Menards: Mr. Rootbeer Brewing Kit $2.99 After Rebate!

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If you live near a Menards, you can grab a great deal on the Mr. Rootbeer Brewing Kit for just $2.99 after rebate.   You must pick it up at your local store .  Rebate details available in store at the service desk or you can print it here.

Note: Rebates are in the form of a merchandise credit check that can only be used in store at Menards.

Product Description

Each kit includes the products you need to make 2-gallons of homemade old fashioned rootbeer. The plastic (PET) bottles & pressure relief caps are reusable. The bottles are designed to accommodate carbonated beverages and are FDA approved.
  • Kit includes: 4-1-liter plastic bottles, gaskets, caps & labels, rootbeer mix, dry yeast, flavor crystals, and no-rinse cleanser. Sugar is also an ingredient and purchased separately.
  • Included are all the essential ingredients to brew 2-one gallon batches of delicious creamy old fashioned rootbeer
  • BONUS: “Rootbeer Fun Guide” with detailed instructions & some fun facts behind rootbeer’s history

 

 

 

Ibotta: $10 Signup Bonus! (New Members)

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If you aren’t yet signed up with Ibotta, now is a great time to do it!  For a limited time, they’ve brought back the popular Share the Love promotion and are offering an additional $10 bonus if you redeem 5 offers within 2 weeks of registering the Ibotta app.  This is so easy to do, too!
Take a look at a sampling of the currently available coupons, and you’ll see why:
$0.75/1 Kraft Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese Bowls (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Kool-Aid Liquid Drink Mix (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Kool-Aid Jammers (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Kool-Aid Drink Mix (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Eggland’s Best Eggs (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Aunt Jemima Syrup (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Crystal Light Liquid (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Doritos Jacked Spicy Chipotle BBQ Chips (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 Jergens Original Scent Cherry-Almond Moisturizer (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 OxiClean Laundry Stain Remover Spray (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Post Honey-Comb Cereal (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 Folgers Fresh Breaks (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Bubba Burger (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Banana Boat Kids and Baby Sunscreen (Ibotta Deposit) - Stack with that great Target deal this week!
$1/1 Capri Sun Roarin’ Waters (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 Capri Sun Super V (Ibotta Deposit)
$1.25/1 Clear Men Scalp Therapy Shampoo (Ibotta Deposit) - Use at CVS this week for an excellent deal!
$1.25/1 Clear Scalp & Hair Therapy Product (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 MiO Liquid Water Enhancer (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Mission Wraps (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 McCormick Grill Mates (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 C&H Pure Cane Sugar (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Citrucel Orange Mix Varieties (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Dial Bar Soap (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 YoCrunch Yogurt Cups (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Zest Body Wash (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Mazola Olive Oil (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.50/1 Krusteaz Bakery Style Cookie Mix (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Vitaminwater or Vitaminwater Zero (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 Emerald Breakfast On the Go! (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.25/1 Coca-Cola Zero (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Bodycology Nourishing Body Cream (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Cortizone-10 Itch Relief Items (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Hawaiian Tropic Aerosol Sunscreen (Ibotta Deposit)
$1/1 Plum Organics Mashups (Ibotta Deposit)
$0.75/1 Healthy Choice Greek Frozen Yogurt (Ibotta Deposit)

 

Ibotta
If you aren’t familiar with Ibotta, it’s a free app you can download and get paid for buying products in store.  Take a photo of your receipt with your phone after your purchase and you’ll receive the cash back via Paypal.  In addition, you can view product facts or watch videos to earn more on a product on top of the purchase cash back reward! 

It’s compatible with iPad 2 or 3, iPhone 3GS +, iPod Touch 4th gen + and Android on platform 2.2 and newer.  

Thanks, Mission to Save!

Oklahoma: Find Family & How You Can Help!

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Help online

 

 

Our hearts go out to those affected by the tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma and surrounding areas.  If you’re looking for family or a way to help, I’ve got some information for you.

Red Cross – Find friends and family through the Red Cross Safe and Well program.

Salvation Army – Donate what you can.

Get updates on Twitter from @redcrossokc

Red Cross: Text REDCROSS to 90999 or make a donation online atwww.redcross.org

Salvation Army of Oklahoma: Text GIVE to 80888 to make a $10 donation or mail donations to:

Salvation Army Central Oklahoma Area Command
P.O. Box 2095
Oklahoma City, OK 73101

Oklahoma Highway Patrol is urging people to not go to Moore, Oklahoma to look at or help out with damage.

U-Haul - The U-Haul Company of Oklahoma City is offering 30 days of free self-storage to all residents who were affected by severe storms and tornadoes in Oklahoma.

