World of Pets Expo, Timonium MD, January 29-31, 2010
Note from Wren Tuatha: HCD was asked to pass on this press release for this fun event due to our participation last year, as Heathcote Earthings. We had loads of fun (I got to touch a snake–edgy for me! ) but be aware that this animal event may not be as animal rights oriented, as some HCD readers might hope. We were very concerned about the sale of sugar gliders by Pocket Pets, Incorporated, and the display of wild animals in a loud, crowed venue. Otherwise, we had a blast and made some great new friends!
For Immediate Release Contact: Jeanne Emge
410-374-5964 or 800-882-9894
www.worldofpets.org
Celebrate the World of Pets Expo & Educational Experience, January 29, 30, 31, 2010
Thousands of items from parrot perches, live performers, workshops, pet first aid and more!
(Timonium, MD) – In today’s world, pets aren’t just animal companions, they’re often the favorite family members with their own personalized dinner ware, special sleeping places, custom diet, fitness plans and more. Some pets are simply pampered, others perform for their own and their companions’ amusement, still others are working animals with a serious job to do.
You can see all of these animals – along with a host of toys, treats and tricks – at the World of Pets Expo, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, January 29, 30, 31, 2010 at the MD State Fairgrounds:
“We’ve got something for everyone from the serious pet enthusiast to the casual pet admirer, including a chance to show off your pet in the “Parade of Breeds” explains Jeanne Emge, President of Premier Events, the producer of the Expo. “Exhibitors will fill the 165,000 square foot Cow Palace with thousands of products and services for pets. Some of the country’s foremost authorities in the pet industry will present seminars and demonstrations covering practically every aspect of pet care and training. It’s fun and educational – just a great day out for all ages! This is probably the best $$ value for family entertainment & education. Pets are welcome too! See all the details at www.worldofpets.org “
Expo shopping offers hundreds of booths with a wide variety of exhibitors featuring thousands of items – everything imaginable for your pet and for pet lovers. From pet essentials, to pet training products, to pet-themed home décor, the World of Pets Expo is the place to be if you are a pet lover.
Pets covered in the seminars include dogs, cats, birds, fish, reptiles, ferrets and other animals. In addition to the shopping extravaganza and the seminar series, there will be continuous entertainment and demonstrations by nationally known pet organizations, an AKC Dog Agility Trial, interactive/educational presentations with live animals, a Parade of Breeds and more! Highlights include:
World of Cats ACFA Cat Show – presented by Hidden Paw Cat Club
AKC Dog Agility Trial – presented by Oriole Dog Training Club
Extreme Reptile Exhibit
Classic K-9s – Performing World Record High Jump, Grand Prix Racing and High Speed Relays
Wild World of Animals – Educational and Fun Reptile Presentation.
Johnny Peers Muttville Comix
Free Seminars
Intensive Workshops for the Serious Enthusiast – Pre – registration required.
Boogie Woogie BowWows – Dancing w/Dogs
Grooming Demos – learn technique from professionals
Gerbil Show – presented by the American Gerbil Society
And much more – see www.worldofpets.org for the full show schedule!
Expo hours are Friday, January 29, from 2 pm to 8 pm, Saturday, January 30, from 10 am to 8 pm and Sunday, January 31, from 10 am to 6 pm. Admission is $9 for adults, $5 ages 5-12 and FREE for children under age 5. Tickets available at the door. Ticket sales cash only. Heated facility and Great Food!
Entry forms for the Cat Show and Workshops are available on-line at www.worldofpets.org
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Rita Jane to the Rescue
I was privately saying this would be our last year selling Heathcote Earthings at the York Fair. Sales have been fine, but when we figure in the high fairgrounds booth rental, the numbers weren’t so impressive. But it seems the fair organizers have hired a consultant (I saw a car painted with that info on the grounds) and they’ve added new attractions. Result for us: a good year!
I was worried about our new location; The new circus took over our building and we were moved to Memorial Hall West, across from the restrooms. The across from the restrooms part, I like! But people are managing to discover us there, and remember us!
