Can't wait to go see this with the kids next month.

Let me start by saying this week has largely sucked. I have been so busy that I have that deer in the headlights feeling from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep.

My mom is mad at me for something that happened last weekend. Not ready to write about that yet. I spent two hours at the accountant’s office doing my taxes on Tuesday night. Yesterday, I missed out on going to a lovely shopping and dinner trip with three good friends because my sitter informed me that she had to leave at 6 p.m. My house is messy. My kids are unwashed. Heck, I haven’t even showered yet today, and I’ve made several public appearances at my little one’s school, the public library, and two stores. My day will not stop for a long time. We’ve got a Brownie event from 7 until 9. I am having people over tonight at 8:30. (Way to double-book!) I just want to crawl into bed for a nap, but I have three stories to finish editing, a column to write, and two feature stories to write. Poor me, right? What a complainer.

Anyway, I thought it would be a wonderful time, since I am so busy and negative, to write about things that I like. Positive things. Uplifting things. Things that you, the reader, might be interested in. So here goes.

Live performances rock. Last weekend we got to go see a performance of Pinkalicious the Musical put on by the Vital Theater Company in New York City. I will have an official review coming up soon, but I will say now that it was a wonderful, beautiful, magical day for me, my husband, and my kids. I’m going to see another show in May — Max & Ruby Bunny Party, at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. THESE are the moments in my life that actually matter. I know that. They are the things that the kids will remember. Although we went and saw Pinkalicious on Sunday, the kids have been singing songs from the soundtrack (had to buy the CD!), all week. It’s a pretty nice feeling.

Buy a Tea, Plant a Tree: The folks at Honest Tea are partnering with the National Forest Foundation in a promotion that could add 50,000 trees to the landscape. Called “Bag to Tree,” the program will reward people who buy four or more bottles of Honest Tea with a reusable bag and a shopping code that can be used to direct a planting. You can pick from one of four regions to plant your tree, and the best part is that Honest Tea doesn’t contain any artificial colors, preservatives, or other crap. Plus, I love the fact that they use a natural decaffeination process that doesn’t use ethyl acetate, a chemical solvent.

Another manufacturer steps up to the plate. So it’s no secret that I hate high fructose corn syrup. We don’t have any of it in my house except for one source: A bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s that my husband REFUSES to get rid of. (Me and the kids eat real, organic maple syrup on our pancakes and waffles.) Anyway, I nearly fell on the floor when the folks over at Pinnacle Foods (the people behind Log Cabin Syrup) sent me a press release this week touting the fact that they eliminated high fructose corn syrup in their breakfast syrup, replacing it with real sugar. They also got rid of artificial caramel coloring. Wow. For me, this is just another reinforcement of the power of the consumer. One by one manufacturers are realizing that they will sell more products if they listen to many of us who are asking for healthier options. My next task: Seeing if my husband will swap his Mrs. Butterworth’s for Log Cabin since he doesn’t like real maple syrup. (I agree. That’s weird!) We shall see…

BornFree adds a recycling program. I used glass bottles with both of my girls, but some people don’t feel comfortable going this route, instead opting for plastic. BornFree last week announced a new recycling program in which the company will take back used bottles and recycle them into toys or furniture. I love companies that take a cradle to grave approach. Instead of just selling their stuff and forgetting about it, BornFree is doing something to make sure the company isn’t contributing to our waste problem. Very nice. I just wonder if moms will take the initiative to recycle the bottles?

Clowns are cool. Wanna be one? I got another press release this week. It was for a free giveaway of Juggle Fit Beginner’s DVD. Basically, this DVD is “a fun and effective exercise routine that promotes coordination, concentration, and fitness through instructional juggling DVDs.” Wow. I am not coordinated, but maybe someone out there is? Interested in winning the DVD? Post your name below with a comment about your favorite “clowning around moment.” I’ll choose a winner on May 1 as long as we get ten responses. Me? My most recent moment was when Little Girl decided she was going to chase me around the house and fart on my leg. Talk about juggling…

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Believe it or not, my headache is actually lessening by just sitting here and writing this all out. Thanks for providing an outlet to my stress…

Spot It!, my new favorite game.

