Oprah's OWN Show on OWN TV - Megan Aronson

Vote for Me to Get My OWN Show on Oprah's New Network!

Hi friends and family!

I need your help! I have a chance to make my ultimate dream come true - hosting my OWN show on Oprah's new OWN network! I have spent weeks putting together a 3 minute video audition and I'm pleased to say it just went online! Now, I need your help voting for it online. You can vote as many times a day as you want until July 3rd when the contest ends. That's just 15 days away so I need everyone I know and everyone you know voting as many times a day as possible til then.

I believe I can get over 3 million votes in 15 days because I have so many wonderful friends and family like you who truly believe in me and want to see me succeed. I know with your support we can rally a huge network of people together to vote vote vote and get me on the show! Then we can all be part of something amazing together.

So, will you help make my dream come true?!

CLICK ON THIS LINK RIGHT NOW, CHECK OUT MY VIDEO AND VOTE FOR ME! USE THE BACK BUTTON AND VOTE AGAIN AND AGAIN AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN. I DARE YOU TO VOTE FOR ME 50 TIMES RIGHT NOW! Then do it again tomorrow and the day after and so on! (FYI: Votes don't register immediately so just keep voting and the numbers will catch up eventually)

http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=7233&promo_id=1

I'm asking you right now to forward this email to EVERYONE in your address book. Please add your personal comments telling them why you think they should vote for me. Then post the link on your Facebook, Twitter, your Blog, everywhere you can!

For those you forward this onto who might not know me, here's a little bit about me. I'm Megan Aronson. I'm 29 years old. I have 2 beautiful kids. I just gave birth to my son 3 months ago! I have been hosting my own small town TV show for the last 5 years but due to the recession, I got laid off in December. Great time to decide to be a Stay At Home Mom! I'm making the best of everything I've been given and I can truly say I'm living my dreams. I want to help people "find what they love and love what they find" - that is my dream, to give people back to themselves, to bring them back to life. Last year was one of the worst years of our lives but I've managed to find a way to turn it into something good. I want to help millions of people do the same.

Again, you can vote as many times a day as you want...every day til July 3rd!

The top 5 video-makers will automatically be flown to L.A. to be considered to be one of the 10 finalists that make it on the reality T.V. show produced by Mark Burnett (Survivor, Celebrity Apprentice, etc). Then the winner of the show gets their OWN show on Oprah's new OWN Network launching in January 2011.

If you know me at all, you know that I have a lot of passion for life and that I love being in front of the camera - I'm right at home there. This is the first time in my life I've really gone after something like this with so much gusto. I am asking you to please do everything you can to help me make this dream come true. Thank you so much for your support. I hope you like the video. Please leave comments with your feedback on it ON the Oprah site.

Thank you thank you thank you to all of you for taking the time to read this and vote for me!

~Megan
Oprah's Next TV STAR!!!

How To Deal With Loss - Grieve Like an 11-Year Old

I just did a random guided meditation teleconference I found on Twitter with @DrJennifer and very much enjoyed. @DrJennifer seems very genuine and sweet. At the end you could ask questions so I asked "How can I overcome this shadow of loss and grief following me after 5 deaths in 5 months?" She was so sweet and just gave me this big dose of empathy like, "Holy cow, 5 deaths in 5 months?!" She just said give yourself time to grieve, to cry, to write, whatever you need. That is a lot to process and it will take time.

The fact of it is, I feel like I just can't shake this rain cloud following me around wherever I go. It is blocking my sunshine right now. Everytime I step out from under it for a minute, it catches right back up with me or it starts raining again, usually pouring down Texas-sized rain drops of more grief and more death. I have not had time to process one death before another happened, and another and another. Then add in the other drama in my life, feeling unbelievably tired and sick all the time being pregnant again and I am just drowning here in the rain coming down on me!