Each year at York, Rita Jane from Crystal Cottage helps me in my booth, after I spend eleven days helping the Crystal Cottage folks in their booth at the Maryland State Fair.
I appreciate having Rita Jane help because she’s taught me much of what I know about jewelry making. She’s been at it for twenty years.
This year she’s been helping me catch up on restocking baltic birch, gemstone, pewter and cat’s eye earrings. And we have a fun new collection of ceramic peace signs for pendants. We also have been reintroducing some lampwork glass and foil glass pendants, old favorites.
We finally have all this and sterling silver wrapped gemstone pendants on display at the York Fair, which runs through Sunday.
All our new shinies will be front and center for Mother Earth Harvest Fair at Spoutwood Farm in Glen Rock, PA on October 4th. This is the location of our favorite festival of every year, the Fairie Festival!!! Please join us for this up and coming fall version.
I’m organizing Intentional Communities to have networking/information tables at Mother Earth. So far, Heathcote, Twin Oaks and Acorn Communities are confirmed.
As I wrap up York and look to Mother Earth, many thanks to Rita Jane who’s been my rock while I work full tilt despite a lingering cold. You make me look good!!!
New Rule: No Saying, “No Touching”
The first weekend of the Howard County, Maryland Fair (“How Cow“) 2009 is through the chute. I am wiped out and hoarse, but also exhilarated to be camped out in the forest my beloved necklace branches and Karuna Arts batiks again. The sounds of customers tinking on the bamboo xylophone and rubbing the frog mating calls, shaking the juju bean rattles, tossing the cicada stones, etc.; These never get old for me.
Parents endlessly hissing, “Don’t touch anything,” that got old the first time.
I wouldn’t have packed fourteen tables to the gills with colorful shinies if I didn’t want little ones to touch them. When are parents going to read a book and get it that children are tactile and learn about their world through touch? “Don’t touch, just look,” they say. Duh. Children’s eyes are on their fingertips. They have to touch to look. Then there’s the enlightened, well meaning parent who says, “Look with your eyes…”
This is why I long ago decided my booth’s rule would be, “No leaving until you’ve touch everything. Now get busy!” Then I made the policy, “We don’t charge for breaking.”
I save broken things from Heathcote Earthings and my friends at Crystal Cottage in Roanoke, Virginia and I sell them on special scratch & dent tables at certain shows. How Cow is one of our clearance shows.
Nine times out of ten, however, when something gets broken, yours truly has done it, not someone’s grabby kid.
Besides developmental appropriateness, I also get frustrated with parents following their children around, pulling their paws back and barking, “don’t touch,” because if the parent is policing his or her kid, the parent isn’t shopping. I imagine that grumpy shopkeepers who are not also child development specialists have trained generations of parents to curb their kids. How does this not grind the economy to a halt?
My friend Herb, lovable curmudgeon that he is, follows greasy fingered tykes around his store, abandoning his pursuit of sales to do it. Granted, he sells more breakables than I do. And he pays young people to Windex fingerprints off his inventory. I skip this step mostly, and feel I have a measure of peace in life.
My observation about this drama is that, the shopkeeper isn’t focused on selling, the kid and the parent aren’t focused on buying. The store gets to keep its inventory, fingerprint free, and the parent and the customer who gets ignored get to keep their money. That’s one nice outcome but…
I have signs around my booth that read, “shoplifters will be hexed.” I often get asked if I’m worried about shoplifting at my booth, where so many tiny items are packed so tightly in a big space. My philosophy is the same for theft as for children. I don’t like it, but if I become paranoid and focus my attention on who in the crowd might be stealing, then I’m not focused on who in the crowd is ready to buy. I might catch a few sticky fingers if I try, but probably not. Their job is to steal and they’re good at it. I’m not a detective. I’m not good at that. I have some talent for sales. Let’s all stick with what we’re good at.
–WT
No Chocolate for the Localvore?
