For the Love of FREE clothes!

Who loves new clothes? Who loves new-to-you clothes? Who loves FREE clothes? I Do! I do!!

Look at all those happy shoppers... I mean Swappers!

Well may I suggest a clothing swap? A clothing swap is where a group of women get together bringing all of their new or gently used, current, clean clothes and swap them with each other. Everyone taking home new-to-them clothing without spending a dime! It makes women happy.....it makes husbands happy too.
Want to try it? Here we go....

1. You need to assemble a SWAP Team. You girls will pick the time, date, location, the invitees and the rules to this swap. It's not easy to organize something like this yourself. Pass out assignments of who will be the "Drop off Location", who will make signage at the event, who will collect money (if you choose to), Invitation/Publicity, Set up & take down, etc... It's up to you to decide how big you want this event to be. There are some who do a small gathering of friends in their home and there are even some that make it a huge event inviting the public, having caterers & vendors, live music, massage therapists, etc.



2. The invitations. No matter how you do it (facebook, phone calls, invitations) you need to make sure a few things are clear:
Date, time & location of the event

My front room was {PACKED} with clothes
for the swap!

If you are asking guests to bring clothes before the event (so you can organize them) be sure they know where & when they need to be dropped off by.
Clothing NEEDS to be: New, current, gently used & CLEAN (having clean clothes makes all the difference - in my opinion it's what separates this event from a regular yard sale) **Swaps don't have to be just clothing, you can include purses, shoes, accessories, maternity, etc***
The rules of the swap (and if there is a cost).

3. The Rules. You need to decide how women will swap the clothes. There are many different ways to do this. They can buy/bring a bag and fill it. Some parties issue tickets equal to the amount you donate (i.e. you bring five items you get five tickets) with this method nicer donations can be worth more tickets. In smaller parties ladies can draw numbers for who goes first to pick. Make the rules fit the size of your party.

Setting up!

4. The location & Organization. Be sure there is enough room to display all the items you have and that there is room for multiple women to look through them. It might be nice to provide mirrors or even areas for ladies to try on what they like. It's helpful to organize clothing by sizes or making sections for similar items (dresses in one area and accessories in the other)

5. Make it an event! Create a play list of music that deals with clothing/shopping to play in the back ground. Give your event a title. Add some decorations. For smaller parties you may like to have some finger food available. There was one swapping event that held a fashion show for anyone who wanted to show off their new outfit created by the clothing pieces they found at the swap. Again this should be more of a party/event than a yard sale.

Our guests sign-in table with their adorable shopping bags!

I was really happy with how successful the clothing swap I co-hosted was. I had a great team of ladies helping me & it turned out well. We called our swap "My Girlfriends Closet". Each of us was in charge of inviting ten people (think Pinterest, by invitation only-wise). We provided bags and charged $1 a bag. We asked our ladies to bring their items before the event offering them two drop off locations. We sorted and displayed items in categories and by size (there was a table of large tops, medium tops, small tops, etc) so it was easy for ladies to find the size that they needed. All clothing that was left over was donated to our local women's shelter. It was so much fun and I'm currently in the middle of planning another "My Girlfriend's Closet" event for this year! Last year I picked up a cute Banana Republic dress with the tags still on it - score!! I wonder what I will find this year?


Have questions on how to organize your own swap? Feel free to e-mail us at shesaidblog@yahoo.com or comment here or on Facebook.

Rory Gilmore Meets She Said

Among the many, many, many things we have in common, here are two more: we both love reading and we both love Gilmore Girls. I recently spotted a Rory Gilmore Reading List online, which is a lengthy list of many (if not all) of the books Rory reads or talks about during Gilmore Girls's seven seasons. For kicks and giggles, I thought it would be fun to compare which books we've read from the list; I set a goal each year to "branch out" in my reading selections, so maybe this will help me find some new titles to investigate!

