The weather is beautiful again, which makes this the perfect season to spend time outside!  Your Green Goal this week is to make one trip on foot or by bike, instead of driving or taking the bus. There are many benefits to using alternate forms of transportation.  Not only are biking and walking awesome forms of exercise, but you’ll be traveling independent of environment-destroying gasoline or electricity.  You’ll see and experience your town in an entirely different way.  You can interact with your community, discover places you never knew existed, and even pick fresh fruit!

Often people are afraid of looking sweaty when they get to their destination.  Try short distances at first to become more comfortable with what clothes you need to wear and how much extra time you might need to give yourself to cool off.  You will soon end up feeling energized and good about yourself when you arrive at your destination!   Don’t forget a helmet — and bike lights, too, if you plan on biking at night.

Here at GladRags we love biking everywhere!  Of course we do have the advantage of living in Portland, OR, a biking mecca.  Tomorrow I am representing GladRags at Bike Economics: a fundraiser showcasing local, woman-owned, bicycle-oriented businesses.  I am really excited to connect with other bicycle-loving women in my community.  If you are in Portland, you should join us!

Do you bike or walk everywhere?  What obstacles did you face when you started?  Comment and let us know what biking and walking is like where you live!

• Read the heartbreaking story of the 29 girls who were kicked out of their school for menstruating in Nepal School Expels Girls for ‘Being Accursed’
• RH Reality Check brings us another great article!  Read Tampon Safety and Our Monthly Affair with Toxins to learn more about the chemicals used in tampon production and their harmful effects.
• Have you seen the Huffington Post’s article about alternative menstrual products?  You can read the interestingly titled Make Her Vagina Green here.  Being mentioned on such a big news outlet is awesome, but I wish should would have at least tried our products before writing about them.  What do you think about it?
• Amy Ziz in Austin writes about her experiences and first impressions of the Moon Cup in this article.
• Creative Madness Mama has a great article on using GladRags.  She provides lots of tips on using and buying GladRags in GladRags- Menstrual Monday.
• The title of this funny and informative article says it all: Menstrual Cups: Why They Are Awesome and You Should Get One.

We have a short and sweet Menstrual Monday today.  Enjoy!

• The SF Weekly Heartless Doll brings us a helpful public service announcement with Dudes of the World: Menstruation Does Not Make Women Insane.
• A Columbus radio station brings us 5 Fab Essential Earth Day Accessories including the menstrual cup!  See picture to the right for another fab accessory.

Also, we would like to thank everyone who has donated pads to Beth’s Girls so far.  We already have almost 100 pads to give to girls in need in Zambia!  But we always need more.  Read about why you should donate here.

Hello and welcome to the newest installment of Menstrual Mondays, wherein we review this week in menstrual news, blog entries, art, activism, and more!

•  The Chic Ecologist brings us an installment of the Environmental Impact of Everyday Things focused on the impact of menstrual products.  She goes into some interesting detail about what happens to the menstrual products that are thrown away and the history of green-washing such products. (image to the left is take from her article)
• Check out this week’s Do Good of the Week from GladRags Guerilla, Marta, who runs Be Good Do Good Yoga.  This week’s segment is all about natural birth control methods and why you should check them out.
• Girl w/ Pen has an impassioned editorial about the state of menstrual product advertising in Pop Goes Feminism: Does Your Period Make You Blue?
• Awesome blogger The Sexist has a hilarious article about the 5 Most Feminine Feminine Hygiene Products (note: they are not all menstrual products).
• Blog a la Cart shares a funny little story about her husband’s reaction to her excitement over first using the menstrual cup.

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Menstrual Monday.  Enjoy!

•  Bianca I. Laureano, on RH Reality Check, writes a very in depth and highly critical review of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation.  You can read it here.
• You can check out one woman’s journey from disposable menstrual products to cloth pads and menstrual cups here, on nora_charles livejournal blog.
• My Little Red Book is set to come out with second edition with new stories!  Learn about what made the author compile period stories from around the world from women of all ages in this story from the New Haven Resister (the author was a Yale woman).
• Blogger One Day at a Time has a great article on alternative menstrual products and why you should use them.
• One Craftster.org contributor has a great idea for what to do with those extra tampons lying around your house come Easter (see photo to the right).
• The Jezebel community provides us with a wealth of useful information in A Reader’s Treasury of Cures for your Cramps.  Note: there are some less than traditional (read illegal) cures in here.
• And last, but not least you can learn more about the Benefits of Menstrual Cups on Naturally Savvy.

A short and sweet Menstrual Monday post today is coming at ya!

• Sify News presents a great article about artist Ashmina Ranjit.  She grew up in a conservative household in Nepal and now creates menstrual inspired artwork designed to educate and challenge long held beliefs about impurity.  Read more in Woman’s Blood Inspires rebel Art in Nepal.
• Did you know menstrual blood contains stem cells?  You can learn about the latest research in this area in the new article from the Santa Barbara Independent, Stem Cells in Menstrual Blood: They Can Even Become Neurons. 
• Despite the odd name, the chapter called Vulva Care–Keeping Your Kitty Happy actually contains some good advice from Psychology Today.
• Actress Eunice Wong shares her take on switching to alternative menstrual products here.
  

