I mean that in the best compliment of ways. My friend Alyssa has been yapping for a while over her life and everything in it. 500 posts worth! That’s a lot of stories, laughs, tears, information, and great reads.

So join me in congratulating Alyssa in yappin’ her way through 500 posts. There are even a number of prizes available just for joining her. One prize is some great organic bath products for your little one to enjoy- or even yourself. Dinker & Giggles is the sponsor of this prize and we are happy to be a part of this wonderful celebration of Alyssa’s accomplishments in journaling her life and parenting journey.

Curious how to enter?
I know you are dying to know of the other prizes!

So hop on over to Life from My Laptop for more information and a complete list of prizes.

Product Name: 365 Ultimate Salad Cookbook
Rating: 9
Where to Buy: at http://www.naturalmomsrecipes.com/salad-cookbook.html

Description: This cookbook gives you 365 salad recipes that will help you incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into your every day life.

Review: That’s right 365 salad recipes. Hard to believe huh? I thought so until I checked it out. How could anyone come up with 365 different salads? My thought was if you want fresh fruits and vegetables you can only make so many different salads and 365 wasn’t even close to the number I was thinking. Boy was I way off.

One thing I found to be common in almost all the diet books and healthy eating books I have read are that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you. No matter how you fix them, no matter how much of them you eat or whether you dice them, slice them or eat them whole they are good for you. The other thing I have found is that most of these books don’t really give you a lot of options in how to get your family to eat these types of foods. For me that was a very hard battle that I was losing on a daily basis.

I realized that my family did like salads so I thought I could use salads to get them to eat their fruits and vegetables. It worked for about a week. I kept serving the same types of salads day in and day out and they became sick of eating the same thing. So my idea just went out the window. When I found this cookbook that all changed.

I now make salads for just about every meal. In this cookbook I found salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Salads made with seafood, creamy vegetable salads and fruit salads. My family is in seventh heaven and they don’t even realize how good it is for them.

With 365 different salads I’m sure to find something new every time. Of course there are a few we don’t care for, but for the most part we have enjoyed these salads. I even look forward to making a new one and seeing how my family reacts to it. It’s fun to see the look on their face when I put something new on the table. It’s even more fun to know I’m giving them healthy foods and they like it.

If you want to make a fresh start and eat healthier but are afraid to try because your family may bulk at the idea, try this cookbook. You’ll see as I did that eating healthy can be easy and even a fun thing to do.

The good news is, you make beautiful cloth diapers and your baby looks just adorable in them. The bad news is, you’re not making many sales and if things go on like this, the diaper will be all baby is wearing. Here’s some advice to help you grow your cloth diaper business.

1) Take your cloth diaper business online

If you haven’t done so already, start a website and let the world be your customer.

Did you know that hundreds of people each month search online for cloth diapers and other baby products made by work at home Moms? Moms like quality stuff for their babe, and they also like to support the efforts of work at home Mothers. Why shouldn’t they find your product when they search?

Building a website has never been easier. For around $20 a month you can host a full featured website complete with shopping cart and built in payment processing system, message board, newsletter to keep in touch with customers, etc.

2) If you’ve done that, learn how to market your business with articles

Article marketing is something all successful online business owners do. The idea is to write articles and at the end, include your bio with your site link.
Add the articles to your site to get you more traffic, then submit them to free content sites. Other website owners publish your article. If you think it won’t work, ask yourself: What am I reading right now?

What do you write about? Anything that relates to your business. Some ideas:

How to wash cloth diapers
How to sew your own cloth diapers
Why use cloth diapers?
The different cloth diaper systems
Benefits to baby of cloth diapers
Benefits to the environment of cloth diapers
Benefits to the budget of cloth diapers
What native people used for diapers
How to potty train your cloth diapered baby
I could go on….

3) Learn how to optimize your website for search engine traffic

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an awesome way to get totally free (and more importantly) targeted traffic. Remember the people searching for wahm cloth diapers I spoke of earlier? You can find out exactly what words they’re searching for by using keyword research tools that are totally free online. It’s a shame to have talent and not earn any money from it! I hope these tips help you make more money with your cloth diaper business.