Nancy will highlight her books in Blue
Michelle will highlight her books in Red
And books we've both read will be highlighted in Purple

The Rory Gilmore Reading List Originally found here (Nan's note: I have edited this list slightly. Some of the books on the original list were listed twice, had the wrong titles, or were the names of GG episodes, not books.)

1984 by George Orwell - On my Top Ten Favorites list.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt - So good.  So sad.  So unforgettable.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - Required reading!
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - I love this book!  (That may make me sound crazy...lol)
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney - I've read parts of Beowulf, although I don't remember who did the translation.
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Read this in Tucker's AP class and it changed my life!
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton - Anne Sexton is amazing!
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn - I didn't finish (it was due back at the library), but what I read was really cute.
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol - I read all of these as a kid!
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - I think I was the only person in my high school English class who liked this one!  One of my Edith Wharton favorites.
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe Through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - I think everyone should read this book!
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - Not my favorite.
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - I tried to read this one...and gave up.  Maybe another time.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The story of how Mary Shelley came up with this story is close to my heart. It made me read it with new eyes.
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - This book is...weird.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - Started but never finished.
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad  - Ugh...I remember having to read this in AP.
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Ginsberg - I was expecting this to be about werewolves - it's not!
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Lisa and David by Dr. Theodore Issac Rubin M.D.
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - One of my VERY favorites!
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month of Sundays: Searching for the Spirit and My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson - I've read most of Dickinson, so I'm counting this :)The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich - This book will change the way you think.
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan - You get to read a lot of Norton anthologies when you major in Literary Studies!
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - harder to read than Shakespeare if you ask me!  I love this book SO MUCH.
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - Fantastic book!!!
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories from a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert - Required reading serving as senator for SUU PVA (hate those rules!)
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William ShakespeareA Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. BaumThe Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd – Started and not finished -One of the few books that I will say I liked the movie better.
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt VonnegutSmall Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - My first "favorite" book.  I read this at the same time as Michelle and loved it, too.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - Started, but never finished.  Ditto!
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Color Is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire - the Broadway play is much better (and cleaner) than the book.
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - I think Charlotte is a better writer.
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion - a beautiful book that I read at the right time.

Which of these books have you read? Are there any books that you think should be added to the list?

5 Tips to Attack the Cold/Flu

You are enjoying a peaceful evening with your family in your suburban home. You begin to notice your husband's constant sniffling, you hand him a tissue and quickly disregard it as "a bit of dust". Then your child starts coughing. "Are you okay, dear?" you inquire. "Fine, Mommy," is Timmy's reply, "Johnny bet me ten cents that I wouldn't lick the classroom doorknob - I showed him!" You are about to tell him he shouldn't be licking doorknobs when you feel a slight tickle in your throat and then you realize - you are being INVADED!!! dun.dun.dun

It's cold/flu season! There is just no way around it. Personally, I got over it just last week & while I kept my Kleenex stockpile up I wondered, "is there any way to escape this?" The short answer is: No, but there are ways to help you when you get invaded.

1. Stay home!! Sure, it's not fun to stay home from book club, but what is worse: missing one night of chit chat that you can barely hear from your headache, or being referred to as "the gal who kept sneezing on things"? Honestly, you got sick because someone couldn't keep their germs at home. Stop the cycle by keeping yours to yourself.

2. Pull out the soap. "Aim for at least four hand washings a day. Other than getting the vaccine, frequent hand washing is the most effective way to protect against the flu," says Thomas Saari, M.D. Hand sanitizer is great in a pinch when you are in a place without running water & soap, but if you have the choice and/or there is visible dirt, choose the soap and water.

3. Turn up the heat. Heat is a speedy way to kill germs. When someone in our family is sick I run our dishwasher on heat dry as an extra precaution to make sure our dishes are really clean. You can also run some children's toys on the top rack of the dishwasher, too. I am usually a cold water person when it comes to washing our clothes, but if we are sick I will run a few loads on hot water.  Don't want to use that much hot water on your family laundry? Consider doing it with just a load of "infected" laundry. While we are on the subject of laundry, a friend of mine (a school teacher) always has her family change their clothes when they come home from school...if you think of it, that is a lot of germs you are putting in the laundry basket and away from the rest of the house.

