ASD Reading review

We received a free one-year premium membership to ASDReading.com to try it and review. As the name implies, ASDReading.com is a website designed to help children on the autism spectrum learn to read. It also teaches typing skills, which is a nice bonus. I thought this program would be great to try with Zach as he is still not reading, or at least I don't think he is. It's hard to tell sometimes with a non-verbal child. The lessons are broken down into little, bitesized games perfect for kids who have trouble focusing. Zach has a lot of trouble sitting down and focusing on things, especially during summer break as things get considerably more unstructured in the summer. That said, I did try, and have my sister try, to get Zach to sit down and play the games. He would sit for a while and watch, but he wouldn't interact and when we tried to encourage him to interact he would often get agitated and want to leave the room. We will continue to work with Zach using this program, and hopefully we will get more success as we progress and this becomes part of his routine. I think this would work great for most autistic kids once theyt grow accustomed to it being part of the routine. I think for Zach and other kids like him, this program would be best implemented in the more structured setting of a classroom and I will be mentioning it to the teachers at his school this year.



A great program for helping autistic children learn to read. Check it out at https://www.asdreading.com

For children not on the autism spectrum, ASDReading.com has a sister site called Reading Kingdom which uses a similar style of games to teach reading skills.

Morning Pep Pure Birch Xylitol

I'm a big fan of junk food, especially sweet things. Cakes, muffins, donuts, cookies, they're all delicious. But, I'm also very conscious about my dental health. I have never had a cavity and I plan to keep it that way! So, of course, I brush and floss my teeth every day but any additional little tricks that may help my teeth are always appreciated. I have for a long time now used a toothpaste that contains both fluoride and xylitol and it has worked great for me and my kids. I knew that xylitol was a natural sweetener that is good for your teeth, but I never realized you could buy bags of it to use in cooking and baking. So, I was really excited at the opportunity to test and review a free full-size sample of Morning Pep Pure Birch Xylitol. It looks pretty much identical to regular granulated sugar and tastes similar. Since my usual baking consists of making massive quantities of food I didn't have enough xylitol for one of my usual recipes, so I had to scale down a bit. First, I made a nice yellow cake. It was delicious, tasted just as good as a cake made with traditional sugar. I also made a small batch of muffins after which there wasn't enough xylitol to make another recipe. The muffins were chocolate chocolate chip muffins, and they were fantastic! And now that my xylitol stash is mostly depleted I will be ordering more.

If you would like to try Morning Pep Pure Birch Xylitol and make some delicious sweets that are healthier for your teeth, you can buy it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PUSODZ0. #morningpepxylitol

TriNova Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish

I received a free full size sample of this TriNova Stainless Steel Cleaner to try and review.
I don't have a lot of stainless steel in my home right now, as my appliances are mostly not stainless steel. I do, however, have a stainless steel washing machine and of course a stainless steel sink. I also have a few stainless steel pots and a tea kettle. I have noticed that often my sink, especially, seems to always look dingy no matter how often I clean it. So I figured I would give this polish a try, maybe it would make my stainless steel items look nicer. So I started with my sink right after washing the dishes to see how well this cleaner and polish would work. There was some residue on the sink from dishes, so I thought it would be a good first test for the product. The product worked pretty good for getting the sink clean, though I didn't bother putting enough elbow grease in to get it to shine because it's a sink. It doesn't need to shine. I also used the cleaner/polish to clean my stainless steel tea kettle after it got some grease splatter on it from cooking. It worked great at cutting through the grease on the kettle and left it nice and shiny as it was when it was new. It's a pretty effective product for cleaning and shining stainless steel. The only downside I found to it was that it has an odd smell, but it isn't too overpowering so I can live with it.

Before

After

Evening Primrose oil

I'm really not big into essential oils, mostly because of the fact that most essential oils sellers are scammers that happily lie to peddle their wares. Now, that said, I do recognize that there are some legitamate usese for essential oils, the most common being as an air freshener. This particular oil also touts istelf as helping with "Nourish, soften, smoth and radiant skin," treating eczema, psoriasis, acne, blackheads, dry skin, and nail infections, protecting and healing skin, curing cuts, burns, and rashes, anti-aging, and as a hair treatment. None of these claims are researched by independant sources however there is anecdotal evidence that the claims may be true, so take them with a grain of salt. I would not recommend putting the oil on any rashes cus or burns unless advised to do so by your physician. If you are going to use the oil on your skin it should be diluted into lotion or serum first to avoid causing irritation. It is also important to try using the product on a small patch of skin first to check for reactions. Personally ,I'm using this only for the air freshening properties. It has a nice smell, not as floral as I expected, but it is nice. You can purchase it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q3LRFJW.

100% Luxe Bamboo Sheet Set

I got this lovely, soft new bamboo sheet set from Linenly, an Australian company. I was surprised at how quickly the sheets arrived at my home in the US, considering how slow international shipping can sometimes be. Anyway, on to the important stuff!

So, upon receiving the sheets, I opened the package and took them out to inspect them. The fabric is really sturdy and strong, a nice high-quality product, but it's also soft and the sheets have a bit of weight, making them ideal for snuggling into. The sheets come in a nice variety of colors so everyone can find something for their own style. Some of the colors are slightly muted while others are bolder, which makes it easier to find a color that matches your bedroom decor.

Being made of bamboo, these sheets also tout antimicrobial features which helps prevent the sheets from developing bad odors.