Freebies at {heart-this}

I’ve finally done it!

I’ve joined the ranks of the multi-blogged and started a second blog, called {heart-this}.

It’s the place where I’ll be sharing everything I’ve learnt in the past year about blogging, WordPress, theme coding and graphics.

To celebrate, I’ve created these two lovely header images for your use on your own blog(s).

You can download them right now, over at {heart-this}.

Dome Home

This space-age monstrosity could be coming to Tornado Alley and other natural-disaster-prone areas, if designers of the “Monolithic Dome” have their way.

According to the dome of a home website, research at the Idaho State University has indicated that this type of structure could withstand winds of over 500mph.

That’s impressive, when you consider that a really strong tornado with the top rating of EF5 has winds of 200mph and over.

Meaning total destruction of most structures, of which there have been two such phenomena in the last two years.

So how would you feel at seeing these things sprout up in your neighbourhood?

I suppose if they lost the concrete blocks and topiary it wouldn’t be so bad…

Mermaid Cake

How to add Twitter to your blog’s sidebar

Feelin’ the Lurve

Wow, I’ve received the “I Love Your Blog” award, from The Freebie Blogger. Isn’t it cute?

Thank you Wendi

The rules of the award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you have nominated.

My Supercalifragilistic Seven are:

1. Tonya, at A Day in my Life,
2. Jane from His Boys Can Swim!,
3. Author of Magneto Bold Too, Kelley,
4. Keyomi from A Rollercoaster Ride Called Life,
5. Keeper of the Cheerios, Miranda,
6. Anissa from Hope 4 Peyton,  and {{{drum roll}}}
7. The lovely Willow, from Apron Strings & Angst!

Hope you all had a good weekend, people.

Review: Coles Smart Buy Cat Food

Usually, Mr Underfoot gets chicken necks and chopped-up late-dated meat, with the occasional tin of whiskas for his dinner.

But today, he agreed that it’s about time he began to do his bit to save money in our household, especially since Friday’s surgery.

We began by taste-testing some cheaper tinned cat food.

Although I did have a sniff, I am merely translating Mr Underfoot’s review of the product in question. Seriously.

The product:

Cole’s “smart buy” brand cat food is 79c a tin, as opposed to $1.38 for whiskas (at least those were the prices here last week).

Well worth trying for the potential savings, since we go through up to five cans a week.

We tried… erm, he tried the “fish cocktail” flavour.

The smell:

Jane: I usually heave if I get a lung-full of cat food, but when I accidentally did with this one, it wasn’t so bad.

Mr Underfoot: For once, a cat food that actually smells like fish. I was almost tripping Jane over!

The look:

Jane: Good sized pieces of fish, not too runny, the jelly was kind of firm & orange coloured.
Not sure why it was orange, maybe to look like fish roe?

Mr Underfoot: Who looks?

The taste:

Jane: No comment.

Mr Underfoot: *slurp*  good  *gobble*  taste  *gulp*

The result:

From the way Mr Underfoot gobbled down his meal, I would say we have success.

That’s another $2.95 we’ll be saving each week from now on.

Next week, I’ll be looking at tinned diced tomatoes, and comparing the store brands of Coles, Woollies & Aldi.

Introducing Weekly Grocery Reviews

Since we’ve been on a budget (well, since before that really), I’ve found a huge number of store-brand products that rival the quality of brand-name products.

We’ve saved heaps by trying cheaper products that we would not have previously touched, merely because we were set in our ways.

I began thinking that there must be a lot of Australian households out there like ours, who could benefit from the knowledge gained by our trial-and-error-style-purchasing.

Beginning this Thursday, I will be writing a weekly feature about a store-brand product that we have found to be great quality and fab value.

I will be as impartial as possible, comparing the cheaper product to whatever similar product we already use.

And there will be no cash changing hands here, people. This is my own personal opinion you’ll be reading and it’s up to you to take it or leave it.

How do you know I’m qualified?

Well as a mum of two in a household on a budget, this is what I do every week anyway.

Plus I’m a Libran, so who better to weigh things up for you?

Holy Crap!

Please go to the loo before watching this if you have a weak bladder.

No childhood is complete without a little harmless terror.

~ Think I might make that my new parenting motto.

Mr Underfoot, blogging

You’ll be pleased to know that Mr Underfoot has recovered considerably from his surgery on Friday.

Here he is hard at work, reviewing the first product for our new weekly Grocery Review, to be posted each Thursday from the 12th Feb.

More info on Tuesday 10th…

Cuddles

Very glad to be home, and cuddled up next to my blogging bum.