Everyone else is doing it: BlogHer 2012 schedule

All of the bloggers that I stalk my other blogger friends are posting their schedules for BlogHer 2012, detailing what sessions and parties they'll be attending. So I guess if I want to be cool, I should do it too.

I'm working as a volunteer for BlogHer again this year, this time as Mic Wrangler. That means I get to run around the sessions with a microphone to anyone who has a question or comment for the presenter, so that everyone in the room can hear them and we can make sure to get their question or comment recorded on the podcast for later. So some of the sessions I have no choice about, because I've  been assigned to "work" that session.

I thought I was all cool to be getting into NYC as early as noon on Thursday, more than 17 hours before the conference starts, but it actually turns out that with all the pre-conference parties, that is actually LATE. I'll miss more than one party by not being there on Wednesday. I put my foot down!! I am not getting there 2 days early, people! Unless someone else is paying for it...

Anyhoo, here it is, as it stands now:

Thursday:
12 noon - Get in to LaGuardia with Real Posh Mom
4pm - BlogHer Volunteer meeting
5pm - Stonyfield/Healthy Child event
7pm - screening of the movie Toxic Baby (can't wait!)

Friday:
8am - Breakfast
9am - I might skip speed dating and go to the Expo Hall, because honestly I will have met so many awesome bloggers by then and have so many parties still to go that I am going to get overwhelmed by an additional onslaught. I believe in quality over quantity, but that is a rant for another time.
10:30am - Sin Fronteras - Advocacy Blogging Across Issues and Borders (Mic Wrangling)
11:45am - Lunch Keynote featuring Martha Stewart! Also, sitting with #clothdiapers bloggers - if you're interested, follow #ClothBlogHers12 on Twitter for our meetup location (organized by @MommaWords)
1:15pm - ROYO: Celebrate Your Small Blog
2:45pm - Not sure if I'm attending this one or if I am going to step out and take a class at SLT NYC, which is a certified Lagree studio teaching the same Megaformer Pilates that I teach here in Dallas
4:45pm - Voices of the Year Community Keynote - MY FAVORITE PART!! I turned down a party with free locally produced wine for this one, people.
7pm - Babeland party (I know you want to hear about this one!)
7:30/8 - Hasbro party
9pm - Sparklecorn! I have never been, but I am excited. Going to try to borrow a tiara for this one.

Saturday:
8:30 or 9: Breakfast
9:30am: Pro Tips: Branding and Blogging Professionally - so excited about this one, which will be presented by my friends Jill from BabyRabies and Gina, The Feminist Breeder!!
11am: When It's Time To Spend Money To Market Your Work (Mic Wrangling)
12:15pm: Lunch Keynote, featuring Katie Couric!!
2-3pm: note sure if I'll be attending this session or possibly taking an SLT NYC class if I didn't on Friday
3:15pm: possibly How to Price and Value Your Services? Not sure.
5:15pm: Closing Keynote (Mic Wrangling)
6pm: BlogHer Come As You Are party
10pm: CheeseburgHer?

As you can see, my Saturday has some gaps so if you know of anything going on or want to hang out, let me know!

How NOT to DIY a t-shirt for BlogHer

Procrastinate.
I knew I would procrastinate too long to order a t-shirt with my blog name and logo from a respectable t-shirt company like Vistaprint in time for BlogHer next week. I just took it as a given. I have my business cards and I was going to give up there. But then I was looking at Pinterest late at night one night and became convinced that I could make my own branded t-shirt! Of course! I bought 2 blank t-shirts from a craft supply store and a package of paper that goes in the inkjet printer that makes anything you print on it into an iron-on transfer. 

Overestimate your skills.
I couldn't find an organic cotton t-shirt at the craft store, so I decided to tea stain the white t-shirt. This actually went well, which gave me a false sense of hope that this was going to work out well and be easy.

Putting a t-shirt in a pot of Earl Grey tea bags smells yummy,
makes the shirt brown, and deceives me into thinking I can do this.

Don't be a designer.
Nevermind that I have absolutely no graphic design skills, which is exactly what prevented me from importing artwork to a t-shirt site and having it created by professionals in the first place. I spent hours and hours just trying to figure out how to get words centered over a logo and change the colors in this Photoshop knock-off program that we have. I had to ask 3 people to help me design it. I am still a little uncertain about it, but it was taking so much time that I decided it was good enough.

