Tide Coldwater Review

One of the great things about having a house is having your own laundry room. Sure doing laundry isn't one of the most fun things to do, but as household chores go it certainly isn't the worst either! And there always seems to be new and improved products for making laundry easier.

I recently got the change to try out Tide Coldwater thanks to SheSpeaks. I was thrilled to be able to try out a new formula for the brand that I already use for my laundry. Since I already use Tide, I knew that my colors would turn out clean and fresh in coldwater without any problem. The main thing that I wondered about was our whites, since most of them are "underthings" I always feel like they should be washed in hot water to get them really clean. So the challenge was on!

The Tide Coldwater did not disappoint! It got the whites clean and fresh, and I didn't have to use the hot water setting. To spare you, I didn't take before and afters of our unmentionables, but I will tell you that some otherwise very smelly socks came out smelling fresh!

You might be wondering why you would want to switch to cold water washing. For one it saves hot water, which if you have a lot of people in your home can be hard to come by in the shower sometimes! And of course, it conserves energy (since you don't have to heat the water) which will help save money on energy bills. Pretty great, right?

If you want to see how the Tide Coldwater worked for other SheSpeaks members, check out the Tide Coldwater Gallery! SheSpeaks provided the product for my review, but as always my opinions are my own regardless of compensation.

Back from ALT!

Altitude Summit was lovely this year. The weather was warm, the people were friendly, and the parties were fun! I met a lot of great people, and am so thankful to Minted for the last minute ticket!

As always, there was great food, wonderful speakers, and all kinds of bloggers. My favorite part of all is meeting people and learning about what they do. It always amazes me the variety of passions that people have. Even though I write about home, garden, and DIY here, another passion I have is helping animals through my main site, 4 The Love of Animals. If we met at ALT, you didn't hear about the blog you are reading now, because I talked about my other site instead. It was such a pleasure to talk to people about their pets, in addition to what they love about design!

There have been some great ALT recaps written already, in fact, Gala Darling's recap basically says everything I was going to say (sad we didn't meet), so I will keep mine brief. The keynotes were by far my favorite. Ben from Pinterest spoke about how he started the site, and why, which was really interesting. I loved that his reason for starting is was that he wanted to inspire people to get out and do what they love. Gretchen Rubin from The Happiness Project spoke for the closing keynote, and talked about "designing your life". She was just as charming in person as she is online.

The sponsors this year were amazing and spoiled us to no end! And the mini-parties this year were tons of fun, each with a different theme. Above all though, the BEST thing about ALT, the thing that I love the most, is meeting great people and hearing about their passions.

If you are curious about other ALT recaps, some of which are a lot more detailed, be sure to visit the ALT blog, where they are posting roundups of all the recaps. And to see photos of the conference check out the ALT stream on Flickr.

ALT Summit! Or in otherwords, design heaven!

Last year I was lucky enough to attend ALT, which is an amazing design and social media conference. If you are on Twitter, you could be seeing a lot of chatter about it recently as people are preparing to go again next week. I was thrilled when I found out that I would get to go again this year (won a ticket thanks to the people at Minted), so even though I am a little late to the party, I thought I might give you all a sneak peek at what it might be like!

First of all you need to know that it is winter here in Utah. While we haven't had much snow this year, it has been very cold. The upside is that it has also been quiet sunny! And besides, when you are at a conference most of your time will be spent in the hotel where it's nice and toasty. However, I do encourage you to get outside into the hotel courtyard! It's gorgeous.

The sponsors last year spoiled us in the lounge. So many tasty treats, hot chocolate and coffee, and the food at the lunches is downright amazing! Also, don't forget to try the cookies in the hotel lobby, and make a visit to the sweet shop too. There are French macaroons and gelato there!

The parties are a blast too! And also full of amazing food. Would it be strange to tell you that we had the best macaroni and cheese ever? And the chocolate fountains in the HGTV party were so good! You could smell the chocolate before you even reached the room!

The Grand America hotel is a treat in and of itself. There are tons of interesting chandeliers, and yes, the bathrooms are everything you have heard that they are!

Other advice I would give anyone coming to the conference:

• There will be free WiFi, so you won't be out of touch.
• Name tags are provided, which is really nice when you will be meeting a lot of people.
• Everyone likely feels as awkward as you do! Don't be afraid to say hello first!
• Have a card that you can give people, and ask for cards in return. Write something memorable about the person on their card so you can easily remember them after the conference ends. 
• Make some time to enjoy what the city has to offer outside of the conference. Anyone up for shopping at Anthropologie?
• Take a lot of photos, especially of the friends you meet. 
• Follow people attending on Twitter. The hash tag is #altsummit. Even if you aren't attending you might learn some fun new things from those who are.
• Above all, have fun! These moments only come once, so you might as well enjoy them.

New bed, new opportunities!

Word of advice to all those who plan to get married, when you do take the plunge, get a king sized bed! Trust me, it will be so worth it! We finally got one after nearly 10 years of marriage, and nearly 10 years of very little sleep. I can't even begin to tell you how lovely it is to have space to sleep without running into each other, and waking each other up because of it. But this isn't a post about that really, it's a post about the excitement that is a NEW BED!

Since we went from a queen to a king, right now our bed is plain. No frame, no headboard. This means there is a whole new world of design opportunities to be had! A bed can really set the tone for an entire bedroom, and it is certainly an investment piece. Here are a few ideas that I have loved recently (all from Pinterest of course, a one stop shop for design inspiration):

Source: lowescreativeideas.com via Cari on Pinterest

Source: thediversionproject.blogspot.com via Becca on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Julie on Pinterest

Source: decorpad.com via Elle on Pinterest

Source: horchow.com via Lisa on Pinterest

All of them are quiet different in style from one another, but there are things that I love about each of them. I'm not sure what we will do in our room yet. It sure is fun to look around and dream about what we can do though!