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!

7 Quick Takes Friday #33

--- 1 ---

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

--- 2 ---

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

Source: healthhomehappy.com via Jenny on Pinterest

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

--- 3---

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



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

--- 4 ---

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

--- 5 ---

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


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

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

--- 6 ---

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

--- 7 ---

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


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

WAHM to SAHM

As of right now, I'm officially a Stay At Home Mom, not a Work At Home Mom. I have tried to be careful how much I mention about losing my part time social media job. I know I wasn't able to work enough hours to make my employment worth the company's time. It turns out that since my children don't sleep simultaneously more than an hour or so each day/night, and the company wasn't paying me enough to hire a sitter or pay for additional days of Mother's Day Out, I was only able to work around 6-7 hours each week. I'm sure it wasn't worth their administrative costs to retain me. I do feel like I did the best I could while working for them and the parting was not performance related, so that's good.

We definitely miss the income, and haven't figured out how to replace it yet. In another way, I was relieved to have the obligation lifted. It was just another form of Mommy guilt. When I was playing with my kids I'd realize I hadn't checked our clients' Twitter or Facebook all day and I'd have to be on the iPhone checking. The kids would get jealous of the iPhone or the laptop and try to take it from me or throw their bodies in front of it. I'd feel guilty because they were completely justified in their action and I'd rather be playing with them anyway! So I'd play with my kids but feel guilty that I was being a bad employee.

Going from checking multiple social networks and email accounts constantly to just my own personal account has been a little weird. At first I found myself checking my personal accounts just as frequently as I used to check our clients'. Unfortunately, my own personal network can get a little slow (cause, uh, we're all moms!), and oftentimes there was nothing to see when I was refreshing EVERY 10 MINUTES. Then I went through a period where I kind of didn't check anything for a while and got totally out of the loop. Thank goodness I don't have to monitor my Klout anymore, because I am sure it took a hit.

Somehow I also started dropping the ball on other things like making dinner, planning meals, and blogging. I guess my carefully constructed schedule is off. I think what happened is that I started to assume that I would have more time than I actually do, and I wasted those precious extra hours on things that should have been much lower priority. Where do those mysterious hours go, SAHM's?

Do any of you SAHM's have suggestions for me? Would love to hear them!

Review of Food On The Table

I'll be writing more later this week about my transition from Work-At-Home-Mom to Stay-At-Home-Mom after losing my part-time job, but suffice it to say that for some reason this change has thrown me off a bit. You'd think that having more time when the kids are napping or playing would mean that I get more blogging done, but the reverse has been true!

I feel like I'm really not organized when it comes to planning the household chores. OK, I don't plan at all, really. One thing I've been the most terrible at since having my second child (uh, 11 months ago) is meal planning. I did a post on how I've done my meal planning in the past. You might have noticed it was fairly labor-intensive. I have enjoyed E-Mealz in many ways and I've got some really good recipes from that site. However, they seem to focus mainly on Mexican food, salads, and white sauces for vegetarians. I like Mexican food as much as the next person, but vegetarians DO eat things other than Mexican, E-Mealz! And no one in my house will eat white sauce or salad of any kind except me. It also seemed that most of their recipes were actually meat recipes with fake-meat substitutes thrown in. Have you ever tasted fake meat products? They are disgusting. So we had to avoid most of those recipes too. Ultimately, I could only use about 1-2 recipes from each 5-day meal plan.

Through the new ad network I've signed up with, I have just learned about Food on the Table, another meal-planning program that also has a corresponding iPhone app. I think this might be what I am missing! Having a dedicated app saves me several steps in my previous process in migrating the meal plan to my iPhone so I can take the shopping list to the store.



I tried Food on the Table this week and here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

• When they say it's a 60-second signup, they're not kidding!
• The limited version of the service is free (I was paying $5/month for E-Mealz). To get access to more recipes, you can pay to upgrade to Premium which is $5/month for the first 3 months and $9.95/month for the future. Less if you pay quarterly or for a whole year.
• Online or iPhone app interface is convenient
• When you select the stores you shop at, it automatically finds the sales and you can pick recipes based on the items on sale at the store you are going to!
• You can restrict recipes by prep time, by what kind of meat or Meatless 
• You can add additional non-menu items to the grocery list in the iPhone app. It even has a voice recognition option so you can add items without typing. When I spoke "organic milk" it not only added it correctly, and in the correct category on the list, but also suggested the item was on sale at the Tom Thumb I selected as my favorite store. OMG LOVE!!

Cons:

• Side items are chosen separately from the main dish so it's up to you to figure out how to pair things. This is actually just fine with me, because I rarely used the side item recommendations with E-Mealz. (side note: vegetarians don't eat coleslaw for side-dishes at every meal, E-Mealz)

Yet to see whether the recipes this system provides are any good taste-wise. I will be making two of them this week and I'll let you know! So far I am in love with it and I am seriously considering purchasing the Premium version.