As I was writing my last post about my favorite chocolate bar, something was eating at me. I wasn’t mentioning a priceless consideration we can make in our buying choices–locally made products! The omission bothered me, as I am both diligent and inconsistent about promoting this idea.
I vend at festivals and fairs in my region, promoting fair trade crafts, which I buy from fair trade wholesalers and charities, such as Ten Thousand Villages, Northern Sun, Gypsy Rose and ethical American companies and non-profits such as Karuna Arts, Native Scents and Aurora Glass. Choosing winning products from their catalogs and websites is quite easy, compared to choosing from the river of local artists, hobbyists and craftspeople who ask me to turn their tinkerings into gold. Locals following a creative outlet haven’t always checked the marketplace to decide what they should make. There are lucky guesses–Duct tape wallets are wildly popular!
But nothing is simple. I make jewelry, so to see me at a festival and buy from me would seem “local.” But my gemstones, findings, etc., come from all over the world, under all conditions imaginable. And I’ll bet the kid who makes the duct tape wallets isn’t holding out for duct tape made locally, from local materials. I imagine my Amish neighbors who do a fine business with outdoor sheds choose the cheapest wood, not the most local.
Like my favorite localvore and online mascot the wiselittleraccoon, my partner Iuval is looking for land to found a new intentional community, one in which members participate in a much more local economy, getting by with very little and making most of their basic needs. In this new/old model, most people would participate directly in growing nearly all of their food, including grains.
I know truckloads of gardeners and farmers. Some grow 5-10% of their food. Others grow nearly all the fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts they need. Grain seems to be another story, a final frontier.
With farmers’ markets, backyard and community gardens, CSA’s, etc, buying food locally seems to be comparatively easy, if not cheap. Government subsidies and other factors make commercial foods much cheaper than local organics. I love being right each time I repeat, “You get what you pay for…”
But as filmmaker Annie Leonard points out in The Story of Stuff, the trinkets and plastic crap we seem to think we need leave wakes of environmental and social distruction (slavery, child labor, unsafe working conditions). In my life, learning to live without “stuff” is the first step. This has been easy since I pared down from a four bedroom Victorian to a ten-by-twelve foot stone springhouse and commune life. In that process, I got clear that “stuff” doesn’t make me happy; It doesn’t fill that spiritual empty box. People do; Nature does. A dog is just the greatest. Stuff, not so much.
Now if I decide something is a need, not a want, I have mental flow charts to navigate. Can I get it made of anything except plastic? Made locally, of local materials? Union shop or crafter? Organic? Minimal packaging? Locally owned retailer? Will online shopping save or add to fuel consumption?
As of this writing, chocolate is still listed as a “need,” although I have friends who never partake because cacao can’t be grown in their area. We’re all hiking in different places along the green trail. My backpack still contains chocolate. And a car. And my own detatched cabin I share with only my family. And a cellphone, my mac mini, and the Firefly boxed set…
Shiny!
Organic/Orgasmic Chocolate…Easy on the Sugar
OMG, the post about the guy living in a cave will have to wait. I want to stop and do a little dance around this blog because my ever loving Iuval just returned from running errands in civilization and, despite pressuring me for days not to crave them, he brought me two of my favorite organic chocolate bars!
I discovered this bar about a month ago at Saubel’s, the nearest locally owned grocery to Heathcote Community. Saubel’s has an extensive “organic marketplace,” sort of a health food store inside a conventional grocery.
Since I live in an intentional community, I don’t have to do grocery shopping. I am a member of a food coop and most of what I eat is grown in our gardens or delivered wholesale once a month to the mill, our main building and conference center. I have my own kitchen at Hina Hanta, my little homestead. But for breakfast and lunch I prefer to climb down the wooded path to the mill and eat in the common kitchen. Most dinners are community meals, members taking turns cooking their vegetarian specialties. (I’m known as the sauce queen.)
So walking through most groceries is a surreal experience for me, the once or twice a year I need something therein. Sugary this, over packaged that, the lighting, the colors, the muzak; If I ever need surgery again they could just wheel me into a grocery store with all that hegemonic stimulation and I’d be anesthetized.
