A Dream Day for a Breast Cancer Survivor

October is the 27th annual Breast Cancer Awareness month.  A group of local Fort Collins businesses have rallied to honor one Breast Cancer  survivor with a Dream Day Giveaway. The effort is lead by Kate Hannah, owner of Tula Contemporary Women’s Clothing in Old Town.

The winner of Tula’s Dream Day Giveaway will receive $500 worth of clothes, shoes, and accessories from Tula as well as a consultation from the Tula Style Team, a complete hair makeover courtesy of The Parlour Salon, a makeup makeover with expert Dana Kurtz, a Mani/Pedi courtesy of Body and Spa Rituals, and a special dinner for two at Jax Fish House Fort Collins following the makeover.  The Tula Dream Day will end with a local one-night getaway courtesy of the Armstrong Hotel.  Tula will be offering a photo session in their studio to document the occasion.

Kate invites you to nominate yourself or a friend by visiting http://www.shoptula.com and clicking the Tula Dream Day Giveaway icon.  All entries must be received by October 17th and a winner will be chosen by October 19th.  The Dream Day will take place on October 20^th.   For official rules visit http://www.shoptula.com.

“As a woman business owner, I wanted to show my support and adulation for the many daring women that are battling or have survived breast cancer,” says Kate Hannah, owner of Tula.  “We thought a spectacular way to do that would be to give them a Tula Dream Day during Breast Cancer awareness month.  Who deserves to be pampered more?”

Share this with all of your Colorado friends to raise Breast Cancer Awareness during the month of October. Use the buttons to the left.

We all know someone who has been effected by Breast Cancer.  Perhaps you are effected or your mother, sister or friend.  The fact is that it is a horrible disease with staggering statistics.

Some quick Breast Cancer Facts from the American Cancer Society:

• Excluding cancers of the skin, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, accounting for nearly 1 in 4 cancers diagnosed in US women.
• In 2009, an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women, as well as an estimated 62,280 additional cases of in situ breast cancer.
• In 2009, approximately 40,170 women are expected to die from breast cancer. Only lung cancer accounts for more cancer deaths in women.

For more information on Breast Cancer you can continue reading at the American Cancer Society.

So what is there to celebrate?  We can celebrate the women who survive breast cancer every year and the fact that we can educate ourselves by raising awareness and utilizing resources.

Share this with all of your Colorado friends during the month of October to raise awareness for Breast Cancer.  Use the buttons to the left.

meal Train: Simplyfing A Helping Hand to Neighbors in Need

After Baby #3 was born, my friend (and blog partner), Kelsey, organized meals for us with various friends in our fabulous Fort Collins community. We had meals for 10 nights of our son’s first month of life, which as any parent knows can be a slightly traumatic event.  I hate to be negative by labeling the birth of a child “traumatic” so I will also mention the joyous celebration of no longer carrying around the weight bowling ball in your uterus and the rite of passage into a solid year of the ultimate in sleep deprivation.  The fact that your friend was kind enough to take time out of her packed schedule with her own family to make your family dinner in a time of need is the ultimate gift (besides the little bundle of joy, of course).

With my dinner dilemma resolved, help from my mother-in-law and sisters and simply the knowledge gained from the other two times around the newborn baby #3 trauma was bearable.

Yesterday, my friend Inger sent me a link to a favorite new web site called meal Train to help with the organization of meals for another friend who also just had a baby.  I fell in love with the site for the simple reason that it makes helping someone else 10 times easier for the organizer, the participant and even the receiver of meals.

When Kelsey organized dinner for my family she sent out an email and had to receive various replies that were sometimes not straightforward.  I also had eating restrictions (you can read about this in the cupcake post) that were extensive and hard to remember unless you had a list in which to refer.

meal Train eliminates all of the above problems by providing:

• A real-time meal calendar
• The ability to customize dates, times, meal preferences or food restrictions
  
• Invitations via e-mail and facebook
• Reminder emails

As a participant, I simply clicked on the link that Inger sent, booked a date, typed what I was going to make while being able to see the food preferences or restrictions of the family.  My favorite part?  The simple .ical (also google) download for my calendar to which I have become completely dependent.  If it is not in my calendar, I forget. Unfortunately that it not an understatement.  So I love this feature.

As the receiver of meals, you get all of the necessary information regarding who is making what and bringing it when.

And the icing is that the service is completely free. 

If you know of any other community oriented time saver technology, send it our way – info@LogicallyLocal.com.

Mmm… Sustenance in the City?