Carrie Lauth is a mom of 4 and creator of the Natural Mom Business Guide. It’s the Internet’s only complete tutorial for people who want to earn a full time living in the natural family life market. The Natural Mom Business Guide is a complete step by step course that will reveal the secrets of building a natural business on the Internet. It contains tried and true advice to help you start, build, and market an online business. To find out more go to: www.NaturalMomBusinessGuide.com

Now who doesn’t love a contest- not me that’s for sure. I’ve been hitting up the blogs for some great freebies in addition to their artful words. I could sure use a pick me up!

So if you’d like a chance at the apron a day keepin’ the grime away awesomeness hop on over to My Wooden Spoon today. Contest ends tomorrow so HURRY!

My friend Alyssa over at Life from My Laptop is asking for some Back to School tips.

While my kids are still young and I haven’t gotten fully into the school grind yet- I do have one tip. I often hear of people saying how their morning is so rushed. How about trying a few of these before going to bed:

Have all family members pick out- and have ready their clothing for the next day
Prepare lunches the night before
Make sure homework, backpacks, and projects are done and ready to go by the door

Just doing one of these can cut the hectic times in the morning by 5 minutes- sometimes even more!

How would you like a chance to win a planner to help keep appointments, soccer games, and all life’s little things organized? Stop by Life from My Laptop for more details!

We are listing a number of our Dinker & Giggles beloved products on eBay. Please watch our auctions for details and new items daily. We are hoping to have our inventory closet cleared out in a week or so- three kids and just not enough space for them all!!

Feel free to spread the word about our items up- unless you are after something- then please feel free to keep to yourself!

Don’t forget once they are gone we are not replacing the inventory!!!

So if you read the tips on ways to save energy & money on your heating and cooling, you know that I am on a mission…a budgeting mission.

As a family of five, we need to watch every penny coming in and out of this house. I’ve tried the trials of different software, but it’s just too formal and complicated. I don’t have time for complications- the nail polish on the carpet and ketchup stained dress shirts are enough for me to handle!! So when Jennifer Gnaidecki offered a promotion for budgeting software for free- I jumped on it!

Pear Budget is amazing. Not just because of the software in general but the people behind it as well. Charlie and Sarah- the peaches of Pear Budget- have responded quickly and with the utmost charm to any questions I have had. Even when I had thought I forgot my user information (including which of my 500 emails I used) they were able to locate my information and help me out.

Here is a screen shot from my actual account. Just to show you how amazingly simple it is to enter all your receipts and keep track of where exactly your pennies are going.

Crazy simple—To enter the information and understand it.

Now, Has it helped me? Honestly. Not yet. As much as I want to say I am on a budgeting mission. I keep forgetting one vital part. Doing it! I have made a resolution today to start being more mindful of actually using this ingenious software and start reaping the benefits of all of Charlie and Sarah’s work to create a simple yet efficient budgeting software.

Want the good news or the even better news?

OK, we will start with the good news. Pear Budget is only $3 a month. THAT’s IT! 300 pennies a month to help you track and manage your hundreds and thousands of other pennies you are watching each month. You can even try it for free too!

So how can this get even better?

Charlie and Sarah are letting me give away a LIFETIME of Pear Budget software away FREE to one of my readers. Now how can you get this amazing giveaway?

Do one or all of the following and receive a entry for each task you complete…

1) Blog about this contest on your site. Leave a comment with the link to your post

2) Leave a brief comment about your interest in Pear Budget- Why do you think this will help you?

3) Here is a part of an image- leave a comment with your guess as to what it is!

How simple is that- 3 chances to win a lifetime of Pear Budget for free! Make sure you leave a separate comment for each task completed!

In my quest to a more natural and holistic lifestyle, I have come across Vegan Family Living. As owner and writer, LaTara Ham-Ying provides resources for families trying to live a healthier life. Everyone wonders how to make sure that you get all the nutrients that a body needs to be it’s best. So to all you vegans- and non I ask you…

Are your meals balanced? 

