Fighting back gently.

Our sponsor, BlogHer (which you may or may not see over here ---> ), has been pretty good to us. It pays us a very few dollars every month to put its own sponsored ads on the page. It's run by real women who answer real emails about real questions. Their policies let me opt out of topics I don't want to advertise and places I don't want to go (e.g. politics, diet aids, junk food, animal products, etc.).

In fact, BlogHer is too good to us, and here's the dilemma. Sort of. It's not a huge dilemma. It's a dilemmette. For example, a few days ago they offered me $150 to write one review about an alcoholic beverage that I would probably love hard. I would slurp it up like a cat slurps milk (don't give a cat milk). Plus, they'd buy me my booze. 

To a couple of gals without jobs, $150 and a six-pack is a sweet deal. But, we opt-out of alcohol ads on purpose. If you drink alcohol, you already know it's available. It's not like I'd be advertising the end of Prohibition, which I would do in BOLD PRINT for free as a public service. If you don't drink, there's a good reason, and you don't need me to tell you about some awesome new kind of alcohol that you also won't drink. We turned that offer down.

Today, there's an offer for  generous commissions on sales of a huge, mainstream health-and-beauty corporation. You probably already buy their products every week. I only have to tell you which of their products I use and love, love, LOVE!  [None of them.] We turned that offer down.

So, I'm going to tell you what I actually love and feel good about promoting. It's the only way I can think of to push back against corporate deep-pocketed advertising, and products that aren't really in our best interests. Irony alert: these links go to Amazon pages, because they also treat us well.

• Method laundry detergent. We don't do much laundry, but we do it all with Method. It comes super-concentrated, so it's not weighed down with water and then shipped, heavy and bloated, to its destination. It is cruelty-free: no animal testing, no animal products. It's made in the US. It's perfectly sized for RVs. It smells good.

• Dr. Bronner's castile soaps. We don't wash ourselves much...wait, that's not what I meant to say. It's super-duper-concentrated (don't try to wash with it straight! It's powerful!). Cruelty-free (no animal testing, no animal products, vegetable oil based). Organic. Smells awesome, whichever scent you choose. We bought a big bottle last Thanksgiving in Florida, and we're still using it (I'm tired of peppermint now, by the way, and can't wait to crack open the lavender we just bought). Bonus feature: Dr. Bronner wrote lots of crazy stuff on his products, and they're still there. Fun to read in the shower with your glasses on.

• NOW vegetable glycerin. You can buy glycerin at Walmart, but it's most likely animal-derived. I use this when I make lotion and moisturizer, along with organic aloe vera gel. I got tired of paying lots of money for a decent moisturizer, only to find that it was held together with parabens. I use this vegan facial moisturizer recipe. 

• Nature's Miracle. Animal lovers, don't travel without this. In my time with Annie, we have sheltered ten cats, and this is our must-have. Always. No kidding. This becomes even more crucial as animals age. Now I'm really not kidding.

There's my promo. If you don't buy these things on my say-so, I won't feel bad. More importantly, if you do buy them, I won't feel bad.

Something free for you-Plus

Here's something I've been using for a long time, since my friend Bleen said stop complaining and install this in a very nice way:

AdBlockPlus for Chrome
AdBlockPlus for Firefox
AdBlock Plus for IE (maybe.  No promises.)

I use it in Chrome, and it works so well I forget I have ads on this blog.  The only problem is that there are bloggers whose ads I click in support, and because I'm interested;  then I surf in Firefox for the full Mad Men effect.

Gratuitous sky photo:



My plan for today:  photograph headstones.  There is a cemetery nearby with five photo requests, and I'm the woman for the job.  When I nearly got into an online argument about composting toilets, it was a wake-up call for me:  Life is short, go photograph grave markers.


Annie is RIGHT THIS MINUTE composing a technical-ish post with real substance.  What you really need is a FluffBlockPlus - then you would see only blank page where my entries used to be.  It's a good product.

Business and pleasure

We traveled (by car) to Canada for our friends' wedding this weekend.  They put us up at a beautiful hotel with a spectacular view of the Niagara River and the Falls by day, and the city lights by night.  You know which is which.

Annie took this photo

... and this one ...

... and this one, too.  I took none of these pictures.

 I showered as though I'd never felt hot water before.  Eight months of conservation down a Canadian drain.

Those guys brought their iPads and enjoyed the blazing speed of the hotel wifi.  I moseyed down to the bank of public computers and relaxed to the gentle rhythm of dial-up.  This was a good thing!  I realized that this site loads slowly.  That made me feel shame and remorse, so I reset the formatting so that there are only a few posts on the front page;  hopefully that will speed things up for lower bandwidth access.  You lower-bandwidth people.  Yes, you.  Let me know if it helps.  I'm sorry for my previous obliviosity.

I've added a couple of links.  I'm only adding companies that I like and use myself.  I haven't bought Marianne's books yet, but only because I'm procrastinating.  I will definitely buy them before we launch.

A Word From Our Sponsors. (Roxi)

Oh, right, we don't have any.

I've mentioned a lot of brand names so far, and I'll probably keep doing that. It's real. We shop around a lot, compare prices, quality and reviews, and then it's just a leap of the credit card. Some of the brands we've already tried (UltimateBed = yummy). Most not yet.

None of these people are paying us to say these things. We wish they would. Some companies pay bloggers big money ($2) to write good reviews for a product, without ever disclosing that it is a paid advertisement. That smells like poo. We're not doing that, and we never will. If we try something and it's good, that's what I'm going to say. If it sucks, you'd better believe we'll say that, too.

We're experimenting with Google AdSense, which is the targeted advertising you see on the right. I expect us to create revenue with this method right around the $0 level. Not hopeful. I stuck it at the bottom so that its visual toxicity is as low as possible. We're not endorsing any of those products just because we're renting them sidebar space. Don't click them on our account. Just send cash directly to us. (<--- har)

Okay, stay tuned for more unpaid advertising. Because we're givin' it away here.