The Beginning of the End

'It' hasn't actually ended yet. What is 'it'?  My life, as it is now.  Read on.

It's been quite a few weeks since my last blog.  All the holiday frivolity and busyness takes up a lot of time, dontcha think?  Even if I wanted to blog (of course I wanted to blog) I was too occupied to hold on to, let alone nurture, a coherent thought that had nothing to do with wrapping paper or red and green sprinkles.

So now that I'm here, sitting in front of the Christmas tree I haven't taken down yet, I'm not really sure what to blog about.  I mean, there are a gazillion subjects I could easily write about, but trying to add that personal twist in is always a challenge.  I decided its finally time to come clean and describe how I came to be...well...me.  How did I get all chemical-paranoid and organically-freaky?  Inquiring minds want to know, right?  I'm hoping so.  This is the first part of an undetermined series of blogs, maybe 2 or 3.  We'll see.


Part I

This is essentially what we call in Shaklee 'My Two-Minute Story'.  When we do a presentation we start out with how we were introduced to healthy living and/or Shaklee products, etc etc.  This is more or less the story I tell.  It's true, by the way.  And it's probably not very funny.

A couple years ago, at about 15 weeks,  I had my 5th miscarriage.  When I came home from the hospital I was an absolute mess.  Besides being physically messed up, I was an emotional wreck.  I had the usual post-tragedy questions...why me?  Why again?  What is wrong with me?  Why can't anyone give me any answers?  WHAT the F*CK?

When you're in the state of mind that I was, you'll desperately search everywhere and anywhere for some closure.  So when your doctor doesn't know the answers, where do you turn?  The all-knowing internet, of course.   I did search after search, looking for information, looking for an answer, finding tons of information and answers that didn't apply to me.  Everyone else HAD an answer, but for me there was none.  I sat at my computer and cried.  Like...Every. Day.  I was told 'try not to think about it', or 'it was meant to be', and no matter how well meaning those words are, they don't help. At all.

One day one of my searches brought me to a website I still frequent - www.ewg.org.  It's the Environmental Working Group website, and it is just chock full of informational goodness about everything that has to do with health and environment and chemicals and their effects on your body and the planet and everything else you can possibly think of.  They even have a sister website - Skin Deep Cosmetics Database - where you can look up your existing products and find out just how bad they really are.  I read.  And I read.  I followed links, searched searches, keyed words.  And I learned SO MUCH.  I've blogged about a lot of what I learned, and am still learning every day, and if I talk to you in person there's no doubt that you've heard it from me over and over again.  I like to beat dead horses, okay?  If I was to start telling you the things that can happen to your body from the products that you use in your home and on your body, we would be here for DAYS.  The chemicals we are exposed to in our daily lives have such a huge impact on our health and our bodies in ways that may never even occur to us! 

Of course fertility is one of them. 

That first day I learned that one of the biggest offenders is household cleaning products.  We are in our homes more than anywhere else, and that is where the majority of our exposure comes from.  We breathe the air, wear the clothes, sleep on the sheets, eat off the dishes.  Within a day or two I had all of our toxic cleaners boxed up and stuffed in a corner of the garage.  I went to the store and replaced them with non-chlorine bleach, laundry detergent without certain ingredients, and $5 bottles of all-purpose cleaner.  It was all shiny and new, and I was ok with it for a while even though it wasn't the most effective stuff in the world. But I was dedicated, so I stuck with it.

Then I learned about body products, too.  Chemical-filled shampoos and soaps and lotions, oh my!  Our skin is the largest organ we have, and it's absorbent.  So when we slather it with chemicals (or sit in a bathtub that was cleaned with toxic chemicals!), those chemicals all get absorbed into us.   

WTF are they doing in there?  Nothing but trouble. 

I dumped all our Herbal Essences and Bath and Body Works and Zest and Lever into a bag and went shopping again and replaced all those items with 'all-natural' options.  I had been having a major skin issue around that time too, and every time I would shampoo my hair, the skin on my shoulders would absolutely be ON FIRE.  When I switched to the natural, non-perfumed, non-chemical stuff, the burning subsided.  Of course, that is a whole different blog you can look forward to about Candida.  (Just check out this list of symptoms!  Candida is horrendous.  Contact me for help on this one.)

Is chemical exposure responsible for my miscarriages?  Who knows.  I'm sure it could never be proven that that is specifically what caused them.  All the chlorine bleach, optical brighteners, preservatives, synthetic scents, and everything else I've been exposed to my whole life... could I have come out completely unscathed?  I doubt any of us have.  Maybe that's why today's cancer rate is 1 in 2.  Ya think? 