As vegans it is important that we learn to balance our meals. The truth is that any diet needs to be balanced to insure proper nutrition gets into the body. The vegan diet has it’s own nutritional needs.

There is a huge misconception that the vegan diet lacks nutrients and that we are not getting enough to be as healthy as we need to be. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vegan diet only lacks because one allows it to do so and does not understand how to balance that meal out. As with any diet when you are not careful you can become deficient.

There is a standard Food Pyramid here in America that many do not follow. Guess what- there is one for vegans too. If you follow it as closely as possible, you will be on target with getting the proper nutrition in your body.

The Vegan Pyramid is balanced like this:

* 3 or more servings of vegetables per day
* 5 or more servings of whole grains per day
* 3 or more servings of fruit per day
* 2 or more servings of legumes per day.

Taking the time to understand this pyramid will allow you to balance your vegan meal properly.

You don’t have to plan it all alone. Let the Vegan Meal Helper help you do some of the work.

The Vegan Meal Helper will assist you in understanding this simple process for eating. We also prepare the meal plans by using the vegan pyramid process along with food combining so that your family gets optimum nutrition in each meal you prepare. While we only prepare the dinner menu for you, we know that the other meals are just as important so we have e-courses, audio, articles, and discounted recipe packs for you to also make healthy meals all through the day and yummy vegan deserts too.

LaTara Ham-Ying is an All Natural WAHM who is married with two boys at home. She owns Vegan Family Living a site that offers simple solutions to the Vegan Lifestyle with an emphasis on Transitioning Vegan Families. She is the author of many articles, reports, and e-books on vegan cooking including the Transitioning Your Family With Ease! e-book.

Reusable shopping bags, cloth diapers, and organic living— Organic living? Tiffany Washko talks about how a organic lifestyle not only benefits you but the environment around you.

Why Go Organic?

So what is all this hype about a completely organic lifestyle? Does it REALLY make that much of a difference? YES!!!

For anyone truly concerned about their health and the health of their loved ones, adopting an organic lifestyle is a huge step in the direction of excellent health and wellness. An organic lifestyle means eating organic foods, using organic cleaning methods and toiletries, and wearing organic clothing. You can adopt all of these practices or just a few but any advancement in this area is improvement.

Most people agree that they would like to buy organic food and adopt a more organic lifestyle. Yet, instead of prioritizing certified organic food, the majority of people stick with their habitual processed or conventional foods. These non organic foods are nutrition poor, contain toxic residues, taste inferior and are potentially harmful to the environment, you and your family. So why go organic – you can’t afford not to!

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should go organic:

*Your produce will not adorn the chemical cocktail that conventionally grown produce does.

*Fresh organic produce contains on average 50% more vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other micro-nutrients than intensively farmed produce.

*Organic foods are not genetically modified (GM) and therefore better for you.

*Eating Organic meat means avoiding eating animal meat from animals that are fed a dangerous cocktail of anti-biotics, growth promoting drugs, anti-parasite drugs and many other medicines on a daily basis, whether they have an illness or not.

*Organic produce tastes so much better!

*Wearing organic clothing means you are NOT wearing chemicals on your body.

*Using organic cleaning materials is just as effective as using conventional cleaners but without harmful chemicals.

Once you made the commitment to go organic why not also make the commitment to buy locally? Most produce in the U.S. is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! What a wasteful food system! This process weakens our communities, destroys our environment, and concentrates wealth and power into a few hands only.

We can counteract these harmful effects and help keep our local farmers in business by buying locally grown food whenever possible. You’ll be strengthening your community by investing your food dollar close to home. You’ll also get exceptional taste and freshness since local food is fresher and tastes better than food shipped long distances from other states or countries. Try to make it as goal to eat organic foods and only ones that have traveled no more then a few miles or perhaps even a few yards to your dinner table.

Tiffany Washko is the editor of Nature Moms and Instead of TV.  After working several years in corporate healthcare marketing and public relations, she took time away to be a mother. This new pursuit lead her to a new passion, natural family living and writing about environmental and political issues. She currently works as a freelance writer and newspaper journalist.

