Who doesn’t love a field trip? I love seeing my kid happily preparing for a special outing at school. And even though my own “field trips” have been replaced by conferences, I get just as excited about all the cool workshops, networking and presentations as I did when I was a kid. It’s so inspiring to break out of your daily routine and learn new things in new ways.

In July I am really hoping to go to BlogHer ’13- a huge conference for trailblazing women bloggers. This year it’s in Chicago and the schedule looks amazing. Topics range from education reform to vlogging, technology to crowd funding. All amazing stuff that will get my creative wheels in motion. Not to mention all the connections to be made and cool people to meet!

The reasons I want to go to BlogHer ’13 are both personal and professional. My business and life are closely intertwined. I work from home as I raise the nicest kids I possibly can. The goals of my business are simple yet meant to make a big impact:
Inspire.  Through excellent examples, interviews, ideas and observations, I help clients create that spark that gets them going.
Empower.  Provide resources, how-tos, demonstrations, reports, guides and videos to break down difficult processes so they can be done with ease.
Promote wellness.  Celebrating life in fun, healthy, beautiful ways.
Educate.  I love sharing knowledge with people.  I enable my clients to make informed decisions with less stress and learn to live in alignment with their goals.
Increase flexibility.  I am a nomad at heart.  My business serves those who want to learn according to their own schedules and needs.

I believe attending BlogHer ’13 is an extension of these goals and will strengthen not only my own online efforts but help me helps others even better than ever. I believe in doing work that matters and that after a fine trip to Chicago, I’ll be better at and doing more of what I love, and helping other do the same. Doesn’t that sound lovely? Hope to see you there!

Full disclosure: This post was inspired by The Mission List, a fab group of bloggers for social change. I’ve been a member since the beginning and it’s been an incredible source of inspiration. I’ve learned about and gotten to blog about topics I care about such as cool family app Karoo as well as critical issues regarding women’s rights in the Half the Sky Movement and human rights in No Kid Hungry campaigns. Besides all that social goodness the Mission List is running a contest to send one of its members to BlogHer see how cool they are?! If you are interested in joining, click here to sign up. Let them know I sent you.

What you need:
1 cup quinoa, rinsed and cooked
1/2 english cucumber finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper finely chopped
1 cup grape tomatoes but in half (if you have the good fortune of a variety of fresh cherry and grape tomatoes of different colors use them, it’ll be great)
1/3 cup (or more if you love olives) Kalamata olives coarsely chopped
1/2 cup feta
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley and basil finely chopped
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
a splash or two of the olive liquid
Fresh ground pepper if you like

Cut everything up with care and good intentions, mix and share with loved ones. Who else would you share it with really? This makes a large quantity, but you’ll be happy to have leftovers.

note: I make a medium sized batch and store it in an old dish soap bottle so that I don’t have to make it too often. And your kids can help you make this and learn that you don’t have to buy everything from a store and mine are pretty excited about the idea of making their own soap.

Dish soap

1 cup Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap -try the scent you like best, I use peppermint to lavender.
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon tea tree oil

Mix the hot water and washing soda together first, otherwise you get a clumpy mess on your hands that will clog your dispenser and be no fun to use.

Then just add all the other ingredients. Mix and you’re done.

What this dish soap is: an easy natural soap that makes your dishes clean, smells nice, is easy to rinse and easy to make. And I love how it doesn’t strip all the moisture out of my hands like commercial soaps. You’ll say “oh yes, please” to these dish-pan hands.

What this dish soap is not: A crazy sudsy lather (the kind you are probably used to). It isn’t thick, it’s rather watery, this takes some getting used to, the washing soda is a thickener but still, it’s pretty much like water. Also, I don’t think it’s a *major* grease fighter. I don’t cook a lot of meat or greasy dishes, so I use this soap every day and it meets my needs. If I have tough stains I use a baking soda and hot water soak (together these will break down burned greasy food deposits in a way that will make you laugh with delight).