I can't say that de-chemicalizing our lives has made a huge difference for ME, but I'm hoping that by keeping their chemical exposure as minimal as is possible, that MY children don't have to go through what I have had to.  That MY daughter doesn't have to deal with the heartbreak of losing baby after baby.  That MY son doesn't get cancer or a brain tumor or Parkinson's disease.  Considering the rate of exposure we all deal with from every direction, the least I can do is make sure they get as little as possible at home.  We are CONSTANTLY inundated with toxins in every shape and form...(don't even get me started on food!)  And if we have the choice we shouldn't have to live with them too. 

This is MY choice, and it is this knowledge and these experiences that have made me who I am today.


To be continued...

Total Buzz Kill

This year at the beginning of the summer I instituted a rule:  Nothing with a screen between noon and 8 pm.

No t.v., no computer, no video games, no ipod.  Strangely enough, I kind of think the kids were excited about it in the beginning, this new rule that would really mix everything up.  Only at first did I have a little trouble enforcing the rule, and that was mostly because I would forget about it!  And of course now that the season is winding down and the late-summer boredom has set in, it is harder yet.  Regardless, the rule worked really well all summer, and I'll definitely do it again next year.  The kids played outside so much...like we used to when we were kids!  You know, before all this fancy schmancy hand-held technology.  HA!  We're old!

Because of my no-screen rule, all summer I was supplying constant ideas of new things they could do outside, or suggesting something to draw, make out of dough, paint (including objects), or construct out of other things.  We also spent a pretty decent amount of time at the beach.  Nothing like an endless amount of sand and water to really make a bunch of happy shorties.

That's a great thing about this area - how close we are to so many beaches.  And (amazingly) they're clean.  And not crowded!  Of course Lake Michigan water is body-numbing frigid most of the summer but hey, you get hot, you jump in, you cool off....quickly. What more can you ask for?

Since we've lived here, our family has unofficially chosen one particular beach as our favorite, and we go there more than any of the other area beaches.  It's a Lake Michigan beach, and most of the summer it was fantastic.  There's a little 'pool' area that's warmer than the lake, a little stream from the pool into the lake, tons of cool rocks and fossils to collect, bigger rocks for climbing, lots of beach glass hunting for me, and the sand is pretty fine and light.  It's a great spot.

Except for the second half of August.  Oh Goodness.

We've visited this beach twice in the past two weeks, and ended up running out of there after only about a half an hour, chased out by those nasty little biting black flies.  I've experienced this quite a bit, in quite a few places around Wisconsin.  I'm sure it happens other places but I just don't know about it.  Is it the lake?  The sand?  Obviously they wait until the end of the summer to appear...but why?  And why do they have to follow you and bite you and make it so dang miserable that you have to leave?!  My friend told me yesterday that it hurts when they bite you because they are literally ripping off a chunk of your skin.  Awesome.

Where we live we also have big-time mosquito issues.  Wisconsin doesn't spray, so we have to take it into our own hands.  Luckily, Shaklee H2 works great as a natural repellent for your body, but we do go through our share of Off and have even stooped to spray the yard because it was just so hard to be outside without it.  Yes, I know.  Bad chemicals.  But what's the alternative?  Don't go outside?  I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Since I compost and we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, I often have a lot of fruit flies in the kitchen.  Naturally there are ants, and once in a while some moth or other weird freaky bug comes wandering in to die a most hideous death at the hands (or paws) of my cats. 

What's an eco-friendly mom to do?  Spray the crap out of everything with chemicals and hope for the best?  Well, maybe. But not until I get so fed up there's no other choice!  Until then, I try to control it all as greenly and as safely as I can.

Here are just a few things I have found and used:
A little bowl of apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap mixed in lures those pesky fruit flies to a liquidy death.  Works great.
Repel mosquitoes safely with H2 wipes or all-purpose formula sprayed on.
You can even spray fruit flies right out of the air with the H2 all-purpose. It's kind of fun!
If you know where the ants are coming in, pour some cornmeal around and the greedy little bastards will snatch it up and take it back to the nest where all their greedy little bastard friends will eat it.  Unfortunately for them, they can't digest it, so it swells up inside their disgusting little bodies and the greedy little bastards burst.  Whoopee!
I've also heard that drawing a chalk line works cause the ants won't walk across it, and sprinkling baby powder around for the same reason.

