car – Chocolate 'N Children

March 3, 2021

Travel Products Review

*I received these items free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own*

I love a good road trip, and last year I was planning this whole series on our traveling adventures. That definitely got put on hold, but, even if we’re still staying closer to home, I plan to get in a few road trips this year!

There’s so many things I miss about them. One of my favorite activities when I’m driving is trying to figure out what happened or is happening with the vehicles (and often people) that have pulled off on the side of a highway.

Without even leaving my city, I came across a fun one the other day. I passed a hearse parked on the side of the road. And now I have so many questions. There was no driver in it when I passed it, which means someone probably came by and picked him up (or he was napping in the back while waiting for the tow truck).

But, what I really want to know, is, were they carrying anything? Funeral processions generally tend to stay off the highway, but there are a lot of exits in this area, so, was he alone or was this a massive funeral mishap.

If he was alone, was there anything in the back? Like, did they have to send another hearse to pick up everyone in the hearse? Or did a buddy in a Honda Civic just drop by and give him a lift? I’d love to hear your theories in the comments!

Of course, with traveling, keeping things clean is always a challenge, so, the first item I’m adding to my car is this super handy automatic sanitizer dispenser from Eco Freaks.

First off, this jug is huge! So, I have plenty to go around. And with 80% alcohol and a great citrus smell, this stuff sanitizes and smells good!

Here’s the fun part, the coozie shaped item is actually a case that I put the automatic sanitizer dispenser in and then it sits in the cup holder in my car without rattling around. Super awesome! And the green funnel makes it easy to refill my dispenser without spilling sanitizer everywhere. Plus it collapses down flat for easy storage.

The only down side is that my kids think this dispenser is so awesome they want to use it constantly – lol.

Pure Sky Four Piece Car Cleaner

This is awesome! You can just use water to clean. You have your purple window cloth, inside dusting cloth, and then your towels for cleaning the outside of your car. One wet and one dry. After all this salt on our roads, I was so happy for warmer weather and a chance to wash my car!

And after our latest trip, the inside of my car definitely appreciated a quick cleaning! I mean, I am constantly amazed at how sticky kids can be.

I just keep these in the back of my car with my emergency blankets (or emergency towels in the summer) and they’re available for any planned or unplanned car cleaning events.

And, last but not least. Where would we be without our masks? Wherever you travel, as mask is needed, so I keep a supply in the car for all our adventures.

I love these antibacterial performance masks from hmnKIND. They have these in a variety of sizes. XS works for my 7 and 10 yr olds and S works well for my 12 year old. The S fits me as well but a M would be more comfortable – just to give you some size references if you’re looking to buy these.

They’re more breathable than cotton masks (but actually work just as well or better than a 3-layer cotton mask), very lightweight, and 99.9% antibacterial which should help if you’re experiencing breakouts from mask wearing.

And, yes, I have actually tried my cotton mask and then this one and this one is way easier to breathe in.

They have lots of fun colors to choose from, so it’s easy to get everyone their own color so you don’t mix up masks.

I’m looking forward to some fun family road trips this summer. What are your vacation plans? Or where is one place you really want to go?

September 2, 2020

For Guys – Subscription Boxes

I’ve done quite a few posts about my favorite subscription boxes. So, I have to include a couple that I like for my husband and son! I received both of these boxes for free to review.

Outlaw

Live Outlaw Soaps is pretty awesome! You know how little boys can be about bathing … it’s just not their thing. And, I’ll be honest, I can’t blame them. Most bath soap is very fruity or sweet smelling. Not exactly exciting to a boy.

Well, my Outlaw Soaps box came in the mail and my 7yr old was super excited when I told him that it could all be his. These soaps have very manly scents. Honestly, perfect for guys. My son actually doesn’t fight me about taking a shower.

The scent sticks around for a while, so my kid actually smells good for more than 5 minutes! I’m loving the quality and fun all wrapped up together in these soaps. Seriously though, when my box arrived, I could smell the soaps before I opened the box!

I’ve considered stealing the Calamity Jane lotion from my son, because it smells so good, but he’s informed me that even though these are called Outlaw Soaps, stealing is not allowed.

Though, to be honest, The Gambler is my favorite. It’s on the counter in the boys bathroom for hand washing and it makes the entire room smell good!

Outlaw Soaps has subscriptions ranging from $7 to $67. There’s 12 different subscription combo options, from a monthly bar of soap all the way to a bi monthly box with cologne, deodorant, soap, and lotion. You have the option of sticking with your favorite scent forever or a different scent in every box. There’s some really flexible options here so you are easily able to get exactly what you want every month.

You can even gift a subscription for a selected amount of time (anyone know of someone who could use a fun set of soaps for Christmas?).

Don’t want a subscription? You can also purchase each item individually. They have soaps, body wash, hand wash, lotion, cologne, deodorant, air fresheners, and beard oil. More than everything my son needs to stay clean and smell great!

All in all, a terrific subscription or gift!

Drift

Drift has 3 subscription options. Wood visor freshener, rove vent freshener, and room spray. I was sent the Mill wood visor freshener and the Mill room spray. They’re both great, robust, scents!

The Room Spray is in my kitchen window and I use it when the house just needs a little freshening up scent wise (you know, I made fish for dinner and I don’t want to smell it all through tomorrow). It’s a great scent, and a little goes a long way.