Buy the wrong paper.
I bought iron-on transfers for dark t-shirts because one of my t-shirts was black. I assumed it would work the same on black and white t-shirts. WRONG. The iron-on for dark t-shirts has a white outline around anything you print, like so:

UGLY...so ugly

It's a good thing I put this on a test t-shirt first!

Spend too much.
When I went back to get the correct iron-on transfer paper, I tried Target first instead of Office Depot. It turns out that the exact same products that I paid $20 for at Office Depot cost only $8.99 at Target. It's great to know that not only did I buy the wrong product the first time, but I spent over twice what I should have.


Do not read the instructions.
There were some very clear instructions in the new package of iron-on transfer paper specifying that for light t-shirts, you'll need to reverse the printing of your design. I would have noticed this if I had read the instructions, which clearly stated that I should read the instructions first.


Do not know how to iron.
When I finally got the transfer printed correctly and read the instructions, I interpreted them incorrectly. I was unable to get that stupid design to go onto the t-shirt. I ended up having to get my husband to do it, because he knows how to work an iron. He is the only one who irons anything in this house, by the way.

Learn from my mistakes. Order custom t-shirts from Vistaprint. (Special offer below this post.)

See you at BlogHer!

Giveaway: Reusable SoftCup for tilted ladies

This giveaway is closed, thank you for entering!

Let me warn you, this post is about menstrual supplies!

Still with me? As you might remember from my previous TMI posts about finding products that keep me safe from Toxic Shock Syndrome* during my period, a major obstacle for me is my tilted cervix which makes menstrual cups like the DivaCup impossible. But I have sooo wanted to get in on the reusable cup action despite my tilted cervix. How awesome would it be not to have to worry about carrying supplies around during Happy Fun Week? Instead, you just dump the contents of the cup, wipe it out, put it back in and go - for up to 12 hours!

Well, now I can! Softcup, which has made disposable menstrual cups for years, now makes a Reusable Softcup! I am so excited about this because Softcup has been the only cup I can use with my particular anatomy. Take a look at the Softcup shape:

Note how the "cup" part of SoftCup is made of thin membrane

The Softcup is made of a thin flexible material in the cup, almost like plastic wrap, as opposed to the traditional menstrual cup shape, which is inflexible:

A traditional reusable menstrual cup shape
photo By menstruationstasse.net

As you can imagine, the traditional cone shape doesn't work well at a 45 degree angle (which is how it sits on my cervix).

The Softcup, however, works great for a tilted cervix!

About a month ago I took 3 days of Pilates instructor training. As I am sure you are aware, Pilates/Yoga pants are not the kind of pants you can hide a pad under. I had to wear specific undergarments to avoid pantyline, if you know what I mean. And forget about pockets for going to the bathroom! I had no pockets in which to put a tampon, and we were all in one big room with our belongings in cubbies right out in the open, so no running to my purse to grab something and crossing the room again with a tampon in hand (there were men training with us as well).

Softcup was a lifesaver in this situation! I just went to the facilities, dumped out the Softcup, and put it back in. Easy.

Right now, the reusable Softcup can only be purchased online through Softcup.com or at local Fred Meyer stores (we don't have these stores in North Texas, unfortunately). If you'd like to see reusable Softcup locally, please talk to your local drug store and grocers!

This giveaway is closed, thank you for entering!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 * Read more about Toxic Shock Syndrom at You ARE Loved, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading TSS awareness and prevention.

NOTE: I was given a few free reusable Softcups and a little bag to keep them in, in exchange for this review. I promptly bought more with my own money. All opinions are my own.

Why Crystal Deodorant "doesn't work"

I've finally put together the following vlog that answers one of the questions/comments that I get regularly when I talk about my lifestyle of avoiding toxic chemicals in my beauty and body produccts.

1. What do you use for deodorant?
followed by
2. That crystal deodorant didn't work for me/someone I know uses it and they stink

Short answer: I use a crystal deodorant in combination with an all-natural solid deodorant from Nature's Gate. The longer answer usually involves explaining why I avoid the chemicals in conventional commercially produced deodorants and antiperspirants, which I went into with more detail in my post about how I don't wear antiperspirant. I've also provided more educational links farther down this post below the video. Personally, I am avoiding aluminum and phthalates.