Other get healthy- get organic tips…

Resolved to get healthy in 2008

Natural Moms Talk Radio

Natural Moms Business Guide

Raising Fit & Healthy Kids eBook

Well, if you are like me now that school is over you are a loss for what to do. Filling the never ending days, especially when raining, is becoming ever so trying. I’m so glad I came across Susan Myers ideas on different crafts using items most homes with kids already have.

Easy Crafts For Your Toddler

Keeping an inquisitive toddler entertained and stimulated isn’t always an easy task. His curiosity will usually get him in all sorts of trouble as he is taking things apart to figure out how they work. A great way to keep him busy with something slightly less destructive is to make crafts with your toddler. Crafting is also a wonderful way to spend quality time with your child. Take a look at the craft ideas below, pick something and start making an easy craft with your toddler.

Paper Plate Mask

Who knew that plain paper plates could be so much fun? All you need are the plates themselves of course, some scissors, markers and some string. Start by holding the paper plate in front of your child’s face and mark the spots for the eyes. Cut two holes for the eyes so your child will be able to see through the mask. Cutting a mouth opening is optional. Then let your child decorate the mask with markers or crayons. You can also have her cut shapes (think ears) out of construction paper and glue them on the paper plate mask. Tape or staple a piece of string to each site of the mask and use them to tie the finished mask around your child’s head.

Collages

Here’s another one of our favorite craft activities – a collage. You can make a collage with your toddler on just about any topic. Keep old magazines and even grocery flyers around and let your child cut items out of these papers. Then use a glue stick to glue them on a large sheet of paper or construction paper. Use markers, crayons and stickers to further embellish the collage. Don’t forget to hang it up when you’re done.

Macaroni Necklace

Macaroni aren’t just good for making mac and cheese. They are also the building blocks of macaroni necklaces. All you need is a handful of uncooked macaroni noodles and a piece of string. Make a large knot in one end of the string, then let your child thread the noodles on the string. When she’s done, just tie the two pieces of string together and the necklace is ready to be worn. You can also make a colorful necklace by painting the individual noodles with acrylic paint.

Crayon Suncatcher

If you have a toddler in the house, you are bound to have lots of small pieces of broken crayons as well. Here’s a simple craft that will turn those crayon pieces and a little wax paper into a colorful suncatcher. Start by grading the crayon pieces with an old cheese grater, or shave them with a knife. Put each color into a small bowl or in a little pile. Then cut two round pieces out of wax paper. They should be the same size. Let your child sprinkle the crayon shavings on one of the pieces of wax paper. When she’s done, cover it with the other piece of wax paper. Put an old towel on your ironing board and carefully transfer the wax paper crayon “sandwich” on the ironing board. Turn your iron on medium high (without steam). Add another towel on top of the wax paper and gently iron over it several times until the crayon shavings are melted. Allow your suncatcher to cool and harden before you pick it up. Thread some yarn through it to hang it up in the window. You can also sew a button stitch all around the suncatcher with some yarn and a thick needle to make the suncatcher a little more stable.

Finger Paint

What child doesn’t love to finger paint? Smearing paint with your fingers is just plain fun. You can use store-bought finger paint, or make your own by mixing condensed milk with a few drops of food coloring. This works just as well as commercial finger paint and is completely non-toxic. Don’t forget to cover the “work area” with plenty of old newspapers to make cleanup a snap

Sock Puppets

Does your washer or dryer eat socks? Ours sure does and we end up with quite a few single socks whose counterparts have mysteriously gone missing. These socks are perfect for making sock puppets. All you need are two buttons for eyes and some scraps of fabric or felt and a little yarn. After that it will be up to your toddler’s imagination to turn the sock into a puppet – with your help of course. Not only will you have a lot of fun making these sock puppets, you and your child will enjoy playing with the finished products just as much.

