7 Quick Takes Friday #48

--- 1 ---

The weather last week was warm and sunny for a few days, so of course I started planting things. Because I have such a great record of success with gardens. Of course, this week it's been in the 30's at night. So I've probably already killed everything.

--- 2 ---

I almost did an "All the Drama on the Internets" about Marissa Meyer eliminating working from home at Yahoo, but there wasn't much drama in that there weren't many differences of opinion, that I could tell. Everyone was pretty united in thinking that what she did was a bad idea and sets us all back as women in the workplace.

--- 3---

You might have noticed that I frequently run advertising for ThredUp, which is a way to buy used children's clothing online that is similar to a consignment sale or shop, only online so you don't have to leave your house. You can also sell your used children's clothing the same way, they send a bag to your house and you fill it up and get credit for clothing in the future. It is a very green thing to do, and you know I love consignment sales. I've heard really good feedback from others, but I'd actually never tried it myself. Last night I placed my first order. I'll be letting you know how it goes, I am excited to receive my first box!

--- 4 ---

Speaking of advertising, now is the time to purchase advertising on this blog! If you purchase an ad now, you can get 10% off the cost by purchasing 3 months at a time using the promo code 3MonthsOfFun. If you are a fellow blogger, consider purchasing a 125x125 spot to run during Blissdom! Here's the size of a 125x125:

--- 5 ---

Are you on Vine yet? I am, but let me tell you: I am terrible at it. Terrible. I like the people who do stop-animation with Vine. Super cool!

--- 6 ---

Blissdom is next month but I'm probably not going to conference because it costs money. However, I do live 45 minutes away so if you're a blogger who is attending and would like to get together at a local restaurant, I bet we could get a group together! Email me!

--- 7 ---

I have noticed that Facebook click through rates for this blog are pretty terrible. I'm not going to close down the FB page, but if you're looking for me, I'm mostly on Twitter. Or you can subscribe to receive my blog posts via email or RSS.

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

7 Quick Takes #47

--- 1 ---

This is going to be really fast because I need to go nap. I'm teaching at 6:30am 3 mornings a week now instead of only 2, and it's really hard for me to get up at 5am 3 days a week if I don't get enough sleep somehow. Naps have really been standing in lieu of going to bed early since we have so much going on most evenings.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of teaching Pilates, if you are in the Plano area and would like to try out our Megaformer Pilates classes, we are running a great special on VOICE Daily Deals here. I recommend the 3-pack deal. Come see us!

--- 3---

vIf you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you know that I dyed my hair pink. Here's a quick pick I took just now wearing very little makeup.

I have discovered that this haircolor really looks better if I wear some kind of color on my lips but, oops, I wasn't doing that in this picture.

--- 4 ---

Hopefully this will be invisible to you, the readers, but I'll probably be migrating this blog to WordPress (it's on Blogger now) some time in the next few months. I am worried and reluctant to make this move, but there are reasons bigger than my personal preference that are involved. Some of the primary goals are to make the site much more usable for my readers, and make commenting easier.

--- 5 ---

Everyone here is freaked out about the flu, how about where you are? My friend EcoKaren did a great post today about natural ways to prevent the flu, aside from or in addition to vaccination. I highly recommend checking it out! As for handwashing, remember that last week I blogged about how to make your own antibacterial hand soap from essential oils and castille soap.

--- 6 ---

It's January 11 and I have already completed one of the items on my To Do List: making our family blog books for 2011 and 2012. They take about 2 weeks to arrive from the publisher. Can't wait to see how they turned out!

--- 7 ---

Have to give one last shout-out to my sponsor, Happy Feet, Healthy Body! Along the lines of flu prevention, remember that she has hand sanitizer pens made from essential oils. If you've just started a New Year's workout routine (or you take one of my classes, haha!), I highly recommend her Lavender bath salts - lavender soothes sore muscles and will help you sleep at night.


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

7 Quick Takes Friday #46

--- 1 ---

I am super, super excited to have a new sponsor for this blog, Happy Feet, Healthy Body -- a local reflexology business and essential oil products Etsy shop. If you are looking for local, handmade and safe soaps and essential oil remedies such as her popular Headache Relief or Pamper Pack, please support her and this blog by clicking and purchasing her products! Reflexology is also a great way to help boost your immune system and recover faster from respiratory issues at this time of year. She is a wonderful source of essential oils knowledge -- she has given me advice several times in the past!