As for the follow-up/second question - I have found that when I've recommended crystal deodorant to personal friends, they always tell me "it didn't work". Recently I started asking questions about how the deodorant was applied and found that it is most likely a problem of incorrect application. There's really no way to describe this where you're not going to get bored and stop reading, so I made you a video. You're welcome

Here you are: why the crystal deodorant "doesn't work" {video here}


Resources on deodorants and antiperspirants:

• Dangerous Chemicals in Deodorant and Antiperspirants from Natural Cosmetics
• This article from Cancer.gov says that no conclusive evidence has been found linking antiperspirants/deodorants with cancer but there is conflicting evidence regarding the variety of chemicals that are in these products and the action of purposefully plugging the pores in the underarms.
• Quick breakdown of how ingredients in deodorants can affect young people from Education.com.
• To get controversial, some green folks even avoid the crystal because it has aluminum from the earth (not the kind linked to Alzheimer's). Jennifer wrote a post about how crystal deodorant does contain a type of aluminum.

Just letting you know that I was thinking of you

Blog readers, thank you for sticking with me lately. I enjoy being unpredictable and posting randomly. There have been a lot of great products I want to share with you, but at the same time I don't want to overwhelm you with giveaways and reviews. I am not that kind of blogger, and I think you know that.

What have I been up to?

BlogHer 2012 is only a few weeks away! How many? I refuse to acknowledge. But close. Probably too close for me to redo my business cards or make a t-shirt with my URL as I had originally planned. Oh well. I have been spending ridiculous amounts of time stalking the #BlogHer12 hashtag on Twitter and making lists of people to meet.

Doing Pilates. Of course.

Source: Uploaded by user via UltimatePilatesPlano on Pinterest

Being very hungry. Pilates makes me much hungrier. I keep forgetting to account for this and there is never enough food in the house.

Reading other peoples' amazing posts. Make sure you are following me on Facebook because I post links there and on Twitter.

Cleaning up poop. My son is still not pooping in the potty despite the amount of money I have spent on Amazon buying books about how pooping on the potty is OK. I do not have any book recommendations for you. However, if you are an illustrator of any kind, I would be interested in working on a book with you where I write it and you illustrate. It will be about how pooping on the potty is OK.

Selling ads. Yep, you heard correctly: Conscientious Confusion is now selling ads. I promise that I will only work with companies who fit with my conscientious lifestyle and I will not accept any product advertising that I would not or do not currently use. Also, if you're another blogger and would like to trade advertising, I'm up for that too! Let me know!

I'm hoping to be back on schedule later this week with a nifty instructional video on how to apply crystal deodorant.

I'd love to hear in the comments (or Twitter, or Facebook) what other topics you'd like me to cover in the days before the BlogHer madness starts. Ideas?

Weekend: Taste of Dallas Kids' fun

Just a quick late-in-the-day post to let you know about a fun and kid-friendly event in Dallas this weekend - it's Taste of Dallas! You might be familiar with Taste of Addison, and this is similar. It takes place in Fair Park near Gates 2 and 3, and consists of a huge collection of Dallas restaurants featuring their primary dishes, treats, and beverages for tasting (ranging from $3-$10) in a fair-type atmosphere. We attended today from 4:30-6 when grown-ups got in free with a kid!

The biggest difference between Taste of Dallas and other similar events that I've attended is that there is an entire Kids Taste Town set up in Centennial Building behind where the vendors are lined up. You heard that right: INSIDE a building. A building with AIR CONDITIONING!



Inside this building was my kids' favorite: an interactive petting zoo. Little Sir had so much fun that I wasn't able to get a shot of him standing still! Instead, here is Little Lady waiting at the door to get in.





She actually got shy once inside!



Another favorite area - The Sweet Factory, an area in Kids Taste Town that is full of sweets!



I found several unusual treats here, including deep fried donut holes!



...and a specialty fudge factory called Fudge N More from Hurst, TX that even makes jalepeno-flavored fudge!



I finally got to taste Trailercakes, a food truck that sells cupcakes. They were delicious, of course! I wish I could have had more, but Little Sir used the rest of our tickets on a bounce house that he then refused to go into.

I would like to give a shout-out to The Afghan Grill, who was so very kind to us when my daughter put her hand in their creamy spicy dip. They gave her some free rice, which she LOVED!


Thanks, Taste of Dallas, for a great evening! I highly recommend this activity if you're looking for something fun to do with your kids in Dallas this weekend!


NOTE: I was admitted to the event free and given some free Taste of Dallas bucks with a number of other local moms, but the opinions are all my own!

