As many of you know, I have spent the last couple of days at the International Housewares Show here in Chicago.  This is a show I love to attend, so I can tell you the best products that I saw.  I saw so many products that I loved, but I am going to list some of my favorites (and they cross the gambit).

NeatO XV-21.  I can’t tell you enough how much I want to get this vacuum.  It is seriously the best thing that has been invented since sliced bread.  I am always in the market to find things that make my life easier.  This vacuum knows where it has vacuumed and even leaves lines in your carpet (which I know doesn’t mean it’s clean but I love how that looks!).  You can schedule the vacuum, so you can be at soccer practice and vacuum at the same time.  I love that when the battery runs low, it will charge itself and then go back to where it has left off after it charges itself.  Seriously, this is the best vacuum on the market that I want!

Okay, seriously, who doesn’t want a Hello Kitty Chia Pet. These Hello Kitty Chia Pets won’t be on the market till August, but I can seriously seem them flying off the shelves.

And speaking of Chia Pets – who wouldn’t want a Chia Pet of their favorite presidential candidate. I’ll be honest — I did giggle a little a lot when I saw these. I do find them pretty funny. These are on the market wherever you buy your Chia Pets!

These are the very cool knives that I saw at Hampton Forge. I love this knife set! The knife block was only a couple of inches thick. The knives are also colored coded for their uses. They also have coordinating cutting boards in front. Now seriously, how cool is that? My birthday is next week if anybody is looking for a great gift for me. LOL

Who can’t use a Toilet Tattoo? This was another product that I laughed and thought it was pretty cool. What an easy way to decorate in your bathroom! Best part, these are so easy to attach and to remove. They have so many designs too. I laughed at the Toilet Tattoo that the inventor is holding, so I took a picture to show you all!

I love this fork art. Who would have thought to turn an eating utensil to useful items? They have lots of different pieces of fork art, but I found this salt and pepper shaker holder really cute. I’d put it on my own counters! It is a definite talking piece!

This sand art was both pretty and mesmerizing. They had different sizes and colors of these, so they would match in anyone’s home! You also can control the speed in how the sand drops from the top of the pane. The more air creates a mountain (like in this picture) and less air in it makes it more of a plain. The sand comes through between the air bubbles. I couldn’t help to stop and stare!

The next item that I was impressed by was my Tervis Insulated Water Bottle. Now, filled this up about noon on Saturday. I drank it periodically throughout the day, but stored it in my bag. I handed the bottle to my friend Elizabeth and she drank from it at 6 pm. Now, the ice was melted. However, the water was ice cold six hours later! Needless to say, I am impressed and this is now my new water bottle!
These giant rubber chickens are actually dog toys. However, who cannot want a giant rubber chicken for themselves?

Since I am trying to eat more healthy, I love to see products like Actifry! You can make homemade fries with 1 tsp of oil! How cool is that? This machine is super easy to use. It is also comes with an awesome cookbook (that even has dessert ideas that you can make in this!). It is dishwasher safe and makes dinnertime easier!

I absolutely also loved the Primo Water Dispensers. I’ll be honest – top loading water dispensers scare me. I’m always afraid of the kids pulling them on themselves. Plus, they are super hard to load with the water on top. Primo came up with the genius idea of putting the water bottle down below. Now, it is easy to change out the water and your kids won’t pull the unit onto themselves! I love, love, love, love this!

I’ve been seeing these Dyson fans and always wondered if they work! They do! They also don’t have any blades as you can see from this picture (and yes, I’m dorky enough to take this picture)! The cool thing about this one is that it can be used as a heater and as a fan. I got to see (and feel) it in action, and I definitely want one! It does its job and does it well.

This is just a very small collection of the products that I saw at the International Housewares Show! What items do you like the best?

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How things can change in a week is amazing. My little boy had no interest at all in the potty. None, whatsoever. What we had learned with Madison was not to push it, and they are ready when they are ready. We’ve had the potty chair pulled down since he was 18 months. No interest at all. However, yesterday, he wanted to sit on the potty. 3 times! Now, granted, I don’t think he actually went (but he was definitely trying!).  I even ran the water hoping to help him go, but it didn’t work.  With Madison, we had to bribe her to even sit on the toilet, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for Will here.

