Healthy kick to the immune system

 

It's a new year, which usually comes with New Year's Resolutions. On the top of everyone's resolution is often, "get healthy." Well, I'm happy to say that I've found a tasty new way to help with the get healthy part of the resolution. 

BzzAgent sent me a bottle of Tropicana Vitamin C & Zinc orange juice to try. It helps support a healthy immune system with three times the Vitamin C of regular OJ. It has no added sugars, and quite delicious. Now, in addition to vowing to take the stairs instead of the elevator, track my daily steps, and eating better, I can add Tropicana Vitamin C & Zinc oj to the ritual, to give my immune system a good kick. At least drinking something healthier is easier and requires less motivation than going to the gym. ;)

Tropicana Vitamin C and Zinc

 

 A little while ago, I was sent a bottle of Tropicana Vitamin C and Zinc orange juice from BzzAgent to try. Now, usually when it comes to "healthier" orange juice, especially the kind that boasts "sugar free" I find it tastes like crap. I hate the taste of artificial sweeteners, so naturally, I was a bit skeptical. But, free is free, right? It was no risk to try so I promptly poured myself a glass and took a sip. Much to my surprise it tasted great! Nothing like artificial sweeteners. Knowing that my family would quickly devour the entire bottle, and I'd never see it again, I topped off my glass, to enjoy it before they got home. 

So yeah, go ahead, do something nice for your body. Walk a few more steps, and add Tropicana Vitamin C and Zinc to the mix. It was delicious, and has no added sugar.

Coppertone Clearly Sheer sunscreen Bzz

 I had the opportunity to try Coppertone's Clearly Sheer sunscreen courtesy of BzzAgent, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. My favorite is the travel size spray which is just the right size for air travel so you don't have to drop a ton of money on a full size one in tourist areas.  It provides great SPF even for the beach and swimming in the ocean.

The Clearly Sheer formula goes on smoothly, absorbs quickly and won't clog pores so it's great under makeup. It's a great way to get the daily sun protection you need and should be using.

Kroger Skillet Meals

Like most families these days, mine gets super busy with crazy weeknight schedules. While I like to prepare food from scratch and ensuring my family eats nutritious meals, the truth is, I don't always have the time to. Admittedly, we've been getting a lot of frozen skillet meals lately because they're just flat out cheaper than take out and drive thru plus it's healthier as well.

I recently had the opportunity to try out Kroger's Skillet Meals from BzzAgent and picked the Sesame Chicken with Brown rice to try. First I will say it's super easy to make and fast. Just 10 minutes and my family had a fairly wholesome good meal to eat. That's the good part. The down side is, the packages are small. I have a family of four, two of which are kids. I had to buy and make 3 packages of the Skillet Meals in order to have enough for everybody. At just under $6 a pop, that adds up to just under $18 to feed my family of four. Which really, isn't all that terrible, considering that's about how much we'd spend at McD's and these Skillet Meals are far healthier.

Visually, it looks nothing like take out Sesame Chicken, but it's edible. In fact, we were all so ravenous about it that I forgot to take a picture for this review and for BzzAgent. I am looking forward to trying other varieties though.

Skip the ugly sweater

Gift cards tends to get the bad rap that it's impersonal, when the truth is, most people would really rather get a gift card than a knick knack or ugly sweater they don't want or need. No, it's not about what YOU think they want or need, but gift giving is about the recipient. Not only that, but gift cards make life so much easier for you and the recipient.

Kroger offers 4 times the fuel points when you buy gift cards from them. No fees, no hassles. Just use your club card when you shop and when you get gas. Heck, half the time I don't even remember to bring my card. I just use my phone number at the store and gas pump. Picking up some gift cards, knocking a few things off of the Christmas to do list while picking up groceries, AND getting fuel points to help lessen the pain of prices at the pump? Sign me up! I don't need MORE stress this Holiday season. :)

Guilt free frozen treats

I had the privilege to try Kroger's new Yogurt Smoothie Bars for free from BzzAgent and they are so good! My favorite is the strawberry banana. I love having a guilt-free treat on those hot scorching summer days. I love the feeling of not having to worry too much when the rest of my family wants to indulge too. Yum!

Bzz Agent: Dark Monk & Hangman's Daughter books

I was recently asked to check out these 2 books with BzzAgent. Check it out!

• Link to The Dark Monk: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006JTTK3O/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=darkmonk_bzzagent-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B006JTTK3O
• Link to The Hangman's Daughter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P9XMFI/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=darkmonk_bzzagent-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003P9XMFI

 Disclaimer: BzzAgent provided the books for me to check out in exchange for my opinions on them.

We were fortunate enough to be selected to try these for BzzAgent and figured our 4th of July get together would be perfect for it. Our guests have enjoyed them and found them to be nice and juicy. You can find these at King Soopers/Kroger.