Today did not start well.

Last night we had lots of wind in New York. Something about it set me off. I had nightmares literally all night. One after the other. I can’t remember what they were about aside from one where I was being electrocuted. (Nice, right?) But they kept me and my husband up when we should have been sleeping.

Okay, so it’s 8 a.m., and I get out of bed, go downstairs, and open the fridge to pull out the container of pancakes to heat some up for Big Girl. As I am opening the door, CRASH. One of the side bins falls to the floor, breaking bottles of condiments all over the place. Sigh. I kept my cool — I was too tired to do anything else — and cleaned it all up. Then we raced out the door to make sure Big Girl got the bus on time. Had to race again to bring Little Girl to her school. Oh, and hubby forgot to bring two checks to work to deposit, so I had to go to the bank, which, since I don’t have an ATM card, took FOREVER.

All that said, I am going to focus on all good things to close this crappy week out. And so…my list.

Scotch Naturals Nail Polish. Hopscotch Kids, which sells amazing nail polish for kids free of all the nasty chemicals in traditional polish, has come out with an adult version in adult colors. (The company, which launched last year, says its products only contain three ingredients, water, acrylic polymer and non-toxic colorants, and that they are “eco-friendly, hypoallergenic, fragrance free and biodegradable.”) The kids’ version scores a next-to-nothing 1 on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database, and they don’t even need top coat or base coat (which translates to less drying time), so I was thrilled to see that I would finally have an option for myself that isn’t purple, blue, or green. Got a sample in the mail this week called Kiltlifter. I wonder if that means it makes guys lift their kilts? If so, I’ll be getting a manicure at some point this weekend. Something to look forward to!

CleanWell Hand Sanitizer. I love alcohol-based hand sanitizers. I really do. I have a bottle sitting inside my car and another on my counter, but an incident that happened over the summer makes me worry about using them on Little Girl. (Big Girl gets squirted liberally with the alcohol-based stuff.)  Little Girl was coming out of a class and got her usual dime-sized dollop of hand sanitizer, but before it dried completely, she touched her eye. We went through almost an hour of crying, with me freaking out and calling Poison Control, an office that — at this point — probably recognizes us on the caller ID. So I was pretty jazzed when I found this product at Target. Made with thyme (yes, as in the herb), this sanitizer is non-toxic and safe for the environment since it doesn’t have the dreaded triclosan in it. But the best part? It actually kills all the germs I am oh so scared of. From the company’s press release: “CleanWell uses a unique formulation of plant essential oils proven to meet FDA standards for 99.99% germ killing efficacy, and a safe and effective natural alternative to the toxic ingredients found in most antibacterial and sanitizing products.” Nice.

Spot It! Game. We have two birthday parties this weekend, so I needed to buy gifts. I went to my favorite toy store here on Long Island, Fun Stuff Toys. The guy at the desk is great. I can ask him what’s new and exciting, and he always has a good suggestion. And not only does he show me the items, he pulls out a demo and plays with me so I can gauge it for myself. In this case, what he showed me was a cross between War and I Spy. Manufactured by Blue Orange Games, a company that pledges to plant two trees for every one it uses, Spot It! works like this: Each person starts with a card that has eight symbols on it. There’s a deck of another 53 in the center of the table. You turn over a card from the deck. The first person to spot an item on that card that’s also on their card gets that card, which then becomes their new “spotting” card. The game goes on until there are no more cards in the deck. Lots of fun, and a good take-along game since it fits into a pocket. Note to Sam’s mom: I got him this along with the Ninja hamster course.

I hope the rest of the day goes more smoothly than the first ten hours, and I hope everyone has a great weekend. More reviews next week. What do you have planned?