ACO Hardware: FREE Frootee Ice Freezer Pops 24ct After Rebate!

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ACO Hardware (a hyper local Michigan store chain) has an excellent deal on Ice Pops this week!

Frootee Ice Freezer Pops 24ct $2.00
$2.00 MIR (lim 1)
Final after MIR: FREE!

This offer is valid from 5/19-5/25.

 

Thanks for the photo and deal, Kelly!

From Fear to Fun: The Peanut Solution

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This is it.  The Peanut “Solution”.     Because I spend a dutiful amount of time thinking about things like the word ‘solution’,  I find it somewhat…perplexing.

so·lu·tion

noun \sə-ˈlü-shən\

  • An answer to a problem.
  • An act or the process by which a solid, liquid, or gaseous substance is homogeneously mixed with a liquid or sometimes a gas or solid.

Ummm, ok.  So here’s how I think about this:

This is NOT a solution because a solution doesn’t need to be shaken.  A solution is, as stated above, a homogenous mixture – already evenly incorporated with no agitation required.   This bottle clearly states, “Please Shake Well Before Using”.  For those of us in medicine, we call that a suspension.  Yes, you know I overthink everything.  Particularly with my background.

So, what does that leave me with?

It’s a solution.  It’s an answer to a problem.  Yessss, that’s how I see it, and then I get scared and start begging God to please let this work.  Please help my boy.

Because sometimes this is all very scary.

 

Forever Changed

For the last five years, I’ve only spoken about my son’s nut allergy as an experience frozen in time.  After all, his last *real* reaction was five years ago.  It was so frightening that I don’t relive it often.  But I can.  I can summon the memory like it was yesterday.

He ate a teeny Reese’s Peanut Butter cup at my Mom’s, started itching, asked for water, then said he didn’t feel well.  He wanted to watch the cars go by on her street.  He was just barely 3.  That was November 3, 2007.

Knowing something was wrong, she called me to come get him.  I did.  He fell asleep on the way home.  It takes around 5 minutes or less to get home.  He usually looked for certain *landmarks* along the way.  Not that day.  Something was wrong.

I watched him sleep because I had already *thought* for over a year that he was allergic to peanuts.  As he slept, his abdomen swelled considerably.  I took his pants off.

At this point in the story, I feel like I’m watching a scary movie.  You know the kind.  The lights won’t turn on and the girl still opens the door/climbs the stairs/yells “Helloooo?”,  and goes into a dark room…or outside…or in the basement.  You KNOW something’s going to happen to her.  She’s a complete idiot, totally oblivious, and proceeds to meet her doom.

I can only say this; I was in denial.  Looking back, I knew exactly what was happening.  I can’t believe I did nothing at that point.   I want to scream at myself to wake him up, to call 911, to get help.  Instead, I let him finish his nap thinking it might go away.

I picked him up from my mother’s at 5:20pm.  It was now 7:30pm.

Long nap.

When he woke up, he called for me to come get him (I was already there.) and I carried him out to rock him in the chair.  Almost instantly, he got down out of the chair and started to walk behind it when he screamed and fell to the floor.  He was screaming something about his legs hurting.  I couldn’t really understand him.  He was hysterical.  I could see that his legs were blotchy and red.  It was 7:45pm.  My husband was just coming in from work and we drove him to the urgent care center.  At this point, he was sneezing, had a runny nose, and swollen red lips.  His breath was….wrong.  It smelled metallic…not bloody, metallic.  Anaphylaxis.

When we got there, we ran in to the front desk….

Receptionist: “Please sign in and someone will be with you shortly…”

Me: “NO!  My son ate peanuts!  He’s having a reaction.”

Receptionist: “OK, come on back.  I’ll get the doctorS.”

No chart.  3 Nurses.  2 Doctors.  3 shots.

Doctor: “Hold him tight, Momma.”

Doctor: “Here it comes.”

Shot number 1.

Blood curdling scream.

Doctor: “Hold him, Momma. Keep him still.”

Shot 2, and another scream.

And another shot.

And another scream.

I’m crying as much as my buddy at this point.

I didn’t want to ask if he was going to die because I didn’t want to scare him.  I asked if everything was ok.  The doctor just said, “I’m not sure.”

Because there was no time to pull a chart…All doses and times given were written on that flimsy, crackly parchment-like paper that covers that horribly insensitive bed.  The bed that doesn’t want you there.    And yes, at this point, I was mad that the bed was ridiculously uncomfortable.  It should have been helpful and soft.   After all, if my sweet, scared little boy has to lay on it for hours, it better love him as much as I do.  Everyone and everything better love him as much as I do.