These solutions are all fine and good, but I'm out of apple cider vinegar, and I don't know where my ants are coming in...they just appear in the middle of a blank wall, the little teleporting freaks!  This spring my super-efficient and green friend Libby gave me this awesome bug-zapping contraption.  Looks just like a tennis racket, but has a little electrical charge that zaps any of those rotten little fliers right out of the air.  WHAT FUN.  When we first got it, we would literally go seek out the bugs, like turn on the porch light and wait beneath it.  We sure are easily entertained, but in all seriousness this thing is awesome.  No chemicals!  I even got a couple ants with it even though they weren't flying.  Oh, and the crackle it makes when you get a bug is oh so satisfying...

Of course all good things must come to an end, and the good bug-zapping tennis racket unfortunately came to an end.  When something is that much fun, it is irresistible to the shorter people that are always hanging around, and you know how badly they treat their toys?  Ya, same story.  So now what?

Well...I have a spider.  He moved in over the kitchen sink the weekend we were out of town, and I've left him there for 2 weeks now.  He's caught ants and fruit flies and who knows what else...it's hard to tell what the little mummies might have started off as.  I am one of those people who really do NOT like spiders.  There are some crazies who catch them in their house and set them free outside.  Crazies!!  Not me.  I usually smash them, spray them, electrocute them, flush them, whatever.  Their demise is my comfort.

But not this time.  This little daddy long-legs is my friend and I like it.  I even put a chunk of overripe banana under his web to attract the fruit flies so he wouldn't move away!  Yep, I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier over here.

At any rate, my new friend certainly doesn't help with what's going on out in the yard or at the beach, but bugs are allowed to be outside, I suppose.  Next year I will get a new bug-zapping tennis racket to take everywhere with me!  In the meantime, just call me spider mom!

The. Worst. Salesperson. Ever.

That's me, you know.  I really stink.

Unfortunately for me, it's what I do.  I sell products...right?  Ya, sorta, I guess.  As if we needed more evidence of me being a poor salesperson, there's that last sentence to really drive it home.  *Sigh*

A little background info for anyone who doesn't know me:  I am a distributor for Shaklee.  I sell green cleaners, whole food vitamin supplements, skin care, body care, childrens vitamins & body stuff, weight loss...all the most pure and organic and chemical free.  It's a great company, Shaklee even consults to the U.S. Pharmacopaeia and sets standards of purity and quality all over the world.  No other supplement company can compare to Shaklee's research (though some have tried to pass it off as their own!) or Shaklee's quality and purity.  And you can take that to the bank.

I do pretty well, too, if I may say so myself.  I am solidly contributing to our household finances, have no other (outside of the house) job and no plans to get one either.  I helped finance a complete bathroom remodel, I pay for our family's gym membership and cell phones, and even have some left over.  Lucky for me this stuff typically sells itself.  Especially the cleaning stuff...I do a demo and it's undeniable...the stuff works great.  Easy peasy.  And the nutrition...once you try it you realize what you've been missing, and it's hard to go back knowing how good you can feel.  Good stuff to sell when you're a sucky salesperson, huh?  Ha!! 

I know some really good salespeople.  Many have excellent advice on what to say, what responses to give when someone says 'no', different strategies, etc.  I listen to their advice and end up thinking what different people we are, and what works for them as a salesperson isn't going to work for stinky me cause I'm just not aggressive like that.  My salespitch?  Just try it.  Yep, that's all I got.

Instead of a salesperson, I fancy myself an educator.  Go ahead, you know you're thinking it...well la dee da, she fancies.  Yep, I fancy.  I'm obviously interested in health, nutrition, fitness, and the environment, and I talk about it anyway, right?  Uh, YEAH.  Sit down and listen, I'll tell you all kinds of stuff about the products you use or the food you eat that'll make your hair curl.  I've read, I've researched, I've tried stuff, I've experimented.  I'm a firm believer and I want others to believe too, so that they can live healthier lifestyles and feel better and be better and live longer and look younger, etc etc.  It's out of the goodness of my heart, not because I want to sell people stuff.  If Target sold Shaklee, I'd tell people to go there and buy it.  If I wasn't a distributor, I'd still tell people not to use bleach or ammonia or Magic Erasers or air fresheners.  I'd still say 'read your labels!' and talk about how high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils are bad for you.  Eat your organic fruits and vegetables, stop drinking milk, soda is the devil and artificial sweeteners are his spawn.  The chemicals in cleaners and body products will give you cancer, irritate (or cause) asthma, build up in your body and make you sick, sick sick.  Many vitamins are not usable by your body because they are synthetic and you won't absorb them.  Many vitamins and protein products have been badly processed and won't give you the benefits you think you are getting.  Stick around, folks cause I've got plenty more.

