Thomas' caves

Even Thomas' has been caught up in the pumpkin spice craze!

No chapped lips here

The accumulation of lip balms just doesn't stop.

Quiet Spot

Since the boys now have a dog park tag added to their harnesses along with a dog license and rabies tag they were quite jingly jangly when they walked or ran.

I have heard that it can actually cause some damage to a dog's hearing - all that jingly jangling - so I ordered them each a Quiet Spot tag holder. It's made of nyroprene and velcroes around the tags to silence them. It also keeps them nice and tidy. I had noticed their tags getting pretty beat up and a previous year's park tag wore out at the hole and fell off. This protects the tags a bit too. Two paws up!

Summer lips

Gotta keep the smackeroos moisturized for summer. Baby Lips are the most fun for sunny days don't you think?

Strawberry Cheerios

I pay special attention to what Wegmans puts in their endcaps because it's often special or new products. Sure enough I just spotted this new version of Cherrios with strawberry!

Another cool thing is many of the Cheerio flavors are now gluten free. Great news for those who cannot eat gluten.

Here is what is worrisome. The Strawberry Cheerios are delicious. I really, really like them. BUT. They are LIMITED EDITION! I fear the day I can no longer find them.

Needless to say I stocked up with two extra boxes.

Struck gold

Look at me with another beauty post! I'd had it with my old curling iron. I was spending way too much time holding it up to my head, staring in the mirror, waiting for curls to take hold. I don't even do that much but it wasn't cutting the mustard.

A trip to the store and I spied a GOLD curling iron. Well that must be top notch right?

Nice job new curling iron. Nice job.

Best curler ever. In my opinion.

I guess I am on a beauty product post roll. What you see pictured above is not a computer mouse or toy car. It was the best darned eyelash curler I ever had. It made a nice curl without pinching my lashes. Then it broke. Which was a bummer, because I bought it in Korea. I thought it was so little and cute - just the right size for travel but ended up using it every day.

Amazon to the rescue. I wasn't able to find the exact curler but this one has a very similar form, although it's Japanese rather than Korean. Plus - free refills?! I'm definitely putting that to the test.

Searching for this product on Amazon led me down a Korean beauty product rabbit hole. Big trouble.

Oil for the win

I'm on an oil kick. When I was a teenager oil seemed like the absolute worst thing I could put on my skin. I battled the adolescent combination dry oily skin status. Now we know that oil can be great for your skin.

Probably the one you hear the most about these days is argan oil. It comes from the Moroccan argan tree and is showing up in lots of shampoos and hair care products. It's great for your skin too and I've been using it on my face. It smooths fine lines and reduces inflammation.

In the winter my skin gets super dry and then itchy. The best thing I have found is coconut oil. It's even recommended for eczema. Turns out - it's great for your hair too.

I've heard avocado and olive oil are also very effective for dry skin.

Vintage Charm inspired by Vintage Pyrex

Of all my collections, my most prized is my vintage Pyrex collection. I love all the patterns they released for everyday kitchen use. I do not however, use any of my Pyrex for everyday kitchen use. I can't risk breaking a piece and ruining a complete pattern set. For instance... you should never ever put vintage Pyrex in the dishwasher. It will ruin the finish.

Understanding that, you can imagine how excited I was to find Vintage Charm... glass mixing bowl sets with designs inspired from vintage Pyrex patterns.

Here are each of the new patterns next to a picture from my collection of the pattern that inspired it.

Spot On was inspired by the New Dots pattern from 1967. New Dots was a classic!

Memory Lane was inspired by the 1964 pattern, Terra. Good move on using brighter colors rather than the brown.

Rise and Shine was inspired by Butterprint from the 1950’s. LOVE the turquoise.

Who didn't have at least one piece of Pyrex with the Butterfly Gold pattern of 1971 in their house growing up? It was the inspiration for Golden Days.

Until I looked at the website I wasn't 100% sure which pattern inspired Birds of a Feather. The website says the Friendship pattern from 1972 was the inspiration. They modernized the birds and switched the colors to black and white.

Tickled Pink was inspired by the 1956’s Daisy pattern. I don't see this one as much. Let's just say this one is more of an "interpretation".