I guess after Mike's death on Tuesday, I felt like everyone must be so sick of me being down this year. Everyone must be looking at me thinking "What is her problem?" But I think those are just my own issues - me standing in my own way of dealing with these deaths. It has been an unbelievable year and I have cried all I can cry, I have lost all I can lose just about - so many people, dreams dear to me. I'm sick of losing.

I think I have to give myself permission to be a mess for a bit instead of feeling I have to put on a brave face and just move on. I've hardly grieved Mike. I woke up the next morning (yesterday) and just pretended nothing had happened. Then its starting to catch up with me today. Its just too much. This year has been pure HELL! How do you keep picking yourself up and dusting yourself off, just to be knocked down again? I can't even enjoy being pregnant because all I've known this year is loss. Loss has defined my experience of life for 5 months now. I just think to myself, "What will it be next month?" Or next week...or tomorrow? I've managed to pick myself up again and again after every single one - the 3 worst of course being my Aunt, the miscarriage and now Mike. But now they are starting to pile up on me. Mike's death brought up so many reminders of Debbie's death. I relived Debbie's death through Mike's. Mike's seems the most cruel and unusual and hard to process. So sudden, so unfair. Hate the thought that I will never see him again.

I like to consider myself a pretty "enlightened" individual, always willing to dive in head first into every challenge and obstacle, constantly evaluating and reevaulating myself to grow more and more each day. I like to think I've come to terms with the inevitable life lesson that DEATH is unfortunately a part of LIFE. But no matter what my beliefs that Mike is no longer suffering, that him and Debbie are both happier, that the baby that was starting to grow in me and bring me so much joy amidst so much tragedy was somehow not meant to be....it still sucks. It still rips me to my core. It still causes me to feel depressed when I should be happily celebrating the fact that I'm pregnant again. I have so much to be grateful for but how do you focus on what you have when you've been tested on everything you can no longer have repeatedly? How do you find the silver lining on the cloud when its raining down on you so hard, you can't even see 2 steps ahead of you?

Sometimes I don't have all the answers. I just take it one day at a time and cry when I feel like crying, sob when I feel like sobbing, have pity parties for 1 when I feel like suffering, meditate when I feel I am losing hold of some sense of joy and peace in my life. What more can you do? I cannot flip a switch and un-do all that's happened in the last 5 months. I cannot bring Mike or Debbie or that baby back. I cannot change the way it hurts deep inside to be so overtaken by grief this year. I cannot help that I feel sorry for myself that I've lost so much in such a short time.

I watched the classic movie "My Girl" this morning for the first time ever. Something told me a movie about a girl coming of age in a Funeral Parlor being forced to face death day in and day out was right up my alley right about now. I thought to myself, I want to just run as fast as I can and "runaway" for a night then come home and feel better because I got it out of my system. Maybe the way an 11 year old would handle grief is the way to do it? Screaming, throwing tantrums, crying, sobbing, staying in bed, expressing every last ounce of the confusion, anger, denial, grief, and shock you have in you loudly and openly because that's just what you do when you're 11. When you're 11, everyone excuses such behaviour because an 11 year old "doesn't have control of their emotions" just yet. Well, what the heck does having control of your emotions do for us adults? Of course, in certain situations this sort of self-control is admirable. But in deep, gut-wrenching, rip your heart out and serve it up for dinner sort of grief, what purpose does it serve to stuff all those feelings down inside in a nice little box where you can "control" them? What good does putting on that brave face really do for you or anyone else? It only sickens this sick cycle further. You know what those emotions do in that neat little box you put them in after you wrap them up tight and bury them in the backyard? They don't just go away. They're always there, haunting you. And then they come out when you least expect them like for me right now, when I should be experiencing nothing but supreme and utter joy at the marvel and wonder of my growing belly and thus growing family...instead that little box of emotions is shaking things up. Its oozing out the cracks into the rest of my being, overshadowing every aspect of my life.

So how do I deal with these nasty little buggers?

Open the box.

Let them out.

Face them.