Over the years I’ve kept my toe (okay, right now it’s an entire leg) in the technology waters writing and editing for business and trade pubs, but the reviews slowed down. And yes, I’ve also kept writing for women’s magazines, but the stories are more likely to be about weird toddler habits than which sippy cup is best. Yes, I’ll admit it: I miss the rush of writing a review.

There’s nothing like being able to dissect a product, explain why I like it and what missed the mark. This is why — next week — I will launch reviews. I am committing to at least one review a week, although knowing myself that will balloon up quickly. I’ll have themes, of course. We’ll have Mommy Mondays for toys, baby- and kid-related items, Tech Tuesdays for — what else — technology and consumer electronics reviews — Whatever Wednesdays, which is my catch-all category and Foodie Fridays for food-related items. My first review will be for a reusable diaper. And now on to this week’s Favorite Things…

Yummly.com. This site sounds amazing. (And I intend on reviewing it, actually.) It’s a recipe site that, like Netflix, “learns” the types of recipes you like and makes suggestions based on past usage. With more than 500,000 recipes and a Universal Recipe Box that helps you tweak ingredients, this site may become the answer to this week’s blog post question: What’s for dinner?

Sunnygram.com. This is another one I can’t wait to review. So my mom is okay when it comes to technology. Okay, but not great. She’s not on Snapfish or anything like that. This site lets you upload all your photos and create — get this — a printed color newsletter that features all your pictures. I think it will be amazing for anyone who likes to write Christmas letters or someone who, for example, might be getting married and want to keep everyone up-to-date on the planning.

StorySnoops.com. I really, really love this idea. And yes, I will be reviewing it. So my Big Girl is only in first grade. (Gulp, second now, I guess!) But she’s reading on a fifth grade level. Finding books that challenge her but don’t introduce topics and subjects that I am just not ready to discuss is a chore. This site provides book reviews from a parent’s perspective. Will I, as I learned on the fly when we were reading Superfudge, have to skip an entire chapter about Santa Claus? (Thank goodness we were reading that one together!) I never knew. This site will help me answer that question, I hope!

Hope you have a great weekend! As usual we have ten parties and five events to run to. But I still plan on relaxing a bit. How about you?

Kenneth Cole sells shirts to support the Gulf cleanup efforts.

I have a big problem with plastic. It’s everywhere. Everything we buy — even at environmentally-conscious stores — is wrapped in it. Bread comes in plastic bags. Cereal is in a box. Inside the box: a plastic bag. Most cheese is wrapped in plastic. Even the paper milk cartons we use are lined with plastic. Very disheartening. It was making me really sick. With everything going on in the world today couldn’t I find a way to reduce my plastic use? Which brings me to my first Favorite:

PlasticBagRecycling.org. This site is where I found out I could recycle, “grocery bags, retail bags (hard plastic and string handles removed), paper towel and toilet paper plastic wrap, plastic newspaper bags, plastic dry cleaning bags and all clean, clear bags labeled with a #2 or #4.” Oh, and bread bags, Ziplock bags, potato bags, and others. Sweet. I was able to search for drop-off locations in my area, too.

Of course, there are other types of plastic that weren’t covered on the above site, which led me to my next Favorite:

1-800-RECYCLING.com. This site is wonderful. You click on the type of plastic (using the number on the bottle or packaging) you want to get rid of, enter your Zip code and receive a list of where you can take your junk. And it’s not just for plastic, either. You can also search and find drop off locations for electronics, paper, glass, metal, automotive, yard, household and hazardous waste, too. (Who knew Target takes Plastic #2?!?)

Once I get rid of all the plastic in my house I’ll need to tackle all the piles and piles of clothing I have. Especially since my little girl is outgrowing stuff and my husband is tossing a lot of his unwanted work clothes. I needed a place to get rid of everything in an eco-friendly way. Enter my next Favorite:

Bigwardrobe.com The site, which is finally making its way to the U.S., is part Craigslist and part eBay. Dedicated to clothing as well as a limited number of household items, you set a price, upload photos and sell. You can also find really nice stuff to buy. Right now most of the items are located in Europe, but it’s worth browsing around. Buying on the site is free; it will cost you one euro to sell, however.

