Shelly Wutke

  My experience with SLR cameras (however ancient) made me the perfect person to try out three of Canon’s latest and greatest DSLR’s – The Canon EOS Rebel SL1, the Canon EOS Rebel T5i, and the Canon EOS 70D. The goal of this test? To get behind the lens of these three for a few days and share the features of these beauties from a mom’s perspective, so you’ll know before you pick it up what it’s best for.

If you’re just starting out in your new place and are tempted to hit your parent’s house for a little ‘shopping’ for your linen closet, you’re in luck, because I’m here to save you from that experience.  With everything available for bed and bath right now, there’s no reason to suffer through hand-me-downs.

    Let me just start by saying that I can’t sing. At. All.   My family has asked me to stop on numerous occasions when I’ve been belting out the soundtrack from Frozen, but sometimes you just can’t help it. You have to sing along with Elsa.   Now that I have the KOHLER Moxie Showerhead and Wireless Speaker hooked up in my bathroom, I have a place to belt out the showtunes or turn up the morning music. Although anyone who has hearing and is within 20 feet of my house during shower time may not be so happy I’ve installed it, I think this just might be one of the coolest home tech devices I’ve ever tried.

Coffee might help bring you back to life in the morning, but what keeps you going during those long days of class and studying? Food and only food can give you the boost to stay alert and conscious when the days get busy.   Here are some high-energy recipes to give you a boost every day.

I’ve been experimenting with brain food lately, and found a recipe that takes all of those nutrients and combines them into one delicious energy bar. Although they’re chock full of healthy ingredients, they taste almost like a chocolate bar. The local coffee shop sells them and calls them ‘Brain Bites,’ but I just call them delicious.   I whipped up a batch of these little gems today – check out the recipe and my photos for the steps to make them.

It’s important to break your ‘must haves’ into ‘absolutely pack’ long before you head out the door. For some people the ‘absolutely pack’ includes everything but the kitchen sink, but because I’ve been there and done that, I can definitely share what you can safely leave behind and what is absolutely essential to bring when you’re heading back to school.

The amazing thing about summer vegetables is that you can make a new side dish for dinner every single night. Some of them are so good you may just opt out of a main course and stick to your sides.

The reason summer salads are called ‘summer salads’ is because they’re chock full of fresh-from-the-garden vegetables. But if you haven’t tried mixing things up and adding a few chunks of fruit, you’re really missing out on a mind-blowing meal.

With a cat who loves to sprint out the door and a dog in the learning phases of obedience training, I was definitely up to the task of testing out the Tractive GPS Pet Tracking Device. It’s a small, plastic tag that hangs on your cat or dogs collar and it lets you track them via the Tractive website or using an app on your smartphone.

This past week our country turned 147 years old, and although it’s a relative youngster in terms of countries, (after all, our neighbor to the south is ripe, old 238 today) I think it’s established itself very well. When you think of Canada you think of polite people, wide, open spaces, 4 very definite seasons of weather, and last but not least, hockey.   But let’s not forget that we’re also a culture based on a wide variety of delicious dishes too, and because of those definite weather cycles, there are some uniquely Canadian recipes that are only really available to be made in the summer.