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.
  

Congratulations to Laura, for winning the Rolling On the Floor Laughing My GladRags Off contest!  She won a Color Pad Sampler Kit for submitting the funniest period-related story.  Congrats also to Kate, who won a Color Pantyliner 3-pack just for commenting!

Thanks to everyone who participated — we loved reading your submissions! Here’s Laura’s story once more in case you missed it:

When he was little, my nephew would come stay with my husband and I. We would meet my sister at a convenience store about half-way between our houses.
This one time when he was about 4 or 5 we met at our usual place and I loaded all his gear in my car and then sat down in the driver’s seat and looked over at him in the passenger seat (this was before passenger side airbags) Because he was still so young, his feet stuck straight out, and there, tucked under the shoelaces of each of his shoes was a tampon-cotton part only. I casually asked him what he had in his shoes. He responded, “Those are my ROCKETS!” I motioned for my sister, who was parked next to me, to roll her window down and then told her to look at her son’s shoes. Through her tears of laughter she said, “I wondered why everyone in the store was looking at us so funny!”
My nephew is now 20 but we still love to remind him of his “rocket” days!

This week’s Menstrual Monday is slightly irregular (pardon the pun) but better late than never, right?  We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week!  And now the news:

• From The F-Word comes an article about the weird (but effective) advertising techniques used by disposable feminine product manufacturers, from blue liquid to tampons with “skirts.”

• Kotex launches a new advertising campaign — watch a video clip and read responses to the ads here and here.  Is this campaign hilarious or obnoxious? Discuss!

• There’s a great conversation about teaching kids about their bodies happening in the comments of Execumama’s post on menstruation.  Go share your two cents or just see what others are saying!

• Get serious about tracking your menstrual cycle with these detailed instructions for creating a chart in Excel.

• Have you checked out our reading list yet?  We want to know which books you recommend, too!

• Find out what experts say about vaginal discharge during pregnancy — and why you shouldn’t use a tampon or douche to deal with it.

• Here’s a great review of reusable menstrual products, including the Lunette cup, from a self-proclaimed Period Proselytiser.

*Rolling On the Floor Laughing My GladRags Off

Well, we’ve read your funny period stories and have painstakingly selected our favorite four.  Thanks to everyone who submitted a story for this contest — we loved reading them all!

Now it’s up to our blog readers to decide who will win a Pad Sampler Kit for sharing their silly anecdote with the world!  Vote for your favorite story using the poll below.  Click “Read the rest of this entry” to read each finalist’s entry.  This poll will close 3/24, so vote now!

Be sure to comment after voting — one lucky voter will win a secret prize!  Please include your email address when commenting so we can get in touch if you’re the winner.

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.

*Rolling On the Floor Laughing My GladRags Off

Periods can be a lot of things: uncomfortable, a relief, embarrassing, cause for celebration, a reminder of womanhood, taboo, and more.  But funny?  We think so — and so did Laura S. of Ohio who sent us this story:

One evening on a car ride with my parents, husband, and ten year old nephew, I started singing the song Rock Around the Clock.  When I sang the first line of the first verse, my husband busted out laughing. Only I understood why.  The first line of the verse is as follows:

“Put your glad rags on, join me hon.  We’ll have some fun when the clock strikes one. We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight…..”

Although “glad rags” can mean “stylish clothes,” my husband had only ever heard of the term GladRags to mean your reusable menstrual pads, hence, his laughter! (My husband didn’t believe that I was singing the correct words until we looked it up on the internet.)  So now, whenever he sees me reaching for my GladRags, he asks if I’m getting ready to rock around the clock!

We know you have at least one silly period anecdote — from the time your four-year-old set the table with your “special napkins” to what happened the first time you wore your Moon Cup to school — and we want to hear it!  Goofy photos, like this one of 9-month-old Max wearing a (clean) GladRag as hat, are also valid entries for the contest.  Even better, the submitter of the most laugh-out-loud hilarious tale will win a Cloth Pad Sampler Kit!

How it works: Post your story or image as a comment on this entry by 3/17/10. We’ll pick a few favorites and to be voted on on the GladRags Facebook page.  The story or photo with the most votes wins a Sampler Kit!

So come on, make us laugh!

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!

Welcome to Menstrual Monday!  Not to many stories for you today, but all good ones!

• Ascics shoe company comes out with a running shoe that changes shape based on where a woman is on her menstrual cycle.  Read more about how our arches change here.
• Blogger Stumptown Crunch has a great article on why the Diva Cup is so awesome!  The article include some striking visual aids (see photo).
• Frugal for Life reviews GladRags and offers Color Sampler Pack giveaway in a recent post!
• Crunchy Chicken discusses a new product, the glass menstrual cup.
• More menstrual humor (this time from a woman!) in the video Aunt Flow from Let’s Talk….Period from humorist and blogger Bern This.