We got this new campaign from BzzAgent in the mail today. Lucas was SO excited when we opened the box and saw that they had fun character tops for the fruit drinks. Our package came with Thomas, Scooby, and Snow White, but I see on their website there are a TON of characters and are all the really super popular ones. AND they had Hello Kitty, so yeah, I’m totally going to be getting these drinks for me, too. Since there are so many tops, there is a fun collectors aspect to it, too.
The ones we got to try were apple juice and fruit medley. Apple juice is apple juice, but the fruit medley is soo yum! And these are really healthy drinks, too, so I don’t feel at all guilty giving them to them. They come in 4, 6, and 8 oz bottles so you can match the amount your kids typically drink (although in Lucas’s case I would need them to come in gallon size).
You don’t have to buy the character top every time; they’re reusable. You pick out a character top single serve, and then buy refill 6 packs of the juices for the same price and capri suns, etc (but healthier than capri sun).
I used to get the mini apple juice bottles to carry around in the diaper bag, but I’m definitely switching to these!
Mattress shopping is complicated. I purchased my first (and current) mattress about six years ago by walking into a furniture store, lying on a few, and buying the cushy, plush one I liked. Since then, that cushy pillow top that I thought was so great has formed dips where we lay and a hump in the middle. Where initially you could go bowling on one side of the bed and not notice it on the other, we now feel every little move the other person makes. But since it is a pillow top, it can’t be flipped or re-squished or any simply fix.
Today I had the pleasure of trying out the Sleep Number store at Town Center Mall. It is nothing like what I thought. I’ve heard the advertising for it for decades, been passed that store in the mall a hundred times, but I had some (unfounded) preconceived notion that the sleep number thing was a gimmick that would cost a ton extra. I was astounded by what they offer there.
I met with Marci, who has been with the company for 16 years, and definitely knew what she was doing. First she had me lie on a bed that sensed my body pressure. A thermal image on the ceiling showed me how the mattress formed around my body. She then adjusted the numbers and I could both feel the mattress become softer and see as the pressure of my body against the bed evened out. You set the bed to your comfort level with a bedside remote control. You can adjust the number at any time (I wish I’d had this when I was pregnant and my body had changed so much).
Sleep Number has 9 different beds — both memory foam and pillow top types. And the pillow tops? The top layer is replaceable so you aren’t stuck lying in a gutter in your own bed.
Please click the image to earn me points for this review!
Please click the above image to earn me points for this review.
And it’s not just about the mattress. They have amazing pillows! Marci told me 20% of the comfort is from your pillow. And for them, pillows aren’t just firm versus fluffy. Currently, I have a $20 memory foam pillow from Target…and it makes me sweat! When I first got it this summer I would literally soak my pillow even though I wasn’t overly hot in general. Well, Sleep Number has foam pillows with a gel liner that is supposed to eliminate this problem! Or how about an air pillow? Turn the nozzle one way and you can squish air out to make the pillow thinner. Let it go, and it reinflates itself for a fuller depth. They even had a two-sided pillow — two types of pillows in one depending on which way you flip it. Not to mention the six or so various shaped pillows for different uses (such as maternity pillows or prop-up for reading pillows). And if STILL none of these work for you? You can create your own pillow! Sleep Number also sells all the liners, protectors, and even sheets.
One other product I tried out at the store was the DualTemp layer. This mattress cover heats or cools each side of the bed so that both you and your partner can sleep at just the right temperature. I like to sleep snuggled under blankets because I get cold easily; my husband sleeps with the blanket half off of him. With the DualTemp layer, we both can adjust the temperature of our side of the bed with a remote. This is just a top layer, not part of the mattress, so this could go on any bed, not just a Sleep Number mattress.
As I listened in awe of all the amazing products Marci was showing me, I was mentally imagining the ridiculous price tag this kind of stuff would come with. I mean that is how it works; better stuff costs more. Awesome, cool stuff like this? Gonna be a fortune. Steeling myself for the inevitable sticker shock, Marci handed me the pricing chart. And sticker shock it was. Because these mattresses didn’t cost much more than what I paid for the one I have now. Plus they offer six months lay away, so if there is a Christmas or some other sale on the one you want, you can get it on lay away to lock in that sale price. Plus they offer a 30 day lowest price. And financing.
It seems to me that with the way you can adjust the firmness, replace a pillowtop, etc, that this is a mattress that sets you for life. Or at least longer than six years. When we are ready to make our next mattress purchase, I am 100% coming back here to Sleep Number to get it. And I’m kicking myself for not having checked it out before. (But I was young and stupid; now I’m a little teensy bit older and much, much wiser).
So the next time you are at the mall, go by the Sleep Number store – even if it is just to check it out. Marci was wonderful and there was 0 pressure to buy. They don’t need it — their products are that good.
*I am not employed by Sleep Number and am not being paid for this review. I did get a free toddler pillow for my little girl while we were visiting the store and Smiley360 might send me a free pillow. But nothing was contingent on a good review. It is 100% my opinion based on my visit to the store.
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I was giving it a go on some product testing sites.
Previously, I have tried some survey sites, but they just annoyed me. I had signed up for an account at testspin.com a long time ago (on my junk email account of course) and messed with it the day I signed up, but it was a pain to use so I never went back to it. I didn’t like that one because it matched you with all kinds of survey sites and trials, but it just linked you their sites, so I was having to answer basic survey questions over and over to see if I qualified for each thing. This is different than the Smiley360 and others Lauren had me sign up that bothers to remember your basic info — such as age — instead of making you tell a/s/l every survey!
Since then I have signed up for House Party, Smiley360 and BzzAgent. The thing about all three of these sites is they want you to do stuff online (message on FB, twitter, etc) to show how much you want to join a “campaign” (product test). “We reward our most active and influential BzzAgents with access to even more campaigns.” So you spend all this time reading about the campaign and trying to talk about it in all these online venues, just to not get selected. On BzzAgent I can see some of the campaigns going on, but I can’t apply to join – just be selected by them. So there is this awesome music player one going on that I can’t say to them “hey that would be PERFECT for my household.” On Smiley360 the only thing I’ve been offered is cold medicine (which okay we are a prime target study for that considering we are sick at least every-other week).
There are still 4 more websites that Lauren posted about for me to try.
I really hope my experience with these sites improves, or I’m going to lose interest in this whole product testing thing pretty quickly. (Altho Lauren said it took her a month to be selected for anything and it’s only been a week…I just don’t have any patience).
I Just Joined Smiley360. And a couple of other sites. The idea is they send you a product (for free!) to try out. Then you use social media and word of mouth the tell people what you think of the product. You don’t have to hype it up if you didn’t like it; it is an honest review of the product. And you don’t have to pay for anything. You just get points for your reviews and get free stuff! Normally I would blow these sites off as basically pointless spam waste of time, but Lauren started them recently and has received a coffee maker and some kind of robot toy that connects to the tv. Cool stuff! I hope I get selected for something soon! I’ll use my blog to review stuff I receive. If you are interested in joining, let me know and I’ll send you a referral invite. There is a button in the right sidebar linking to the website for more info.
ally-cat 