That might mean throwing tantrums, having sobbing fits or even "running away" like an 11 year old. Sometimes that is the only way to fully express the extent of grief and sorrow, anger and confusion we feel in our souls.

I also find that writing about them and meditating on them helps.

Like I said, I don't have all the answers but I will tell you the one thing I know for sure, and I consider myself a bit of a Loss-Expert now after the last few months...I know for certain that ignoring these emotions, however scary and crazy and OUT OF CONTROL they might seem, no matter how much they threaten your own sense of control in uncontrollable situations, does not work. They will literally come back to bite you in the ass. I have the bruises to prove it.

So, in closing, I think I might just throw my own inner temper tantrum. I think I might shake my fist at the sky a few times and express my anger at the Universe for taking my loved ones back to Heaven. Step 1 on this journey is simply this...giving myself permission to grieve. To feel whatever it is I feel at any given moment. Giving myself empathy for all I've lost, all I've loved, all I've lived, and all I've living right now. Granting myself the undeniable right to take time to process the sorrow and pain. Wounds like these do not heal overnight, that's for sure. As the old cliche goes, only time can heal. I'll add to that, only time and willingness to grieve can heal.

You can't go around it, you just have to go through it.

P.S. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm pregnant again?! I've been terrified to say it outloud, much less broadcast it to the world on my Blog and Twitter. I'm taking a leap of faith. I'm about 8.5 weeks. We had our first ultrasound about 2 weeks ago and saw our little bean with a beautiful strong heart beating away. Its a bit of sunshine in these cloudy days. I'm do my best to embrace it fearlessly and failing terribly at it so far. Hoping to share pregnancy joys and woes here soon as well now that I've officially outed myself. =)

Journal Entry ~ 6/7/09 "Gratitude"

Church was wonderful and perfect. The minister kept saying things in the meditation, prayer and sermon about "we are always pregnant with possibility" and I really took that to heart as my promise right now. I am still pregnant with possibility. I went in to that service feeling like such a victim. I left feeling reconnected with my spirit knowing that I have the strength to get through this. Through the course of the service I remembered something that has resonated so deeply in my spirit since I heard it. Its from Eckhart Tolle and it goes something like this, "Freedom from suffering is accepting this moment exactly as it is." I know that is a lot easier said than done. But I really do feel I am getting to a place of acceptance and peace. I know that there is "peace that passeth all understanding" available to me whenever I need or ask for it and by turning within I have really found so much healing peace in God right there in my heart. I'm not speaking religiously here either. Just spiritually. I am trying to find the gifts in this experience and I must say I feel quite blessed by what I have found.

~ I have NEVER felt closer to my husband. He has been amazing through this. Today we went to our dear friends (who TRULY supported us more than any others this week) house for their daughter's 1st bday party and my husband came and found me 1400 times throughout the course of the day. He would just come and kiss me and hold me for a few minutes - no words were necessary but it went without saying that he knew it was hard for me, he knew I was still struggling and he loved me and supported me. He let me go to bed when we got home (at like 7) and when he really wanted to go back to the party instead he stayed here and fed Kayta dinner and played with her all night. And I don't mean just played, I mean PLAYED. They woke me up happily 1000 times - Kayta was just giggling and gleeing all night long. It really warmed my heart.

~ I am unbelievably thankful in retrospect for what at the time was a seemingly easy pregnancy and (despite 53 hours of labor) birth that resulted in my beautiful healthy daughter coming into this world.

~ I am thankful it happened early and I didn't ever have to make a decision like some of those on here have had to make to terminate a child who would not have survived outside the womb. I'm also glad I never saw a heartbeat or knew the sex. I am also thankful my body did what it needed to do without any intervention medically.