My Mom came.   She felt guilty.  Horribly guilty.  She walked my buddy back and forth, back and forth, as he breathed through his teeny swollen mouth.  I walked, and rocked air…or myself, maybe.  I had to rock something because she needed to hold him for a while.  They’re very, very close.

Slowly, but surely, he improved.  As he got better, I got better.

My husband made glove balloons.

2 hours and 40 minutes later, we went home.

We were all never the same.

 

Life Now

After the *event*, we rearranged our lives.

No birthday parties.

No trips to amusement parks where they routinely roast nuts…you know, those nut cart things?  Ugh, no one eats those anyway.  I mean, really.  If given a choice between a greasy corndog and a bag of nuts, I’m goin’ corndog.  I bet you are, too.  The only person I recall ever buying nuts from a cart was a man celebrating Oktoberfest in July.   No doubt this is why I remember, but still. I don’t remember seeing anyone paying at one of those carts OR carrying a bag of nuts around.  Ever.

Anyhoo, we don’t go to the grocery store on the days they bake peanut butter cookies.

We homeschool.  Our school will only give him a separate table.  As I may have mentioned before, he had a reaction at 2pm when a girl whispered in his ear.  She had Reese’s cereal for breakfast at 8am.  No thanks.  It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take, and I didn’t want anyone else to be responsible for him.  It’s a lot to understand, and I often say, “If you don’t live it, you don’t get it.”  And that’s true.

And all of this is ok with me.  I don’t question why things happen.  I know it’s all part of God’s plan.  No really, I’m crazy ok with it.  I’m not a negative person.  I don’t blame anyone – myself…or God…or whatever, for this.  It just is, and we will find a way to move forward. What else matters, anyway?

 

Fromfeartofun

Answered Prayers?

For the last several years, I’ve been in contact with researchers at Duke University, and now the University of North Carolina, where they actively study and try to cure food allergies.   After much consultation, my husband and I had nearly decided that I was going to move to North Carolina with our son to start an experimental Oral Immunotherapy Treatment (OIT).   Yes, it’s experimental.  That means lots of things…mostly, it’s allowing yourself to be a test subject in order to reach a cure.  I have moral and ethical issues with that.  While I appreciate the necessity of test subjects, I do not agree with the use of children as such.  It is necessary, I understand, but I cannot overcome my own personal compass.  Not judgement.  I just couldn’t do it.  Too much can go wrong.  I would only have allowed him to participate in additional trials of an already proven method.

 mapchange

Enter an Angel 

Last year, a fellow allergy Mom mentioned a doctor doing OIT in Michigan.  In West Bloomfield.  Now, if you don’t live in Michigan, this means nothing to you.  That’s why I’ve made this nifty map for you!  See that?  He’s right in our back yard. Literally.

We spoke with him last July, and planned to start the treatment.  As it approached, I was so afraid to feed my son peanuts at home that I just couldn’t go through with it.  To top it off, my son didn’t feel comfortable with it, so we decided to wait six months or so.

Several weeks ago, I decided to schedule a new appointment for the end of March. After all, I knew people whose children were in the program, and were *cured*.   Now, that is not a word ANYONE short of the mothers and children who have gone through this program will use.  It is not yet approved as a standard treatment.   It is not considered curative.  At the same time, tolerance to peanuts is increased.  The children who have completed the program are able to eat them and nothing happens.

Nothing.

I still can’t imagine it.

 

The Solution

We started the program on April 9th.

I was petrified.  A complete disaster that day.  My buddy seemed…calm.

Every 15 minutes he was given a grape flavored peanut solution…suspension…starting at 9am.  He made it until mid afternoon.  He started feeling strange – scared, and had a lump in his throat.  We stopped.  He was given Benadryl, and the reaction ended.

I had no idea what would happen.  I was sure he was going to react again hours later, but he didn’t.

The next morning it was my turn.  I drew up 2ml in the syringe and gave it to him.  Zantac for me.  Peanut suspension for him.  No kidding.

He reacted, and felt sick.  Benadryl.

We started giving him applesauce for the stomach cramps – which works WONDERS for him.  It didn’t stop the reactions though…of course.  The same thing happened that night, and again the next morning.

After consulting with his doctor, PTSD was added as a diagnosis.  The reactions were making him panicky.  He asked me repeatedly if he was going to die.  I promised him he would not.  I’ve never ONCE shown that kind of unwavering conviction about anything as a mother, but he desperately needed that strength.   It was not mine though, I assure you.

Then a miracle, nothing happened with the next dose.    No Benadryl.