And speaking of clothing: my last Favorite is from a press release I got via e-mail. Kenneth Cole is raising money for Gulf cleanup by selling t-shirts. All of the net profits will go directly to AWEARNESS, The Kenneth Cole Foundation, which is committed to supporting the Gulf efforts. They come in 14 colors and 12 slogans. (Cute and poignant: “We Can All Clean Up Well,” and “I Clean Up Well,” are two of the 12.) They are a little pricey at $35, but worth taking a look at. Oh, you can only buy them on the company’s Facebook page. Just thought you should know…

Hope you have a great weekend. By the way: Are you following me on Twitter? Find me @NaturalAsPosMom. I tweet pretty regularly throughout the day. Also, see the little brown button to the right? The one that says Top Mommy Blogs? (You might have to scroll down a bit.) Well, can you click on it and then click to vote for me? I’ve fallen out of the top 100 and I’d like to move back in. You can vote once a day…

DJ Lance spins for the babies!

This week we spent the early evening at Brooklyn Bowl, which, to me, is really just a club that happens to also have bowling lanes. It was a launch party event for Yo Gabba Gabba’s live show. My big girl has watched the show. My baby, who won’t turn two until the end of June, hasn’t.

We went inside and saw throngs of people — kids, moms, dads and babies — milling around. All the characters were there, too, as was DJ Lance, who was actually using a turntable and spinning records. (Yes, actual vinyl! Each one encased in its sleeve and the sleeve encased in plastic.)

My big girl was excited to be there. The little one was a little scared. The noise, the darkness, the flashing lights. Once she settled down, however, she loved the music. Only ten minutes after we arrived, she stopped clinging to my shoulder and started dancing. Then she started clapping her hands.

It was a fun even even though I had to snag a bracelet from someone leaving (I was told at the front door they had no more to give) so we could get onto the dance floor. Once we stepped down onto the floor we participated in the meet and greets with everyone. I think my husband, who I am technically not allowed to write about anymore, was most excited. He really wanted to meet DJ Lance, who turned out to be one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. I asked him to do a video intro for the blog. Not only did he do it, but he did it twice since he didn’t get the name right the first time. The video will go up over the weekend or on Monday. (Have to let hubby work his technical editing magic on it.) In the meantime enjoy the photo, the following Favorites and the rest of your Friday!

Leafware = I have a new compost bin. I entertain a fair amount during the summer. I hate plastic.

I’m hoping this statement — if I was doing a truth table — would come out all true. (I’m expecting a sample some time soon, so I will let you know.) Leafware, as the company says is  “leaves of specific trees and vines, sewn together with bits of stem” to form plates, bowls, and trays. If you buy them in bulk they come out to about $.50 each. I’m personally willing to give it a try, especially since I can throw it into my compost when I’m done. Again, I’ll let you know what I think.

BetterWorldBooks. I am a reader. I’m also someone who writes stuff that goes into newspapers and magazines. And yet I hate the thought of how many trees I’ve probably killed doing what I do for a living. This is why this site may be one of my favorite new haunts. Every book it sells ships free in the U.S. (the international shipping fee is $3.97), and the company offsets its shipping by buying carbon offsets from Carbonfund.org. It also collects old, unwanted books and sells them to support literacy efforts. To date, the company says it has diverted 33,082,876 books from landfills. Not bad. Now do they have my next book club book?

Let’s Go Chipper! app. I got a press release about this one. Sounded pretty neat, so I checked it out. It’s an educational storyline (books, movies, activities and iTunes downloads) for kids ages 2 to 6 that teaches them about ecology. With the summer coming up — at least here in the northern hemisphere — the stories explain how to keep the environment the way you left it. A plus: Chipper, who is a chipmunk, is pretty cute, too.

