Twitter parties: etiquette and unfollowing

It's time to talk internets. Lately, I've seen more and more Twitter parties in my small(ish) group of followers and Twitter friends. Just last night, Dallas Moms Blog hosted one with the hashtag #DMBmoms. Last week, Green Sisterhood co-hosted with Holistic Moms Network, #holisticmoms. On Wednesday nights, Working Mom Journal hosts #workingmomchat. On Monday nights, #clothdiapers talks about, uh...cloth diapers! I used to follow one about essential oils whose hashtag I have now forgotten. These are just the ones that I know about regularly. There are literally thousands of others going on at any given time.

While the essential oils weekly Twitter party was 6 months ago, and #clothdiapers has been going on for at least 2 years,  it seems like only recently that Twitter parties have gotten really popular.

What are Twitter parties?

The most basic form is when a group of people tweet during a set time period (usually 1 hour) with the same hashtag. You use a third party app like Tweetgrid, Tweetdeck, or Hootsuite to track all the tweets with that hashtag so that you can see what everyone is saying and tweet back to them using the party hashtag and sometimes the @ reply to specific participants. Remember that if you reply to an individual using the "@username" as the first word in your tweet, your tweet will not be visible to your Twitter followers in their general Twitter stream. So if you are just @'ing people, your followers will not see those tweets in their Twitter streams.

In more formal Twitter parties -- usually the ones involving prizes and corporate or celebrity hosts -- you have to RSVP to the host separately beforehand. In the course of these parties, participants who registered ahead of time will win prizes, with prize and winners being announced during the course of the party. The host will direct the Twitter party by asking questions that everyone following the hashtag will answer. Answers and questions will be tweeted and retweeted, sometimes with reply @ and sometimes just to the participants' regular Twitter streams.

A problem

This is where it gets annoying for the participants' followers who are not interested in joining the party. Let's say this is my usual Twitter timeline over the course of 2 days (it is):

Random tweets throughout the day, in fairly evenly spaced intervals (around 10 tweets in 2 days). That's fine if you follow me, I'm mixed in with everyone else in your Twitter stream throughout the day with all of us talking and looking like this:

But what if I am currently attending a Twitter party? Here is my timeline less than a full hour:

And here is what you see in YOUR Twitter feed when when you go to check what's up on Twitter right now:

Yep. JUST ME. Like you really want to see that much of me. This party was for Dallas moms. A lot of my Twitter followers don't live in Dallas and are not moms. What do they do?
UNFOLLOW.

Or do they?

More and more of my friends are attending Twitter parties. Just today at noon, my Twitter feed was completely taken over by a party that two of my friends attended. I don't unfollow them because, well, they are my friends in real life! I can't unfollow them!

Then my husband comes home later tonight and says something like, "Did you see that funny thing I tweeted?". And I have to answer no, I didn't, because it got lost in the Twitter party. Especially depressing when he's home with the kids tweeting cute pics while I'm out somewhere and I miss the cute pictures entirely due to someone's Twitter party (this has happened to me).

Two solutions

One is to open a new Twitter account specifically for Twitter parties with a different email address, in order to avoid annoying my regular followers. Unfortunately, some of the Twitter parties I attend are to represent myself as a blogger. In those cases, I want to use my blogging persona, which is @_conscientious.

The other is to attend Twitter parties but always just @ reply the host or another participant, thereby hiding the majority of my tweets during the hour from my Twitter followers as a whole. I had picked up just from attending parties that this is not a very professional practice because it kind of slams the host with Mentions. I Googled all over for "Twitter party etiquette" and came up with no answer to this question.

So I'd like to ask you: What do you think about Twitter parties? What do you think when someone in your Twitter stream is attending one -- do you Unfollow? How do you attend parties without annoying your own followers?

Me vs. Skinny Jeans

It has come the time in my life where I must buy new clothes. Two babies in two years, and then the scourge of the tiny holes in my shirts have winnowed my winter wardrobe down to nothing. I went out to a few stores the other day in search of clothing for the kids for our family pictures this weekend and noticed a disturbing trend when it comes to jeans and pants in my size.

Skinny jeans. Everywhere.

In fact, I was informed by my Twitter friends (who know these things) that skinny jeans are the ONLY jeans out there this season. Cargo-type pants are not even available anymore. I know, because I looked.

Since I started teaching and practicing Lagree Fitness Pilates, I have changed shape once again. From maternity, to post-maternity, to maternity again, to Pilates... I am proud to say that, yes, I have worked very hard to get my glutes and thighs crazy strong and toned. You would think that I would be excited to show them off. You would think that, but you would be wrong.

I do not like to use profanity on this blog, but I can't think of a better way to say this: I do not really want people looking at my ass. Skinny jeans make me feel like everyone is looking at my ass.

Is it just me, or do skinny jeans really seem to leave your rear end nowhere to hide? Maybe it's just my perception that boot cut jeans were a little less "out there". And I really loved cargo pants.

Sure, my husband loves the skinny jeans look. And that is an appropriate way for him to feel about my body. There is an attitude out there that "you can look but not touch, and if you're going to leer that is your problem". I have to disagree with that. I feel that I have some degree of control in the way that I dress which confers upon me a certain amount of responsibility for how people look at me.

It's true that in one aspect, wearing skinny jeans does promote my Pilates practice by exhibiting the results of the work I have done, but in other ways it can really bother another woman who struggles with body image issues. As the advertisements say: results may not be typical. I can guarantee you that there is another part of her body that comes out ahead of mine. We are all born with our own bodies and they just don't look alike. We are all beautiful, we shouldn't look the same. Skinny jeans make me feel like I am promoting comparison.