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How would you like to get craft ideas like these along with parenting information, product recall info, recipes, book reviews and more delivered to your email inbox every week? That’s exactly what ParentingZoo – the new online Parenting Magazine does. Sign up today at www.parentingzoo.com

Here are some other great activity ideas…

Survival Kits (Christmas, Spring and Mother editions)
Make It Fun Mom! a monthly guide to quality time with your kids

Right now my husband and I are in that difficult phase where we’d like to get our boys potty trained but they don’t want to take that step. It’s frustrating to say the least, but I find peace in knowing that I’m not the only one out there facing the ‘potty battle’. I recently came across a article by Stefanie Fauquet, owner of Tips For Toddlers. This amazing blog is filled with great advice for every bump in the road that a family can come across. Here are her tips for that potty pothole….

Tips for Potty Training your Toddler

Potty Training seems to be one of the most anticipated and also dreaded tasks among mothers of toddlers. On the one hand it is an exciting time because the thought of not having to buy diapers anymore is a great feeling, especially on your pocketbook. However, when it comes down to the actual training and getting your toddler to actually use the potty, this is another story.

There are a few tips to help make the potty training process a bit smoother.

1. Make sure your toddler is ready! The worst thing you can do is push your toddler into potty training when they are not ready. You will be wasting your time with something that may not be meant to be…yet. Wait until your toddler starts to pull or take off their diaper when dirty. Another sign is that they will be curious about the toilet and what it is used for.

2. Buy an inexpensive and basic potty chair with out all the bells and whistles that can cause distraction. Place the potty chain in an area where your toddler frequents the most so it can be visible through out the day. The living room is a good choice. This is just until your toddler gets acquainted with the potty chair.

3. Show your toddler how the potty works. You can get a doll that simulates how to go potty, or bring your toddler into the bathroom with you and show them. They need to see it happening before they can do it themselves.

4. Once your toddler has a concept of what the potty is used for and how to sit down and go, try taking off your toddlers diapers and letting them wear real underwear and encourage them to go.

5. Offer a reward system. After your toddler has gone at least once on their own in the potty chair you will want to keep this momentum going by offering rewards every time they use the potty. Cheering loudly and giving high-fives is also very encouraging. Go to the dollar store and pick up stickers, crayons and other age appropriate treats to give them once they go on their own.

6. Repeat the process and be patient. You will want to continue encouraging and rewarding your toddler until they are completely potty trained. This can take six months or more depending on your little one.

Have patience and before you know it you’ll have a fully potty trained toddler and not have to buy diapers for them again!

Stefanie Fauquet owns the blog Tips for Toddlers where you’ll find tips, activities, recipes and more fun for moms with toddlers. Visit www.tipsfortoddlers.com for great advice on common parenting struggles.

Here are some simple potty chairs we found…

BabyBjorn Potty Chair - comes in a number of different colors

Trendykid Wooden Family Seat - great for after successful training

I absolutely love the information on Earthday.net about plastic bags. So here it is for you to process— next time you go into a store either use a cloth bag, your purse, or no bag at all!

You can see the complete information (including a great video) at EarthDay.net

Environmental impact of plastic shopping bags

• The raw material of plastic bags is oil. Therefore, the more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil - a non-renewable energy source.
• The petroleum-based plastic bags take decades to break down, so if they are not recycled they litter. It creates visual pollution: in the streets, on the beaches etc. Also, they can clog roadside drains, which could cause street flooding during heavy rainfall.
• Plastic bags can be recycled but it rarely happens: according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, only 1% of plastic bags were recycled in 2000, against twenty percent for paper bags.
• They endanger wildlife and particularly sea life such as sea turtles and dolphins which can die of entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion because they assume that these bags are jellyfish.

What is being done

For the past few years, there has been rising international awareness regarding the damaging and dangerous impact on the environment of plastic bags. Governments all over the world have decided to get involved in that particular issue: Some governments have decided to ban them: Bangladesh, Bhutan and Zanzibar.Plastic bags should no more be given for free in China from June 1st. These bags are surcharged in Germany, South Africa, Ireland and Israel. Several countries try and promote, trough major retailers, the use of cloth bags, paper bags or grocery bags: United Kingdom (with Tesco), France (with Carrefour), New Zeland.
In the U.S.