--- 2 ---

We have 3 new chickens who have not been eaten by a bobcat yet. They are young and haven't started laying yet. Just this week they started "talking" to me, so I have hopes they'll start laying soon.

--- 3---

I spent an hour scanning anti-dandruff shampoos with my GoodGuide app yesterday to get my ridiculous scalp under control. I tried a natural/organic scalp shampoo for several weeks and my scalp has gotten so, so much worse. This area is still a great big Green Fail for me right now.

--- 4 ---

Speaking of selecting responsible personal care products for ourselves and our families, please head on over to my post about chemical safety in our personal products on Dallas Moms Blog. This month, the contributors are having a contest to see whose post gets the most views and I'd love to win one of the prizes!

--- 5 ---

I have found an amazing new product that is really going to reduce the waste we produce for the kids' lunch and I can't wait to tell you about this week!

--- 6 ---

I think I am finally on the end of this ridiculous respiratory whatever-it-is that I have had for a week. I did take some OTC meds but I never had to go to the doctor, so I am hopeful that I can go a full year without any kind of antibiotics. I really need to break that cycle.

--- 7 ---

I just have to leave you with this amazing and wonderful video that will make your eyes explode. It is 4 years old but I still think it is the best. Too bad the band broke up and we will never see anything this cool again.


brite futures (npsh) - sophisticated side ponytail from thatgo on Vimeo.


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

7 Quick Takes Friday #45

--- 1 ---

Haven't done one of these in a while! My first random thing is: we have been taking Little Sir to the chiropractor to investigate some tummy issues he is having that might explain why he still won't poop on the potty after being pee potty trained for around 6 months. Also, we are about to get kicked out of preschool if he can't learn.

The chiropractor has pinpointed that he seems to have a sensitivity to soy -- all soy, including soy lecithin (which is in everything) and soybean oil when used in a food. We also think he might be having trouble processing cow's milk. He's not lactose intolerant, but cow's milk and cow's milk products, especially cheese, seem to really make his tummy react. So we are going to try to go soy and dairy free for 2 weeks. This is way more difficult than I thought with him being in some kind of childcare or preschool for at least an hour up to 4 times a week. He has already been fed Goldfish (cheese) twice at church.

--- 2 ---

To try to solve this issue, yesterday we took a trip to the craft store and made this Pinterest inspired allergy bracelet for him to wear.

--- 3---

Speaking of things that Pinterest made me do, we also made these fun owl rolls last night!

I used Immaculate Baking crescent rolls which are soy and dairy free, and used soy-free dairy-free Enjoy Life chocolate chips for eyes and raw cashew halves for the beak.

--- 4 ---

Do you have any idea how many things contain some form of soy? This is disturbing considering that most soy is a GMO.

--- 5 ---

I could do a whole All The Drama On The Internets about how people suspect that Whole Foods is wavering in their support of Proposition 37 in California (a bill to label GMO's), even though their latest newsletter seems to indicate otherwise. I do hope they stand firm, since there is literally no viable alternative for me to find this depth of soy-free dairy-free products outside of Whole Foods. I can't really boycott them right now, guys. Sorry.

--- 6 ---

Another note regarding advocacy: there are a ton of great petitions and green actions going on right now within members of The Green Sisterhood, but I don't publicize them all on this blog. I know a lot of my readers are just beginning on your green journey and I am not going ask you to sign a petition protesting something every day. However, I would highly encourage you to visit the Green Sisterhood web site or Facebook page to get more in-depth information that I often provide on this blog. Also, if you ever think I'm a little overboard with my "green" lifestyle, check out those ladies -- they're way more green than me!

--- 7 ---

I got a massage at Massage Envy yesterday and found out just how much my shoulders are jacked up. Whee! All those wheelbarrow and other Pilates moves that put all the body weight on the shoulders and neck have done some serious damage, moreso even than during my pregnancies when I worked 10 hour shifts at the computer. Moral of this story: make sure you keep your shoulders away from your ears when doing Pilates, folks.

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #44 - BlogHer 2012 Edition

BlogHer 2012 Recap Edition

--- 1 ---

I am already/still missing some of the friends from BlogHer!

I wish I had a picture of Kim Rosas from Dirty Diaper Laundry, she is the best. 

--- 2 ---

Yes, I did actually see New York City for about 30 minutes, as I walked from place to place.