And that's how I do it.  I educate, I don't sell.  I educate people so that they can make better and healthier choices, and of course I have those healthier choices available...it is a business after all.  I don't sell them a product as a replacement for what they have without telling them why...what's the point in that?  If you educate them, they will get there on their own and their level of loyalty will be greater than you could hope for. And when people are making the choice of their own volition instead of feeling pressured from a salesperson, they feel better about the choice and will move forward with it. 

Think you can do it?  Talk to people about what matters to you?  Give other people the knowledge you have acquired and help them make better choices - steer them in a better direction?  Sure you can.  Educate your friends, family, neighbors, and even complete strangers, and watch the sales roll in.  If I can do it, you can do it.  Really.  No, really really.

Sooo, are you ready?

Who are you, anyway?

As many are, my business is about people.  I also like to get in other people's business, but that's neither here nor there.  My business is to help people get as healthy as possible, educate them so they make better choices, and heckle them incessantly until they listen to me.  FYI, I like being listened to.

Part of the social marketing training process is to figure out your 'sphere of influence'.  This is anyone and everyone that you 'touch'.  NO, you perv, not literally.  If your life touches their life in some way, they can be counted in your sphere.  Most of us have several hundred people we can count, whether we realize it or not.  Family, friends, co-workers, those are just the obvious.  The ones you might not think of...the lady at the post office, the one that stands behind you at Body Pump and admires your triceps, the cashier at the grocery store.  People that you don't even know their name, or in some cases, what they look like. Lots of people, lots and lots, influencing each other all over the place.

What we directly or indirectly influence people to do is a big part of who we are.  So, who are you?  And, now that you know that you have the potential to influence so many...what would you influence them to do?

Be trendy and wear particular clothes, or a particular bag.  Use a particular type of cell phone.  Wear a particular brand of work out clothes.  Walk a certain dog wearing a certain sweater on a particular street?  Maybe, but these things we can do without trying, and without making the other person's life any better or any worse.  I'm not a big fan of small dogs so I'd have to say maybe in the case of the dog it would be worse, but whatever.

How about if you set out specifically to influence people to only buy certain types of food or start a healthy eating plan?  Or to start a workout program?  It would probably improve the person's quality of life, and there you go being influential in a GOOD way.  Nice job, you!!  Doesn't it feel good?!

That's why I do what I do.  It makes me feel good.  It's part of who I am and I spread it around like butter, on everyone and everything I touch.  Shut up, that's not gross.  Our sphere of influence grows and changes all the time.  The opportunities that come up with these changes are invaluable to us, no matter what we are influencing.  I want to be sure that I am influencing positively, and I hope you do too.  Of course, being in business, there are business aspects to influencing my sphere too.

I was at a Shaklee event this past weekend where there were 12 guests, all part of my sphere.  They listened and learned, and bought a bunch of stuff that will improve their quality of life.  I'm influencing people in a very positive way that makes them feel good and be healthier. They will tell their families and friends, go to work and tell their co-workers, and onward and upward it grows and grows.  That's how I've grown my business as much as I have and have the success that I do, and you could too, by the way.  Sphere of influence!  And I can say with satisfaction that I'm a pretty darn good influence.  Who. I. Am.

So, have you figured it out yet?  You've got to be careful with this, cause it's a powerful tool - use the power of your sphere for good not evil!  If you would...think about it.  Then answer the question, and be sure to tell me cause inquiring minds want to know.

Who are you, anyway?

The Ghosts of Products Past

As I am sure many of you did, I grew up with bleach, ammonia, Tide, Downy, Mr. Bubble, and Twinkies.  Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies were the best, and who can forget your mom's Diet Chocolate Fudge Soda, chock full of artificial sweeteners and who knows what else.  Remember getting the first Equal gumballs in the newspaper insert?  I do, and I ate the first one (and I still don't like aspartame).  The tub got scrubbed with the worst of the worst cleaners, and then we soaked up the residue in our baths.  Baby powder fights, weird concoctions of lotions to slather on, bare hands touching chemicals of all kinds.  To compound my chemical exposure, when I was a teenager I got a job at a pet store.  Every day, I would go in and bleach the heck out of the puppy kennels...with bare hands, inhaling the fumes.  But we all turned out ok, didn't we?

