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*Note: I received the Bounce Dryer Bar at BlogHer for free from the Bounce people. I was not asked to review it, but I wanna. So I’m gonna.
I hate doing laundry – pretty much more than anything. But when I moved to my new place a few months ago, for the first time in over 7 years I have laundry in my unit and didn’t have to go 14 floors to a shared laundry room.
I decided I would be grown up and start treating my clothing well, and washing them on a semi regular basis. I mean, how lazy could I be?
While at BlogHer, I was given a 4 month Bounce Dryer Bar.
This this is cool.
Super cool.
I will never have to put in a dryer sheet again! One less step.
They are simple to use-or atleast should be.
Pull the sticker off the bottom of a holder, stick the holder on a smooth area of the drum in the dryer, slide the dryer ball on the holder and WA-LA! Done.
Well, when I got home from BlogHer, I ripped that baby open…
and found no sticker on the bottom of my holder.
I called the 800 number on the back of the box, and a week later, got a check in the mail for a free dryer bar.
I went and bought a new bar (with sticker), easily installed it about 2 months ago, and haven’t used a dryer sheet since.
UNTIL ABOUT 5 MINUTES AGO.
I am home this morning waiting for the moving company to come do the assessment on my house.
I figured I should get some housework done in between working from home and reading emails.
I washed my sheets, then threw them in the dryer (sans dryer sheet).
All the sudden, I heard CLUNK, CLINK, CLUUUUUUUNK, repeat, coming from the other room.
I freaked out thinking something was falling off the wall or something… I didn’t know what the hell it was…
It was coming from the dryer.
I opened the door and found the fully intact (thank goodness) Dryer Bar on top of my sheets. I tried to put it back on the holder, but it was too warped.
RIP Dryer Bar. It was fun while it lasted! Thank you for not ruining my clothes!
PS: I do laundry about 3 times a week. It may be why the bar stayed on so long.
PSS: When looking for the URL for the product, I found ALOT of other people who are not happy with the bar. You might want to hold off buying it until they fix the problems.
Previously, I wrote about how I had a totally messy house.
Here is the (horrible) before in photos and video. (Doncha love videos?)
Before photo of the far side of my living room:
The weekend I took the video I ended up taking all of the goodwill stuff out of the house and donated it. The boxes in the living room, well, I didn’t get to them. I need more motivation.
Two good friends and I have been hopping from house to house helping to clean up. Today was my turn and though I had hurt my back earlier on the day, we got alot done. I will take “after” video during the day tomorrow, but here is an “almost an after” pick after 2 hours of work on the living room tonight. (NOTE: we did not finish, and we only took stuff out of the house):
The green totes were totally hidden BEHIND the boxes you see in the first photo. Also, The big box with the basket and the small box on top of the thin totes (left side of pic) are more stuff for goodwill.The lamp and the fan also are headed to goodwill…)
GOOOOOOOO US!  You can see the bottom of the windows now!!
I have so much more room! While my back is killing me, i am going to try to get through atleast 2 boxes tonight as they are coming to do my move assessment on Tuesday and I need to get all the crap out of my house before they arrive.
I am proud to have been asked to be the Village Team Leader for the Sitolo Village at www.joinmyvillage.com. I hope you will watch this short video, visit joinmyvillage and sign up for the Sitolo to help women in Malawi, Africa, share their voice.
More information about Sitolo:
VILLAGE MZATI: Tamala Iwalani, (ta-MAH-lah e-wah-LA-nee)“Girls are now being given opportunities to be on their own and do their own thing. I think the future will be a bit different from my mother’s days.”Tamala Iwalani represents the next generation of leader in her village, Sitolo. This business-minded 21-year-old took the money her father gave her to spend on clothes and instead started her own store. She sells sugar, matches, soap, candles and other items. Today, most of her stock fits in what looks like a laundry basket, but she hopes one day to have a bricks-and-mortar store in the trading center. She thinks CARE’s plan for village savings and loan associations (VSLA) will help her achieve her goals.“I am interested in VSLA,” Tamala says. “There are people here who are so interested – I know we can do it. I don’t think of any complications now. Maybe they will come up once we get started, but you know that’s how it is – sometimes you have challenges, sometimes you don’t.”Spoken like a woman who doesn’t mind learning by doing. Tamala has already proven she can adjust to the business environment: When she was letting people buy on credit, she soon found she didn’t have enough capital to stock her store. Now she runs a cash-only business and her success may inspire others.“I expect changes with VSLA because some who are interested to do something like I am will be able to learn about business and be able to acquire loans, do business and save,” says Tamala. “With VSLA, I will grow farther than where I am.”
