I planted some things

I had a good number of strawberries in my strawberry plant this year, even though they are pretty small:
I think they are finished growing now, although I am still going to keep feeding them organic fertilizer just in case.

I haven't planted herbs yet this year and can't decide if I should...the summer heat usually kills them off after about a month. They can't handle 100 degrees+, but they need full sun. Keeping them inside is out of the question since the cats immediately eat any plant inside the house and promptly vomit.

However, this Memorial Day weekend I did plant more Asiatic Jasmine in the backyard. You might recall that we began this effort in the back yard last year. The Jasmine plants that were planted last year lasted the winter and put out tons of tendrils attempting to fill in, which is exactly what we wanted. We just needed more density and there were still few large areas unplanted. Hopefully what I planted on Monday has helped to fill in those gaps. I have some organic fertilizer to spray on them to help them out. One day we will have a back yard that is greener than just a mud pit!!

I won! I won!: Reebok EasyTone shoes

I finally won something!!
I may have mentioned this before, but I have been getting SheSheMe email newsletters for a few years now and I love them. It's a fun little newsletter that is written in narrative form and links to tons of awesome fashion trends and gives me great ideas. Being an email marketer for all those years, I know how unusual it is for a newsletter reader to click on every single link in a newsletter, but I can assure that most of the time I do click on every one, and sometimes I save them to go back and click again.
<> I would love to see their metrics < / nerd >
I wonder if I am weird or if everyone clicks that much?

When they started the SheSheMe blog, where you can ask fashion advice, I immediately followed it too. I even wrote to "SheShe" in 2007 when we were going to San Francisco for her advice on comfortable, stylish shoes that didn't look like sneakers. (I ended up with some Clarks and they worked great!)

Recently the blog ran a contest for the best fitness tip with the prize being a pair of Reebok EasyTone sneakers. My current sneakers are on their last leg, and I've been walking even more during this pregnancy since it's low-impact and free. Of course, I am still using the balance ball as my desk chair while working from home, so that is the fitness tip I submitted!

Side note: A recent bonus I have found to using the balance ball is that it really helps with the back pain I've started to have. If I sit on the balance ball instead of a chair... no more back pain! Woo hoo!

I am super excited to have won this contest, and looking forward to trying out the shoes! They are built in a way that is supposed to tone your calves and thighs more than the regular shoes, even when just walking normally. I can use all the help I can get!

Thanks, SheSheMe! Now, everyone go visit the site and sign up for the newsletter!

New URL for family blog

For those of you who are following my family blog, we have finally bought a "real" domain name for it, you can now access it at www.afamilyis.us . Feel free to update your bookmarks, although you can also still access it via the Blogger URL as well.

Cloth diapering

Today we took a free cloth diapering class at our local Peppermint baby boutique. For those of you who were wondering where to buy cloth diapers online, you can buy them from Peppermint.com in addition to (Amazon.com). They sell all types of cloth diapers at Peppermint, as well as baby slings, etc, blah blah blah.

I really want to go over all the different types of cloth diapers, prefolds, fitted prefolds (and the covers that go with both those types), pocket diapers, and all-in-ones, but frankly I have been over this quite a few times with quite a few people by now and it's giving me a headache. And you can read a great summary of cloth diapering options at my friend Mel's blog. I will just tell you what we are planning on doing right now.

We got a bunch of slightly used Bum Genius Organic All-in-One diapers from my friend Holly whose kids aren't going to be using them anymore, they weren't worn for very long at all. Right now I have 12 pairs of diapers, 2 hemp doublers and 4 microfiber doublers. She also sold me a diaper pail, a diaper pail liner, and 2 wet bags (which go in the diaper bag for used diapers).

I wanted to take a picture of the inside of these new organic all-in-ones to show the difference from the usual all-in-ones because the inside, while attached, is not sewn in.
In other iterations of the Bum Genius or other brand all-in-ones, the inside was so much thicker that it was harder to get clean and took longer to dry. But I think these issues should be solved with this type of all-in-one.