He has only needed a single dose of Benadryl from April 12th through today.

The dose that made him react in the doctor’s office on the first day was his dose last week.

This week, he doubled that dose.

Tomorrow, he’ll increase again.

If he doesn’t react, it will be his new dose.  If he does react, we continue with the current dose for another week, and try again.  And try, and try again.

And now, I’m starting to believe.

This IS the solution.

Oh please, God, please help my boy.

ThredUp: $15 Credit to New Women&’s Shop! (New Members)

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The ThredUp Women’s Shop is finally open, and we can save up to 80% off brand name items!  In addition, they’re offering a free $15 credit to all new users when you sign up through this link (You must use a referral link.) and use the code LADY15 when you check out.

I LOVE ThredUp.  It’s like a huge garage sale of my favorite brands!

You can also use this code toward your $2.99 shipping cost, so there is a possibility of finding a freebie!

Offer expires 5/10/13 at 11:59PM PST.

Home Depot: Join Garden Club for $5 Off $50 Purchase Coupon and More!

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Get over $300 in annual savings when you sign up to receive emails from the Home Depot Garden Club! Fill in your email address, ZIP code and name below to start seeing project ideas, monthly to-do lists and savings delivered right to your inbox. You’ll receive great coupons like $5 off your next lawn & gardening purchase of $50 or more. Click the banner to sign up.

Pottery Barn: FREE Shipping! (Today Only)

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And here’s another *today only* for you!  Pottery Barn is offering free shipping on almost everything with the promo code FREESHIP at checkout.

Select clearance items are included.  Look for the free shipping information below the item description.

Details: In-stock items only.  Furniture, Rugs, Bath Furniture & Lighting not included.  Offer valid until 11:59pm PT.  Not valid at PB Kids or Pteen

 

Inbox Dollars: Get Paid to Read Email + $5 Signup Bonus!

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You’re online. You’re checking your email, shopping, searching for things, and playing games….for free.  Change THAT.

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Join Inbox Dollars and get paid for many of the things you already do online.  It’s free to join and you’ll get a $5 bonus just for signing up.  Once you’ve signed up, you’ll receive an email confirmation, and notice to activate your account so you can start earning money for your online activity.

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In addition, confirming your account will nab you the $5 signup bonus!  You’ll also have a list of items that you can complete to earn even more money.

  • Take your first survey and earn $0.50 – Once you’ve completed the survey, you’ll receive additional offers that total $3.05 (or more)  in possible additional earnings.
  • Watch a How-To video and earn $0.15
  • Like them on Facebook
  • Confirm your first PaidEmail and earn $0.02
  • Make a web search (Again, you’ll see even more offers when you complete this activity.)

Once you’ve completed these activities, you’ll earn an additional $0.50 on top of the individual activity earnings.   And if you participate in any additional offers, you’ll earn more.

In addition to these signup offers, you can earn money daily by:

  • Completing a survey every day  ($1 each)
  • Signing up for information about products and services, as well as other survey programs
  • Trying products and services from companies who would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
  • Playing games online
  • Reading emails ($0.03 each)

You won’t be able to support yourself with your earnings, but doing these activities amounts to quite a nice chunk of change!  I spotted well over $20 in money that could be earned today.  Now, even if you don’t want to sign up for free trials of this or that, that’s fine.  You’ll benefit from using Inbox Dollars to get paid for reading emails, completing a daily survey, and playing games online.  For that alone, I recommend using it as another way to earn money for every little thing you do.

Note: Inbox Dollars has been around for over 10 years, and they are a legitimate company.  I would never recommend anything to you that isn’t. Ever.

Pinecone Research: Earn $3 Per Survey!

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EXPIRED
This deal has ended.

 

 

Pinecone Research is looking for new panelists again!  Even if you haven’t qualified in the past, you’ll want to apply again.  You may be accepted this time!  All the time, I hear from readers who have applied in the past, been rejected, and have gotten during a new enrollment period.   You’ll want to hurry over now and find out if you qualify. Why hurry?  They only have a limited number of spaces available.  And if you know a member, you know they pay $3 per survey.  With that in mind, spots tend to fill up quickly.  All you have to do is head over and complete the questionnaire.  If you qualify, you’ll be redirected to the signup page where you’ll fill out your information and begin receiving surveys via email.  After all, they need to be able to pay you!

You’ll receive 1-2ish (sometimes more) per month.  If you qualify for the survey and take it, you’ll receive your payment via Paypal, check or debit card.

Pinecone Research one of the most reputable survey companies around.  I highly recommend applying and taking the surveys as a way to earn some extra pocket money.

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