I would love to have a set of these that I can actually use in the kitchen and not worry about breaking one. There are versions that come with lids. What a great birthday present! What?! My birthday isn't for two months? (I like the Rise and Shine pattern best - just in case)

You can follow Vintage Charm on Instagram

Work Table. Work it table.

A couple years ago, Aaron and I were traveling... I don't even know where we were... Las Vegas? San Diego?... and we went into a World Market. Have you ever been? They have lots of cool/fun housewares and decorative items. Well, Aaron fell for a table there. I liked it too... the industrial qualities and the swivel out seats. He even measured it to see if it would fit in our breakfast nook, but alas it was too large.

I thought he had forgotten about it but I was wrong. He must have been periodically dropping in on the table product page every once in awhile to see how it was doing, because suddenly he tells me "The TABLE is on sale!". We came up with a plan to put the table in the half of our living room we rarely use. The idea being that it would be a sort of work table.

Aaron was on a mission and even found a promo code to get addional $ off. Next thing I knew the table was delivered and in place. And it is doing it's job. We are definitely using that side of the living room more. I put my laptop there to do work and I've worked on two craft projects there.

Note that the pugs could care less about it.

Warby Parker Home Try On

Have you ever tried Warby Parker? It's a cool eye glass service where you choose styles online and they send them to your home to try on. After you decide which you like best, you send the samples back and then send them your prescription for the pair you want.

Warby Parker encourages you to post pictures of yourself with the different styles and tagging them with #warbyhometryon so others can help you decide. When we sat down to take our pictures, the pugs decided they wanted to see how they looked in glasses.

Let's be honest. They look good in any style.

Well okay, they looked more amazing in some than others.

Hydration

I'm heading to San Francisco for work this week and that involves prepping myself for the plane ride. I don't travel as much as I used to for work but I'm always looking for tips to add to my travel routine.

It's seems like every article of airplane must-haves lists a hydrating mist. This article actually says that using a hydrating mist on the plane actually has the opposite affect.

I cannot resist a bit of beauty product, and I already ordered it so I decided I would use this hydrating mist before and after the flight. It made me feel a wee bit better and it gives you something to do when your flight is delayed, as it almost certainly always is.

Orange is the New Black: The Kitty Convict Project

Have you heard of the Kitty Convict project? It was started by The Oatmeal who made Exploding Kittens out of which came the Kitty Convict project.

Apparently because people are used to seeing outdoor cats roaming around, when they see your indoor cat, they don't think to try and return him home. Less than 5% of missing cats are returned home.

If you have an indoor cat, put an orange collar on him so if he escapes anyone that sees him will know that he is a "kitty convict" on the run, capture him and let you know.

Stewie is a seasoned kitty convict. He has escaped three times. Once through a window the house painters left open and twice he pushed a storm door open. Each time we scoured the neighborhood and slept by an open door. Once he came home and twice a neighbor called when he tried to go in their house.

The Kitty Convict project partnered with GoTags on these orange collars with contact info. We were on that like orange on a cone. We went with the embroidered info right on the collar because Stewie has a habit of getting tags caught in the heat vents.

Wyatt hasn't busted out yet, but just in case we got him a collar too.

Folks on our neighborhood Next Door site have been posting about the project so I'm hoping if either cat makes a break for it, their orange collars will be spotted and they will be brought swiftly back to their incarceration.

A squirt of soy

I found these little soy sauce bottles shaped like fish made by Little Soya. So cute and perfect for my rice bowl lunch at work.

While looking these up online I found this article about the history of the typical plastic pouches of soy sauce. They can be somewhat wasteful and tend to squirt and make a mess when you try to open them. These little fish bottles are a definite improvement! Even NASA astronauts use them.

Connected Cooking

Last year my mom got me the coolest Crock Pot. It is wifi enabled! I connected it to our home wifi and then downloaded the wemo app which allows me to communicate with the Crock Pot remotely. I can schedule the cooking, check in on it, change the settings and get notifications.

Crock Pot season is here and Aaron was hungry for pot roast so I used a combination of a recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook and the Crock Pot booklet. You can see how I was able to check in on the pot roast during the day. Aaron kept texting me - "How is the pot roast?!"