And don't even get me started on how I spent most of the 5th grade coveting those jeans that closed at the bottom with a zipper. If I was wearing this trend in the 80's, I am more than a little reluctant to repeat these fashion mistakes when I am nearly 35. Should a woman of my age even be wearing the same thing she wore at 10 years old? I think not, my friends.

Because I never have a 100% solid opinion on anything, I can also counter everything I've said in this post by mentioning that I've seen some of my friends do a great job of wearing skinny jeans in a manner that does not scream "look at me" or draws unnecessary attention to their assets. I know it can be done.

To those friends, I say: please comment on this post and tell me where you got those jeans and what you looked for when you were shopping. Please. 

In the meantime, I will be lurking here in the corner, in my cargo pants from 2008, bemoaning my lack of choice in pants and trying to reconcile my inevitable participation in this trend.

I kind of don't want you on Pinterest

How do I say this...I don't really trust you. Pinterest is a place to share things with my friends. You know, people. Humans. Other (mostly) women who like to see pretty photos of things we might make, cook, or try with our kids one day.

And you are a business. Sure, you're possibly a small business. Maybe even owned by a woman, even a woman I know.

But I'm just not comfortable with you being here. When I got the email that Company Selling Something was following me on Pinterest, it felt eerie. Like Big Brother had climbed into my cookbook on my shelf in my kitchen. Or a car dealership set up a billboard on the place where I keep my unrealistic dreams. Sure, it was OK that someone from high school I barely talked to can see my pins, but a company?

You say you'll pin things and I'll see them? What you mean is that someone in your marketing department will pin things that they hope I'll see.

I guess that's what makes me a little worried. Pinterest is a place I pin a lot of things that will help me avoid consumerism. To find marketing edging its way in makes me sad. I don't want it to be another place trying to convince me that I need to buy more, when I wanted to be inspired to create.

So no, Company X, I'm sorry I won't be following you back.

How do you feel about companies being on Pinterest?

Frugal is such an ugly word

Years ago, someone bought me an Anne Taintor coffee mug with this phrase on it. For years, I bristled at it because I thought, "I put myself through college working 3-4 jobs, I lived on NOTHING for years - I don't have any problem being frugal!". Yet Christian and I spent years Dual Income, No Kids. I didn't have to use my amazing frugal skills anymore. We went to Japan. We bought a fancy toilet. I bought investment jeans. We had a list of all the cheeses from the Monty Python Cheese Sketch and we purchased them, one by one, even though they were sometimes $10 for 1 ounce. We actually spent a lot of money on cheese, now that I think of it...yum.

I had some babies. I quit my full time job. I lost my part time job. And yet, the two kids and the house remained. This should be easy! I've done this before! Uh... apparently, no, I've lost the knack. I suck at being frugal. I miss the good cheese!

Seriously, my downfall is probably food. I am not attracted to unhealthy, cheap food. If I can't have good, healthy, organic food then I just won't eat at all. I'll get hungry and grumpy. It is an occupational hazard for a SAHM.

I don't know what I am doing wrong that I keep running out of grocery money. I do meal planning, I try to maximize each ingredient. I have recently tried shopping at different grocery stores because I've heard that some are cheaper than others. But since I will still only buy organic of the EWG Dirty Dozen in produce, and I refuse to buy non-organic milk or conventionally raised eggs, there doesn't seem to be much variation in price between stores. In fact, when I try to pursue cheaper stores, I just find that the selection of foods that I find acceptable for our family is small or nonexistent. I can go in with a list of 10 things but only find 7 or 8. Then I have to go to another store. Since I can't make it to two stores in one day with both kids in tow, missing those 2 to 3 items for certain recipes on grocery day can derail my entire meal plan for the week.

Another thing that derails the budget is buying staples. I can stay within the budget as long as we never run out of seasonings, snacks for the kids, butter, nuts, cheese, yogurt, eggs, bread, and milk. But when I have a list of things I need to replenish in our fridge or pantry, sometimes that list will use up my entire budget for the week. Then what do I do about food for actual meals?

It is all very complex and inter-related. One item affects another. Smart health choices build up to more expensive groceries. Both my kids now drink cows milk and eat real solid food. We are feeding 4 people, even though 2 of them are small.

Frugal. It's such an ugly word.

It's my problem-free philosophy

How to build blog traffic conscientiously without too many advertise-y promotions and without supporting companies who I do not believe to be socially responsible? It's been a challenge and a conundrum. What I need are better "numbers". Without these magical scores of readers, I supposedly cannot approach advertisers. Google AdWords won't even respond to my request to be an affiliate.

I've been around in the blogosphere long enough to know what makes the numbers soar: controversy. The Mommy Wars. Saying something inflammatory about breastfeeding, formula feeding, staying-at-home or working moms, spanking or not spanking, raising religious or non-religious kids, or making some kind of highly opinionated political statement.

I hate that stuff. I hate reading it and I refuse to respond to it. Sometimes I feel like a moron for not participating in something that would probably help my writing career, but let me explain.

We're not all coming from the same place.
Not all of us believe the same basic tenets. I believe in God and the Bible, but not everyone does. Why would I expect an atheist to follow the philosophies in my literature of faith? Some of us have personal faith in God, some of us do not. Some of us are politically liberal, and some are conservative. Some of us have kids and some don't. Some have more money than others. All of us were raised in different ways in our families of origin, and in hugely different geographical and social contexts. This means we are not looking through any issue through the same lens. So when we blast out a blanket statement detailing exactly what someone else should or should not believe, feel, or do -- we aren't even coming from the same place.