But I manage to keep my wits about me in Saubel’s “organic marketplace.” I wander there for the occasional homeopathic drops or herbal flea remedy. That’s probably how I discovered this chocolate bar. It is dark milk chocolate, 40% cacao, with puffed grains, not rice crispies, but oats, wheat, rice, rye, barley and millet.
The brand, Seeds of Change, donates 1% of it’s “net sales to advance the cause of sustainable organic agriculture worldwide,” hopefully planting things other than more cacao…
I’ve been a connoisseur of such chocolate for years. I hear people using colorful jargon to describe fine wines or even beers and bourbons. I am a chocolate snob. I appreciate it’s “nose” and “bouquet.” Despite living only 56.99 miles, one hour and four minutes away from Hershey, Pennsylvania, I have little use for that town’s famous watery, over sugared brown stuff.
Brands picked up by health food stores are often themselves the kind of consumers many of us try to be, making informed choices about labor, trade, ingredients, packaging, etc. There are often many vegan bars to choose from. I used to buy a vegan milk chocolate bar, made with ricemilk (left). Usually organic and/or fair trade, such bars are often “fruit juice sweetened,” not “cane juice” or sugared.
Click this link to read just a few of the environmental problems with the sugar industry, even in America. The article doesn’t mention air pollution from the seasonal burning of the sugar cane fields, which I observe every time I visit relatives in Florida. (This is one more senseless hit for the Everglades, a priceless ecosystem, half of which has already being drained.) A Brizilian study found a 21% increase in respiratory illness in the elderly, 31% for children, during their burning season. Sugarcane used in Coca-Cola has been revealed to be harvested by child labor.
When I indulge in a muffin from a bakery, it is so packed with sugar my teeth hurt. When I make sweets at home, I usually use 1/2 or 1/3 the sugar called for (or use honey), and can’t tell the difference. Why grow so much sugar in the first place?
Health food store chocolatiers understand that they’re not selling you a sugar flavored candy bar. They let the sweetener step back and be a supporting instrument in this symphony. And they understand that the melody is sweeter when the golden rule is applied to all.
Like many such companies, Seeds of Change combines entrepreneurship and sustainability. Celebrating their 20th anniversary, “Seeds of Change was born in 1989 with…a pretty ambitious two-pronged mission: To preserve the biodiversity of the world’s food supply by creating the largest and most diverse organic seed stock ever propagated, and to advance the cause of sustainable agriculture around the globe.”
Great work! This particular bar I’m in love with, Isle of Skye, with dark milk chocolate and grain puffs, is currently made with sugar. How about fruit juice or honey, folks? The work is a journey…
Lessons from the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival
So our third year at Baltimore’s Beer Bourbon & BBQ Festival is history. So is our participation, I think. It seems the festival has grown larger and more corporate and louder. It was so loud I couldn’t hear myself leave my body. But when someone on one end of the hall would drop the glass they’d been issued with admission, meaning, I assume, that their drinking was done, festival goers from one end to the other would shout a wave of mourning and sympathy through the hall. This happened a lot.
As people became tipsy, their explorations of our fair trade wares were at least amusing. One young man, regarding our onyx carvings, mused, “It’s like, turtles…only made outta ROCK!!!”
So as I look ahead to our schedule for 2009, I hope you find helpful these lessons I take with me in case we do similar shows:
- When selling to drunk people, wear washable shoes. Sorry to start with this. I know you’re thinking vomit. In fact, the reason is that when they go to dig change out of their wallets, they don’t realize they’re pouring their drink onto their salesperson’s feet.
- Drunk people say, “Keep the change,” with strange frequency, sometimes to statements like, “May I help you?”
- Don’t cry over spilled crystals. Don’t cry over things spilled into your crystals. Cry over things spilled into purses.
- Beverage-themed festivals should provide extra restroom facilities or locate my booth near tall shrubry.
- Pretzel necklaces go with everything.
- Five-gallon buckets of water aren’t good enough sandbags for an EZUp canopy in thirty mile-per-hour wind. If you see a row of canopies so anchored, don’t park downwind of them.
