In Women We Trusttag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-3369852008-08-23T09:53:08-07:00Sustainable Living products and services for women.TypePadPlant a garden. Save some money. Grow a kid.tag:typepad.com,2003:post-545767622008-08-23T09:53:08-07:002008-08-23T09:53:20-07:00I lost Victoria, my mentee, to a foster home this week. Well... I didn't really lose her, but she has moved out of the teen shelter where we gardened together for the past couple of years. Today (for the first time) she woke up in a home with a real backyard. She's over the top happy - Aiden has other kids his age to hang with and Starbucks, her lifeline, is just around the corner. Victoria arrived at the shelter a couple of years ago wearing the same Rolling Stones T-shirt of my gen-gen-generation and carrying the same attitude. I...InWomenWeTrustEco Align helps you buy LESS from their clientstag:typepad.com,2003:post-544059042008-08-19T13:27:26-07:002008-08-19T13:27:35-07:00As women, we are the dominate influencers and purchaser for home products and services. Each day, billions of advertising dollars compete to influence our decisions and get us to buy more stuff. Today, in a reversal of true fortunes, Eco Align released a survey that looked at how to motivate us to buy less from their clients. These are energy clients who are exploring not only alternative sources, but all the secondary products enhancing that effort. I can get behind that. I'd better, I'm going to heating my home on a fixed retirement income in another 15 years.Let's look behind...InWomenWeTrustWoman-to-Women Media, will they have more influence than Oprah?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-543564542008-08-18T11:27:52-07:002008-08-18T11:28:01-07:00Are you one of those new mistresses of media that the NY Times talked about last week - a blogging mom? Categorically, moms spend more, talk to other women more and have more social contacts around town than any other consumer group. If you sell a retail product, they represent not only a customer, but a built in advertising network. Blogging women have become a media all by themselves. Heather Armstrong, the author of Dooce which was profiled in the NY Times article has over 850,000 visitors last month - mostly women. This puts a whole new spin on "direct"...InWomenWeTrustIs there such a thing as Green Packaging?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-538520382008-08-07T12:36:11-07:002008-08-07T12:36:22-07:00My guest blogger today is JoAnn Hines, the Chief Executive Officer at J.R. Hines International to help us make sense of green packaging. She is an expert in packaging trends and implementing innovative new packaging technologies covering consumer product packaging, sustainable and green packaging, branding, merchandising, retail packaging trends and packaging patent infringement. Her packaging articles and columns are syndicated around the globe including Webpackaging.com, the #1 consumer products packaging site, and a blog entitled Packaging News You Can Use. ********************************** JoAnn Hines: I just got a call from Brandweek to comment on green product packaging backlash. I've been writing...InWomenWeTrustWhat WALL-E, Wa$ted and Wall Street have in Commontag:typepad.com,2003:post-537333322008-08-04T10:43:20-07:002008-08-04T10:43:29-07:00People keep telling me that women don't want to know the following and yet, every woman I talk to face-to-face wants to know more, not only for her family's sake, but for her retirement investments as well. Have you seen WALL-E ? (Highly entertaining) It's about an a little robot who was left to clean up the planet after a consumption-driven society. WALL-E's world is not that far off. Today on the Planet Green channel, there's a reality version of WALL-E's beginnings called "Wa$ted". The stars of the show, Annabelle Gurwitch and Holter Gramham challenge one family to clean up...InWomenWeTrustHow to Produce an Effective Green Campaigntag:typepad.com,2003:post-537195542008-08-04T01:59:38-07:002008-08-04T02:03:13-07:00How do you motivate the masses when you don't have much money or even an Internet connection? Thanks to Kimberly Klintworth, who put together GoodTube, you can get ideas from all over the world. Below is an example of how one man mobilized his area of Mexico. Salvador managed to cut the burning of local forests in half and clean up the rivers as well through Campaign Pride. http://www.goodtube.org/video.php?category=14&l=Environment GoodTube is a non profit, non religious enterprise, and it is 100 percent free. The site also provides tips for producing quality video of your non-profit's good work. Let me know...InWomenWeTrustGet rid of the bottle and take back the filtertag:typepad.com,2003:post-536251242008-08-01T11:26:17-07:002008-08-01T11:26:29-07:00I'm inspired by Beth Terry's list of plastics that she has eliminated from her life. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm willing to give it a try. I'll start with the water issue and the two plastics that surround it, i.e. the bottle and the filter. I don't think we need bottled water in places where we have tap water. I don't care if a bottle is made of petroleum based plastic or made of corn, it's still overkill for what we need in the average US town. Plus, only 10% of bottles, plastic or corn...InWomenWeTrustTaking a Time Outtag:typepad.com,2003:post-535294742008-07-31T11:53:07-07:002008-07-31T11:53:16-07:00I keep two personal holy days each year, May Day and Mary Day. May 1 is for planting flowers and July 31 is for replanting myself and celebrating the gift of being able to roll the dice for another year. I'm heading for the beach with a book my gal pal Celeste sent me, munchies, and my cell phone. I can unplug from email, but not my phone. A couple days ago, Beth and I were talking about living the balanced life and I have to agree, mine's not very balanced, there are days when all I see is a...InWomenWeTrustGreasing the wheels of the Conscious Goods Alliancetag:typepad.com,2003:post-534740142008-07-29T20:02:09-07:002008-07-29T20:02:20-07:00Now here's a group I can get behind, the Conscious Goods Alliance. They have a veggie bus that they are driving around the country to promote organic food and sustainable goods. Sounds like a great way to spend a summer vacation. Paige Paulson, who is giving the report below, was also at BlogHer 08.InWomenWeTrustCan Organic Food Suppress Tourettes Symptoms?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-531865302008-07-24T13:29:54-07:002008-07-24T13:32:41-07:00One of the reasons I go to BlogHer each year is to meet people outside of the green zone that I tend to live in. That said, sustainability issues are so pervasive now, that I found it hard to sit next to anyone who hasn't been affected, including this women via her son. By eating organic food, his Tourettes Tics have greatly deminished. It makes you wonder which pollutants in non-organic food are causing the illness to begin with. She requested that I don't use her name only because she's speaking on sensitive material about her son who years from...InWomenWeTrust