We don't all have the same kids.
And, like I said, we don't even all have children. Yet we all think we can weigh in on discipline, breastfeeding, or how someone else's kids should be educated? You don't feed your child dairy or gluten - great! But my child refuses to eat meat of any kind, so we have to use dairy and gluten to get some food into him. Your child loves co-sleeping so you feel like it's the answer to all our sleep problems, but both my kids HATE sleeping with anyone else in the room. Different kids, different solutions. Pointless to argue.


We can't use our faith to dictate others' behaviors.
While I'm at it, even those of us within the same faith are caught up in foolish arguments about things that don't matter.  I am talking to you, Christians who flame each other on discussion boards. Just this week, I was reading 2 Timothy where Paul admonished Timothy three separate times not to get involved in foolish arguments with others of the same faith. Since the Bible is my literature of faith, I'm going to take that as permission (and even justification) for not getting involved in some of these ridiculous Mommy wars online.

Obviously, I am not discouraging open and honest discussion. I love it when I post a problem I'm having with my kids and I get a bunch of wildly different suggestions from my readers and friends. It's eye-opening and helpful. I think that is an example of how we should be using our online platforms. We should be supporting each other, offering helpful advice, shining a light on things that need to be changed in our society, but taking ourselves a little less seriously. If I don't take your suggestion in raising my children or I don't agree with your political opinion, that's OK. It doesn't mean I think your opinions are dumb. It doesn't mean we need to get in a huge Facebook argument.

That's my rant about... ranting. So where are we in relation to my blog? Well, I guess we're probably the same place we've always been. I won't be blasting out some kind of controversy for my 5 minutes of internet fame. We'll just keep plugging along together, learning about living more conscientiously. Are you with me?

Neti Pot Safety

 If you've followed this blog long, you know I'm a huge fan of the neti pot for daily allergy prevention. I use my neti pot every night! I also wrote a post about how to use the neti pot - it should never burn or sting or inhibit your natural breathing as the water passes through.

There is one aspect of neti pot usage that I knew I should have been be doing, but basically I just didn't want to. Supposedly, only distilled or boiled water should be used in your neti pot to avoid introducing germs from the public water supply into your nasal passages.

But you see, I like my neti pot water warm. Ideally, body temperature. Which can only come from the tap. So I was ignoring what I knew I should be doing.

Then I started to see the stories about several deaths in Louisiana related to neti pot usage. I ignored that for a while thinking surely there were extenuating circumstances, but then an article about the neti pot deaths showed up in the Huffington Post. Well, I actually read that one.

Now I'm here to tell you: please boil your neti pot water or buy distilled water for use in your neti pot. 

I have started doing it - I keep the neti pot water in a carafe beside our sink. It's room temperature, so it doesn't feel as nice as the warm tap water did. I kind of hate it, actually. But I guess it has to be done.

This is your public service announcement: if I can do it, you can too!

Klout: I hate you, but I need you

What is your Klout score?
Mine was 55+ before they reconfigured their algorithm and now it's more like 48-49.
Jerks.

Klout.com is a company that compiles and monitors the interactions you have in all the social media channels in which you participate. When you are online, Klout is watching to see how many times you tweet, how often you update Facebook, how often you post on your blogs, when you use Instagram... Not only that, but it's measuring how many people comment on your blog/Facebook/Instagram/Flickr and how many people @ you back on Twitter. Also, the content of your tweets and updates matter: you have to have a certain ratio of links that you are sharing in each medium, not just talking randomly. And the people who follow you in each social media channel need to re-share those links fairly regularly for your score to be good and stay that way (proving that you are "influential").

In order for your score to stay high and steady, you can't go more than a few hours without updating multiple channels. Whenever I go more than 3 hours without Tweeting, updating my Facebook page(s), using Instagram, or publishing a blog post, my freaking Klout goes down. You can imagine what happened this weekend when my husband got sick and I was taking care of 3 people rather than 2 for a few days. For some reason the kids don't like it when I am using my iPhone to check Twitter/Facebook/Google Reader instead of playing with them. Go figure.

Why should I care about Klout? Why should anyone care?

According to all the "how to monetize your blog" panels I attended at BlogHer 2011 this past year, the largest PR companies realize that Klout is flawed and not necessarily a good measure of how truly influential a blogger is when it comes to public relations campaigns or selling advertising. For example, Klout was convinced for a while that I was influential about zombies and spelling. Ok, zombies I understand, but spelling?! I do not recall ever tweeting or blogging about spelling.

However, when you have a blog as small as mine, you aren't working with the "big guys" who realize Klout isn't the best measure of a blogger's importance as a partner. I work with much smaller companies, including my part-time employer in my social media job. To smaller companies, Klout does matter. In fact, my employer requires us to attempt to achieve and maintain a certain level of Klout for all the clients we handle. So take all the updating and maintaining I have to do for my own personal Klout on my blog and social media accounts, and multiply it times 3 for the 2 other clients I handle. This is why I have trouble with work-life balance sometimes.


I would just like to take this time to acknowledge that I do understand why I must play by Klout's rules for the time being. But Klout is also the cloud that hangs over my head and lurks in the back of my mind any time I am having carefree offline time. If I am having fun outside, I know that while I am out of 3G or Wifi range, my Klout and my clients' Klout is dropping, dropping...