- Drunk people sometimes want to hug their festival vendors as if we were hosting The Price Is Right and they’ve just won something. Yes. Show them what they’re won, Wren! “You’ve won a shopping spree at Heathcote Earthings! This includes a menora made from a recycled bicycle chain, all the treetop angels left over from last year, and five pounds of fancy jasper, which I think is cool but no one seems to want! Will that be cash or check?”
Not my crowd.
I’m on the road to Arkansas, to visit my partner Iuval as he searches for land to form an Intentional Community. Watch for posts on my adventures!
Pope Condom Attack–There’s a Greener Way!
P.S. The links keep coming in. Thanks, facebook & gaia.com friends! I’ll sort through them and try to contact the orgs, to see 1) if they want condoms mass mailed to them, and 2) if there’s support that’s more relevant to them. I’ll post the results ASAP!
People, people people. Dude thinks he has The One True God talking in his ear. He’s got no need to back down on anything he says. I assume we all know the action of sending millions of condoms to the Pope is to raise awareness among people who are not the Pope.
Given that, although the gimmick of mailing condoms to the Pope and asking him to distribute them in Africa is dramatic, is it worth the environmental impact of those millions of condoms being produced, shipped, wholesaled, shipped, bought, mailed, received and thrown into an Italian landfill?
I recall about twenty years ago, back in Louisville, Kentucky, when an Alderman reversed his position, deciding not to support adding “sexual orientation” to the city’s list of classes protected from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation. We activists and supporters of the local Fairness campaign sent the alderman actual flip flops. It got a lot of press. His office was inundated with beach footwear.The alderman didn’t flip his position back again for several years. But our point was made to the city of Louisville.
Now, a prickly difference here is that we weren’t sending flip flops to a public figure who was opposed to the wearing of shoes. I assume that his staff carted them off to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the Home of the Innocents, and whoever would use them. I bet that Alderman still has a few pair saved in his own size. All in good activist fun.
We know theater. But we can be dramatic and actually impactful at the same time.
I propose that we identify organizations already distributing condoms and mail our Pope prophylactics to the saints who will actually hand them out! We can send them in His Holiness’ name. And we can suggest that, if any condoms should fail, resulting in pregnancy, the child should be named Benedict…or Benedictine, if it’s a girl. Being from Kentucky, I love Benedictine. Kentucky is the state of fattening spreads–Benedictine, pimento cheese, beer cheese…Sorry, off topic!
I’m putting out some feelers to identify organizations that distribute condoms in Africa, for a start. Write me if you know of them. My guess is that money is tight for such groups and they would thank the Pope’s One True God if she would, through us, send them the condoms they need!
Or maybe they’re sitting on warehouses of donated condoms already and need some other distribution support. Can we wait a couple of news cycles and find out what is of most help?
It occurs to me that staging the activism on a bottom-up level might actually have an impact on the policies of the Catholic Church long term. What about mailing a condom to your local priest or bishop? Some of them are the future leadership of the Church, people who may be in a position to make directional shifts in the future, which are not likely for a standing Pope. A few pragmatic local priests might actually send the condoms to their local health clinic or Planned Parenthood under the table, and those could do more good before the landfill…
I’m Unitarian-Universalist and Pagan. So I imagine I have very simplified ideas about the Pope, the Catholic Church, the Vatican, and also the AIDS crisis in Africa, which I only know from the headlines, not the trenches. But I have been in the trenches of the green and simplicity movements for decades. I know how to screen for my impact in the choices I make as a consumer, an educator, an activist, an animal living on the planet. So it’s my knowledge that is sending up alarms, and sending me into brainstorming on topics out of my area. But that’s the wonderful thing about this internet: Some of you have the pieces I’m missing.
The following links were suggested by facebookers, members of the various groups that formed around the call to send the Pope condoms:
- http://www.avert.org/ I had previously found this group on my own first google search. I emailed them to ask if they were an organization who could accept and distribute donated condoms. They wrote back to say that, sadly, this is not their gig. But they gave me a list of about 10 NGO’s to contact. I’ll keep you posted.
