Take Your Vitamins

We all know we should take our vitamins but remembering every morning and going through all the bottles can be more time than we have in real life. One little thing that can help the cause is to take an egg container and drop the daily dose into each egg slot.

A fussy point: since I buy local, organic eggs I get the cardboard style with the grooves in the bottom. It makes digging the vitamins out a little bit of a pain. I would imagine the Styrofoam ones with smooth bottoms would be better idea if you can find them.

Crazy About Cleaning Products

As my baby became mobile, so did his mouth. He was licking floors, doors and the dishwasher at every turn. I was envisioning him ingesting Pine-Sol and 409 coated grime. Being both a germaphobe and a first time mom, I ran down to Whole Foods to see what natural cleaning products I could find and I wasn’t impressed with the selection. I had heard about the Method brand, so I went online and found a great website - www.methodhome.com. Their tagline is “(they use) ingredients that come from plants, not chemical plants”. I use their counter spray, tub and tile cleaner, floor cleaner, wood polish, window wash, stainless steel cleaner and leather wipes. They’re all great products and everything is safe and non-toxic. So, when my little one is kissing the refrigerator, I can relax and let him be a kid.

Traveling with Lovies

If you have a child who has a security blanket, bear, lamb or the something similar, and you find yourself taking an airplane trip, here's a bit of good advice I got from a worn-out stewardess: put a luggage tag on the "Lovie". "You wouldn't believe how many get left behind and we have no way to get it to the family later on." You can use the freebies they give you at the counter. I sold the idea to my son by telling him it was our way of keeping Lamby safe. He liked that idea and didn't seem to mind the clumsy luggage label strapped to his beloved's leg.

Basic HTML - How to make text or images clickable

I'm trying to figure out how to make text or images linkable. This post will be my experiment. I'm going to search for some tutorial then try out my neophyte HTML skills in this post.

AbFab Clips

Okay, that worked!

I can't seem to paste in the code that I used without it rendering as readable text, so instead, I'll say Visit About.com to learn more.

By the way, work on the Edit HTML. When I tried to paste on the Compose tab, it didn't work.

Hope this cryptic post leads you to figure it out, too.

Sleeping Habits

Somewhere in between mismatched flower laden twin bed sheets of my youth and my current multiple sets of ironed, white, sometimes monogrammed something above 400 and below 1000 thread-count sheets I did a lot of sheet testing (aka sleeping around). In my practice, I tried pragmatic solid, flannel colored sheets from L.L. Bean, hippy style paisleys from the local Tibetan shop and dusty-I-wish-it-could-look-like-a-Calvin-Klein-photo-shoot-but-instead-it-looks-like-a-bad-case-of-indecision. Nothing fit me quite like white and nothing felt quite as good as high, high thread count.

I like to have a replacement set as soon as I strip the bed which means, since I have 6 pillows on my bed, I need at least 12 pillow cases on hand and at least one full extra set of sheets. So, how to do this within financial reason? Simply put, there is no better option than overstock.com. If you go there to shop, prepare to spend a bit of time hunting for the right color and read all the descriptions. I've ordered from there twice and have been more than happy. I used to have a bad Company Store habit, esp. because they'd tempt me with 15% offers, but even with their deals, overstock ends up being the best deal out there. (even better than amazon.)

If you are cultivating a child with indulgent tastes in bedding, there are solutions for him/her, too. I've had several sleep sack success stories from littlebigfoot.com. These euro style sleep sacks keep my son cozy and feeling secure. I don't have to worry about him getting cold at night, climbing out or getting tangled up in sheets. He, by the way, sleeps on 300+ thread count sheets from buybuybaby.com and his underneath is a lambswool pad called the Lamby Puddle Pad from Schneider's Baby in NYC. He has 2.

Lastly, now that he's getting to be as long as his pack and play, we're thinking about travel solutions. I'm debating between getting him a sheepskin rug like he uses at his daycare or getting him a travel cot (see "My Cot" and "Deluxe Travel and Trundle" from One Step Ahead). Any opinions?

Getting Through Morning Sickness While Taking Care of a Toddler

Those of us who have severe nausea due to pregnancy know that the term “morning sickness” is one of the biggest fallacies in the English language. The sickness for us can be morning, noon and night. The first trimester of expecting baby #2 (or 3…) can be the most challenging times for any mom. Changing diapers and preparing meals while on the verge of losing your cookies can be an awful experience.

I’ve tried every remedy suggested from B6 vitamins to ginger to mint tea to prescription medication and nothing relieved the nausea. What did take the edge off was acupuncture. Twice a week until I turned the corner. Good luck mommies, and hang in there!

How to RSS

RSS = Real Simple Syndication

What you get - if you use iGoogle or something similar, you can add this blog to your iGoogle page. The way you do this is to:
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d) Click add
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How to Host a Mom's Group Brunch

One word: Quiche.

Haircuts - sometimes a bargin's not quite a bargin

The best things in life may be free but this does not apply to two things: jeans and haircuts. I recently had my first non NY city cut and after a week of feeling 10 pounds heavier and completely resigned to suburban sameness, I took the scissors into my own hands and cleaned things up. I may not have done the artful job my beloved Todd would have done, but at least I don't see myself smiling back at myself in TV ads for dishwashing soap or Swifter products.

Cleaning the Blackstuff Off Glass Candle Holders

I love to light candles but I don't like when the smoke makes the candles look so dark. To get the black residue off, take a dry paper towel and wipe off.

Our Good Advice - Breaking the Seal

Our Good Advice is a blog set up by three four longtime friends who know a little bit about a lot of things but are masters of not much. As we come up with random daily flashes of wisdom we will post our lessons here for whomever cares to read about it. You may get some good tips and we may get a feeling for each other's lives.

Who are we? We're moms, wives and professionals. In what order changes daily. We've met in college in Boulder, Co. Moved on to New York then scattered out to Santa Fe, Philadelphia and Portland, ME.

Enjoy and let us know what you think.