4.  Wipe it to swipe it. "Viruses can survive up to three days on surfaces and inanimate objects," says Chuck Gerba, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Focus on "Hot Spots" around the house that get touched/used a lot (doorknobs, switches, handles, phones, counters, remotes, etc.) with your favorite disinfecting product that contains alcohol.

5. Sharing is not caring. There is the popular adage "We are a family that shares everything...even our germs".  Be sure that children don't share things like cups, utensils or anything they would put their mouth on. If the patient can have commonly shared items that they can claim as their own(cup, blanket, etc.) & can't be confused with others that can help cut down on the germ spreading quite a bit. One thing my Mom did was to color code our cups - mine was red and didn't get confused with my yucky brothers green cup. It also helps if the patient can have their own space to sleep (space permitting) especially if they share a room with other siblings. Giving them (or you) that space can help keep germs from spreading and give a quieter environment to re-coop in. 

*6* Mother knows best. Hate to admit it, but the three sure things to help you get over that bug: lots of water, SLEEP & chicken noodle soup...my Mom told me that all the time, but for some reason it didn't really sink in until I got older.

Do you have any home remedies? Please share!

Hope you get feeling better soon!!

New Year, New Look!

You may have noticed that things are looking quite a bit different around here...at least we hope you've noticed!!  After using the same layout since starting our blog in September 2010, we decided it was time for a new look.  The pics from our awesome photo shoot with Brandi Lyn Photography provided our color inspiration, and Michelle spearheaded our remodel.  We love our new look and hope you will enjoy our cleaner, fresher site.

We are also thrilled to unveil our new signatures!!  The most common suggestion we've received over the last sixteen months of blogging is that you want an easier way to tell who wrote which post.  With that in mind, we now have two signatures!

If Michelle writes a post, she will use this signature: 

See how Michelle's name is first?

This is what you'll see when I write the post:

And now my name is first!

 There may be some additional tweaking to the site in the upcoming weeks, but this is pretty much how things are going to look around here from here on out.

What do you think of She Said's new look?

Post-Holiday Crafting: What to Do with Your Christmas Cards

Happy 2012, everybody!!

We hope your holidays were joyful and filled with family, friends, fun, and yummy food.  Now that the new year has started, you're probably in the process of putting away your Christmas decorations and trying to answer that age-old question:

What should I do with all of these Christmas cards?

Christmas cards are so much fun to send and receive, and if you're like me, you feel bad about just throwing them out when the holiday season ends.  I've found several different ideas online for reusing Christmas cards, but this one was my favorite.  Even better, it utilized my Silhouette SD Craft Cutter!  If you don't have a Silhouette, don't fret; you can do this with a pair of scissors, too. :)  With just a little bit of time, your Christmas cards can find new life as Christmas gift tags!

All you will need for this project are Christmas cards, scissors/craft cutter, and a gift tag template (or you can just eyeball it if you're really talented!).

I would not recommend using photo cards for this project -- it would be a little creepy to have somebody's face smiling up at you from a gift. (Unless it's John Lennon.  Then that would just be cool.)

Cut the fronts off of your cards -- you'll want to make sure the back side of the picture is blank.

Read the heartfelt sentiment on the inside of the card and then file it or trash it or whatever.

If you have a Silhouette, you can download gift tag templates to use, or you can design your own.

If you don't have a Silhouette, I'm sure you can find free templates online; you could also trace an existing gift tag, draw your own, or just freehand it.

Once you have your card fronts and your template, cut cut cut!  I was able to get 20 gift tags from four regular cards and two money-holder cards.

Save your tags for next Christmas, when you will amaze everyone with your creative, ecofriendly way for addressing your gifts.

What do you normally do with Christmas cards?