7 Quick Takes Friday #43

--- 1 ---

Yes this is 7 Quick Takes "Friday", but I am posting this one day early, in the evening on Thursday, because I am hoping to have a post about Taste of Dallas late in the day on Friday.

--- 2 ---

In case you were wondering about the ridiculous 7-day gap in posting earlier this week, that was because my husband was out of town for 4 days. Leaving me to do mornings and evenings alone. I wrote about it on Dallas Moms Blog, but that was the most writing I was able to do while he was gone.

--- 3---

I thought I would end up relying more on the TV than I did. I'm proud to say we didn't really go above the normal amount of TV for the kids until the very last day, and even then not much. I realize the fact that my kids watch TV at all kicks me out of the "natural parenting" club for some people, but labels suck anyway. My kids do watch TV, although they are terrible at it. We don't have cable anymore but they do watch PBS kids, shows on Netflix, and DVDs that we borrow from the library. I say they are terrible at it because they tend to start watching and then get distracted and wander off or start fighting with each other while the show is going on. Actually, my 2.5 year old is getting better at being zombie-like for longer periods of time. Which is unfortunate for his brain and all that, but it's making me optimistic about our upcoming airline flights - yay, iPad!

--- 4 ---

Speaking of things that would get me kicked out of the "green" community, I finally went through all our doctors' receipts and compiled what I believe is an accurate record of all my kids' vaccinations. Because yes, we vaccinate. I don't care if you do or you don't. This is the decision we made and I am completely OK with anyone who made a different one. The point of mentioning this is that my doctor charges $15 per child per form to fill out forms for our Mother's Day Out and preschool programs. Since I am not rich, I went through and filled out all of that stuff myself and I hope I got it right. Our doctor also charges $30 per child for their full medical records, which is what we would need if we change insurance companies any time soon (which I hope we do - we buy our own private health insurance and it's ridiculously expensive). I would also need those records if we finally move to holistic/naturopath pediatrician.

--- 5 ---

I understand it's laborious for the pediatrician to put together the paperwork and if everyone asked for all their paperwork all the time it would be prohibitively time-consuming. So I realize that is why they charge me for my own children's records. I guess what they are assuming is that I should be keeping track of this stuff myself. Which is yet another thing I had no idea I was supposed to be doing when it comes to my kids. What class did I miss that taught me about these things I was supposed to be doing all along and I am just now figuring out after 2.5 years of not doing it?

--- 6 ---

I am, as always, on the fence about whether to find a more holistic/naturopathic pediatrician. I really feel like our pedi, while pretty conventional, is great about not over-prescribing meds. And all the holistic/naturopaths I know of are quite a drive away. What do you do for an after-hours emergency with a naturopath? CareNow doesn't do holistic! And what about insurance? Our insurance, being private insurance, pays for pretty much nothing. I had to take Little Lady in once and they ran a test to rule out strep throat - our insurance wouldn't pay for it. Our insurance pretty much only pays what the law requires it to pay for: vaccinations. {retracted political comment}