- http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition/ a gaia.com friend sent me this Avert.org link to their related petition. Thanks!!!
- http://www.nazarethhousejohennesburg.org/ I visited this site when the link was posted and emailed them as well. Another group member asked the question on my mind–Being a religious charity, do they evangelize, or make religious requirements of the people they serve? The poster of the link implied that they don’t. But the site didn’t mention the issue, so I asked in my email. I tried to be respectful. I hope it doesn’t prevent me from getting a response. The pros and cons of this issue could be their own post. But for those of us outside of organized or mainstream religion, it’s important for our giving to be without strings attached.
- http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/Home.aspx “Marie Stopes International is one of the major distributors of male and female condoms,” according to Kara Hanas, my facebook friend in Oklahoma. She posted this link to their Wikipedia article, describing their “social marketing programmes” in 17 developing countries.
- http://guttmacher.org/ Kara suggests this site “in regards to AIDS statistics, unsafe abortion, and contraceptive use in Africa.”
She adds, “I have written many a paper over abortion and contraceptive use so if you have any questions please let me know. The argument is best made if stats are looked at as primary indicator rather than ethics of such a practice. Maybe look into the Rape Condom as well, its chilling. Also Botswana I believe is a stable democracy (freedom house indicators) and has been since the 60s; however, something like 60% or 65% of their population is infected with the virus. Look that up because I can’t remember off hand the number of HIV cases and AIDS cases. Lancet has some really good articles as well over contraceptive use and unsafe abortion…”
Clearly Kara has a wealth of research to share. Unfortunately for this posting, she’s under tons of snow and without internet to send me the links and research she and I discussed. I’ll follow up with those. Hmm. I wonder if, nine months from now, Oklahoma will see a boom of snowstorm babies. Maybe Kara is busy going door to door with her tin of condoms!
As always, I’d love to get your comments, on Hippie Chick Diaries, on facebook, or on my favorite green/alternative/activist networking site, gaia.com!
Earth Hour: Things for Hippies to Do in the Dark
“…it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from.” —Earth Hour website
Join Earth Hour, the annual movement to raise awareness by turning off your lights this Saturday, starting at 8:30 pm, local time wherever you are.
Now, some of you harried activists and eco-geeks who don’t spend a lot of time sitting under trees pondering what bug just crawled into your skirts might be wondering what you’re going to do for an hour in the dark.
If for some reason you need to eliminate sex as the answer (sports injury, recovery program, Mom visiting, whatever) here’s a list of ideas:
- Play Marco Polo with the mice in your veggie bus.
- Order Chinese delivery or pizza by sending owl calls down the block.
- Invent moon tea.
- Tell the history of the Rainbow Coalition in a puppet show using glow-in-the-dark condoms.
- Go caroling up and down your street, singing Holly Near and Shekhinah Mountainwater.
- Liberate race horses into suburban neighborhoods to replace gas-powered riding mowers.
- Have an egg hunt in your yard using those rotten ones you haven’t brought yourself to compost yet.
- Let the cat out and follow her. Back off if she becomes paranoid.
- Sneak into the Wal-Mart parking lot and paste every car with the bumper sticker, “Mall-Wart, Your Source for Cheap, Plastic Crap!”
- Find the most manicured lawn in your neighborhood and plant it in milkweed for making paper and fabric.
- Throw a series of glow-in-the-dark frisbees off a school building and see if anyone calls in a UFO sighting.
- Clean out the fridge by playing truth or dare with leftovers.
- Practice riding your exercise bike for when you figure out how to power the hot tub with it.
- Box up random items from each others’ rooms and take them to Goodwill, to work on unattachment.
- Perfect your impression of Leonard Cohen doing show tunes.
- Let the dog out and follow her. Be sure you have pruning shears, your picture ID and a change of socks with you. Twine is optional.