Plastic bags are already used less than paper bags by American consumers, and there have been no government actions to further curb their use. But large cities such as San Francisco and Portland, OR, have planned or plan to ban plastic bags, whereas Seattle, WA will certainly launch a 20 cent “green fee” on plastic bags.

What YOU can still do!

• Reuse your plastic shopping bags: use them as trash so as not to buy others that are more energy wasting; use them for storage.
• Use paper bags rather than plastic bags when you are given the choice.
• Use reusable grocery bags, which always have a lower environmental impact.

In my quest to be more conscious of the environment around me I have learned that there are simple things that I can do to help reduce my energy concumption. Connie Gardner has some simple money saving tips for your heating and cooling costs. Not only will these help reduce your out of pocket expenses but it also reduces the amount of nonrenewable resources your home is consuming. I even found some additional tools to help with budgeting- another great conquest of mine.

14 Tips on Saving Money on Your Heating and Cooling Bills

1. Weather-strip doors and windows and be sure that the door sweeps on the bottom of your doors are in good condition. This is the easiest & most inexpensive thing you can do for big changes in your home’s ability to hold the cool air inside.

2. Replace your regular window screens with solar screening. It cuts glare and drastically reduces the transfer of heat through windows.

3. Hang thermal draperies to insulate your windows in both summer & winter or hang mini-blinds or window shades to block direct sunlight from heating your rooms. (TIP: Close the draperies or shades on sunny windows and change as the sun moves around the house during the day. You will be amazed how much cooler your house will be.)

4. Wrap cooling & heating ductwork with insulating wrap and secure with duct tape wherever possible. This will eliminate cool/hot air from escaping through the ductwork before it gets to your rooms.

5. Change your air filters every 30-60 days. A clean filter allows more air flow and cleaner air for you and your family. This is especially important for those with allergies or indoor pets.

6. Use room or ceiling fans to move the air for added comfort. It’s estimated that using ceiling fans will lower the apparent temperature to your skin by up to 4 degrees. By doing this, you can delay turning on the A/C until later in the day and save money.

7. Do cooking & baking as early as possible in the day. Use exhaust fans over cooking areas to reduce heat build-up and pull steam out of your kitchen as well.

8. Keep all exterior doors shut while your A/C is running. Even today’s multi-pane glass doors allow for heat transfer to some degree.

9. When taking a bath or shower use the exhaust fan to reduce heat and humidity.

10. When replacing appliances, always purchase Energy Star appliances. These appliances must reduce energy consumption by a minimum of 10% to earn the Energy Star rating. Furthermore, there may be tax credits available to you for installing these rated systems, some up to $300! Your electric company may also provide additional rebates.

11. You can save us to 10% on your energy bills by dropping the setting on your hot water temperature setting. A temperature of 120 degrees is very adequate for home uses and will save money. Setting the temperature above 120 degrees puts your children at risk of accidentally scalding themselves, so lower it for safety reasons too!

12. Did you know that your landscaping can also have a dramatic effect on your energy bills? By planting deciduous trees and tall shrubs near your home, you can reduce both heating and cooling bills. The leaves shade in summer while the empty branches allow the sun to warm your home in the winter.

13. Be sure to check with your electric company, fuel oil and propane and natural gas companies to see if they have programs designed to reduce your costs as well. Many electric companies have “time of day” rates. Gas and oil companies have price-lock or contracted pricing programs available. Some even have budget plans in which your total costs for the year are calculated and then divided into twelve monthly payments. This can be very helpful in areas where weather extremes make heating and cooling bills change drastically.

14. Finally, when you are not going to be at home, raise the temperature in the house by 5-8 degrees so the A/C runs fewer times while you’re gone. By turning it completely off on during the day, it will make it harder to bring the temperature back down when you get home. Conversely, if you leave it running to maintain a low temperature, you’ll be wasting energy, money & putting undue stress on your air conditioner.

Connie Gardner, wife, mother, grandmother and owner of Nurtured Home - Traditional Homes with Traditional Values.