That’s it for now. I’m back to work. Another few interviews to do today and then we’ve got a birthday party and I have a flip-flop party to go to. Whoohoo! What are you up to this Friday night? p.s. See that little brown box over to the right? The one that says Top Mommy Blogs? I am trying to move up in the rankings. Would you pretty please click on it and then click to vote for my blog once you get to the landing page? Thanks in advance! I only need 30 clicks through to move into the top 10 in the Eco category.

Watching the videos, I found myself crying a lot. Happy tears. Tears of disbelief. Sad, where-did-the-time-go tears. Watching myself pregnant. Seeing all three of our pets, our first babies but now long gone, walking around the house. Seeing Big Girl as a tiny baby with pin-straight red hair. (Her hair is now the same beautiful red, but a mass of curls.) Watching her first bath. Seeing Little Girl only a few days old. Watching her first bath. Watching six years worth of Christmas mornings. (WHY didn’t I put my contact lenses on and change into something decent-looking?) Listening to Big Girl’s language and emotional development. Watching my belly bounce around with first Big Girl and then Little Girl inside. Watching Big Girl get on the kindergarten bus for the first time. So innocent, so sweet.

The people on the video tapes seemed like they were here only yesterday and yet, at times, it seemed like a lifetime ago. Oh, and they were a little clueless. (“Look, she’s trying to lick the water!” Umm. No, that baby is nine-days-old. She’s not trying to do anything, dumbass new mommy and daddy.) And a little rude. I won’t even go there, but I will say that I had MUCH less of a filter back then, and wasn’t always the nicest person. My husband and I had a few laughs over those parts.

After we turned off the television at 2 a.m. and came upstairs I truly wanted to keep Big Girl home today and spend the day playing hooky. Maybe a little Barbie fun. Or a ride out to the aquarium. I see how fast it’s all slipping by. My little baby is growing into a big kid. My littlest one will soon follow her sister into big kid world, too. Everything is always changing, and it’s up to me to make sure I enjoy the ride. I didn’t keep her home, though. I have an immovable work thing today between 9:30 and noon. I did let her break the rules and eat her cereal in the den. I turned on the video of her second Christmas — she was only 14 months or so — and let her see how adorable she was.

“That’s not me!” she said. Yes, I told her. It is. And she sat there with the same goofy smile on her face that I had last night as I watched in rapt attention, staring at the video of the beautiful little girl I fell in love with so long ago.

I’m not picking Favorite sites today. Nothing compares with the favorites I am still going over in my head. Maybe, since I am blogging all weekend, I’ll post the sites and services I’ve got in my “Blog Fodder” folder. Or maybe I’ll just moon over my kids some more. Hope you’ll check in and find out.

Happy Friday, folks. Do you take a lot of videos? How do you store them for safekeeping? We’re going to be digitizing all those old video tapes. Maybe I will throw some up online.

My husband got sick back in August. Those of you who have been reading for a while know that. At the time he had his own business. As soon as he got sick he stopped working. He didn’t have disability, so that was that. It’s been all me. Four operations later he’s finally feeling well enough to work again so he’s out on job interviews. He’s been on seven or eight — I’ve lost count. (Quick aside: I’m thinking, based on activity around here, that the recession seems to be waning.)

Anyway, the one I wanted him to get is close to our house. (The others are in New York City, which would mean a train ride and a very slim possibility of being home before the girls go to bed.) While on the last interview at the close-to-our-home place my husband brought up my kids. He said he liked seeing them in the morning. Today he found out he didn’t get the job because they need someone who is available all the time. “A 24/7 employee.” They never said that having kids was a problem; I am reading between the lines. He was told he was the best candidate and yet I’m pretty sure that one mention of kids crushed his chances. Bah.