Food trends have always come and gone, hyped-up as the latest and greatest.  There are two current trends however, that have come full circle with a slight twist. I’m talking about non-hybridised (non-GMO), seasonal and local food as well as the farm (or urban garden) to fork, trends.

There is a home that sits in the FC, Old-town zip code that is now a supplier to one of the best restaurants in Northern Colorado, Chimney Park.  April’s Heirlooms consists of 8 hand made, 4 x 16 foot, raised beds with 50 plants and 35 different varieties. This urban farm is the labor of love and abundance, of a one woman show.

April started her first urban garden on a condominium deck in the heart of San Francisco. She was and still is, inspired by food activist Alice Water, the owner of Chez Panisse, in Berkley CA; famous for it’s organic, locally grown ingredients. April moved to Fort Collins in 2003, buying a home with a yard that would allow her to expand and to continue her love of growing. April started to collect different varieties of seeds and plants, then she began to save the seeds from one year’s crop to be used the next season. Each spring April starts her plants from seed in a small room lined with shelves, warming lights, and an elaborate drip system. Once the finicky spring weather in Fort Collins has subsided, April moves her happy little plant-lings to their summer beds. It is here that the non-GMO plants will live in irrigated organic soil, enriched with homemade compost, and enjoy pesticide-free care, during their short and fruitful life cycle. The result of all this fussiness is fantastic! I pick a Wapsipinicon Peach tomato, (April’s favorite) it is about 2 ounces, yellowish in color and has a slight fuzzy texture. I bite into the delicate tomato.  It’s slightly warm from today’s Colorado sunshine, it is sweet, not acidic, and delicate, much like a peach with a tomato flare. Yum!

“There is nothing better than being able to walk out, in my back yard, and eat fresh vegetables from the vine,” says April.

So why seek out local, seasonal, organic/heirloom produce? The distance from garden for fork, from April’s Heirlooms to Chimney Park is only 15 miles.  This is 1% (or even less!) of the average “food miles” our vittles usually take! The short travel also allows the produce to fully ripen before harvest, which gives it the best flavor, and maximizes nutritional value.  And lastly, choosing organic, heirloom produce eliminates all the icky stuff (pesticides & GMO), and maintains all the great flavor.

If you would like to enjoy some of April’s Heirlooms follow Chimney Park on Twitter or Facebook to find out when Chef Jason is picking and cooking. If you would like to contact April, email is best 701heirlooms@gmail.com

oh vegan goodness. is it an oxymoron?

I love good vegan food and it is completely delicious if done well.  I have been riding  a vegan train for 8 months now with a few major exceptions.  Next to my creamless creamed spinach and my baked potato drizzled with olive oil, I sometimes enjoy a lovely 4 ounce petite fillet – that would be the choice cut of a cow (a local cow of course), but served up nonetheless. Ok – now all the vegans are disgusted with me, but keep reading.  If I cut out the cows and the chickens, there would be nothing left.

My SEMI-vegan adventure consisting of no dairy, soy, nuts, eggs or wheat (yes, I am also gluten free) has been due to my nursing infant’s protein sensitivity.  If I don’t eliminate the above from my diet for his first year, he could potentially develop life long food allergies.

The vegan approach is always a good one when planning meals because I can be sure of dairy and egg free.  When you add gluten free, soy free and nut free to the mix, it gets tougher.  One thing that has been completely void from my diet is baked goods. Never being able to partake in a treat is downright sad. The closest I’ve come is the vegan, gluten free pancakes that I have attempted several times.  I have never gotten them right.  They usually turn out aerodynamic and dense enough to be retained in 007′s collection of secret weapons. In the end they are not good enough to waist the calories on even when smothered in real maple syrup.  I will keep trying.

Today was a glorious Sunday in which I got to partake in a treat and I owe it all to my my visit to the Cupcake Cruiser.  I follow them on Facebook and Twitter and have been meaning to stop by for a few months.  Each day they will tweet or update their status on their location.   They had one gluten, dairy, soy, nut and egg free cupcake left with my name on it.  What is it made of? you ask. Air? Wind? Rain? I have no idea, but I entrusted my dietary restrictions to their statement and enjoyed every last bite.  Delicious.

My taste disclaimer is that I can’t really remember what a traditional baked good tastes like.  The soy free fake butter I occasionally eat used to taste like hell and now I think “not bad.”  However, I can say with confidence that my family LOVED the Chocolate Cutthroat Porter cupcakes.

Hal-le-lu-jah! It’s the First Day of School!