NOTE: As an ad network affiliate, I get something like $1 if you actually buy the Premium version by clicking one of my links.

Green living: swapping kids' clothes

You might remember that one of my 2012 To Do's was to move toward monetizing this blog. Of course, this can't happen without advertisers. I'd like to point you today toward an excellent service that several of my friends have tried and recommended to me, and who just happen to be advertising through one of the networks I've recently discovered! Please note that I do get something like $1 if you choose to use this service for your own family through my link. However, I would not feature any service on this blog that I do not feel that I could conscientiously recommend. Thanks for your support!

thredUP - Kids Clothing Swap

The thredUP community - where moms swap kids clothes and toys. It’s easier than ever to hand-down outgrown children’s items and earn cashback. Use FREE USPS boxes or Concierge bags to de-clutter without leaving the house. Earn up to $10 for each great box you sell and up to $20 for each bag you stuff and return to us. Pick new boxes that start at just $9 and come full of great kids stuff. The average thredUP box has more than 15 items. It’s the best kids clothing deal anywhere!

How does it work?

• Gather all the clothing or books your child no longer reads, and list them by the boxful on thredUP.
• Sign-up for free and thredUP will send you complimentary empty USPS boxes (if you don’t want to wait, go grab them for free at your local post office).
• When another mom picks your box, thredUP lets you know. thredUP generates the shipping label and scheduldes home pick-up, so you can send without leaving the house.

Green take: reuse

It’s even easier than Goodwill and you’ll send your family’s once loved clothing and books directly to another child who wants them, and you'll earn credits for boxes of gently used items that will be sent directly to you in the sizes and gender you specify.

What I've heard: several of my mom friends have done this and been very happy with the amount of clothing they get in exchange for sending theirs in. One mom said the box she received was "packed completely full" and that she was surprised how many clothes fit into it!

Sign up today!

Barnes & Noble: I'm sorry your Nook sucks, I still love you!

Lately I've found myself at Barnes &' Noble a lot. For one thing, it's the closest, least crowded place with fast, free Wifi near my house. Plus, they don't seem to mind if I bring my own coffee into their store. I've found myself there on most of my Mother's Day Out days when I need to do some focused writing.

They also have a great kids' area. Yesterday when I forgot it was a state holiday, we couldn't go to the library so we headed to Barnes &' Noble where Little Sir played with their Thomas the Tank Engine train table for at least 20 minutes straight (which is a record for him).



This past weekend, Christian and I were blessed with an overnight date night getaway by my parents, who came into town to stay with the kids. After we had an early sushi dinner, we found ourselves at Barnes &' Noble looking at books and reading things to each other. We used to love to do this while we were dating.

While we were there, I got to try out several of the demo Nook reader options. I have a Kindle and Christian has an iPad, so I guess I expected the Nooks to work similarly. At least, that's what I thought I'd heard.

Boy, was I disappointed! From what I could gather without the help of anyone at the store (the first time there was no one around and the second time there was an employee there who made it clear that she had no idea how these things worked, and couldn't actually make a sale either, even though another customer was trying to buy one. I guess that employee was just required to stand beside the Nooks?), there appear to be three levels of Nook: the SimpleTouch, the Color, and the Tablet. I could not tell the difference between the Color and the Tablet by playing with them. Apparently the difference is the memory and the additional capabilities of the Tablet.

The touchscreen response of the Nook Color and Tablet both seemed seriously under par in comparison to iPad and iPhones. Half the time, no matter how hard you tapped on something, the screen didn't respond or it responded by overcompensating. Christian and I both tested this poor response on multiple demos by attempting to play the Ms PacMan game that came on the machine. It was literally impossible to play the game with such a poor touch response.

In all 3 of the models, the usability of the menu navigation was terrible. At least with the SimpleTouch, the navigation was a lot like the Kindle so I was able to figure out how to least read a book. But with the Color and the Tablet, I never could figure out how to close an app that I was using. There was no "X" inside the app and the "home" button only took you to different parts of the app itself, never to the home screen or a menu.

I would like to give you a more in-depth analysis of the Nook models but honestly, I gave up after about 10 minutes. If I have to spend more than 10 minutes figuring out how something works, or if it requires me to take a class or read a manual, that is not a well designed device. I'm afraid that owning Apple products has spoiled me in that regard. I know that easy-to-use, flexible products are possible so I am not willing to waste my time learning more confusing products.

If you have a Nook, feel free to defend it but for me, I'm happy with my Kindle, even if it is a 1st generation model.

And Barnes &' Noble: I still love you, despite your inability to create a good e-reader. I will see you again on Thursday!

7 Quick Takes Friday #32

--- 1 ---

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

--- 2 ---

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

--- 3---

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

--- 4 ---

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

--- 5 ---

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

--- 6 ---

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

--- 7 ---

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


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