This proves that once again no matter what anyone says, parents — moms and dads — are often looked down upon on in the workplace. We’ll  hear how he did on another of his interviews next week. Fingers crossed, people. And now onto the Favorites…

Oyster.com: There are plenty of websites that rate hotels and give people the skinny on travel spots. This one, however, is building in details about how green those locations are, too. For example, whether it is LEED-certified or making efforts to conserve energy and water. I like it.

World Vision Gift Catalog. Wait, Mother’s Day (another made-up holiday I don’t really love) is Sunday? And you haven’t bought your mom anything yet? Why not buy something that will help others? The World Vision people (I checked them out on CharityNavigator.com and they do excellent work) have a gift catalog that lets you buy things like medical supplies, building and farming supplies and food for impoverished or displaced people. There’s even a section for victims of the Haitian earthquake. Prices range from $16 to $39,000. Great idea — definitely.

Green Your Small Business Challenge. I get a lot of contest pitches. I usually skip them. I hate posting stuff that doesn’t apply to more than a handful of people. However, with so many people out there working for or starting their own businesses I figured this one was worth it. A 100-word essay will net some small business owner a $10,000 green office makeover.

Glass Water Bottles. I love my stainless steel water bottle, but I am afraid to put anything but water in it. These Aquasana bottles are made of glass. You have to buy the AquaKoozy (sort of like a padded bottle cover) to make sure it doesn’t break and shatter, but it looks like it’s something worth trying out, right?

I’m still participating in the WordCount Blogathon, so I’ll be here all weekend, folks! Hope you stop by and say hi.

BookSwim. Last week I bought The Red Tent. It was our book club selection. I wanted to take it out of the library or nab it on BookMooch, but after waiting patiently I finally gave up. Wish I would have known about BookSwim before I made my purchase. The service, which charges you between $9.95 and $59.95 per month depending on how many books you want to borrow per month, will mail books directly to you and take them back when you’re done.

Safety Assessments for playgrounds. How safe is your school’s playground? How about the one at your park? The University of Alabama at Birmingham has created playground safety checklists that can be downloaded here. (Click on Supporting Documents at the bottom of the page.) A wonderful free resource for any parent or grandparent.

Child Online Safety Guide. With accounts of cyberbullying and cyberstalking making the news all the time I decided I would pass along this resource, which a PR person passed along to me. Good list of dos and don’ts related to online safety for kids. (I plan on using it next year as the basis for a a Girl Scout Brownie Try-it patch.)

Open Center Online Learning. The New York Open Center is a holistic learning center located in — where else?– New York. So if you want to attend one of the more than 500 programs it runs you need to come this way. Until now. This month the Center launched an online repository of downloadable podcasts that include subjects like Reiki, meditation, reflexology, Feng Shui and Chinese Medicine, among other topics. Some are free; others require payment. (I’m planning on downloading some to my iPod the next time I have to go into the city.)

That’s it for now. Hope everyone has a good weekend. I plan on blogging over the weekend since I am starting WordCount’s Blogathon 2010, which requires daily blogging from May 1 to May 31. Not sure how coherent my weekend posts will be — my weekends are crazy with more events and chores than time to do them — but we’ll see! Hope you’ll stop by to check it out.

Why do I always get weird injuries?

Anyone who has been reading for a while knows that when I get hurt it’s usually in some weird, obscure way. Something that prompts an insurance letter being sent out. The letters always want to know if someone else is responsible for the injury. Because hey, how else could you get a black eye and contusions or a cut on your chin unless someone actually hurt you? I had another wacky accident yesterday, one that will probably result in another letter.