The Wood visor freshener is my favorite though. It’s this little cedar wood block soaked in essential and fragrance oils that you just slip inside your black visor clip each month (you can see the visor clip in the picture with the wood block still packaged inside of it) You can get a subscription for monthly or bi monthly and you can pick your favorite scent or the scent of the month and they’ll send you a new limited edition scent every month. With scents like zen, grove, and teak, they’re perfect for making the car smell great without being obnoxious.

What’s more, the black visor clip keep the scent block well hidden on the top of your visor. My husband used the block in his car and loves it! He said it was really strong the first couple of days, and you want to be careful not to touch the wood if at all possible – he touched it and then his hands smelled like his car air freshener for the rest of the day. But, this is definitely something he would be excited about receiving every month. He loves having his car smell great! And at $8 a month, this is a great price!

July 30, 2017

Using Cars.com to Find the Best Car

This is a Sponsored Post

First things first, when car hunting, you need to figure out what kind of car you want. My husband is considering a new car and what he wants is vastly different from the kind of car we looked for when we needed a new family car.

With 3 kids and one on the way, we have a minivan because we need the space. For my husband, he’s often driving his cars to meetings and its just him so we need something smaller, with good gas mileage.

We currently have an older BMW and love it, so we don’t feel the need to switch brands. Which helps narrow down what we’re looking for. It’s just time to upgrade.

So, now that we’ve figured out what kind of car we’re looking for, we have to narrow down our search. No one wants to run all over town looking at cars that they don’t want. So we head over to cars.com and start searching.

Entering search criteria is super easy, make, model, price constraints, and distance from where you live. Everything you need to narrow your search down.

Once you start your search there’s extras you can add to narrow it down. Like, leather seats are a must for us, and since we won’t buy a car without them, there’s no point waisting time looking if the cars don’t have leather seats. And hubby really wants a keyless start so I selected that option as well. That leaves me with 12 options on my first search. By the time my husband looks at it and pares it down a little more based on color and any other particulars that he’d like to see, there’s only going to be a couple that we’ll end up looking at.

On each car’s individual page you can see pictures, contact the dealer, and even see the carfax report. There’s a list of car features, price comparison, and an estimated payments calculator for if you plan to get financing for your purchase.

You can even research a specific car model and see what others say about it. What’s good about it and what people don’t like.

If you’re wanting to research your car before you even start test driving cars.com is the perfect place to start.

October 17, 2016October 17, 2016

Chipex Car Paint Touch-Up How-To and Giveaway

I received this product free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Chipex Touch-Up Car Paint comes with a 100% color match guarantee and is fast & simple to use.

Step 1: Look in your car and find the paint code (it was in the sticker in my driver side door). If you don’t have your code you can look up your car by make, model, and year. But, in my case, there were a few too many similar colors for me to just guess based on the make and model of my car. So, I found my code and started there.

Step 2: Enter the color code and look at your options. You’ll see a list of car make, model, and year. Just pick yours from the list.

Step 3: Order and wait for it to arrive. My package arrived way faster than I expected. It took about a week and a half to arrive. Since I picked the slowest shipping option, I was surprised that it arrived this fast.

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Here’s my kit. There’s paint, cleaner, wax, gloves, paint brushes, cloth, towel, and a little cleaning block. It doesn’t look like much, but since it’s just for fixing scratches, this paint will last forever.

Step 4: Make sure your car is clean. I just cleaned the area I was planning to paint.

Step 5: Using the brush, apply the paint to your scratches or dings. I decided to test it on a pretty dinged up area on the side of my car. Just look at all those nicks!

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Step 6: Let paint dry for 1 to 3 minutes. Yup, minutes. It’s super fast!

Step 7: Wrap the blue towel around the black cleaning block and spray on a little bit of the cleaning solution. Wipe it over the painted dings to smooth out any excess paint.

Step 8: Squirt some wax on the yellow microfiber cloth and do a quick rub on/ rub off wax of the area.

Step 9: Don’t power wash for at least 2 weeks. So, if you need to wash your car, go to the car wash before doing your touch-up paint with Chipex. Also, if you didn’t quite get it and need to add more paint, you’ll want to wait 2 weeks as well just to make sure the paint sets properly.

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Just look at how much better that looks! The paint color was a perfect match as well. I’m very happy with how well Chipex works and as soon as I’ve waited my 2 weeks I’m going to wash my car and then touch-up any remaining dings that I missed.

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Along with Chipex Touch Up Paint I also got to try their Screen Wash. You’re supposed to dilute this in the screen wash container in your car. This one bottle is 5 refills. And I’ll help rain slide off your windshield.

My husband really wanted to use this on his car but his wiper fluid doesn’t spray so I made him a spray bottle and we treated the windshield with this a couple of times. I added the screen wash to my car container and sprayed and cleaned off with my windshield a couple of times. Of course, now that I’ve treated my windows it hasn’t rained so I don’t actually know how effective it is. It did a great job of cleaning off my car windshield though!

Want to try Chipex for yourself? Enter their giveaway today!

Win a Chipex Bundle #7

The giveaway will end on the 3rd of November it is open to US & Canada and Europe only. The winner will be able to order up to $80.00 worth of Chipex products on the website. The giveaway winner will be contacted by the sponsor with the details for redeeming their prize.

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