The pot roast was perfect when I got home. What you see here is the topping of spices and horseradish on top.

I am hooked! There are lots of recipes on the Crock Pot website that I can't wait to try.

Beef stew | Slow cooker lasagna | Cheesy Jalapeno Chicken Burritos | Easy Italian Sausage Scramble | Slow Cooker Apple Oatmeal | Cinnamon Swirl French Toast Casserole

Super special limited edition baked goods

I kept rolling past these Limited Edition Thomas' English Muffin at Wegmans until I couldn't take it anymore and tossed them in my cart.

LIMITED EDITION. Gotta get them while I can! I mean, the Pumpkin Spice isn't even on their website!

It's like the frenzy I go into when the Halloween monster cereal comes out. It's once a year people!

Part of me says - Really you should be making homemade english muffins! C'mon... get with the program. But.

But these english muffins smell so good and are so easy to pop in the toaster.

Paired with some maple butter that my friend Tina gave me and they go to an even higher level.

I should probably be making my own maple butter too.

Grilled Jalapeño Pepper Poppers

I love kitchen tools and I love trying new things. Thanks to a the gift of a Jalapeño Pepper Roaster from a very thoughtful friend, we tried our hand at "standing up" Jalapeño Poppers on the grill. This was timely as I am trying to make summer last by grilling outside as much as possible.

There are lots of recipes online but I made up my own using ingredients I had in the fridge. We had pizza camp pies earlier so I had a few items leftover that were perfect.

Jenny's Pepper Poppers

I stuffed each pepper with a little bit of each of the following.

Cream cheese
Sausage
Fresh Mozzarella
Jalapeño pepper jack cheese

Then Aaron cooked them on the bbq grill for about half an hour.

Note I wore gloves to handle the raw peppers. I've made the mistake of using my bare hands before and paid for it when I took my contacts out later that night.

The peppers had a delightful grilled flavor while the cream cheese cooled down the heat. Nice for an appetizer or as we had them, along with a grilled steak. The roaster was really helpful, because it kept all the cheesy goodness from leaking out of the peppers!

Guilt marketing appreciated by pugs - Hungry Hound Beerscuits

I was walking around the Flour City Brew Fest carefree until I happened upon this sign at the Hungry Hound Beerscuits table. Sure enough, I instantly felt guilty about the two pugs at home, wondering where we were. I picked a bag of beerscuits for them. Clever marketing.

Oscar and Hugo were very glad we didn't come home empty handed. There isn't any beer in beerscuits. Beerscuits are made with recycled barley brewers grain. Plus they are made by hand locally in Conklin, NY. What ever it is about these treats, they were a hit with these pugs.

Here you go @hungryhoundbrew - Oscar & Hugo enjoying their Beerbiscuits! #pugsofinstagram #pug #pugslife

A video posted by Jenny Cisney (@ljc) on Aug 22, 2015 at 7:55am PDT

The boys loved them! They passed the sniff test. Some treats get the "sniff sniff no thanks" reaction. These Hungry Hound Beerscuits got "sniff sniff CHOMP".

You can follow Hungry Hound Beerscuits on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Nakano Rice Vinegar - splash on flavor

You could always find a bottle of rice vinegar in my mom's cupboard. She likes to mix it with sliced cucumbers and onions for an easy, refreshing salad.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the box sent to me by Nakano with SEVEN different flavors of rice vinegar! I had no idea there were variations like red pepper and mango.

I sprinkled the Basil & Oregano Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegar on a caprese salad. It was made up of cherry tomatoes from our garden, little round balls of fresh mozzerella and snips of basil from the plant right on my porch. The lids on the bottles makes it easy to splash just the right amount onto a salad. It gave this one some extra flavor.

I was extra curious about the fruit flavored rice vinegars. I used this Mango one on some cut up cantalope and blueberries. It really adds some nice depth.

These recipes on the Nakano website look good!

Mango Chile Lime Popsicles | Asian-Style Grilled Tacos | Sea Salt and Vinegar Kale Chips

What else can I make with these seasoned rice vinegars?

Nakano rice vinegar on Facebook | Twitter