I believe that before we enter into each lifetime, we make agreements with our soul and other souls. I think that this spirit that came in for such a short time had made an agreement with me to do a really hard thing by coming and going so quickly before we could even begin to get to know it. But in such a short time, I think it accomplished its purpose. I feel it smiling down on me seeing the amazing bond Kory and I feel now, seeing how cemented we are now in our relationship and our desires for another child to complete our happy family. However, I am also grateful that I know right now in my heart that our family is absolutely perfect just as it is. And it will be perfect if we have another child come as well.

~ I am thankful and grateful for amazing family and friends and for my own willingness to be open to the love around me from friends and strangers. Sharing at church today with total strangers who are of like-minded faith, I found great comfort and support. I felt again like by sharing my heart, other souls were touched and moved and perhaps inspired. The woman who prayed with me is about to move to CA and leave her 10 year old son behind with his Dad. She is going through her own unique process of mourning and loss and when I shared with her the peace I was finding in this, she cried. When we prayed together she cried and I knew it had spoken to her as well.

~I am thankful that I am young and strong and healthy and will easily be able to get pregnant again (that is my strong belief I am standing on!) and have another healthy baby.

~ I am so thankful for my daughter. My heart breaks for those who experience loss before they ever have a child. I think its equally but uniquely hard on both sides of the coin because once you've had a child, when you have a loss you know exactly what you are missing out on. Its like your life flashing before your eyes - these undone, never to be seen "memories" of what it would've been like to bring that child home, to welcome it into the world, etc. But I believe never having had a child it is equally hard in its own way, if not harder because you don't know what you're missing out on but you can certainly imagine. And it may feel hopeless that you'll never experience the love of a child in your life.

~I know this next baby/babies will mean more to everyone now. Myself, my husband and all of our family will find them even more special and we will all feel a deep sense of gratitude for the miracle of life.

The lady who was doing the Children's Ministry at church today asked me if Kayta had said anything about the baby. She could tell that Kayta is quite intuitive and you all know I believe that after the things she's said with my Aunt's passing. So tonight when I was putting her to bed I asked her "Do you think Mommy will have another baby in her tummy soon?" She nodded her head immediately with vigor. Then she said sadly (and we have not told her ANYTHING about the loss btw because we figured she was too young to process it and frankly the thought was too much for me), "There's not a baby in Mommy's tummy anymore." I asked her again if she thought I would have another one soon and she responded, "A blue baby! A big blue baby!" (Her fav color is blue, can you tell?) Then out of the blue she said in that quiet voice that seems to come from deep within her beautiful little soul, "And Mommy will have TWO babies." She went on for a minute about that and part of my heart lept out of my skin. That would be a dream come true. I left the room thinking, "Wow, what if...what if...the loss of one dream could lead to an even greater dream come true." Ah, that has been my lesson this year. When one door closes, a window opens.

Journal Entry ~ 6/5/09 titled "3 days after the fall..."

This Willow Tree Angel by Susan Lordi was given to me by a dear friend just days after my miscarriage. It was the most beautiful commemoration of my baby's spirit anyone could have handed me and I am grateful for something to put on my altar and remember my baby by. But I also remember how I found strength and beauty and peace in each day even in my darkest hour and I thank God for the gift of knowing that even when the sun is gone I can find light.

The card that sits in front of it reads

"May you find strength, beauty and peace in each day."

Journal Entry 6-5-09

My baby is gone. I am not pregnant anymore. But I was pregnant and there was a child beginning to fom within my womb. I saw it. It was tiny and somehow lifeless but it was there and it turned my world upside down for a few short weeks in a very wonderful and welcomed way. I do believe though that I was divided within myself going into this. Somehow on some level I didn't want to accept I knew something wasn't quite right. A pregnant woman just walked by - how is that seems so cruel now? I'm part of a new club - the "not pregnant - had a miscarriage" club. Lovely.

I'm trying my best to get through this right now but it is very hard. Thankfully I know in my heart that I will have another baby soon with another healthy pregnancy preceding it. Rightnow, everything is perfect, there is nothing wrong. I know that I chose this on a soul level and I am grateful for the gifts of compassion, understanding, depth and faith, knowing and courage this has given me. It has made me very grateful for what I do have - a beautiful, healthy daughter; a wonderful husband and together we already make a perfect family.