BzzAgent: Truly Awesome Cookies - wk 4

Wouldn't you know it, it's been almost 4 weeks since trying those Truly Awesome Cookies from Kroger. I think I still have a couple of them left, and they're still tasty. I'm sure they would've been long gone had it not been the plethora of various holiday cookies floating around here, but nonetheless...4 weeks later and they're still good and not stale. :)

BzzAgent: The Little Clinic

A while ago, while in a local Kroger store, I'd noticed that they'd opened a new clinic. For a while here, most if not all of the grocery store clinics were closed. I never knew why, but they just vanished. Soon after noticing The Little Clinic, I was invited to check it out by BzzAgent.

While I haven't personally had a chance to use them yet (and knock on wood that I don't simply because I don't want to get sick...I don't have time to! Who has the time to be sick?) I'm happy to know that they're there and conveniently located so I know it's an option for if and when I need them. When I was walking by it, I did notice a sick child in the small waiting area of the clinic. And it is small...just a tiny section at the front of the store. The waiting area is just a few chairs outside of a door. It would've been nice to see some sort of wall or door to isolate the sick from the masses of other Kroger shoppers as to avoid the spread of germs, especially when food products are being purchased just a few feet away. Nonetheless, having the option of a conveniently located clinic is nice when you feel like death.

Kroger Private Selection

I was recently selected by BzzAgent to try out the new Private Selection frozen foods from Kroger. On a whim, I decided to stop by and pick some up today. I will admit, they were a bit challenging to find because they were scattered all over the frozen food area, but once I found them, I was pretty impressed with how they looked. The selection isn't grand, but they do have some great flavors and options. I ended up picking up some cheese puffs, a roasted garlic pepperoni pizza, and some crab rangoons. I can't wait to try them out, especially the crab rangoons. The packaging says they're made with real crab, not "krab" so that makes me happy. :)

BzzAgent: Truly Awesome Cookies

As a BzzAgent, I recently joined the Truly Awesome Cookies by Kroger campaign. If you have a Kroger near you, check them out! They're made with real, wholesome ingredients, loaded with chocolate chips, no added preservatives. What more could you ask for from a cookie?

Bzz Agent Product Review: Bil-Jac dog food

A short while ago, I joined the Bil-Jac dog food campaign on BzzAgent. I had my dogs try out the food over the weekend, and I must say, they love the food. Even my picky eater dog gobbles it right up. I'm rather impressed with the ingredients, which clearly states they use an adequate amount of meat, no fillers, no gluten meals, and no spray on fat, right on the packaging. Overall, my dogs loved it. The only con is, the food is tiny, reminiscent of rabbit pellets. In fact, it looks exactly like rabbit pellets. I think it's much more suitable for small dogs. Big dogs might have an issue with it. Other than that, my dogs would give it a rave review for taste.

BzzAgent Review: got2b smooth operator lustre lotion

I've been a BzzAgent for a few years now and when I first signed up, I got frustrated with them because each time I'd get notification that I qualify for a campaign, I go to sign up for it and it's already all gone. I try to be fast about it, but the truth is, I have a life outside of the Internet, but there were many times when I'd log on as soon as I got the email, the campaign was already full. So I got frustrated and quit until recently. I signed up for the got2b smooth operator hair care product campaign and qualified. Soon they sent me samples of the lustre lotion to try, and bzz about which I actually liked quite a bit. It was fragrant but not so much that it singed my nose hairs. The fragrance lasted too. The coolest thing though was that it actually made my coarse hair silky soft. Overall, I enjoyed the product.

Here's a bit of a moral puzzle/dilemma for you:

Part of my Bzz Kit contained a bunch of coupons, one of which was for a free bottle of lustre lotion or mousse. Upon reading the fine print, it said the coupon was BOGO and not totally free so I decided to not use it since I had no need for it and didn't feel the desire to spend the money to buy one bottle just to get one free. A few weeks later I got an email from BzzAgent saying that the coupon was misprinted, that it should be for a free bottle, not BOGO and the bar code on the coupon should ring up properly. If it didn't I could fill out a survey to let them know. Based on that, I used the coupon at a national chain drugstore. Behold, it wouldn't ring up at the register. The cashier looked at the product, the coupon and verified that I got the right thing but she didn't read the fine print that said BOGO. She called the manager over and the manager did the same thing so the manager told the cashier to just ring it up as zero dollars. While I'm grateful that both the cashier and manager went the extra mile to give me the product for free, part of me feels bad and feels like I took advantage. I tried to fill out the survey to report my experience using the coupon but I never got the opportunity to tell them my exact experience in that I only got the product for free because the store employees were generous enough to just override their system without reading the fine print. I'll never know if the barcode was really programmed properly or not. (I ended up writing an email to BzzAgent's campaign manager explaining my coupon experience in hopes it can be avoided next time.)

Would you feel bad about the coupon situation?