Klout, I hate you sometimes. I kind of can't wait until your reign is over and I can go back to my real life.

Plastic bags are ridiculous

Monday when the EcoMaids came to clean our house, I took the kids on a walk to get out of their way. We walked to our nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market despite the fact that I have a Walmart phobia. It is the closest grocery store to us, so sometimes I go there. I am careful to buy only foods we would normally buy, as far as being environmentally responsible and organic when possible. They are one of the only places I can consistently find organic garlic and they have recently started carrying organic milk. Good for them!

In my rush to get out the door with both kids, I left our reusable shopping bags at home. I told the checkout person that I'd be fine just putting the items into the stroller basket, but she didn't want to do that. I have noticed that when I walk to stores with the stroller they sometimes have policies against putting your groceries in the stroller basket, I guess because it looks like you're stealing. So, she put our items in plastic.

When I got home I was horrified to find she had used 6 PLASTIC BAGS for only 13 items!! And these were small items - two were jello packets. I could have fit all of them into one reusable bag.

Here is a picture of the groceries I bought (NOTE: cans are for donation, but I only bought non-organic items that are on the EWG Clean 15 list):



And here is the stack of plastic bags. My toddler is standing behind them to show the scale:



ACK! I was really traumatized by this experience. Why do the checkers use so many bags for so few items? Why couldn't I have put them in my stroller basket?

The plastic bags are hanging on my doorknob, waiting for me to find somewhere I can recycle them.

Ridiculous!

Craigslist Do's and Don'ts

 Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle - one of my favorite ways to reuse is Craigslist! This free and local online classifieds service can help you buy gently used things of all kinds - I use it mainly for furniture and kids' stuff, but I've also bought maternity clothing and sold a car!

I've been buying and selling on Craigslist for a few years and have developed some pet peeves when it comes to using the service. I also realize that many people might be new to Craigslist, or infrequent users of the service, and might not realize that "UR doing it wrong".

To try and help newbies or those who don't use Craigslist much, I've jotted down the following etiquette and safety tips for buying and selling on Craigslist.

Do's and Don'ts of Buying and Selling on your local Craigslist

Buying

• Do go with listings that have a picture - this reduces the amount of questions you have to ask the seller via email or text.
• Don't consider items outside your ability to travel. I typically won't drive more than 15 miles in DFW because that's 30 minutes in traffic, and stops being worth my while with 2 kids in the car.
• Do offer to meet the seller at a public location like a nearby Starbucks or McDonald's. 
• Do bring someone with you (again, for safety), or at the very least, call someone right before going and arrange to call them again as you are leaving, to make sure everything is safe.
• Do try to ask all the questions you have via email or phone or text and if you don't get satisfactory answers, just don't buy the item.
• Don't make the seller hold an item for you to come look at without a commitment that you will buy. If you don't buy, then the seller has to contact all the people they told "no" to while they were waiting on you. Unfair to the seller! 
• Do respect the seller's communication preferences. If the listing says "email only" or "text only" - don't email or text them just to tell them to call you! They specified their communication preference for a reason.
• Do READ THE POST. You are wasting the seller's time if you constantly email them asking them questions that were answered in the body of their post.

Selling

• Don't put your email address in the body of the post - utilize the Craigslist anonymous email option. 
• Don't include your physical address in the post unless it is a listing for leasing a home. I typically put my city and the closest major intersection in the post and give out my actual address only when a buyer has contacted me for pickup.
• Do include pictures, even if you had to take them with your phone.
• Do link to the manufacturer's description online somewhere if you can - this will save you from answering a ton of buyers' questions.
• Do try to anticipate any potential questions and include the answers in your post. For example: cash only, comes from a pet-free home, only used 3 months, never used, in great shape, etc.
• Do be honest about the condition of the item and why you are getting rid of it. I like to include pictures of any damage (like small scratches or dents) so I don't get a lot of questions.
• Don't be too wordy - I have found that posts with too much text aren't read and the items don't sell.
• Do remove your post as soon as the item has sold! Otherwise you are going to keep getting emails you'll have to keep answering with "sorry the item has sold".

Hope that might help!

Do you have any "Do's" and "Don'ts" you might add?

Extreme Couponing & Why I Don't Do It

A recent post by Alex at Late Enough reminded me of how I came home the other evening to find my sweet husband watching Extreme Couponing on TLC with morbid fascination. I had heard a lot about this show on Twitter, but never seen it in real life. He was kind of excited about the idea.

When I was younger and single, and even our first few years of married life, I have had my times of being really good with coupons. I remember one time I texted Christian about how I saved $12 on one shopping trip!

There are a few reasons I don't "extreme" coupon.

1. Now I have 2 children under the age of 2 with me every time I go grocery shopping. This turns every shopping trip into a game of "How Fast Can We Get In And Out Of The Store Before Someone Explodes", not conducive to comparing prices on anything.
   
   
2. They only make coupons for crap. Have you ever examined the kind of products that produce coupons? Let me give you a clue: they are not typically organic. You get a lot of coupons for Pillsbury, who notoriously includes trans fats in everything they make, as well as foods that contain more than a day's allowance of sugar, fat, or sodium. Never any coupons for fresh produce, of course. When it comes to cleaning products, they don't usually put coupons for Mrs. Meyer's or Method in your Sunday paper. Even coupons for Seventh Generation are rare. But you can buy products chock-full of Clorox bleach and phthalates with coupons! You can stock up on that stuff, baby.
   (Do not even get me started on how wrong it is that the products that are the worst for our health are the cheapest, targeting the poorest parts of our population with the highest amount of dangerous chemical contaminants.)
   