I had a wonderful meditation this morning in which I dove deeply into every last part of this and let my spirit guide me thorugh to some healing. Here's what I know in my heart...(and what I do not and may never know.

~Without bloodwork or ultrasound to confirm yet, I know in my heart that this was a miscarriage.

~I know that I am not pregnant anymore as hard as that is to admit to myself. I do not know why. I will not ever know for certain why I was not meant to carry this pregnancy to term and honestly I don't think I need or even want to know. I just that its over for now. But that doesn't mean that this little "Spirit Baby" won't/can't come back to me soon.

Chapter Excerpt from Part IV of BabyCatcher: Chronicles of a Modern MidwifeSpirit

BabyColin, my twelve-year-old son, discovered me late one rainy afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, a damp Kleenex crumpled in my left hand, wiping my eyes as I tried to compose myself for his sake. It was the third week of January, two months after I’d miscarried a pregnancy, but I still found it impossible to get through a day without at least one meltdown into misery.Stunned when the test came back positive, Rog and I had stared at each other with doubt and ambivalence. At forty-one, my professional life consumed me. I’d just achieved what some had predicted was an impossibility: I’d been granted delivery privileges at Alta Bates, and as a consequence, my midwifery practice burgeoned. Some months I delivered twelve babies, and no one ever knew if or when I’d be home. Rog, too, felt stretched to his limits, keeping his business afloat while picking up the slack for my frequent unscheduled absences. Colin and Jill approached their challenging adolescent years. How could we fit an infant into our lives? But when I lost the pregnancy and all hope for resolution dissolved with my tears, I fell in love with the baby that was not to be.

Colin asked, "Are you crying about the baby?" and when I nodded tearfully, he said, "Well, you just have to have another one, Mom, because it’s a Spirit Baby, and you should be its mother."

I must have looked puzzled because he said, "Don’t you know about Spirit Babies? How could I know about them if you don’t? I mean, you’re my mom!" But he could see my perplexity. So my first child, this not-yet-teenaged boy, pulled a wooden chair to my side and draped his thin arm across my shoulders, saying, "Well, Mom, here’s how it is. See, I was one myself, so that must be how I know. Anyway, every woman has a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life. Every month, one of those babies is first in line. If she gets pregnant, then that’s the baby that’s born. If she doesn’t get pregnant, the baby goes back into the circle and keeps going around with all the others. If she gets pregnant but something bad happens before the baby’s born…now listen, Mom, because here’s the really cool part. It goes back into the circle, but it becomes a Spirit Baby, and all the other babies give it cuts. Each month, it’s always first in line. Isn’t that great?"So you just have to get pregnant again, and you’ll have the same Spirit Baby. If you don’t, though, then the baby circle will just beam that little Spirit Baby over to some other woman’s circle, and it’ll be first in line for her. It keeps being first in line somewhere until it finally gets born."But it’d be a shame for you not to have it yourself, because I know how much you want it. So you just have to try again. Mom, remember that baby you lost before I was born?" I nodded wordlessly. "Well, that was me. Really. I’ve always known I was a Spirit Baby. I mean, I know what I’m talking about here, Mom."

In spite of Colin’s certainty that our household, so often bordering on chaos, lacked only an infant to make things perfect, Rog and I demurred. But Colin didn’t give up and even enlisted his sister’s support. Driving with them in the car one evening, I looked at my son in the passenger seat beside me. He stared out the side window and tried to hide his tears, but I saw the flush on his face, the shaking of his shoulders, and the surreptitious swipe of hand across cheek. Six months had passed since my miscarriage, and I had just finished yet another discussion in which I’d told my pleading son that having a third baby at my age was out of the question. I reached over the space between us and squeezed his fingers. "Colin, I don’t understand this passion you have for a baby. Why do you want one so much?" He tore his gaze from the distant hills and looked at me with swimming eyes and trembling lips. In a choking voice, he put all of his twelve-year-old passion into his reply."Oh, Mom! Oh. Just for the joy of it!" Jill stretched forward from the back seat and placed a hand on each of our shoulders. "Yeah, Mom, just for the joy of it." It was my turn to look out the side window and struggle with misty vision.