ABOUT SITOLO:“Today Sitolo has taken the lead. Now let us see who will follow.” – Song composed by the women of Sitolo.Not eight years after its founding, the tiny town of Sitolo stubbornly refused to support the one-party system of self-declared President for Life Kamuzu Banda. The decision to back multi-party democracy and disobey the ruling party went over particularly poorly in Kasungu, the district where Banda was born.“They were saying, if you lose, we will come and burn your houses,” said Headman Bodwin Malunda Banda, who is no relation to the president in question, though he shares his very common last name. “We told them that, whatever the case, multi-party will pass.”Their conviction proved true and they believe life has gotten better ever since.“With democracy, there are more schools,” Bodwin said. “In the past years our boys and girls, none could get education, not even one. These days, most of our children are going to school.”For people in Sitolo, this courage to embrace change comes from their ability to work together.As HIV and AIDS has ravaged a generation of parents who ought to have been in their prime, the youth of Sitolo have taken to pooling their savings to buy soap and food for children orphaned by the pandemic.“We contribute whatever amount we can in the beginning of each month and in the end,” said 18 year-old Chisomo Dickson. “We also don’t want people to be sick because, when they are sick, development goes down in a country.”In Sitolo, the strict hierarchy that usually governs the interactions between traditional leaders in Malawi takes a more democratic form. Even in relaxed conversation with a visitor from overseas, Henry Chingalu Phiri, the group village headman of Sitolo, confers with the village headmen who work beneath him to come up with the best answer.“Farming cooperatives are part of our history,” said Henry. “We have zeal and enthusiasm. When we are called for development, we quickly come together.”
More information about www.joinmyvillage.com:
CARE and General Mills are partnering to create a new approach to fighting global poverty
through a program called Join My Village.
By channeling the power of online communities to help real communities in Malawi,
Join My Village will enable women in the U.S. to make a real and measurable impact
in the lives of women and girls in some of the poorest communities in Africa.
General Mills plans to release $500,000 into Malawi through this program.
$200,000 is already there! Participants have the opportunity to “unlock” the remaining funds
through simple online actions or personal donations.
All funds raised will be invested in proven approaches,
like basic education and business skills training,
that help women and girls become catalysts for change in their communities.
Women are changing the world, village by village. Join Us.
Just busy. Will be back soon- promise– lots of stuff to share!
I will be away for a few days- I am visiting sweet home Chicago!
I will stop by every now and then but probably won’t post until Sunday—But check back! I will probably update Twitter depending on my cell phone connection.
TTFN! Have a great and exciting weekend!
*Disclaimer- I received nothing from the Ragu peeps- I saw it at the store and bought this with my own monies and everything.
MMMMM, spaghetti and meat sauce. Pepperoni pizza. Breadsticks and marinara sauce.
MMMMM, carbs!
Sometimes a girl just needs to have comfort food. And lazy gal that I am, I hate making my own sauce to go with those carbs.
Enter Ragu Light Tomato and Basil spaghetti sauce.
I have always been a Ragu lover- Their Traditional and Mushroom varieties have been a staple in my house since, well, always. I am not a sweet sauce person; I enjoy more of the savory.
So when I heard that there was a lighter version of sauce, with no added sugar, I was overjoyed and ran right out to the store to grab a jar to try.
