Influenster: St. Ives

Influenster sent me products from one of my favorite companies in my most recent Voxbox! I got St. Ives new Oatmeal Scrub, Even and Bright Pink Lemon and Mandarin Exfoliating Body Wash, and Refresh and Revive Pear Nectar and Soy Body Lotion.

I've used St. Ives off and on for years (I love their Apricot Scrub), so I was excited to give these products a try!

Oatmeal Scrub

I love the Oatmeal Scrub. One thing I've loved about St. Ives' Apricot Scrub is how smooth my skin feels after using it, without feeling dried out. The Oatmeal Scrub has similar results. The exfoliation isn't as harsh and the product is creamier, leaving your skin feeling moisturized.

Even and Bright Exfoliating Body Wash

The Pink Lemon and Mandarin scent is amazing. I also loved how my skin felt silky after using the body wash. My only problem is I don't really use body wash very often, I prefer bar soap. So despite using this a couple of times, I haven't enjoyed it as much as the Oatmeal Scrub.

Refresh and Revive Body Lotion

I also really enjoyed the Pear Nectar and Soy scent. That said, this lotion doesn't cut it for my skin during the winter. Heaters really dry my skin out and I need something that really moisturizes to keep up. However, I'm looking forward to trying this again this summer. Both the scent and the consistency of the lotion should be perfect once the heaters are off and my skin isn't so dry. I'm considering taking it to the office to share with my co-workers!

What are your favorite skincare products?

Hot Water Dilemma

When I came home from work earlier this month I was enjoying the much warmer weather and grateful the ice had mostly melted off the roads. When my garage door opened though I found a small flood of water covering the garage floor. There was a leak from the corner where my hot water tank is that was squirting water across the garage.

My first two thoughts were that it must have been leaking for a while, and I really didn't want to spend my Christmas money on a new hot water tank.

Of course, it was already after 6:00 and since half of Tulsa was having similar problems I couldn't get a plumber that night. The best I could manage was to shut off my water completely and try to get someone out the following day. 

So much for my relaxing evening plans (which included a hot bath and early bedtime). 

Ollie and I went to my dad's since I didn't relish the idea of doing without water all evening. Luckily I was able to find someone who could take a quick look at the leak the next morning to diagnose the problem and get the ball rolling on fixing it. 

That's when I got really, really lucky. 

Mike Ridenour came out and could tell immediately the problem wasn't the tank. I was viewing that news with tentative optimism. I wouldn't need to spend $300 on a new tank, but would the real problem be even worse?

At that point I was having horrifying images of having to rip up my yard or something to find the leak.

It turns out that under the pedestal my hot water tank sits on there used to be a pump to pump water around the house. When the pump was removed the pipe connected to it was capped off. With the negative temperatures we had the capped pipe froze and cracked. Once our weather warmed up a bit the pipe started spewing the built up water across the garage due to the high pressure. 

Ignore the mess, the newly capped pipe is on the right.

All Mike had to do was remove the cracked section of pipe and recap the pipe further down. The entire visit took 10 minutes and cost me $25.

How's that for luck?

I couldn't believe that I managed to get away that easily, really that was something I might have been able to fix myself with the right tools (and knowing what the problem was, of course).

The hole isn't large, but
I'll need to watch for mold.

I'm still going to need to keep an eye on the drywall around the hot water tank.

Since the leak lasted long enough to melt a small hole in the drywall, I'm anticipating mold. I might get lucky and not have a problem. Even if I do it is in the garage so shouldn't be a huge issue, but as you can see, trying to replace that section of drywall won't be a walk in the park since I would need to create holes for the drain and dryer vent (although the dryer is inside now so this vent isn't actually used).

Has anyone else had lucky run-ins with plumbing problems? Or horror stories that still make you cringe?

Merry Christmas!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!

This year brought a lot of changes for me personally and my family as a whole. I started my new job and lost two grandparents. In the midst of those changes though I have enjoyed the new direction I'm headed.

One of the perks of my job is that we get nice breaks for the holidays. Over Thanksgiving I was able to drive down the Arkansas to be with my family, it was so different not having my Granddaddy there, but it was still great to see my cousins, uncle, aunts and grandmothers. The day after Thanksgiving my great-grandma made pork chops and other goodies for us (because we were all starved after we had our turkey dinner the day before).

I think my brother Spencer was more jealous of missing the pork chops than he was of missing out on the turkey!

