinfectant has a bit of a strange smell to it, but not strong. I got very close to smell both of these cleansers. Also, I did not think that the Quick-Clean was quite as easy to wipe gunk away with. Though, the Quick-Clean Disinfectant will be used. I use part of my counter top as a cutting board (yes, I know - I will damage my counter...), and I normally only use a wet rag or paper towel to wipe. Very germy. This product kills Cold & Flu Viruses. Underneath that statement it reads: Rhinovirus & Staph.

After I took those photos, I decided to do a video of the cleanser on the rest of my stove.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog and found it helpful! Thanks for reading!

Hello readers, and thank you!

A friend of mine suggested that I post a blog about regular goings on, and I thought that was a great idea! I am still getting the hang of this blog thing and love to hear from you (the readers!). I think it would be fun to hear what you would be interested in seeing in this blog. What do you like, not like, what you want more of - or what do you want that would be new to this blog!? As I am able to get larger and more readers, I hope to be able to do some give-aways! I try to always post if I have samples or coupons.

I'd like to share a few things about me! Besides my blog, I also run or co-run a few pages on facebook, in a wide range of catagories. I will include the links here in case you are interested in checking any of them out!
Friend's of Sarah's Free stuff is my personal page. It is a collective of places you can get freebies from brands, trial and review sites like I use to get the items that you see here for yourself, survey sites for money, sweepstakes and more Friend's of Sarah's Free Stuff!

Green Team: Salem is a page I created to try to get people to become more environmentally concious. Before my son was born, I organized some local trash pick ups in different areas of town. Volunteer basis for the good of our town. Lately we have been sharing news of great things happening to our environment locally and nationally. We also share great ideas for repurposing items to reuse, reduce and recycle. I would love to see more of these groups pop up for different locations! Green Team:Salem!

Salem Area Kids Freecycling is a group that a friend of mine started and invited me to become a co administrator. This group is for people from Salem/Keizer and surrounding areas to connect to post items they no longer need or items they are searching for. This group is great because it is a way to help others! This group is becoming quite large and very busy. Salem Area Kids Freecycling!

Prayer Warriors is a small group that I started to offer support to those that are facing troubles and need prayers. Prayer Warriors!

Let's Get Healthy! I started this page because so many people I know have been talking about needing to get into shape, eating healthier for one reason or another and I thought it would be great to start a group that could encourage, inspire and otherwise help people that need a little boost and some comradery. This group is still rather small, but there is always room for growth! Let's Get Healthy!

Lastly, I just started a very tiny group by request of a few of my clan members from the game application Clash of the Clans, by Supercell. This group is for members of our clan only however. The reason we keep it private is so that rival clans cannot view our conversations, strategies, etc! If you would like to join our clan on Clash of the Clans, our clan's name is THE DOMINATORS and our clan tag is: #8CRY20C . I am the leader of this clan. A few things to know about us. We go to war bi weekly. To join our clan you must be level 40 or above, have at least 1200 trophies, have a gold shield or above, have gold walls or better, attack twice in both wars and be friendly! If you decide to join my clan, please let me know and I can invite you to the facebook group ;)

If running all of those groups wasn't quite enough, I also am a stay at home mom to my 2 1/2 year old son. You will see Hank in many of the photos I take for my product reviews! He is quite the helper! I also am married, and this month is our five year wedding anniversary! Here is a picture of my son Hank and husband Casey.

I have a few great pets that are quite time consuming as well! I have two wonderful dogs. Both of them are ten year old seniors. My dog Dita Von Paws (or just Dita for short) is a Boston Terrier. She is very needy, loyal and loving. Dita has a neurological problem and sometimes has seizures. Dita has also had a stroke and it has affected one of her front legs and her walking. My second dog's name is Lenore. Lenore is a black and white Papillion. Papillion means butterfly in Frech! They're named that due to the hair on their ears resembling a butterflies wings!

I also have two wonderful fancy rats that I purchased from a wonderful breeder here in town. They are both males, and still young, only a few months old. Raphael's colorway is Russian Blue self. His fur is rex, which means that it is rumply/curley and his whiskers are curley as well! It is quite adorable. Louie's colorway is Russian Blue Siamese. Have you ever seen a siamese cat? That is exactly what he looks like, but the points are the greyish blue color. Both of my boys are dumbo earred, opposed to the traditional top-earred rats that you typically see. Dumbo ears are more to the side and a little wider. Here is a photo of my beautiful friendly boys! (If you're interested in getting a rat as a pet, I would love to talk to you and help you find a great one from a trusted breeder!)

I also have a Beta fish in a bowl, named NeeNee. But he is very very hard to photograph!

When I'm not working on my blog, product reviews, surveying for money, playing my game, watching my son... the list goes on! I do enjoy going out to eat, going to the movies (I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE DUMB & DUMBER TO!), watching television (I love Law & Order SVU, Bob's Burgers, King of the Hill, Star Trek the Next Generation, Everybody Loves Raymong, King of Queens, Roseanne, Seinfeld, more more more!), cooking, shopping, the beach, road trips. I have a very wide range of things I love! Enough about me for now! Can't wait to hear from everybody and I hoped that you've enjoyed this blog!

Children's Advil Sugar-Free Dye-Free

I was selected by Smiley to try out and review Children's Advil Sugar-Free Dye-Free liquid pain reliever fever reducer for free.

They sent me a full size bottle of berry flavor liquid medication, a small packet of facial tissues and several great Children's Advil coupons. If you would like a coupon, let me know! I have many! I also still have some Fast Acting Advil coupons leftover from my past sampling to share!

This Children's Sugar-Free Dye-Free Advil liquid medication is a chalky whiteish looking color, and tastes pretty decent. I tried it myself. The flavor says Berry. It reminds me of a liquid "Flintstones" vitamin, with a very mild medicinal after taste. Some cough syrups are hard to swallow, this one tastes fine.

Unfortunately I was unable to try this Children's Advil out with my son as of yet, but that is also actually rather fortunate. He has not needed any medication! The advert they sent, says that this Children's liquid Advil is supposed to last for up to 8 hours. This medicine is meant for ages 2-11 years of age. I do recommend the Advil brand in general. I use their pain relievers often for back pain and head aches. I believe that the flavor of this medicine is a lot more toddler friendly than any of the other liquid medications I have given my son.

Click here! Learn more about Children's Sugar-Free Dye-Free Advil here!