--- 7 ---

I can hear my husband singing They Might Be Giants songs to my son in the other room. As it should be.



~~~

Well that's all for this week, be sure to visit Conversion Diary for links to more 7 Quick Takes Fridays.

Organic Cage free eggs vs backyard chicken eggs

Before we got our chickens, we heard other owners of backyard chickens tell us how the eggs from their chickens were so different from the eggs they'd been buying at the store: tasted better, looked better, etc. We were maybe a little surprised to find there wasn't much difference for us, because it turns out we'd been buying {relatively} responsible eggs all along.

We were buying cage-free organic eggs from Costco. Why Costco and not a local farm? Because my kids eat 3-4 eggs per day. That is 21-28 eggs per week even without using eggs for recipes and cooking. I cannot afford $6 per dozen at local farms. Two dozen of the Costco cage-free organic eggs cost $6.99.

First, it's important to know the types of eggs you can buy at the store.

Cage-free: just means that the birds weren't in a cage. This doesn't mean they had access to the outdoors or that they were not overcrowded, just that the place in which they were contained did not have wires. It could be a barn or a warehouse or anything. And there is no certification, auditing, or established overseeing program to verify that the chickens are truly cage-free. An egg producer can put "cage-free" on the package and it can be a complete lie.

Organic: mainly specifies the type of feed the chickens were given, and that they were not given antibiotics which would have allowed them to survive infections from overcrowding. If the eggs are certified through the USDA (the ones we bought were certified), the chickens were also required to have access to the outdoors, but there is no requirement about how long they are "allowed" outside per day or even if it is daily. However, the USDA does audit and verify the conditions of facilities who are given this certification.

Our eggs also had a "Certified Humane" seal on them, a program certified by Humane Farm Animal Care. I did some research on this and had another blogger back me up -- it actually does seem to be a pretty legit program. It is third-party audited and verified.

Labels that mean pretty much nothing at all when it comes to buying eggs: vegetarian fed, natural, free range, free roaming, and cage free.

Why do those labels mean nothing? Because there is absolutely no regulation on who uses them or verification in place to prove the label is accurate.

A great source for more info on egg labeling: EggIndustry.com

When it came to the eggs we were buying from Costco, we lucked out, though!

The two Plymouth Rock hens that we have in our backyard are truly free roaming. They roam all over our yard from sun up to sun down. They put themselves to roost in their coop at night, but the door is open so they wander out again first thing in the morning. When I leave to teach Pilates at 5am, they are always up already! They scratch on the ground to eat bugs and we give them leftover green table scraps. We also feed them organic layer's mash once a day or so (sometimes every other day), because we don't seem to have enough bugs to fully satisfy their appetites. We also add oyster shell to help their eggs' shells be sturdier because we experienced a few "soft" eggs that one of our hens laid with no shell! It's the weirdest thing.

Anyway, back to the Costco eggs versus the backyard chicken eggs. Here is what the two eggs look like in a frying pan:



The egg at the top is the Costco egg, while the egg at the bottom is from our chickens.

The main difference is that with the backyard chicken egg, you can see more distinctly that there are 3 parts to the egg. I say "more distinctly" specifically because there are still 3 parts to the Costco egg -- it's just a little more difficult to see in the picture and in real life. The 3 parts merge faster with the Costco egg. This 3-egg-part phenomenon is supposed to be characteristic of a free ranging "happy" chicken.

The taste: pretty much the same. We have done this experiment again and again, always with the same results. The backyard chicken eggs usually have a little different flavor, but I think that's mainly due to whatever table scraps we've given them most recently. No matter how well the Costco chickens were treated, they probably didn't have kale and strawberry scraps in addition to their feed! :-)

Other small differences: the Costco eggs are slightly larger and the shells are much thicker. Since we started giving our chickens oyster shells, their shells have become harder but still not as hard as the Costco eggs.

Right now our chickens give us 1 egg a day each. We have 2 chickens. Our current coop can only hold the 2 of them, so we aren't in a position to buy more at this time. We do still have to buy eggs from Costco to supplement. But after doing this comparison for several months, my thought is that of all the places we could be buying affordable eggs, this is a great compromise for us when it comes to price and the humane treatment of the chickens. From what I can tell, in my unprofessional observation, Costco is doing a good job of providing responsible eggs at a good price.

Happy Independence Day 2012!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Independence Day being thankful for all the great privileges we have in this country, and remembering that we must all be conscious of how we use these gifts to honor others, the earth, and our own bodies!

Last night, we attended KaboomTown in Addison, which is my absolute favorite fireworks display EVER! If you have never been, put it on your calendar for next year!


I wanted to let you know about some of the great posts I've found (and written) elsewhere, both patriotic and not-so-much:

• Don't forget that today all Starbucks locations are offering free hot brewed coffee as part of the #INDIVISIBLE movement. I love this movement because it encourages free exchange of ideas. One of my biggest pet peeves is people expressing opinions without having truly investigated all sides for themselves. Starbucks is encouraging us to talk to each other about our country.


• Speaking of opinions, government, and the free exchange of ideas, over at Dallas Moms Blog, Jennifer Thomas has written on the ABC's of the Affordable Care Act. According to the Kaiser Foundation, a majority of Americans do not actually know what is in this bill. You can take their quiz on how well you know the ACA provisions here.


• It may be July 4, but it's still What I Love Wednesdays over at Live Simply Love, and today I am writing what I love about my husband.


• And finally, if you're just bored and nosy (it's OK to be nosy!) on your "day off" today, take a look at what's in my diaper bag over at Cottonbabies' blog!

And here, to end our day, are randome pictures of cuteness courtesy of my kids and our HOA's annual 4th of July parade and party at the park!