--- 3---

I actually missed my kids. I spend so much time talking to toddlers that it was weird to talk to adults. And sometimes, when there is adult drama (and by that I mean, on Twitter), I really appreciate the pure and simple love of a toddler.

--- 4 ---

The first full day back and full-time with my kids all day, I stopped missing them immediately. I think it stopped when the screaming and fighting started. Which was probably about 7:30am.

--- 5 ---

Here is the obligatory picture of me with a life sized licensed character. This year, The Lorax.

It is blurry because I had some random passerby take it.

--- 6 ---

You know what is cool about New York? They require all restaurants with more than 5 locations to list the calorie count of each dish on their menu! I loved this at Dunkin Donuts because sometimes I forget which is the least bad choice: bagel, croissant, or english muffin.

--- 7 ---

Now that BlogHer is over for this year, did you know that Blissdom 2013 is going to be in the Dallas area (FYI: Grapevine is NOT Dallas. It is near Dallas. That is completely different)?! I would really like to go but I'd need a sponsor.

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

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.



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

7 Quick Takes Friday #42

--- 1 ---

I've got a great deal to remind you about, a random product that I love, and a new idea to share, so if you don't mind, I'd like to do that in today's post instead of doing separate posts later.

--- 2 ---

A few months back, I did a post about Food On The Table meal planning system which includes an online app and an iPhone app. Just wanted to let you know that the Premium plan is still FREE if you use the code "SUMMERFREE" to sign up!

--- 3---

I really, really want to tell you all about this new type of Pilates I have discovered recently using LaGree fitness machines. Is anyone familiar with it? These machines allow you to pretty much work every single muscle in your entire body in a low-impact 50 minute session. Apparently I am the last to know about this, but it gives such a great workout. I did a class on Tuesday and I am still sore today. It is also SUPER EXPENSIVE. But, I am considering becoming an instructor. Am I crazy? I thought it might be a good way to work out and earn extra money. I really encourage you to check out the link to the machines and watch some of the videos. I am not getting paid to talk about this. I just value your feedback and wanted to share my discovery. Tell me if I am crazy to consider being an instructor??

--- 4 ---

I have one more random product mention that I'm not getting paid to promote but I just have to tell you about:

This clock has totally saved our mornings - Little Sir was getting up and coming into our room every morning at 5:30am-6:30am to crawl in bed and play with our iPhones or iPad or just bounce around being crazy. Gah! Now that we have this magical clock, we tell him "do not come into Mommy and Daddy's room until the clock is green" and he WAITS! It is amazing. We set it for 7am. He is actually sleeping past 7am some days because he wakes up at 6:30am, can't leave the room, and falls back asleep! I love this clock.

--- 5 ---

Little Sir is still potty learning but this week he started self-initiating! He TELLS me when he has to pee! He is still pooping in his undies, though :-( If you would love to hear all the sordid details of our potty learning journey, you can read my potty post on CottonBabies blog.

--- 6 ---

It's June already, but even more exciting - 4th of July is coming up! One of our very favorite things to do in this area is attend the Addison Kaboom Town fireworks display. I will be talking a lot more about this in the next month or so, but I just wanted to let all my local folks know so you can put it on your calendars - July 3rd!

--- 7 ---

I will be updating about my garden tomorrow, so check it out!



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

7 Quick Takes Friday #41

--- 1 ---

I have tried like heck to ignore the whole TIME magazine cover story issue, but the dang thing keeps coming up. I still refused to get involved in it, but I do want to point you to this awesome interview with the Attachment Parenting (AP) moms from the TIME story on KellyMom. In this post, they go really in-depth about how they feel about the whole thing and the reality of AP for them and their families.

--- 2 ---

In case you are wondering, no, my husband and I do not necessarily identify ourselves with AP and all it entails. We do agree with the spirit of the Eight Principles, but not always the exact tenets. That's why I like to identify us as "natural parenting". Just like the FDA has no regulation on the term "natural" when it comes to food, there isn't any specific outline for "natural parenting". To us, it means that we are making decisions about parenting in the way that comes most naturally to us and how it works with the God-given nature of our children's personalities. The approach is based on respect for our children, truth and love based on God's love for us, and what is realistic in our current life stage and physical environment. Also, if I have said it once, I have said it 100 times: every child is different. Including my two children.

--- 3---

Now that we're talking about kids, how is potty training going? Pretty well! So far, he has about 1 accident per day, but that is usually because I didn't take him to the potty frequently enough or because he was scared of the potty that was available. He has an aversion to any potty except his green Ikea potty here at home. But! He was able to go to the potty at school this week (his last week of Mother's Day Out!), and didn't have a single accident while he was there! Yay!