Grandma putting the final
touches on her pork chops.

The weekend after Thanksgiving Tulsa and Northwest Arkansas got hit with several inches of snow and ice.

Snow always puts our area in a tizzy, even if it isn't that much compared to other areas. For example, while we were complaining about our 5" of snow my brother Burns has moved to Montana where they measure snow in feet and the temperature was in the negative double digits.

Regardless, I didn't have to go to work on Friday since the roads around the museum and university were all coated in ice. Instead I stayed home and baked, napped and read. Pretty much the perfect snow day!

Can you find the street?

Notice the bowls full of snow for snow ice cream...

And of course I made snow ice cream...

On Saturday some girls came over for a crafternoon which was great. We all worked on projects that we had. Anything from knitting to quilting or embroidering. Perfect activity for the freezing weather.

Of course, the next round of winter weather was ice. I lost half my maple in the back yard the weekend before Christmas, but at least it didn't take down the power line or damage my fence, deck or house. And I should have firewood to last me forever once we get the wood chopped.

The morning after the ice storm I actually went to Salvation Army to help distribute Christmas presents and food. Despite the fact that we were helping load items in people's cars while it sleeted I was glad I decided to go help. One of my book club friends works for Salvation Army and she asked some of us to come and the weather meant we didn't have as many as we had planned, but those of us who made it got a lot done.

The fallen limb, you can see how
it is almost half the tree.

It was only after I got home that my power was out. Which really put a kink in Lydia and my plans for the afternoon. We intended to have a baking day at my house to get all the Christmas treats that we wanted to make done. Instead we played a game of musical houses. I packed up about five grocery bags full of baking ingredients to haul to my mom's house in Sapulpa.

We were only about halfway done (but luckily finished with everything we had already started making) when the power went out at Mom's house.

So we packed everything up again and went to Dad's house in Jenks. By this point it was nearly 11:00 and we were almost done for the day. We mixed the dough for apricot and prune horns and left it to rise overnight.

Of course, we only thought that was the end of the drama. I woke up Sunday and got started on the apricot and prune filling and rolling out the dough only to discover that Dad's oven had inexplicably stopped working. Which meant that we had no way to bake the horns. Luckily my power had been turned back on sometime the previous evening (which I was extremely grateful for since I didn't want to have to transfer the contents of my refrigerator again) so we packed everything up AGAIN and went back to my house.

Ridiculous.

Close up of the fallen limb.
Apparently the limb is mostly hollow,
a squirrel lost it's home.

We managed to get almost everything made and left Monday for my grandmother's house in southern Arkansas. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be allowed to stay for Christmas if we didn't get the buckeyes made for my cousins and brothers.

Gramma Getchell's Buckeyes

          2 cups peanut butter

1 box powdered sugar

3 cups Rice Krispies

1/2 stick Butter, melted

2-3 pkg. chocolate chips or baking chocolate

paraffin wax

1. Mix peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter and sugar in large bowl until well blended.
2. Shape mixture into walnut-sized balls. Makes about 60 balls. 
3. Melt chocolate and paraffin wax in double boiler. Using skewer dip balls in chocolate until coated and place on wax paper to set. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens. 

A Chilly Breeze

You may remember a while back when I had Mullin Plumbing out to repair the faucet handles in my tub. In order to do the work the plumber had to remove the panel accessing the pipes to the tub. Since removing the panel messed up the paint job around the edges I told him not to replace the panel since I wanted to touch up the paint first.

Of course, that was when the weather was warm.

Getting the insulation ready to put in.

Weeks later I still hadn't found the time to fix the panel and I started noticing a chilly breeze in the restroom. Replacing the panel quickly became a priority. That's also around the time that I remembered to check the vents to my crawl space. Every single one was open. Oops. Once I closed all the vents the chill in my bathroom was noticeably less, but I still needed to get the panel in place so I could stop heating my crawl space.

I borrowed my dad's drill and some extra insulation he had so that even once the panel was back in place the breeze wouldn't get in. I cut a section of the insulation, fitted it into the opening (paper side out) and put the panel in place. The tricky part was that the frame didn't offer much for the screws to grab hold to and the insulation was thick enough that trying to hold the panel in place until the screws were in place was frustrating. It also didn't help that the panel is so close to the toilet that I couldn't use the drill for the screws on the left. I had to track down my screwdriver.

It always amazes me how a project you put off for ages can take less than 10 minutes once you take the time to get started.

The job all finished!