Prestone De-Icer

Back in the early 90s when I lived in Boston, I awoke one morning to find my car completely encased in ice. Not surprisingly, I was running late for work, so instead of thoroughly defrosting the windows and hacking off the ice with a plastic ice scraper, I simply chopped a small hole in the ice on my front windshield (who needs side and rear views?) and drove myself to work.

Like an idiot.

Thankfully, I'm a lot smarter now. When I'm running late for work and see that my minivan is encased in ice, I just yell for my husband. With eyes wide and blinking, I point out the icy task that awaits him in the driveway - picture a frozen beached whale - and then I remind him of his mad ice-scraping skillz.

He just loves it when I remind him about his mad skillz, like, "I'd be happy to clean out the cat box, but it's just that you have those mad cat box cleaning skillz."

Understandably, once I remind him of his many mad skillz, it's hard for him to refuse. And unfortunately for him, this winter he's had to rely on his mad ice-scraping skillz way too many times.

Until now.


The folks at Prestone have been making auto products for over 80 years, according to their website, and they know a thing or two about de-icing windshields.

Thanks to Prestone and the Parent Blogger Network, my husband put two of their products to the test: the Windshield De-Icer spray with ice scraper top (pictured above); and the Washer Fluid Booster (not pictured), a liquid de-icer and "dirt blocker" that you add to washer fluid to help remove frost and prevent re-freeze.

He was very pleased.

The scraper top de-icer works great on icy, frost-covered windows, and the Washer Fluid Booster leaves our windshields sparkling and clear.

In fact, thanks to Prestone, I have developed some mad ice-scraping skillz of my own.

If you live in a cold climate and frequently need to scrape the windows of your vehicle for safety reasons, I would recommend these Prestone products for you. They do the job, and they cut down the time in which you (or someone else) spend scraping your car windshield.

Please note: these products - like all de-icers - contain toxic chemicals (methyl alcohol and ethylene glycol), so use them sparingly and with the utmost care.

For more reviews of these and other products, visit the Parent Blogger Network.

The Ultimate Tea Diet

A couple years ago a friend and I waxed philosophically about starting a tea business - not because either one of us was particularly passionate about tea, mind you. We just thought it would be a timely business opportunity. We wanted to create a health conscious, tea-focused answer to Starbucks. We thought there would be a huge U.S. market for tea, as there is elsewhere on the globe.

Look, I like tea and I'm well aware of its many purported health benefits, but I usually only seek it out when I have a cold or feel under the weather. I reach for my coffee mug instead of my tea cup 99 percent of the time.

Maybe it's time to change.

When the Parent Blogger Network gave me the opportunity to review a new book called The Ultimate Tea Diet, I took it as a sign.

The universe is trying to tell me to kick my coffee habit and cleanse my body with tea.

"Dr. Tea" is telling me to do that too.

In his book, Mark Ukra aka Dr. Tea, owner of a tea shop in Los Angeles, explains the many health benefits of tea, with detailed sections on how tea affects weight loss and how the reader can incorporate tea into a healthy diet plan. He includes some disturbing caffeine facts about coffee [slurp], and dozens of recipes and tips for brewing and cooking with tea.

If you're already passionate about tea, The Ultimate Tea Diet will fuel those passions even more and reinvigorate your tea consumption in new and different ways. (Oven-roasted tea tomatoes, anyone? Tea Crab Salad in Endive Leaves?)

If you're trying to nix a coffee habit and searching for a new addiction, you, too, might love this book.

If you're like me, after you're done kicking yourself in the shin for not becoming "Dr. Tea" first, you'll find the book interesting and compelling. You'll briefly consider detoxing your body with gallons of tea. You'll go as far as making a tray of tea ice cubes.

And then you'll brew up an extra dark pot of shade grown, certified organic, fair trade coffee. Caffeinated. [slurp]