--- 4 ---

I shared this yesterday on Twitter, but I highly recommend that everyone see this excellent video about antibiotics in meat production and why it should be avoided.

--- 5 ---

We will be traveling with both the kids in the near future, in the car, for more than 4 hours. I think I have a good handle on what I can bring to keep Little Sir occupied, but I'm really struggling with what I can do for Little Lady. She is 15 months and puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. I can't let her color or use markers. She is not so great at watching TV, plus she is still facing backwards in her car seat so she can't see the iPad that Little Sir would be watching (dang you, stupid AAP guidelines, you have totally hosed us with Kid #2). Any ideas from readers who have done this recently?

--- 6 ---

I am way overdue for a garden update. But I am really tired right now and it is already getting really hot here in Dallas. Here is a hastily taken picture:



Not pictured: a new soaker hose I have bought because the one that came with the raised beds is terribly ineffective.

--- 7 ---

If you are wondering about the chickens, they are doing well. They produce better eggs when I give them green scraps. I spend a lot of time chasing them and cleaning their poop. Chicken poop is a huge pain in the butt. Think about that before you go getting backyard chickens!

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #40

--- 1 ---

We are on the verge of potty training with Little Sir. We are going to try to start this weekend, hopefully with help from Daddy. If you are a praying person, PRAY FOR US. And/or send wine. Thank you.

--- 2 ---

I am sure everyone and their mother, literally, has heard about the Time Magazine cover story. I don't mind the breastfeeding mother on the cover, although does remind me of my breastfeeding failures. I am not super enthusiastic about how the story appears to promote the mommy wars. I didn't read the story but some bloggers have said it doesn't actually claim anyone is right or anyone is wrong. I will have to take their word for that.

Mostly, I realize that Time did this whole thing to create controversy and sell magazines. I kind of refuse to care about the whole thing just on the basis that I don't want that tactic to work on me.

--- 3---

Another news story that is getting far less play in the feminist arena than it should is the instance of big companies targeting "brogrammers", or male-only programmers, in the industry. Being a lightweight programmer myself, and female, I am really annoyed to hear about how Klout ran recruiting campaigns with the slogan "Want to bro down and crush some code? Klout is hiring." I am seriously offended by the insinuation that there are no viable female programmers. Why aren't we more upset about this?! Because there aren't that many female programmers. Kind of makes me wish I was still programming. It also reinforces my dislike of Klout and how much, er...clout they have in the blogging and social media world, of which I am forced to be a part.

--- 4 ---

You guys should all watch Sherlock on PBS. It's totally awesome.

--- 5 ---

My friend Stephanie from Good Girl Gone Green has the most amazing raw lemon pie recipe, I made it this week. Apparently the secret to raw vegan stuff made with nuts instead of flour is to soak the nuts first. I had no idea!

--- 6 ---

I have pulled up the peas in my garden and planted kale. Which is also dying. I am the most awesome gardener. To be fair, they traveled all the way from East Texas in a bag and then sat in a bucket of water for 24 hours before they were planted. STILL.

--- 7 ---

It is currently raining here and our chickens got caught in the rain. Can chickens catch a cold? They were too dumb to go back into their coop. Poor chickens, brains the size of peas.

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #39

--- 1 ---

We have had our chickens for one week now. It has been going really well, except for the day that I spent 30 minutes one morning chasing a chicken around the back yard, wearing a dress, while my children wailed inside the house because we were supposed to leave for a blogging-related shopping event. Since then I have been advised to squirt them with the garden hose to get them back into the coup. Duly noted.

--- 2 ---

This weekend is Earth Day! If you're looking for activities to celebrate with your children, Dallas is hosting an Earth Day event and here's another handy list of Earth Day activities for kids, even if your city isn't hosting an event.

--- 3---

Ironically, I have a ton of cloth diaper related posts coming up even though this week was Real Diaper Week. Better late than never, I guess. You can also find me blogging this week on CottonBabies blog about using cloth diapers at daycare.