- Host a naked drum circle, massage party or sing along in your front yard and when the neighbors show up with the police, tell them you left your permit in your other pants.
- Figure out Morse Code using the light of your cell phone. Then use it to debate your neighbor across the road over the physics of What the Bleep…
Whatever activity or inactivity you choose, this is a wonderful chance to create community by unplugging. Or, if what you need from the hour is stillness, then here is a gift for you and the Earth! I’d love to hear your experiences afterwards!
World of Pets Expo, Timonium, Maryland 2009
Fair trade has arrived at the World of Pets Expo. This is Heathcote Earthings’ first year at the Expo, in its eighth year. and I’m glad we took the plunge! This is a huge, hoppin’ event! What fun to serve customers walking all manner of dogs. I’ve been offering a “sheltie discount” in honor of my own, but no shelties have taken me up on it yet!
I’m in a huge room of mostly pet related vendors, many of whom are giving away free samples. A neighbor gave me vegetarian dog treats, which Tuatha, Echo and Chance enjoyed so much that I can’t currently find the package, to tell you the brand! Besides vendors, the organizers have set up agility shows, comedy shows and interesting workshops.
There’s even a food vendor here with lots of vegetarian and vegan choices. I recognize them from the Spoutwood Fairie Festival!
I’ve moved many of our animal themed crafts to the front of the booth. I’m featuring our popular clay cat trio, pictured here. And I’m discounting some purses and ornaments and other crafts left over from the holiday season.
So come on out to the Timonium Fairgrounds and look for our tent hoops over the crowd, decorated with batik flags of dragons, fairies, etc. See you there!
Hippie Chick Power Lunch
I’ve just gotten back from a “power lunch” with my HippieChickDiaries.com IT team! Paul Phillips, Roni Noone and I are ready to take this site to the next level, bringing my complicated adventures in simple living to a larger audience.
We met at the Red Brick Station in White Marsh, Maryland. Roni, our blogging expert, posts about dieting so she knew this eatery would have a few nice vegetarian choices for me and Paul. He and I were wondering whether Red Brick Station would have any vegan choices, or if all the dishes would contain meat and/or cheese. I was pleased to see a couple of vegan options, although I was frustrated that all their salads come with meat. Roni ordered what I was about to order, the Katie’s Veggie Wrap, and she showed me a better way to have it: She substituted steamed veggies for the chips/coleslaw side. I copied her and had a guilt-free, feel-good meal.
A couple of years ago, I lost about 50 pounds. I did it the realistic, hard work way of reducing my portion sizes, avoiding sweets, fats and empty carbs and exercising my ass off. Roni also lost lots of weight a few years ago and began to blog about her experience. Her site caught on and now she blogs on several sites full time, tapping people into resources to do real, not fad weight loss. Her company is skinnyminnymedia. Now she’s using her knowledge to help HCD find and expand its niche audience.
Paul Phillips has lived at Heathcote Community with me for many years. Previously, he was one of my partners in my fair trade retail venture, Heathcote Earthings. He runs Co-OpTek, a software consulting firm structured as a cooperative. When he and Roni wanted to help writers communicate with their audiences through profitable blogs, Paul thought of me, having followed my writing career through the years. And so HCD became their guinea pig.
So how, you ask, do blogs become profitable? Yep, ads. Our long term goal is to hand select advertisers we want you to know about because we’re excited about their product or service. In the meantime, you’ll soon see context-based ads appearing in subtle corners of our pages. This means that, if I’m blogging lots about eating organic foods, you might see ads for organic foods. Also, because computers don’t know any better, you might see ads for organic fertilizer or organic shampoo. I dunno. I invite you to surf the ads with your goddess-given discernment. I will also post about products I think are great. That you can take as my endorsement.
Also, I’ll be forming an affiliate relationship with Amazon.com. So when I recommend the Communities Directory because it’s just a crazy fine must have resource, you can click on a link and get your hands on one! You can link directly that way to the music I’m listening too, books I’m reading or recommending, etc.
Thanks to my readers for your ongoing support. HCD isn’t a little girl any more!!!