   
3. Storage, and the crap that goes into preserving things for storage. To get the big discounts, you have to buy around 1 million of the same item. Even if I could find coupons for organic items or produce - where am I going to store all this before it goes bad? The reason you can buy a ton of cheap, fake food is because it is full of preservatives. Organic items and produce don't store well, because God made food to decay. But Twinkies never die.  You can hoard your trans fat-filled food for an indefinite period of time, so that you will have a ton of trans fats to live off of when the apocalypse comes. I live in a rental home, rental homes being notorious for having no storage space at all. When the apocalypse comes, we are going to be the first ones down, it's true. But at least we won't be sick from all the trans fats.

I have found other ways to save money without extreme couponing. Using just 2 coupons (for organic yogurt and organic cereal and organic pasta sauce) and shopping the sale items at Tom Thumb just this week, I saved $22 total on our grocery bill.  We also participate in an organic CSA co-op that gives us a crate of organic fruits and vegetables every other week, for cheaper than we could buy those items separately in the store.

There are definitely ways to save a little more money and still shop responsibly. But you won't catch me Extreme Couponing any time soon.

Guest Blogger: Texan Mama - Are You Closed-Minded? Am I?

I just had a baby! While I am out on maternity leave for a few weeks or so, I have begged some of the bloggers that I stalk most admire to contribute guest posts to this space so it won't be lonely. The posts are so awesome that I am afraid you won't want me back.

The goal of these guests posts is to bring new and different insights to this space. Viewpoints that I am unfamiliar with, advice from those who have been where I have not been, and ideas that might seem foreign to myself and my readers but are important to consider.