--- 4 ---

I continue to do poorly at saving money. Here is another reason our family sucks at this: no one in our family will touch leftovers. At all. Ever. Well, except me. But I get pretty sick of whatever it is after eating it 3 times in a row and it inevitably gets thrown away. And yes, I have tried freezing things. The kids and the husband will not eat anything leftover, whether it is thawed or refrigerated. The fact that it is not fresh makes no one interested in eating it. Therefore, I have to constantly cook brand new things and the portion sizes have to be exactly what we will eat in one sitting or else it's wasted. Anybody have any solutions for me there?

--- 5 ---

I hope to do a garden update this weekend, but our peas were getting eaten by some sort of pest so I bought a container of ladybugs to take care if it. We released them last night at dusk.



OUR CHICKENS WERE WAITING


Many ladybugs perished in the chickens' stomachs, but hopefully some of them survived.

--- 6 ---

In case you were wondering whether the $3.99 bottles of wine that Whole Foods has come out with are as good as Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck", the answer is NO. WF $3.99 wine is TERRIBLE. I do not recommend it. What ingredients do I need to make this into sangria or something?

--- 7 ---

Have a Happy Earth Day on Saturday!

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #38

--- 1 ---

You might have seen me mention on my Facebook page that Ashleigh found me a bread machine for $5 last weekend from a garage sale. I have made 2 loaves of bread already this week! It's totally amazing. The first was a small loaf using the recipe in the book that came with the machine. I did not take a picture of it, and I ate it all within 48 hours (Christian helped).

The second loaf I made from Ashleigh's recipe:



This was a larger loaf and the bread is almost exactly like store-bought. I had a sandwich made from it today!

--- 2 ---

In other making-my-own-food news, some kind of animal has gained access to our back yard despite our 6 foot wooden fence enclosing the entire yard. When I went to check the plants after this week's storms, all of the sproutlings previously in this picture were gone completely. Even some of the larger plants looked like this:



I actually suspect our very own cat, who likes to roam a bit outside when the kids are out there playing. She enjoys eating green things and then barfing them up in unexpected places in the house. But, she is also very fat and sedentary. I can't see her climbing up into the raised bed just to chew on green things when she is typically perfectly content chewing on grass, which is more on her level.

What is eating my plants?!! I will kill it!!

--- 3---

If you are going to BlogHer 2012, I am SUPER EXCITED that my friend Jill from BabyRabies and Gina, TheFeministBreeder whom I cyber stalk will be leading a panel called "Pro Tips: Branding and Blogging Professionally". See all the Room Of Your Own topics here. I hope that I get to mic-wrangle at this session!

--- 4 ---

I am also excited (although not AS excited) about the session called "Celebrate Your Small Blog". I went to one similarly named at BlogHer 2010 and it was very encouraging. As wonderful as I truly believe my readers are, you guys are a small bunch compared to what most bloggers can report. I am very thankful for each and every one of you!

--- 5 ---

We are now on track to get two chickens and a chicken coup from some friends of my parents a week from Saturday! Little Sir is going to be so excited when he sees the chickens. We have talked about the chickens we are going to get a lot in the last few weeks. He just loves farm animals. I am excited to have fresh eggs from our back yard! Not as excited about chicken poop, but it kind of just comes with the territory.

--- 6 ---

The Schwann's man just knocked on my door and I didn't answer it. I am out of grocery money AGAIN. I always feel bad telling him "no" because he doesn't take it well. He isn't mean, he just seems so genuinely crushed.

--- 7 ---

I have heard that it is going to get up into the 90's later next week. I guess that means we missed our window for camping AGAIN. Our children are not going to know anything about camping until we drag them on trips as teenagers and they complain the whole time. Or was that just me as a teenager?!

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #37

--- 1 ---

I have had a stomach bug or something this week. I had one exactly this time last womanly cycle. It really made me paranoid about Toxic Shock Syndrome since I had the fever, headaches, and nausea both times. I even went to urgent care to have tests run, but they blew me off. I am not sure they even did the tests for TSS. That did not stop them from prescribing me antibiotics (which isn't a treatment for TSS) even though the doctor freely admitted she couldn't find anything wrong with me even after doing flu swabbing and blood tests. I guess the good news is that I don't have mono, because they tested me for that too.

Don't forget that if you have any TSS symptoms at all, you can always visit You ARE Loved and download their pamphlet to bring to your doctor. You can also @ them on Twitter @youAREloved . I believe Suzan is the one who runs their Twitter and she is AMAZING. She talked me through the whole experience via DM. A big Thank You to my YAL friends!

