ModestProm Rental Dresses

Well, I continue to plug along on altering the dresses I purchased to start a modest formal rental business!

To help publicize this business, I am going to be having drawings for free jewelry and dress rentals. December's drawing will be for a beautiful 18" freshwater pearl necklace.

There are three ways you can be entered in the drawings:

1) Join my ModestProm.com Facebook fan page (just log in to Facebook, then search for ModestProm, bring up the page, and become a fan). This earns you a ticket for the monthly drawing.

2) Recommend the page to your friends (just click on the "Suggest to Friends" link under the profile picture. Email me to let me know you recommended the page to your friends, and this will also earn you a ticket for the monthly drawing.

3) Email me when your friends join. Just tell me their names (they must be NEW fans), and I will give you a ticket for each friend who joins.

If you are interested in following along as I alter the dresses - to get ideas, or just for information - you can follow my blog at http://www.modestprom.blogspot.com where I am gradually blogging the alterations as I go along.

A Modest Project

Last week, I stumbled on the opportunity to buy a number of beautiful, high-quality, brand new prom dresses for an unbelievable price. I bought a number of them with the intent to start a rental business for modest formal dresses. Only problem is - almost all of them are strapless and have to be modified. So now I am in crunch mode to fix about 40 dresses over about the next month! I am blogging my progress on www.modestprom.blogspot.com. (sorry I can't get the link to work) Follow along, and be glad you're not as crazy as me!

The Swine Flu is Coming, Part I

Seems like we've been hearing a lot about the Swine Flu lately. Some large local institutions are making contingency plans based on as much as 50% of the population becoming infected this fall/winter.

For some reason, the swine flu seems to engender a panic that other infectious diseases - such as the "regular" flu - don't seem to. Part of me thinks it's all overblown. But another part of me thinks, better to prepare than to panic. And better to even over-prepare than to be sorry.

For myself, I think a very important part of preparing is doing everything you can to be in the best possible health - including pumping up the immune system and cleansing the digestive system. Diet is a prime factor in this. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables plus a high-fiber diet are key.

So a part of my personal strategy is to have a Green Drink each day. (No one else in my family will drink them, and I don't force the issue. But I figure if anyone needs to not "go down" should there be a pandemic, it's me, the mother. So I drink Green Drinks regularly.)

This is what I do.

When I go grocery shopping, I buy a bunch of red chard and a bunch of kale. (Spinach, beet greens, collards, any other dark leafy green would work as well.)

I chop them up, rinse them thoroughly, and spin them dry in my salad spinner.
Then I mix them together in a large bowl.

Last, I package them in 1-gallon zip loc bags, which I keep in the fridge.


Then it's easy to prepare my green drink in my high-speed (K-tec) blender:

1. Put in 1-2 C of water.

2. Put in a large handful or two of greens.

3. Add a banana and other fruits (I like an apple and frozen blueberries. But I also use peaches, strawberries, and whatever I have on hand).

4. Blend on the "Whole Food" setting.

This produces a thick greenish-brown drink about the consistency of V-8. It has your full day's allowance of fresh fruits and vegetables (about 2 servings veggies, and 3 servings fruits, depending on what you add). My family thinks it's disgusting, but I have grown to really like it. I notice that when I drink my Green Drink, I feel better and have more energy. I think it will help me to stay healthy - or at least healthier - in the event of a swine flu outbreak as well.