Today's guest blogger is Texan Mama from Who Put Me In Charge Of These People. I met Gretchen in 2009 at a DFW blogger meetup at the Grand Lux in Dallas. I am especially excited to have her guest posting because I greatly admire her honesty and ability to describe exactly how she feels about things, even when she takes flak for it. Way to go, Texan Mama!

~~~~~
I've heard snippets here and there online about people being closed-minded or narrow-minded.

What, exactly, does that mean?

Does being closed minded mean that a person is not open to other views as being right, that only their own point of view could be the possible answer to a question or solution to a problem?

Does being narrow minded mean that someone rejects anyone who does not conform to their definition of "right" or "moral" or "appropriate"?

Uh-oh.

Do you think smoking is wrong? If you do, does that make you closed-minded? Even though it has been proven that smoking is hazardous to a person's health, don't they have the right to do whatever they want to with their own body?

What do you think about people who curse around young children? Would that be considered inappropriate? And if so, who exactly put that standard in place?

These are just a couple of examples, but here's my point: it's really popular nowadays for folks to stand up and say, "I hate people who can't be open minded." But wait, by hating someone who has different views than you... aren't you being closed-mided to THOSE people? This is especially true for a lot of hot-button societal issues.

Like, for example, people who dress their dogs in costumes. I mean REALLY what is WRONG with those people???

No, seriously, think about it: I'm not targeting YOU per se, dear blog reader. I'm just saying, it gets really easy to fling rotten fruit at people we don't like, all in the name of standing up for what we believe in. But if what we believe in is acceptance of everyone equally, that includes people who don't agree with the rotten-fruit-flinger.

Just a thought.

Something wrong with comments

Just wanted to let everyone know that there is something wrong with the comments on my blog, I am aware of it... although not happy about it.  Apparently the CommentLuv plugin (which I luved until now) is not showing a link at the bottom of each post which would allow you to comment. If you click on the title of the post or open a post from within an RSS reader, you will see the comment box and all it's fun stuff. But not if you visit the blog directly. I have no idea why this is.

We are working on a redesign off and on, so hopefully this will improve upon relaunch. But I have no idea. Anyone with experience in this area, please feel free to click on the title of this post and comment (doh) or email me directly at jenny[at]conscientiousconfusion[dot]com!

Followup: City of Richardson Recycling

After yesterday's post about my disappointment with the recycling program here in Richardson, a few friends who also live in Richardson sent me some additional information on the recycling program. It turns out, we CAN recycle paper and cardboard!

Right here on the Richardson web site it says so.

Thing thing that was confusing me was this message printed on all the blue recycling bags we were given:

In case the picture is not very readable, it says:

Please use this bag for:

• aluminum cans
• ferrous metal cans (tin, steel)
• plastics (#1-5 & 7)
• glass (clear, brown, green)

In fact, according to the City of Richardson web site they actually accept:

The items below can all be placed in the blue bags:
Plastics #1-5 and #7, Aluminum, Tin, Steel, Empty Aerosol Cans, Newspapers, Mixed Paper, Paper Grocery Bags, Magazines, Catalogs, Corrugated Cardboard, Paperboard/Chipboard, Phone Books, Junk Mail, Glass Containers (All Color Glass)

Do you see how confusing this is?

I can easily go on a tirade about how so many cities spend money on recycling programs and then bemoan the fact that their citizens either don't take advantage of the services or use them incorrectly. Which is indeed a problem, but is there any question why that might be? Maybe a little correct information would help...

Thanks so much to my friends/readers who helped me out with this!! I am gonna have a big ol' bag of cardboard and paper this next week for pickup!

Things that are different

We have been living in the 'burb for about 2 weeks now. There are some things that are nice (we have a bigger yard - or a yard at all, the library and civic center here is very nice, and there are a TON of city swimming pools) but some things that I have trouble getting used to.

One of these things is the recycling program in the city of Richardson.

In Dallas, we had 2 cans in the back of our house - 1 for trash and 1 for recycling. The recycling one was blue, and we just threw all our recyclables in it: paper, cardboard, plastics, metal, and glass. No sorting, just throw it all in. We barely threw away one bag of actual trash/garbage per week. All the rest of the things we used were recyclable.

Here in Richardson, they don't use trash cans at all, for either trash or recycling. You throw your loose trash bags in the alleyway. They will not pick up any trash that is in trash cans at all, even if you buy your own trash can. I was kind of horrified at this, it looks really tacky. Just throwing what is basically loose trash back there? Ick!

Their recycling is also done in bags - blue bags. You have to purchase (pay for!) a roll of blue bags (which I am pretty sure never biodegrade), and put your recyclables in the blue bag.

However, they only take: some plastics, glass, and aluminum. No paper, no cardboard of any kind. Fortunately, the magnet school down the street has a bin where you can drop off paper only, such as your mail and magazines and newspaper. It's a nice program because the school gets paid for all the material that is recycled.

What is driving me crazy is the cardboard! I never realized how much cardboard we recycled before. All kinds of food comes in cardboard boxes (crackers, cereal, even seitan has a cardboard outer). There are cardboard inserts in your clothing. Toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls. Not to mention the boxes we have left over from moving that can't be saved because they've survived so many moves they've fallen apart. And the empty kitty litter boxes... I could go on and on.

We have gone from generating only one bag of trash/garbage per week to around 4 bags. And I can't use the earth-friendly kitchen trash bags I was using before because I have to use bags thick enough to withstand being outside in the weather while waiting for the trash pickup.

Not only am I generating more trash, but I am being forced to package it in bags that will pretty much never biodegrade. I am not going to lie to you, this is actually really difficult for me to get used to!

To burb or not to burb...

In 2011 I will have lived in Dallas for 10 years....10 years! I am not always a huge fan of Dallas, but I do have a pet peeve: I cannot stand it when people say they are "from Dallas" or "live in Dallas" when what they mean is "a suburb of Dallas". Plano, Richardson, Garland, Mesquite, Irving....if your mailing address does not say Dallas: YOU ARE NOT IN DALLAS. Especially Frisco. Frisco is actually closer to Oklahoma (30 minutes) than it is to Dallas (45 minutes). I have nothing against Frisco, I just can't stand it when people who live in Frisco tell people they live IN DALLAS.

The whole 10 years I've been here, I've lived in the center of Dallas. Never outside of 635. Really, mostly within the same 10-mile radius in either the Park Cities or Lakewood. This is my neighborhood, these are my grocery stores, and this is where I know how to get around.

When I was driving the Mercedes for a year, I would often put no more than 30 miles a week on the car because everything I needed, including my work, was within 2-3 miles.

We really love how this area of town has a personality. Lakewood has a lot of older homes, a lot of people who have their own gardens but also participate in the arts downtown (which is only 5 minutes away) and in local churches. And, of course, here we are only 10 minutes from the Birth Center where Little Sir was born.

Nevertheless, we are considering the inevitable... leaving this area we love and moving *gasp* a little farther north.

Not far, just to Richardson.