--- 2 ---

I think my conclusion might be that apparently my immune system is taking a bit of a dive around the beginning of my period each month (TMI? you're welcome.), which results in me catching whatever stomach bug is going around. I am planning on treating myself with Thieves Oil and taking extra probiotics during the first few days of my next cycle and we'll see how that goes.

--- 3---

I am trying out a new Young Living product this month - NingXia Red. It's a supplement that's supposed to have tons of vitamins and antioxidants. I will do a post about it as soon as I see how it's going!

--- 4 ---

I failed to do a garden update post this week, so I'll try to do that this weekend. However, here are a few shots of the sprouts that are coming up from the seeds I planted!! Some of the seeds were possibly washed away last weekend in the rain, so they aren't all coming up and not in the places I originally planted them, but that's OK. I think?



On the other hand, the seeds I was supposed to start inside the house have done nothing at all after 3 weeks. Pretty sure they're dead. Which sucks since I was really hoping for lots of nice organic bell peppers. Those things are stinking expensive at the store!

Ah well, maybe I can trade beets or peas to someone for bell peppers.

--- 5 ---

This week we also got to visit my friend Ashleigh's chickens so that Little Sir could see what they were like. He was very excited the whole few blocks to her house and kept saying how we were "going to see the chickens!". I asked him if he wanted to get some chickens of his own and he said yes!

--- 6 ---

I was all excited to dye Easter eggs with Little Sir using natural foods for dyes, even though I only had 3 truly white eggs (the rest are brown or bluish or whatever comes out of the free ranging hens). I tried using red lettuce and beet juice for red and this is what I got:

Exactly the same color as the brown hen eggs.
Great.
It also took more than 30 minutes to do this terrible dye job.
I am not trying any more natural dyes, forget it. I will go use the toxic stuff. Christian and I are the only ones who will actually eat the eggs anyway, neither of the kids will eat hard boiled. We've spent more than 30 years eating dyed Easter eggs and it hasn't killed us yet.

--- 7 ---

One of my next goals is to acquire a bread machine. I am determined to stop having to buy gourmet bread from the grocery bakery, even if it is only $2 a loaf. I just have to figure out how to get one for little to no money. If you have an extra one lying around, let me know!

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #36

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After publishing my post about raw milk, I made the mistake of going to the CDC web site and reading what they think of raw milk. I am not even going to link to it because it is too depressing. Let me sum it up for you: they are pretty adamant that it is going to kill everyone. I got freaked out about that, now I am not sure if I want to continue with the raw milk thing. We are still working on the gallon we have. I wouldn't be able to drive somewhere to buy it for almost a week, so I guess we have a little while to decide.

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I am so excited to announce that I am officially going to BlogHer 2012! I think this warrants its own post, so I'll be talking more about it later.

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We finally got the dirt put into our raised bed garden! Here is a super cute picture of Little Lady and Little Sir helping me fill it up.

 

He was digging up dirt from the yard with his sand trowel and walking over to the garden to dump it in. The cuteness kills me! Little Lady was eating dirt. Yum.
 

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Here are some more things to be confused about: I signed up for SproutRobot emails and it is telling me that I need to wait 2 weeks to let the bed "settle" before I can plant anything. At the same time, it says that the planting time for my area for most of the things I want to plant is RIGHT NOW OMG DO NOT WAIT YOU HAVE TO DO IT BEFORE SUNDAY. What?!

There is no way I can win with this stuff. This is hard work! I want to take a nap!
Whine, whine, whine.

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I have read Book 1 and Book 2 of The Hunger Games series in the last week and they continue to be more awesome than I thought. I am waiting to borrow Book 3 from a friend. If I am not able to borrow it by this weekend I may actually go ahead and buy it on Kindle like I did with Book 2.

I am sad that I probably won't get to see the movie until it comes out in Netflix, but oh well. That is how things work with 2 small children. Movies = Netflix.

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I'm really working on trying to take this blogging more seriously, but I know that only posting twice a week is really not helping with that goal. We are missing the income from my part time job much more than I thought we would.

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All the other things I wanted to put in this spot had to do with my kids. I am really trying to keep this blog from being all about them. So, have a great weekend everyone!

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #35

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In case you missed it, I had another post over at CottonBabies blog about sleep deprivation. At least the last few years have been worth... something? As if to make a point, Little Sir has been waking up with screaming nightmares around 2am and Little Lady screamed for an hour straight last night as if she was in pain but we never figured out why. We were both just sitting there with her for about 30 minutes, asking each other what we should do after trying all the usual things. We are such effective parents. She is going to be in therapy one day trying to figure out why she has a deep distrust of her parents' competency.