At first, I was disappointed that my go-to sauce, Traditional, was not in the light variety. I am kinda picky when it comes to sauce, so I almost didn’t grab what I thought was the closest to Traditional, Tomato & Basil.
I first decided to make a homemade pizza with the sauce.
As it poured from the jar onto my pizza crust, it was a bit more liquid than I thought it was going to be, but it had a great texture of chunky tomatoes and onions big enough to see (Note: I am NOT an onion person, but you cannot taste them. Promise.)
The pizza was cooked, cut, and I dove in.
WOW! The sauce has a great tomato flavor and it is not overwhelmed by the basil. It is reminiscent of the Traditional version of Ragu, but better, I think. Very “pizzeria” sauce like.
When that jar was gone, I went back to Publix and bought two more! Run to the store to get your own! It’s really good!
Here are the stats:
Serving 1/2 cup
Calories 50
Sodium 360 mg
Total Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated 0 g
Saturated 0 g
Monounsaturated 0 g
Trans 0 g
Potassium 0 mg
Total Carbs 11 g
Dietary Fiber 2 g
Sugars 8 g
Protein 2 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Vitamin A 10 %
Calcium 4 %
Vitamin C 8 %
Iron 6 %
My house is a mess.
And by mess, I don’t mean dirty.
I mean embarrassed to bring people over to my house cuz I don’t know how to pick up after myself.
I still have boxes from my move, 5 months ago, in my living room. They are scattered everywhere from me trying to find crap.
My kitchen island is littered with stuff I don’t know what to do with.
Don’t get me started on my bathroom and all the products.
I feel like Oprah or Dr Phil is gonna show up on my doorstep and counsel me on my clutter and hoarding problem (yeah, I know I didn’t mention the hoarding, but I save EVERYTHING. I am a scrapbooker for jebus sake. We don’t throw away anything!)
Can’t talk about it.
Anyway, since my work has a furlough day tomorrow (and Monday is a holiday) I have decided that I am in a throwing away/giving away mood.
I am sick of my clutter.
I am tired of making excuses why people can’t come over.
I am going to make a good dent in my clutter problem.
My goal this weekend is to get all the recyclables out to the big bins, get all the stuff I want to give to goodwill in my car and over to the dropoff point, and get my closet cleaned out.
I have so many clothes, most of which are too small or to big. I need to just start over. Get clothing that fits me and that I like. AND get more stuff to wear to work. I am desperate for cute work clothing right now!
Cheer me on peeps! I will do a before and after video with my new vado so you can see the difference (but will only post AFTER so I won’t be so embarrassed from the before…  )
I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but about 2 months ago, I drowned my camera in my purse.
I had filled up my reusable water bottle like the good green gal that I am, and thrown it into my bag/purse. I was late for work that day (like every day) and rushed out of the house to jump in the car.
As I opened the car door, I glanced down in to my purse/bag and noticed my water bottle was now 1/2 full.
Or 1/2 empty, depending on how you look at it.
It took me about 20 seconds to realize that most of the bottle had drained into the bottom of my bag.
I started scooping out wet papers, my soaked (but OK thank jebus) iPod, and my Kodak point-and-shoot camera that was not even a year old yet.
It was like a direction ripped from a movie script:
(Camera continues to slowly pan in as actress lifts camera out of puddle of water.
Close up of digital camera as actress opens battery compartment.
Water flows to the ground from inside camera.
Actress weeps. )
I was a wreck. I was even later to work because I had to dry everything off
My WW booklet had already been attacked last winter in Chicago as I was helping an injured friend shovel 30 inches of accumulated snow off her car and dig out her parking spot*. The booklet was missed as being wet, and had warped. It had been hanging on by a thread, and this time the thread was broken my friends! I now have a booklet that is ashamed to go to meetings!
If I had a camera, I would show you.
I have been using my Samsung BlackJack II cell phone to take photos lately and while it does an OK job, it’s not a 10MP jobby like I used to have. I have yet to perfect the “waaaaaaait, waaaaait, OK it took!” lag time that has to happen as I take photos, and my poor cat just hates to get his photo taken, especially with lag times 1915 people didn’t have to wait through.