I think it is only 15 or 20 miles. But the difference in environment is huge. There are fewer independently owned stores, and more chain or "big box" stores. There are less areas that are walkable from your home, more driving required.There is no White Rock Lake. We have had trouble finding good parks at all. No Farmer's Market. No movie theaters that show only independent or limited-release films.

I think we would miss White Rock Lake most of all. We have had some good times there. We biked around it regularly when we were dating and early married. We walked around it while deciding whether/when to start a family. We walked around and around and around trying to get my labor to start when I was pregnant. And I took Little Sir out to the lake within his first few weeks of life so that he and the lake could meet!

Still... the 'burbs are cheaper and we do need more room. We have not made a decision yet. We spent many years saying we would never live in a suburb of Dallas, so we don't take this decision lightly...

I Hate Disposable Diapers

We have been traveling for only 4 days, using disposable diapers instead of my beloved Bum Genius cloth diapers because, theoretically, disposable is "easier". And by "easier", I mean that other people are less scared of it.

I should never have done this. We were staying with my parents and I could have brought my cloth diapers because we could have washed them, but I believed the lie that disposable would be "easier".

At first we were using our favorite brand, the gel-free Tushies. These started leaking almost immediately, which had never happened before. We assumed they had become too small because we've been using this size since Little Sir was a newborn and never had issues before. So we went to the dreaded Walmart to buy Huggies Pure and Natural in a slightly larger size (Tushies are impossible to find offline, even in Dallas we have to drive 45 minutes to buy them). I wasn't excited about Huggies because they do utilize gel and still aren't biodegradeable.

So we stood in Walmart gazing at all the sizes. See, this is why I think cloth is so much easier-when I want a larger size of my cloth diapers, I just unsnap the next snap and they are instantly bigger. With disposables, I have  to go to the store and try to figure out what size to get, only to waste money on the wrong one because the weight ranges on the packages seem to be complete lies.

We bought what the package's weight range indicated should have been too large (14-18 lbs., Little Sir is probably 11 lbs.) but looked from the outside of the package to be only slightly larger than the Tushies. When we got home and opened them, they were in fact the same size, if not smaller than the Tushies. WHAT?!

We used them anyway, and they proceeded to leak the same, if not more, than the Tushies. We went through 2-3 outfits every day for the whole trip. We collected the dirty ones in a standard yard size trash bag, and after 4 days the bag was half full of non-biodegradeable diapers. Can you imagine how much waste would be created if we used those things all the time?! I was surprised.

The first thing people say to me when I tell them we cloth diaper is something like, "Wow, I don't know how you can do that!".

After 4 days of disposable diapering, I return that sentiment right back at ya.
Disposable diapers: wow, I don't know how you can do that!
I sure can't.

Weak heroines: I cannot stand them (Rebecca and The Twilight Series)

I have been reading a lot of books lately, my goal is to read books that are entertaining and distracting, but that don't make me think too much or get depressed. I read so many baby-raising books early into this pregnancy that I can't handle any more of those right now.

I did finally finish the Twilight series. The third and fourth books were the best because the plot started earlier and earlier into the book. The third book, I only had to read maybe 1 chapter before the plot started up. The fourth had a "real" plot almost all the way through, even though none of them leave behind the teenage emo angst. It's all so dramatic. They are completely in love. And it has nothing to do with being 17, I am sure. (sarcasm)

Anyway, the fourth book was my favorite because the heroine finally got some cahones. Spell check cannot advise me on how to spell that word correctly, but upon reflection, the thing that probably annoyed me the most about this series is how weak the heroine comes across for most of the books. Sure, the author is trying to make her emotionally strong (she loves her vampire and her family so much and she would give her life for them, blah blah blah), but that doesn't mean she has to get so beat up physically in every single book. She never fights back! What?! You would think by the second or third time her life is put in danger, maybe she could, I don't know, sign up for some self-defense courses? Take karate? Kick-boxing? ANYTHING??

Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier
I did not actually realize that the weakness of the heroine was what I disliked about the Twilight series until I began my next book, Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier. It was recommended to me by a friend and I am sure it is actually a very good book. It gets good reviews. But I cannot stand it.

I am not going to make it through this book. I cannot handle the heroine being as dumb as she is. I realize she is young, mostly because she keeps saying it over and over: "I was just so young". I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. Excuses, excuses, why couldn't you just make an effort to learn, then, like everyone else does as they grow older? Apparently she likes to wallow in her stupidity and make a fool of herself.

This is my issue: the same reason that I can’t watch shows like The Office for very long when they get intentionally awkward. I can’t handle watching people make fools of themselves, I don’t find it entertaining, I find it embarrassing. I am embarrassed on their behalf and it spoils any enjoyment or amusement I might have.

It may not be very American of me to feel this way. We are the country of reality TV, after all - apparently everyone enjoys seeing people founder, embarrass themselves, and be immature. But as for me, I cannot handle it. I choose to avoid it. Haven't I lived through adolescence once? Why torture myself by watching other people be just as dumb? "Rebecca" is probably a very good book to most people. Personally, I will be skipping to the end to find out if she ever got any backbone, and then returning the book to the library.

"Natural" vs. "Organic"

I was really kind of horrified to read about a recent poll:

American consumers believe that a 'natural' label claim is a better indicator of an eco-friendly product than 'organic', according to a new survey from advertising firm the Shelton Group.

I know there is a lot of marketing out there, and a lot of companies who really aren't concerned at all about responsible or conscientious production are attempting to take their regular products and make them look "greener" by simply adding words to their marketing, but it is very important that you, the consumer, know what you are buying! Bear in mind that every product we purchase is a "vote" and sends a message to the large companies who make the things we consume. We have a choice every time we buy something to send a message which encourages companies to produce certain products, and allows other products to fail. Here is a breakdown of natural vs. organic, as it applies to marketing.

Natural - anyone can call anything natural. You can slap this label on anything. Even things made of 100% chemically created components. You could put this label on arsenic. Arsenic is a naturally occurring element. You could put this on bleach. Anything. There is no FDA regulation of the term "natural". Most of the time it is merely a marketing ploy to make the same conventional products look more "green". From USA Today:

"People are surprised to know that partially hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup could be in a product that is 'natural,' " Rangan [Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at "Consumer Reports."] says. "High-fructose corn syrup isn't just squeezed out of corn -- it's chemically processed dextrose, which comes from corn."