Menstrual Monday is your place for menstrual news, art, musings, and more!

• Mona Eltahawy has collected a variety of very interesting stories and poems about menstruation into five blog posts: Menstruation, Menstruation II, Menstruation III, Menstruation IV, Menstruation V.  If you are looking for an engrossing read, check them out!
• The New York Times shares an amusing and insightful article on what menopause is like, called Fast Forward to Old Age, Please.
• Plasticcupcake has an adorable whale menstrual cup pouch (see picture) for sale on Etsy.  On her blog, Sugar n’ Stitches, you can see other super cute menstrual cup pouches, including a hamster and a fly!
• If you’re feeling crafty yourself, we found this great knit menstrual cup pouch pattern on All is Full of Yarn.
• This article about a Professor [who] Discusses Men’s Roles in Menstruation Ads makes me wish I could take his class at Marymount Manhattan College.  How interesting!  Academics should tackle the role of menstruation in our culture more often.
• Going on a trip soon?  Travel Insights 100 has an insightful article called No Tampons, No Problem: Alternative Products for Female Travelers.
• Wild Mother Arts posted a fabulous article on Moonwise Monday: Washable Cloth Pads.
• Consumer Reports has an article on Tampon Alternatives!

• Super Green Girl wonders Does Green = Inconvenient? and what’s wrong (or right) about inconvenience?  This is a great article about things most of us try not to think about.
• This One’s for the Girls: Green Your Period from the Greenest Dollar presents some good reasons not to use disposable menstrual products along with multiple options.
• Fabulous website and post: The Zero Waste Home: Zero Waste Bathroom.  She thinks of everything!
• Learn how to crochet a (non-usable) Moon Cup (see photo) using this handy guide.  This website is slightly naughty, so don’t visit this link at work!
• We are featured in this month’s Mothering Magazine!  Pick up a copy today for a great article about reusables.
• Hilarious: Girl Welcomed to Womanhood with 4-page Pamphlet from The Onion.

Check out the View tomorrow (3/9) for more period talk with the authors of Flow:The Cultural History of Menstruation 11am EST.

Here at GladRags we are always trying to find new way to conserve and save.  Inspired by Simple Organic’s Green Goal Setting, we have decided to present you, our faithful readers, with a new Green Goal every week!  We will specifically be targeting goals that are within reach in a small time frame and a small budget.  Tracy (left) and I (right) are going to try them out right along with you and share our experiences in the comments.  We hope you will join us in our quest to reduce our footprint, one small step at a time!

First stop on the GladRags’ Green Goals train: cloth napkins and handkerchiefs!

Personally, I grew up in a household that used cloth napkins for all meals.  I was always weirded out going to friend’s houses whose families only used paper napkins or paper towels.  Cloth napkins feel so practical and comfortable to me!  They are softer and don’t fall apart in your hands like many paper napkins do after some use.  There may be a slightly higher upfront cost, but as you reuse the cloth napkins they will save you money and you’ll never run out!  Most of the napkins I have came as hand-me-downs from my parents or grandparents, but thrift stores are also a great place to pick some up.  Sewing cloth napkins is also a great way to go — even if you are a novice sewer (myself included), this project should be fairly simple.  For a great tutorial on making your own napkins check out Chez Beeper Bebe’s blog post (happy face napkins pictured are from her site).

Handkerchiefs are a whole different story.  Growing up, we always had a box of tissues.  Having had allergies and frequent colds, they have always been useful to me.  The tissues with lots of lotion in them were the best as they did not make my nose raw after many uses.  In college, I started to feel guilty for wasting all this paper and energy.  I started using toilet paper to save money and waste as the cheap toilet paper I use is thin and does not include lotion.  Lately, I have been trying to use handkerchiefs more often.  Handkerchiefs are also easy to make or cheap to buy at vintage stores.  GladRags offers some very soft organic handkerchiefs, too!

Some people have been using cloth napkins and handkerchiefs for years, so this goal is already second nature for them.  We challenge you to reduce your paper towel use even more by declining paper napkins with take-out food or carrying your own cloth for hand drying in public restrooms!

Tracy and I hope you will join us in finding fun, simple ways to make our lives even greener.  Leave a comment to let us know what you’re doing to conserve or share your own tips with us!

Menstrual news, art, entertainment, activism, and more!  It’s a short one today.

• Learn what your vagina thinks of the tampons or menstrual cups debate in Tampon vs. Keeper: One Vagina’s Story on youtube in which “A vulva puppet learns the difference between standard and reusable menstrual products.”
• Sarah Haskins & Friends Talk Periods, Pads, And Poop at what looks like a very interesting panel discussion with Susan Kim (who you might know as the co-author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation) and  television producer Allison Silverman.  Check out this Jezebel article for videos and commentary.
• Simple Organic has a great article on Green Goal Setting, Part 1: Personal Life in which the author sets out a number of goals to consider for the coming year including switching to reusable menstrual products.  This has inspired us to create some green challenges of our own.  Look forward to joining us in our GladRags Green Goals in the near future.

Joni Christine has won the Moon Cup Kit contest by posting a comment on last week’s Menstrual Monday blog entry.  Please email us by the end of the week at orders@gladrags.com to receive your prize!