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As you've seen from my raised bed garden post, I'm heading for an all new level of plant-killing. A while ago, my mother got us a Miracle-Gro Kids' Garden kind of like this one.  I was so excited to show Little Sir how the plants came up. He loved it! However, this week they all mysteriously died:

In this picture they appear parched, but that is Instagram's filter. In fact, they were nice and damp but not soggy

I have no idea what happened, they were doing so well?!

Now I have received some well cared-for tomato and bell pepper sproutlings from A'Dell (she's awesome, go check out her blog Are Things Complicated Yet?). I am keeping them in our half-bath with a light on them at all times. I am terrified I am going to kill them before I get some soil in our garden to transplant them!

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This week I also tried to make my own flour tortillas and FAILED miserably. You can check out the recipe(s) I tried on my Pinterest food board. Anyone know the magical trick to make flour tortillas?! Mine tasted like baking soda and they were hard as rocks. Also, Pinterest has never failed me before when it comes to recipes. I am very disillusioned with you, Pinterest. How could you?

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We are now having a cold spell here in Dallas, which is awesome since all my long sleeved shirts were eaten by our kitchen counter and I have been making do with my summer shirts. LOTS OF CARDIGANS.

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I cannot tell you how happy I am that we do not owe the IRS our entire savings this year, as we have in years past. It took going down to one income to put us in a tax bracket that we can actually afford. Yay for being poorer?

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I sewed some things this week and am very proud of myself. It was only hemming some homemade cloth wipes and fixing the hole in a pair of baby pants, but YAY ME. Now maybe I can work on doing something with those shirts with the holes. I have created a Pinterest board for t-shirt related creations. Which is what we do when we want to say we're going to do something but just look at pictures of it online instead.

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Oh dear, I have started reading The Hunger Games for our neighborhood book club and so far I cannot put it down! How embarrassing. I thought I was too sophisticated for this kind of fluffy thing, BUT NO. I am seriously considering Googling the movie trailer.

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #34

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I actually went Goodwill shopping for the first time in years yesterday, and it was just as awesome as I remember it. I found a dress (which I might wear to a blogging conference... in August... if I go? hmmm...) and some shoes. If only I had more time! I am going to try to go again soon. I am inspired not only by my efforts to save money and rebuild my wardrobe, but also by Abbie of Five Days Five Ways. If you don't follow her, you should! She does amazing things with her Thrifted or Grifted series.

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I'm super excited about a local business I'll be featuring on Sunday on this blog!! It will also be offering a discount especially for my readers. I can't wait to introduce you to it!

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You might have noticed that I try and put my promotional posts or review posts on the weekends. I am hoping this will make them less intrusive but also that they might come at a time when you might have a moment to sit down and read them. If you're anything like me, you often read blog posts during the week in a sort of rush, and don't always have time to comment or take action. I feel like on weekends the number of blog posts is lower and I have more time to focus on the posts that come in. Is this true for you too? What do you think?

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My son's favorite stuffed animal is a musk ox. It makes me very proud to have such a strange child. It was pretty much my goal in life to raise kids that do things like that.

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This week's bento. I've been slacking on posting pictures, but lately I haven't been super inventive. I found candy eyeballs at Target!! So I'm having fun with those.

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My poor little girl has such terrible coughing when she tries to sleep...but no coughing at all when she's awake! So far she's skipped all naps for the past 2 days. As you can imagine, this makes her super grumpy. The pediatricians' nurse thinks it is most likely croup but the only thing they can do for that is to offer breathing treatments if it gets to the point where she is gasping or turning blue. She's nowhere near that sick, she doesn't even cough when she's awake and upright at all. Still, the freaking not-sleeping is driving me crazy.

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I love our pediatrician but she is kinda far away (central Dallas in Highland Park), and it seems like their office is getting increasingly busy so that it is longer and longer when they call me back to answer questions. Also, she's tolerant of natural remedies and definitely slow to prescribe things when they might not be needed, but she's definitely not holistic or anything. I never know if we should try to switch or what. Of course, we have terrible barely-anything insurance so I don't even know if it would cover another doctor or a holistic-type doctor at all. Anyone else have crappy, cheap, barely-covering insurance and go to a local holistic doctor?