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NOT! I swear when it rains it pours. I awoke to a huge puddle of water in front of my house this morning.  Now, the temp is -8 with a windchill of -20, so  I definitely should not have had standing water.  I called Bill freaked out and he had me call the village.  I think it is a water main break.  However, nobody bothered to come to my door.  Instead, they just turned off my water.  I just realized it when I tried to make Will his diluted version of juice.  Needless to say, I am ticked.  I called the village, and they won’t give me an ETA at all.  I seriously would love to know if I need to send Bill out for water or what.  I seriously am trying not to be highly irritated right now. I could be working on things like Increasing Blog Article Quality or doing some of my freelance work. Instead, I am standing in my front window watching my village dig a huge hole in my street and trying to figure out what to make for dinner with no water.  Also, try explaining to a 5 year old why she can’t flush the toilet after we have spent 2 years drilling it into her head that she needs to flush the toilet.

I know there are way bigger things in life I should be concerned about, but man this is irritating.

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I would like to say that I was sober for the entire time I was at Izeafest.  I ended up as the driver 2 out of the 3 nights, and I really don’t believe in drunk driving.  That being said I did do the IzeaHunt without anything alcohol in me.  We had to do a ton of wild and crazy things.  What was at stake?  A $100 gift card for Home Depot for all of us.  When money is on the line, well, you do crazy things.  Honestly I wish I would have brought some other outdoor clothing with.  My clothes were almost destroyed from this scavenger hunt.  It took several washings once I got home to get the shaving cream and chocolate sauce out!

For some reason, I cannot find my team photos on Flickr at all.  What I will do is show you some of the other teams instead.  You will see how crazy this really did get:

Ohh I take that back, I did find one and you can’t see me (yeah! — I’m in the blue shirt):

Ok, we had to do crazy things like take a picture with a 6’5″ person, make a human sundae, get pineapple and a potato, walk somebody else’s dog, etc.  There was 4 pages of things, and we only had about an hour to try and do as much as we could.  One of the more crazy things we had to do was find a toilet seat and bring it back.  I think Ted was the only one who was able to do that!  Unfortunately, my team did not win.  However, it was still a ton of fun!

After the hunt was over, we all took a break, sat down, talked, and ate some great food.  I was able to sit down and talk to Cass and Sean Jackson.  It was hard to believe that I was going to be hopping on a plane the next morning and heading back home (what I didn’t know at this time was that Chicago had gotten record levels of rain and my yard was literally a swimming pool.  The water in my yard was up to my knees!).  We were able to compare notes and just enjoy ourselves.

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Today was not a good day at my house. My toilet overflowed. ALL DAY LONG. No, I didn’t know that there was a turn off switch behind the toilet till about ten minutes before Bill got home from work. Yes, this was in the bathroom that we did the bathroom remodel in. I seriously could have cried the whole time. I tried plunging for over 20 minutes to no avail. Also, for some stupid reason, our toilet kicks in all the time. I don’t know why it does it nor do I know how to make it stop. What I did not realize was that every time it kicks in that it runs water. Sooo, we were leaking water all over the bathroom before I even knew it. Yes, the water made its way downstairs too. I think I ended up wrapping the toilet in something like 20 towels throughout the afternoon. I even drained some of the water using a cup. It was crazy. Bill came home and plunged the stupid thing 4 times and fixed it. I could have screamed!

Now, we installed a new tub in this bathroom. However, we did that mainly, because Bill wanted to add a whirlpool tub. The tub that was in here before we think was the original one put in the house (which would have been in the 1920s). Before we tore it out, we looked at doing a bath tub refinishing project but really couldn’t find any companies who did it. I did like my old tub and a bath tub refinishing would have been nice. However, since we did go with the whirlpool tub, we have been told we greatly improved the value of the bathroom. Seriously, if you were looking at a house, would you want a tub that was flaking paint off or one that was brand new or one that looked nice? That is a no brainer for us, so we replaced the tub as part of the basement remodel.

Now, my mom has back issues and has a hard time getting in and out of tubs. I would love to be able to buy her one of these someday:

This is one of those walk in showers. I think she would absolutely love it. Plus, if you end up selling your home to a family with kids or a senior citizen couple, they would love it too!

What kind of tub do you have in your bathroom?

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