My camera phone is OK for twitpic, just not for my blog. So sorry, but you will just have to wait for pictures.
I think I actually told jebus and the fates and karma to MAKE me dump the water bottle in my purse though.
Really.
For the month before waterbottlegate happened, I had been whining pissing and moaning to everyone who would listen that I was sick of my point-and-shoot not doooooing anything cooooool and it would be sooooo much better to have a cooool DSLR. **
I think I made my point-and-shoot camera suicidal.
Maybe it used its handy arm strap to rope the water bottle and open the lid.
Or maybe I didn’t check that the lid was secure.
Whatever. The camera is still totally dead.
Even though I am broke (or as my friends call it brokeass) I have been contemplating buying a new point-and-shoot (though we all know know I reeeeeeeally want a DSLR). I keep trying to win one on pioneer woman, but I am not so lucky lately ever***.
Also, I just found out I am losing my job in 2 months. Do I really need to be shelling out 5 or 600 bucks for a new camera? Even though I might be the next top photog, it would take me forever to make back that kind of cash right now.
Ok I have officially talked myself out of a new camera.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be dreaming of a new camera (and a Dyson)****
AJ
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*As we were shoveling, we put our purses to the side, but one big shovel load went directly in my purse. Fun times.
**There may or may not have been a few foot stomps included.
***I think MizFit would disagree with me (and all my twitter winnings at BlogHer) but I mean unlucky winning cameras – DAMNIT! I won a Vado @blogher didn’t I? Ok, I mean unlucky at winning a DSLR. (now I just feel like a douche)
****if you follow me on Twitter, you will might understand this. If not, please follow me on Twitter so you get this inside joke.
I am so new to this blog stuff- though I have had a “blog” for a few years, I have never thought that I would be able to make money (or recoup money spent) from it. This was more of an online journal for me– and having readers was just a perk- I would bounce ideas off people.
Then I started making friends online and really beginning to learn more about what this “blogging thing” was really about. I attended BlogHer ’09 in Chicago this year and I was pleasantly surprised by all the amazing women who pretty much own the internet.
I decided I would get attend next year’s BlogHer ’10 in NYC (baaaby!) but was really interested in attending Roni’s FitBloggin ’10 in Baltimore. One thing though–
I
Am
Broke.
I have enough money to pay my bills and eat, but after that, not much fun money. I think alot of people are like that right now.
So since I spent my last few fun money pennies on the early bird registration, I have until Late February to find a sponsor to help me defray the costs of the hotel and airfare.
I have no idea how to go about this.
So I started searching “blog conference sponsorship” in trusty Google, and here is what I came up with:
http://www.dealseekingmom.com/how-to-get-a-blog-conference-sponsorship/
She has great ideas and easy to follow steps on how to get started. now that I have decided that positive “losing” is my blog focus/topic, I can reach out to targeted companies to make sure we mesh well. I have a few companies I would like to reach out to, and will post them soon, but want to wait until I get all my ducks in a row.
First, I am worried about my reach in the blogosphere. I only have about 50-100 readers a day, but know I can grow that with better content, a few well-placed contests and really working on growing my Twitter presence.
I probably need to come out of the shadows and “out” myself too (by out, I mean share my real name ) but I want to wait to do that until I have found my new job and make sure it is OK to have a blog where I feel like I can speak my mind without affecting the company I work for.
I also need to work on my “media kit”, figure out how to post PDF documents to my blog, and then work on opportunity letters to companies I am interested in. I will probably have to start small, but I hope to have atleast 2-4 small companies who will advertise, maybe have a contest before/after the conference on Twitter/my blog, and allow me to give away things at the conference, all while occasionally tweeting there name and mentioning their products that I know and love on my blog.
Also, I am a huge proponent of disclosure, and I don’t want my blog to just be products all the time! But I think a small smattering doesn’t hurt anyone!
Let me know if you have any tips or tricks that you used when starting out– anything will help!
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