Best use policy: I store my soap in a pump dispense, looks pretty and is easy to use. If I am doing a lot of dishes, I put a couple of tablespoons of the liquid in a bowl and add hot water, then I use this to dip my sponge into. Because the soap doesn’t lather a lot and is very watery, if you rely on your deeply ingrained dish soap habits to determine how much to use, you will use up your soap so quickly you’ll likely end up discouraged and vow to buy soap from now on. But really, just give yourself a chance to get used to it. I had a moment of DIY fatigue and bought some natural-seeming soap and it was basically the same as my homemade soap but without the homemade pride and probably cost more, so then I did a reverse vow of planning to continue my own soap making and just make a larger quantity, which has been working great.

Make at home mom behind the scenes info: You probably feel like you don’t have time to do this, and you might not, but don’t let that stop you. While attempting to make this soap this a.m. the following events occurred.

I made the unhappy discovery that my soap stash was depleted, and that I had to make more. I had no choice. So I open the pantry door and…my 2 yr. old shouts that she wants to get dressed. I help her pick her outfit, walk back to the kitchen and wonder what I had been thinking a moment before. I start to do something else when I remember that I had been thinking about my dish soap. I start getting out the ingredients, I have half the stuff piled on my cluttered counter top (damn you cluttered counter top!) and meanwhile my 5 yr. old is hiding under a blanket eating goldfish and drinking milk while my 2 yr. old pours the rest of the bag of goldfish into one of those plastic applesauce cups and exclaims “Uh-oh!” because all the goldfish are now all over a wooden box and the floor.

I move a large stuffed bag aside to clean up the goldfish and the 2 yr. old starts jumping on the bag, I pick up the wooden box to sweep just as my 2 yr. old runs by me and right into the corner of the box. She starts screaming and I rush to get an icepack, my 5 yr. old, still under the blanket, demands to know what happened. I hug and kiss my 2 yr. old, she continues to scream, I have one of those mommy moments where I want to cry too, but I don’t, I just hold on…and then I get everyone pretty much contented and the mess cleaned up.

Oh ya, my soap. I contemplate asking my 5 yr. old to help, because I know he loves to, but decide against it –I get out the rest of the ingredients, and measure. And tell the kids to go play in their room with that thing so no one else gets hurt, and then I get pretty much everything mixed together. Something else happened that I can’t even remember now but at some point I had the mixture dispersed in about 3 different containers and I am not sure why anymore, but finally, it all got done.

The important thing is not to give up. It’s soap, it’s very forgiving, you can leave it half done on the counter and give some hugs and make up a distracting game for the kids and it’ll still be there waiting for you and not burnt or nasty, like dinner tends to do sometimes.

In addition to providing an amazing service of educating all of us about the risks and benefits of certain ingredients, Jean was providing samples of a really cool line of skin care called ARBONNE.

I happily sniffed, applied, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the deliciously rich creams and their yummy light fragrances and of course I jumped at the chance to take home a few samples

The baby care line is great. I truly wish I had known about this product when my kids were babies. I searched really hard for stuff like this without ever really finding something that nailed it like these did.

My kids tried and loved everything–it was fun how excited they were about the cute simple drawings on the packaging. The hair & body wash lathers super well and washes off easily-so important when rinsing a squirmy baby! The lotion is non-greasy, goes on smoothly and absorbed easily. My son exclaimed “It feels soft!” The herbal diaper rash cream is awesome. My daughter only wears diapers at night but still get irritated from time to time. I put a small amount of the cream on before bed and the little bit of pink she had was all gone by the morning. Something every mom wants. It also is not crazy thick or weirdly oily like different creams I’ve tried. And I’ve tried lots. It’s been rainy so I haven’t tried the sunscreen yet, but another mom told me it works really well and offer great protection.

Jean was also nice enough to let me try some anti-aging creams. They are truly luxurious. I personally don’t follow a very comprehensive skin care regimen but I definitely fell in love with the eye cream and the facial wash -two thing I am super picky about.

Want to learn more? Here’s Jean’s Bio:
Jean Warnock is on a mission to empower women to recognize their best selves by nourishing mind,
body, and spirit. She believes that every single soul on this green earth has a personal blueprint to
wellness and wants to help you discover it!

You can check out the skincare products Jean recommends at jeanwarnock.myarbonne.com. She openly welcomes all questions and would love hear from you!