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

7 Quick Takes Friday #33

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No poo update: Irritatingly, my dry scalp flared up again early this week and I was *thisclose* to going back to shampoo just to use medicated shampoo on it. Instead, I decided to massage tea tree oil into my scalp before bed and let it sit overnight then wash it with just water and the apple cider vinegar rinse in the morning. Much better! I used tea tree oil a few more times instead of the Aveda oil this week to continue to work on the scalp issue. I think I'll do that a few times week to ward it off. Still haven't used shampoo since Christmas!

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This week's successful Pinterest find: more natural cold prevention! I've had a bit of a runny/stuffy nose since we returned from a trip to a friend's lake house this weekend and I tried this simple mixture of honey and cinnamon.

Source: healthhomehappy.com via Jenny on Pinterest

Not sure if this alone was responsible for me not getting sick, but so far I haven't got any worse! Plus: YUM!

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You might remember that I'm testing out a new meal planning system, Food on the Table. So far I've made one of the recipes this week and it was really yummy!



I have a crockpot meal planned for one day this weekend. If you're interested, you can sign up for free any time. The Premium version costs around $5/month. I think after trying it for another week I might sign up for it!

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I found the most adorable little girls' boutique here in Richardson, Little Lam Boutique. Got some really cute presents for some upcoming little girls' birthdays and Sip N See's! 

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But then I messed up big time and let the sweet owner talk me into spending way too much on my own little girl. In my defense, I've never actually shopped for her and never really bought her new clothes - we rely almost exclusively on hand-me-downs, which I love! So when I was surrounded by super cute new stuff I got really confused about how much I should be paying. $70 is too much to spend on a dress for an 11 month old, Jenny. I think we can all agree on that. MY dresses don't usually even cost that much.


So I will be re-selling at least one of the purchases on Craigslist or Ebay, New With Tags, since the sale stipulated I can't return them. Here's the one I think I'm going to part with:

It's a Giggle Moon brand Abby Gigi outfit set with matching bow. I'll sell it for $55. If you know anyone who is interested, pass this info on to them! I'll mail it and take PayPal!

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After I spent all that money, I saved some serious money by buying Valentine-themed decorations and cupcake trimmings at Walmart for Little Lady's birthday!

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I am currently interested in essential oils and thinking of signing up with a company that sells them just so I can take advantage of their educational information on how to use the oils most effectively. Would you readers be interested in hearing about what I learn?


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

7 Quick Takes Friday #32

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Have I mentioned that we are addicted to Downton Abbey here at our house? When my husband and his brother (who stayed with us from Christmas to New Year's) first started watching a 19th-century period drama on PBS Masterpiece I made fun of them (nicely) because it seemed funny that two adult men were watching that genre nonstop. Then I started watching it and it sucked me in. It is amazing! I love how complex the characters are. The acting is fantastic and the storylines are compelling. I started following the #DowntonPBS hashtag and found this hilarious but true tweet:

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I've been debating whether it is OK to share the information that I lost my part-time job on the internets, since my part time job was in social media. But there you go. No more part-time job. The company I was working for was bought by a larger company and in the expansion they aren't wanting to retain any part-time employees. I couldn't take on any more hours because I got paid so little that if I hired childcare for the times I would be working more, the babysitter would get paid more than I would make. No way am I paying someone to work! I already work here at home for free!

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My parents are coming to watch the kids on Saturday night! I am so excited. We are going to pay all kinds of money for some really nice room where I will hopefully sleep more than 4 consecutive hours. I might also have a bath! Woo hoo! So exciting!

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I am very much enjoying the space at the new house and so are the kids. Sometimes we don't even go somewhere during the day like we used to EVERY SINGLE DAY because there is room for them to run around and burn off their energy here upstairs, downstairs, and in the back yard.

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This week BlogHer announced their Call For Volunteers and I applied, like, 5 minutes after it was announced. This is the only way I'm getting to BlogHer this year - if I can mic wrangle or be a reg desk or liveblogger volunteer. No way can I pay for it, and since my part-time job is gone, they won't be paying like they did last year, either. Now, who wants to be my roommate?!

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Still poo-free and now my hair feels completely normal. It's soft and manageable again. Every morning I just look at it and determine if I need to use any Aveda oil or a tad of baking soda or just rinse with apple cider vinegar. That's all I ever use on it!

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Seriously, only 4 people have taken my Facebook poll? Please let me know if this blog has influenced you in any way, as I continue to use the data to work on monetizing in an inconspicuous way!


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