So, at a time when most women eye the empty nest at the end of their branch on the family tree with something approaching relief, I gave consideration to laying just one more egg. Several months of discussions peppered with doubt and disbelief followed. Although Rog and I made the final decision, there’s no denying that a big part of our decision to have a third child began with the insistence of our adolescent children that we "needed a baby in the house." Rog and I took a deep breath, looked at each other across the blond heads of those two wishful children, swallowed – and made a giant leap of faith.

I conceived my Spirit Baby a week later. Just for the joy of it.


In the same spirit of this Spirit Babies story, I know that I will eventually have the baby I am meant to have at the exact time I am meant to have it.

Missing...Miscarriage...and Mentoring

So...where do I even begin?

This is a short blog post to let you know why I've been MIA for awhile. I've been missing. Missing in action. Missing people. Missing life.

I suffered a miscarriage at the beginning of this month. I have been in a deep dark hole of grief and despair. It was a very traumatizing experience that rocked my world completely. We'd told everyone in these fun creative ways and were so excited to be expecting again and then bam, just as quickly as it arrived it was gone.

It has taken some time but I am finding healing and peace now. It really is a daily process trying to come back to that place of peace within myself. I have so much to share from this experience but have needed to get through it's most raw and naked parts before I could try to share. I hope in the coming weeks, I will be able to put into words some of the incredible blessings that have come in the midst of this - gifts of hope, faith, love, peace, joy and abudance which are all available to us before we even ask. I am encouraged that even in my darkest hour, I could go within and find peace. Some days, I didn't want to get out of bed and that was ok. I told myself and everyone that asked, "You can't go around it - you just have to go through it." Giving myself permission to really grieve my loss this time was very healing. I felt I didn't give myself enough of that when my Aunt died just a couple months ago so I made sure to take the time this time around.

Like I said, I have so much to share so as I find the inspiration, I will try to open up here as much as possible. I believe that part of the reason this happened is so that I can try to help other women who've been through a similar experience or are going through one currently. As my midwife said in the midst of this, "This is just what women do for each other." My hope is to encourage women to speak out about their own ordeals to find healing and peace and give healing and peace to those who are going through it. Miscarriages are common but carry no common emotions with them. Instead they bring deep pain and trauma. The women in my life who supported me through this were like rocks of Gibraltar. Being reassured along the way that how I've been feeling is totally normal, having an outlet to speak about my pain - all this has been so incredibly healing.

If you are suffering a miscarriage right now, I strongly encourage you to reach out to the women around you. More often than not, you will be surprised to find that many of them have experienced this as well. Knowing you are not alone will help you through the worst parts of it.

Thank you for your support, thoughts and prayers. I look forward to sharing more of my journey through this in the coming weeks and months.

If you have experienced a miscarriage or are going through one now, please feel free to leave a comment about your experience or email me at joyful_exercise@hotmail.com . That's what women do for each other. :)

Baking & Raising an Organic Family (Continued) - Dryer Sheets May Be Hazardous to Your Health

I used to watch the show "Get Fresh with Sarah Snow" on Discovery Health quite a bit and I can't tell you how much that woman taught me! She was the first to tell me about dryer sheets. Little did I know how bad they were for my body! Dryer sheets are doused in toxic perfumes that come in direct contact with your skin all day long on those pretty little clothes of yours (and your kid's). They ooze toxicity into your bloodstream and desensitize your noggin to the aromas of life unfolding around you. Most importantly, those toxins that slowly trickle into your bloodstream contain known carcinogens - as in, cancer-causing agents. Do a Google Search for "Dryer Sheet Toxins" and you'll find countless websites listing the ingredients used in dryer sheets and how they can negatively impact your health.