Either way, it really doesn't matter if it's "new and improved" or just the same as before...we have 12 of these and we got them for incredibly cheap! I think we need about 4-5 more of these diapers and we should be set until the baby is potty trained. (Bum Genius all-in-ones can be sized up and down in the rise with the snaps shown here, so they fit babies from newborn to small toddler).
A few other things we learned: that we can make our own wipe solution, which will allow us to use washable wipes when we are at home. And the proper way to clean the diapers so they last longer and don't leak (detergent buildup can cause leaks).

New Flower Farmer's Market attacked by Natural Grocer

It's been a few months since New Flower Farmer's Market came to Dallas, and although I went on the second day it was open, I never got around to blogging about it because I was still in my first trimester and soooo tired all the time. Colleen reminded me recently, and at first I couldn't really come up with any reason that this should be interesting to anyone, and then this morning - a scandal! Ooo!

Here's the story about New Flower. New Flower is known as Sun Flower in other states, but I guess there is some kind of trademark issue in Dallas or Texas or something, so it's New Flower here. Their motto is "Serious Food...Silly Prices". When I first heard about it from someone else, it was described as "a Whole Foods with the prices of a regular supermarket" (oh, Whole Paycheck, no one can be you) .

This is not an entirely accurate description, and is not something claimed by New Flower anywhere in their marketing material. The first time I visited, I was indeed impressed by the number of store-brand organic items they carried, and like all store brands, they were indeed low cost. They carried some canned and frozen organic items at great prices, and they have an impressive dried goods area that has a lot of mixes with recipes that make easy vegetarian soups and even veggie burgers, which are also extremely cost effective. WF has the dried goods area, but doesn't have mixes per se, you have to know how to use those dried things and I usually don't. I would say that New Flower occasionally also has some organic and natural produce, but most of their produce is actually conventional, meaning that it's not necessarily organic or local. When they do have organic, the prices are good, but nothing extraordinary. I enjoy going there because I know that when I do buy grocery items that are not on my list, they won't be expensive items, because it's priced as a regular grocery store.

Here is where the controversy comes in. I have been following another store, Natural Grocer by Vitamin Cottage, on Twitter because they have a truly awesome store in Plano which I have visited once. My friend told me about it, and I would love to go more regularly but, like Costco, I would have to drive around 40 minutes just to get there (and then 40 minutes back), and I just can't swing that on a weekly, or even monthly, basis. Natural Grocer is hardcore natural/organic/green. It is in all their marketing material and can be seen in the products in their stores, which are all natural or organic.

So this morning, Natural Grocer starts bashing NewFlower on Twitter. Here are some of their Tweets:

• New Flower / Sun Flower markets sales flyer: "natural" meats 7 out of 15 items. Grass fed meats = zero out of 15 items.
• New Flower / Sun Flower markets sales flyer: "natural" grocery items = 5 or about 5%.
• New Flower / Sun Flower markets sales flyer: 22 fruits and vegetables on sale, only 6 are organic.
• New Flower / Sun Flower markets sales flyer: 100 products, only 6 are organic.

Does Natural Grocer really feel that threatened by NewFlower? Are they just bored and have nothing else to do but analyze other people's ads and then bash them?

And mostly, do they not realize that New Flower is not a store claiming to be natural or organic?

It's in Flash so I can't requote, but here is New Flower's "About Us" statement from their web site. Nowhere do they claim to be natural or organic all the time, or even most of the time. It is just a regular grocery store that happens to carry some good organic and natural brands. Like Tom Thumb and their "O Organics" brand. Or Kroger and their "Naturally Preferred" brand.

I like New Flower, and I go there when I can. Especially for dried goods or frozen or canned organics. I would recommend visiting if you are nearby!

But I am thinking the 40 minute drive to Natural Grocer just might not be worth it. I don't feel good about giving my money to a company that's OK with that kind of attack tactic on Twitter.