I have been working non-stop so I decided I would go to half of a mommy-and-me class with Little Girl. The place is right up the block. I could hang out for 30 minutes, I thought, and make it back in time for my noon conference call. So I get there, and we were doing circle time sitting on the floor. Little Girl, like most of the kids, was getting on and off my lap. At one point, she runs away from me. On her way back, she trips. I put my arms out to catch her, and her two front teeth met my thumb. I knew instantly we had a problem. Her teeth sliced my thumb open. Blood gushed. I picked Little Girl up and carried her out while holding my thumb airborne as not to drip and blood on the kid. She (and her teeth) is fine, thank goodness, and was able to go right back into the class with my mom, who was in the waiting room. But I was a different story. I ended up in front of a doctor getting liquid stitches and steristrips. So today’s Favorite Things is going to be short and sweet. My thumb is still throbbing. I can’t use it to type, and I have three more conference calls today. Sigh. So here, in an abbreviated format, are my favorite things of the week.

Clif Z Bar for Kids. I won a prize in a Twitter party. (Thanks, @Healthy_Child) Part of it: 20 of the chocolate chip variety. Yum. Big Girl loves them, too, so it’s given me another snack option for her lunch box.

ThredUP. I hate throwing clothing away. I hate buying it new, too, especially for the kids. This new site is part eBay, part Craigslist, part Freecycle. You go on, put a “box” of clothing up, and someone will claim it. And you can do the same. All you pay is the shipping on the clothing you’re claiming. Everyone wins. Clothing is reused. You don’t spend a fortune. Love, love, LOVE this, and plan on trying it out this weekend.

MatterofTrust.org I love using surplus in an innovative way. Who knew that human hair from the floors of salons could be reclaimed and reused for oil spills and oil slicks? But it can. This organization helps collect human hair and get it out in the field when there is an oil spill. They also do a ton of eco-education. Ask your salon if they are participating in the program. It’s worth it.

That’s it for now. I’m going to try and add two more things by late Friday. Have a great weekend in the meantime!

This week I purchased the following items (things I could touch): groceries (milk, bread, hummus, berries, the usual stuff), a subway ride card, and a pack of gum. I feel most guilty about the pack of gum. I needed cash and didn’t want to pay an ATM fee so I went to Kmart in Penn Station. There I bought the gum with my ATM card so I could take cash back. The gum has a lot of packaging and it was blue. Not good for me or the environment. Next time I will plan ahead better.

And now on to the Favorite Things…

Stainless steel ice pop makers. When I was little one of my most favorite things to eat in the summer were the homemade ice pops that we made using our ice trays, tooth picks, and orange juice. Yum. I wanted to do the same with the girls, but hate the whole plastic/BPA/wasted toothpicks scenario. The SafeMama tipped me off. I’m passing the tip along to you. Yes, they still require Popsicle sticks, but I intend on washing them and reusing.

RecycleYourMat.com I have three yoga mats sitting in my trunk. One sitting in the house. This organization wants to help me lighten my yoga mat load. They take old yoga mats and upcycle or recycle them. You can search for a drop off location or, if you’re so inclined, ask your favorite yoga teacher to get involved with his or her own yoga recycling program. Studios that get involved have a chance to earn free yoga blankets — a nice thing to have during shavasana.

Great workout music. I love spinning. I love any exercise, really. Still, I dream of the day when I can buy my own spin bike and create my own 60 minute routines. Right now, I am making do with my treadmill, and it’s often difficult to find the right music to work out to. That’s why I really liked ISweat2theBeat.com. The site helps you figure out how many beats-per-minute your favorite songs have so you can create your own exercise mix on your iPod or MP3 player. I will be using this a lot when I get my Spin bike…someday…

Child bike seats. No, I don’t have a spin bike, but I do have my own bicycle, which I’ve been using quite a bit. Now that Big Girl can ride, we can all go out together. Right now, I have to use my husband’s bike since his is the only one that allows attachment of a rear child seat. I was pretty excited when I found something that would let me ride with Little Girl on my bike, too. (Hubby is six feet tall. I am 5′ 8″. His bigger bike makes me nervous.) WeeRide’s Kangaroo LTD puts the seat in front without impeding your movement — at least that’s what the Web site says. I’m hoping to try it out to review it. I’ll keep you posted.

Have a great weekend, everyone. It’s been a long, often-difficult week. I am so glad it’s over. How about you? How was your week?