Organic - the only way to make sure a product is truly "organic" (by the terms defined as organic right now...sometimes still not very strict, but the best you can get), is for it to be USDA Certified Organic. This means the product will have a seal or state that it has been certified organic by the FDA. Merely the unqualified term "organic" with no seal and no mention of certification is suspect. There is no way to back that claim without regulation.

One note about organic certification, though: to my knowledge, water cannot be certified. This means that if a product is mostly water and the percentage of water is greater than what the USDA would allow for the "non-organic" portion of the product, it might not be "certified" organic. Due to the amount of water in it. I do not have an update on whether this has been changed since the last time I heard about it, and can only find reports from 2005 or so. If you know of other information, please feel free to let me know!

When you buy something, it's OK not to choose organic...I do it too! Just don't be fooled by companies marking things as "natural" so that you pay more for something that isn't necessarily better. And don't let the wording on the package convince you to skip the very important step of reading the ingredients! It's easy to think "oh, it says natural (or organic)" and just not take the time. But do we really want to encourage that kind of dishonesty in industry? Hm. I don't. I don't want the products who have been labeled in a deceptive way to sell well! Companies read their profit reports, and those products won't last long if we are smart enough to see through the marketing and choose only products that we want companies to keep producing.

So now you know...and in the words of G.I. Joe: knowing is half the battle!

The dangers of business casual

If you follow me on Twitter or are my Facebook friend, you know that I hate business casual. Over the summer at my work, we could wear jeans every day. Then when Labor Day rolled around, it was back to business casual. WHY? I am hating it. Why is it OK to wear jeans 3 months and not the rest of the time? I am a programmer so I never, ever see clients. I just sit here and write code all day. Half the time I work from home. Why do I have to change clothing for the 4 hours of the day I am in the office, only to change again for the other 4 hours I am working from home?

Not only is this annoying, it is dangerous and let me tell you why. For women, business casual involves different shoes. I have discovered 2 ways in which these shoes can cause me personal bodily injury.

Flats - Despite how fashionable flats are nowadays, I have come to terms with the fact that I am too clumsy to wear them. We have long shiny tile hallways into the building with slippery floors. At least once a day, one of my shoes flies off my foot in mid-stride and I have to go chase it and put it back on. Either that or, for some reason, I lose traction and slide on the floors. This only happens when I wear flats.

Wedges or heels - I actually have fallen in love with wedges because they are heels with less chance of me falling off of them. But let me tell you what is not safe. What is not safe is when I am going down 4 flights of stairs in wedges and some dude behind me is trying to run down the stairs. It's dangerous enough trying to go down stairs in wedges at all, but trying to run downhill, as it were...that is a straight up ticket to the hospital! This has happened to me several times in the last week. What is the deal with needing to run down the stairs at 9 AM? I haven't even had my coffee, and you are making me run. What can be so important that you need to get into the building right now??

My suggested solution to these dangers is that I should be able to wear jeans and flip flops all the time. At least jeans so that when I fall down stairs or slip on floors, I will have a more flexible and comfortable landing.

How Lame Am I?

Answer these questions in a way that shows how lame you are. If you fill out the questions with things that will actually make you look cooler (such as answering "what is the lamest CD you own" with "Mozart" which is NOT lame), YOU LOSE. In that case, you are not lame, you are someone trying to pose as something they are not. That is a different quiz.

Pass this on to your friends who are not as lame as you be sure to include the person who sent this to you.

1. What time do you go to bed? Every day at 10 PM I get very sleepy because that is my bed time
2. When you are presented with a few free hours, what is your first impulse to do? I am so lame that most of the time when I have nothing to do I clean the house. Or I read Real Simple magazine, which is often about ways to clean and organize the house.
3. Do you have free time frequently? Is it intentional? I have more free time now than I did before I became lame. When I was less lame, I had lots of activities. I had to get rid of those activities because they interfered with my bedtime.
   
4. Have you ever spent an evening alone because your spouse/significant other was doing something and you could not think of anyone to call or anything to do? Um yes. I believe this happened last week.
5. What magazines do you subscribe to? Real Simple and Glamour.
6. What is the lamest thing you have watched on TV because you were bored and couldn't find anyone to hang out? My husband and I have actually watched the live feed of a local cable channel that broadcasts some kind of weird church service where the people walk around and around in circles singing a sort of chant and sometimes they will leap. We have watched this for long, long periods of time. They have this live feed going on pretty much constantly.
7. What is the longest you have owned one item of clothing? 11 years
8. What was that item of clothing? In 2007 I threw away a shirt I wore in 1996 in the homecoming parade. It still fit great and was in pretty good shape, I just felt bad that I still owned it so I threw it away.
9. What song do you enjoy that comes on the radio, but are too embarrassed to admit? I listen to NPR instead of "real" radio. I don't know what the kids are listening to these days. But I do love Terry Gross.
10. What is the lamest movie that you own? I am so lame that I owned only one DVD when we got married, which was the DVD of Scott Miles' independent film, "Dead Flesh". But at the current time I own "13 Going On 30". You cannot tell me that is not lame.
11. What is the lamest book that you own? I have a bookshelf that covers one entire wall and I can't think of anything that is in it except "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" which is a book about a 16 year old girl who goes insane. I actually love that book.
12. What is the lamest CD or single song from iTunes that you own? Kidz Bop singing "Summertime Girls" or the Space Ghost Musical BBQ album.
13. Have you ever gone to a movie alone because it was so lame you could not find anyone to go with you? If yes, what was that movie? The movies I have wanted to see that are lame, I am too chicken to see by myself because I know the movie theater would be filled with teenagers and I don't understand the kids these days. I wish they would just get off my lawn.
14. When you fill out something that asks you to list your hobbies, what do you put? Cooking, cleaning, reading and then I can't think of anything else. Then I realize those aren't hobbies, those are errands.
15. If you have a little extra money, what lame item do you buy? I often buy food.
16. What do you consider "sleeping in" on the weekends? 8 AM is the latest I can stay asleep. My body wakes me up at 6 AM every day no matter what. I can't stop it.
17. What is the lamest thing you have really looked forward to? How long were you looking forward to it? If I know that we are going to have cake at work, I will look forward to that for weeks. If I accidentally do not come in to work that day I am very sad.
18. Is there a particular office supply that you are excited to own, or one that you really, really want but haven't got yet? I love my red Swingline stapler and I have taken it to every job I have had since I got it when I graduate college. I am not kidding. I really have one.
19. If you had an extra $100 what kind of lame thing would you spend it on? This is just like #15 and I am too lame to have further options.
20. Name 2 lame facts that no one cares about or may even understand. 1) There are no annelids in Madagascar. 2) Mystery Science Theater 3000 the Movie is now out in DVD.