Other ways to save money…

Mom’s Talk Guide to Family Budgeting

Freezing It & Loving It- make all your meals on one day, then just reheat- save time and energy

Frugal Living for Moms

Recently during the Business and Learning Expo I had the chance to help another participant out of a waxy situation. How? With my 2nd bible- Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck. So during the expo her son gracefully knocked a melted candle onto the carpeting. I am sure she was filled with many emotions– what to do with melted wax on carpet? Besides covering it up with a out of place area rug you can treat it a number of different ways. Ellen suggest getting the area cold with ice then smashing it with a hammer. After you have gotten the larger chunks out of the carpet you can then place a towel over the area and iron it. The towel will absorb the wax. Genius– Isn’t she?

If anything comes up from gum in the hair to ring around the tub- this book is the FIRST place I turn too. I have learned interesting ways to save time and money while cleaning around the house- even how to get all that gunk off the inside of the microwave! The way that Ellen writes is very down to earth, as if she is right there just chatting over some green tea. I recommend this book as a wonderful gift for new homeowners- newlyweds, or those looking to keep the toxic elements out of their home. Studies have shown that the air in our homes is more polluted then the air outside. Daily breathing of our cleaning supplies, dirt, dander, and the numerous other things that fill our houses with less then satisfactory air quality can add to the toxins already in your body from the foods we eat. So pick up a copy of Ellen’s book at your local library or even off of amazon.com- you’ll breath easier and with a few more dollars in your pocketbook.

The 30-minute Plan to Staying on Track by Mary Jo Rulnick
As a parent, you can easily get off track and before you know it, you have chaos surrounding you. However, you can turn chaos into calm with just 30 minutes a day. That’s it. So, set aside 30 minutes and follow these seven steps to cleanse your surroundings. Psst! If you can’t find 30 minutes a day, use 15 minutes.
1. Spend 30 minutes each day on one drawer, shelf, or closet. First, empty the drawer of all of the contents, discard broken and/or useless bits and pieces, wipe clean, then add a new piece of liner if needed.
2. Start with the one area that you always seem to leave for last or the place that overwhelms you the most. Your initial enthusiasm will help make this task easier. By the 15th day of cleansing, your enthusiasm has dwindled and this can cause you to dread those harder areas to come.
3. Collect any small appliance, utensils, or serving pieces that you do not use, but are still in good condition. Have your family and friends do the same with theirs. Invite the group to bring their “do not use” objects and have a housewares swap. This works especially well for that never-used merchandise you bought from a party plan and for the unwanted gifts you’ve received that will sit in a closet. (P.S. You can have a swap with just about anything from crafts to software programs to toys.)

4. Use one canned food or boxed product from your pantry every day. Incorporate this product into your supper meal. By the end of the month, you should have “Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard,” making this area a snap to clean.
5. Have the kids help you with their toys and clothes, but give them an incentive to do so. Before you start tossing their belongings, look for a resale shop that allows you to sell items on a consignment basis. Or store all the “to be sold” things in one place for a garage sale or to take to a flea market. Many churches have flea markets as a fundraiser. The earnings could be divided up among the kids or go toward a designated family trip.

6. Go through the books, computer software and videos. Books, software, and videos can be swapped, or sold at a garage sale or consignment shop. Or for immediate sales, list the goods through Amazon.com Marketplace. When your objects are sold, the money is deposited into the account you specify.
7. Pull out the photos and set up a card table in the family/living room. Include a box of photos (one season at a time), scissors, old greeting cards, stickers, markers, and an album. Cut out shapes or words from the old cards and include these on the album’s pages for cheap scrapbooking fun. With a marker, add comments to coincide with the pictures. This is a great way to spend a rainy or snowy evening with the family, yet accomplish a task that can be easily overlooked.
Follow these quick steps and, soon, your surroundings will be cleansed of all that extra stuff making you frantic.

NOTE: Any items you’d like to discard can always be donated to charitable organizations, shelters, and senior centers.

Copyright 2007 Mary Jo Rulnick
Mary Jo Rulnick is the author of THE FRANTIC WOMAN’S GUIDE TO FEEDING FAMILY AND FRIENDS (Warner Books) and the co-author of THE FRANTIC WOMAN’S GUIDE TO LIFE (Warner Books). She resides in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA with her family and pets.