Ok, let's not actually answer that.

The first green products I learned about were for cleaning.  One day I was bleaching my kitchen floor...the next day I was packing up all the toxic stuff and sending it off to the garage.  I started using Seventh Generation, Method, Green Works, and a few others.  They were expensive and not usually effective, but I was dedicated to using green products and stuck with them.  (This was before I discovered Shaklee).

Very shortly after my cleaning product revelation came my enlightenment about personal products.  I packed up all our Pantene, Bath & Body Works, Johnson's and whatnot, and offered the fuller bottles to my mom and sister.  What they didn't absorb (no pun intended) got squirted into the garbage or the toilet, and the bottle recycled.  Ya, seriously, I stood there and emptied each bottle so I could recycle it.  Who DOES that?  Anyway, I was left with a few items I couldn't get rid of 'just in case' and of course I get stuff now and then that I'll never use...whether by gift or freebie or whatever.  These unusables get stashed away and forgotten.

In my quest to replace everything we ever use anywhere, there was definitely a trial and error process.  There have been numerous natural products that have not worked out, and end up sitting in a cabinet or closet.  Just because it's natural or non-toxic doesn't mean it's going to work or be the right product for us.  The Beebs and I found that out the hard way.  After a very scary incident with an allergic reaction to the 'Fragrance' in a Burt's Bees baby wash (97.3% natural!), and a very humorous incident (I wasn't the one laughing) with a face wash/lotion for me where I ended up looking like I had lobster-red sunburn on my face, I realized that not everything from the health food store is going to automatically be the right product. 

So the question is:  Where do your abandoned products go?

Well, I suppose we can call it the product graveyard.  I've definitely got one and to my husband's chagrin it is in the garage.  A big old cardboard box full of Windex, bleach, wipes, bathroom cleaners, kitchen cleaners, floor cleaners and more; all full of the type of chemicals that I do NOT allow in my house anymore.  Pretty much all my Shaklee cohorts have a similar box in their garage.  And those personal products...?  Lucky for me I've got a little extra storage space in the bathroom closet.  I'll never use that paraben-laden sunscreen on the kids, or the lotions, or makeup, or hair products, but there it sits.  I don't even use perfume, though I have half-dozen bottles of it sitting in the closet.

Crazy, you say?  I'll admit to a little crazy.  But the thing is...I've done a lot of research on this stuff.  I might seem paranoid or over-the-top to some, and others might say they are way too attached to their signature fragrance or mascara or favorite bathroom cleaner to ever give it up.  Fine.  I'm not trying to convince you to give up what you love.  Do what you want.  But be informed about what it is you are bringing into your home or putting on your body, especially if you have kids at home. I could use this opportunity to tell you how great and green and non-toxic everything Shaklee makes is and how that's mostly what we use now, but me selling you better products is not the point here. 

The point is simply:  When you've come to your senses and learned enough about the ill-effects chemicals can have on your family's health, and you replace all your bad stuff with good stuff, there is a solution for all those unused products!  And it's not that you have to stand at your garbage can squirting out six bottles of Johnson's baby lotion!

The easiest and most economical way to get rid of these chemicals is to use them up.  Then you can recycle the bottle and be done with it.  If you don't want to do that, and I don't blame you for not, read on.

Toxic products can't actually be recycled, per se.  Disposing of chemicals improperly can cause a lot of environmental problems like soil and water contamination...check out what happens from chemical runoff.  You can take your stuff to a hazardous waste collection facility, or most communities often host events for gathering all the unwanted products...and some even do it year-round.  Contact your village or your local solid waste or sanitation department to find out when and where you can take yours.  Hopefully there isn't some dude in each town with a garage full of cardboard boxes...

For anyone who didn't notice the first time...let me point out that these products are considered hazardous waste!  If they have to be taken to a hazardous waste collection facility to be disposed of...why are you using them in your home?!?!

To find out what products are bad, check out this awesome glossary, or visit EWG and Cosmetics Database. To get the green and non-toxic products that you now know are much better for you, go here. My intention is to educate you about healthier products so you can make better choices.  If your choices include Shaklee, great.  If not, that's ok too.  I am just as happy hearing that you learned something here and will stop using the toxic chemicals you've read about!!