When people use dryer sheets, they are coating their clothes with a thin film of artificial chemical perfumes. Just like other perfumes, a person’s sensitivity to these perfumes decreases over time to the point where they don’t even notice how potent these artificial fragrance chemicals are. None of this would be interesting if it weren’t for the fact that these fragrance chemical are extremely toxic chemicals. They are known carcinogens. They cause liver damage and cancer in mammals.

Nearly every chemical that touches the skin finds its way into the body and into the bloodstream. As a result, wearing toxic fragrance chemicals is actually quite similar to eating them. These toxic chemicals would never, of course, be approved as safe food ingredients due to their toxicity. Many are registered as EPA toxins. ~NaturalNews.com

GrinningPlanet.com has one of the most valuable articles on this topic with an excellent debunking of many common consumer myths like "Well if isn't safe, why is it still on the market?" To start, they list several of the ingredients in dryer sheets that make them so potentially hazardous to your health.

Your fabric softener or dryer sheets likely include some of the following not-so-snuggly ingredients: alpha-terpineol, benzyl acetate, camphor, benzyl alcohol, limonene, ethyl acetate, pentane, and chloroform. According to the manufacturers' Material Safety Data Sheets, these chemicals have the potential to do things to you such as:

• Cause central nervous system disorders, headaches, and loss of muscle coordination;
• Irritate mucous membranes and impair respiratory function
• Cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, or drowsiness;
• Cause liver or kidney damage;
• Cause skin disorders and allergic reactions;
• Cause cancer.

One of these chemicals even contains the warning, "Do not flush into sewer system," and another appears on the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous waste list.
People are exposed to the chemicals by breathing the aromatic molecules in the air near the clothes or by absorbing them through the skin via direct contact with the clothes (which, by design, retain some of the fabric softener/dryer sheet molecules). ~ GrinningPlanet.com

When I decided to stop using conventional dryer sheets, I was more concerned about static cling than that "oh-so-fresh" scent. Head over to Grinning Planet if you want tips on how you can stop static cling naturally.

So is your jaw on the floor yet? The first time I discovered all of this information I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of how many thousands of dryer sheets we had used in our household. Thankfully, I found this information before my daughter was born so I knew not to use dryer sheets on her clothes (which you really shouldn't anyway since dryer sheets ruin the flame retardants on infant's pajamas). As for the rest of the family, in our small town we had a hard time finding a lot of great options. I probably should have shopped online to find exactly what I needed. It wasn't until I began researching this article that I found they do actually make safe dryer sheets now. SafeMama.com recommends Mrs. Meyers Dryer Sheets! I think I might order them online! For now, we've switched to Bounce Pure Essentials because they are biodegradable, free of perfumes and dyes, and use essential oils for scents in those that are scented. Plus, they are affordable!

SafeMama.com suggests another inexpensive alternative - try using a washcloth doused in essential oils to replace dryer sheets. What a great idea! Essential oils are known as sensory-exploding mood-enhancers with a long list of benefits for each one. So instead of dulling your senses, you'll enhance them.

I hope you've found some healthy options in this article to improve your family's quality of life. Now you know you can skip the dryer sheets altogether, buy some natural ones or throw an essential oil potpouri in there with your clothes! I always say that sometimes (especially in a recesssion!) you have to pick and choose the things that are most important to your family when you're going green. We can't all afford to buy only organic, green products all the time or else there wouldn't be any conventional products around anymore! However, in this case, it really shouldn't cost you any extra money to switch to the au naturale approach and it'll protect your children and the environment so..will you consider making the switch?

Please leave a comment telling me your thoughts on the use of dryer sheets in your home!

See you on the next installment of my Healthy Living Series!