As the 1st of August rolls around, I know I will be as excited as Nemo on the first day of school.  The kids are fighting more than usual.  My youngest is getting the crap beat out of him and I’ve resorted to a day at Chuck E. Cheese because my creative brain has shut down.  So I give in to the “Pleeeaaase can we go, Mom?” Shoot me.  The first day of school cannot come soon enough.  Or can it?

Today 5:15 am- I’m up on East Coast time. I am blogging from my temporary year residence in the land of Florida to accommodate a work opportunity for my husband.  We shlepped our whole world down here for one year and now the boys are starting at a new school.  I couldn’t sleep due to nerves and excitement.  I make my coffee, pack lunches including peanut butter & jelly circle sandwiches, a note, and as much love as I can cram into a lunch box.

In the past week I have over heard many Moms talk about having back to school stress. They all seem to know that their kids are going to be okay, but there is always the “what if?”   As the kids get ready for their first day at a new school, unlike eager little Nemo, I’m a total mess. What if they get lost? What if no one sits by them for lunch?  What if another child is mean to them?! I tell myself  ”I will be strong, I will not cry, I will not show any signs of weakness or nerves that might trigger nerves in them.  On the 1st of August they were acting like little hellions that had been possessed and now that the day is upon us, they have all sprouted wings.  I just want them to be happy.

8:02 am- We successfully made it out the door and safely to school.  I tell myself, “Don’t cry, keep it together.”  They had their backpacks, lunches and requested school supplies. “Nope I’m not going to cry.”  As a united front we made our way through the maze of kids and parents, found building #2, found the correct class rooms, made our way to the assigned desks. With a hug and a kiss and friendly hello to the teacher (that now has the pleasure of spending the day with MY angel, I hope she knows how lucky she is, I want to tell her but I’m biting my tongue so I won’t cry). One more hug, kiss and some well wishes for a great day.

Now I’m home and having a good cry. I am watching the clock obsessively today counting the minutes until I can rush back, hug them and kiss them, and (hope) for them to tell me how great their day was, how many new friends they made and how nice their teacher is.  I will then exhale the breath I’ve been holding.

By next year I will have forgotten all of the emotions and worry that comes with the first day and I will do it again.

The New and Improved Logically Local

For the past year and a half my business partner, Kelsey and I embarked on the adventure of starting a business called Logically Local.  This particular business mission had meaning especially in a place like Northern Colorado.  We were going to use the internet to inspire people to shop, dine, play and do businesses locally and to reinvest in this fabulous place in which we choose to raise our kids.

Dream. This was the dream: create a business with a meaningful mission, build a virtual launch pad where businesses could come and sign up (our fabulous web site), keep it small enough so as not  to deal with a lot of overhead and still spend oodles of time with our families.  Sell the Logically Local card online.  The happy “buy local with the Logically Local card” virus would catch on and anyone could get one at anytime and not have to wait in line (yes, there was going to be a line around the block).  It was a brilliant plan so we started with focus groups and a business outline (let’s call it a working outline) and we scoped out the website.

Baby. As anyone who has started a business knows (as we now do), nothing, absolutely NOTHING went as planned.  We started off website development in late June and I discovered on July 5th that I was PREGNANT!  That was definitely not in the plan.  The Golden Rule for all women embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure: DO NOT GET PREGNANT by surprise.  Now I know there are superwomen out there that could pull this off and smile through the first trimester sickness and the third trimester when your body takes on a new dimension.  However, I am not one of those women.  I now have a beautiful 6 month old baby boy who, along with my other two kids, take priority over the Logically Local baby.

Florida. Shortly after the launch of Logically Local, Kelsey’s husband got word that he would have to be in Florida in June of 2011 for one year to fulfill a work opportunity.  So now I was knocked up, soon to be the mother of a demanding infant and two other smallish children and my business partner in our local business adventure was going to be not so local. hhhmmmm???

Sales.  Now I told you that we had spent a major part of our budget designing the site efficiently knowing that our own bandwidth was limited.  This was an investment in successful growth.  Actually, it was a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY.  We should have spent that portion of the budget on raising awareness.  A handful of businesses signed up on their own and a handful of cards were sold online.  We quickly learned that we had created a sales positions for ourselves.  So as much as we hated it, we hit the streets.  Oh how painful this reality was.

Stalking.  As we hit the streets we soon realized that our great idea was not as completely original as first thought.  A Boulder company called Duck Duck Deal had launched two weeks prior to us.  How we missed this I am not sure.  We also underestimated Groupon, Living Social and others.  We knew they existed, but thought that the model and mission were different enough to co-exist in the same vicinity if they ever made it to Fort Collins at all.  Well, about a month later they started popping up all over the place and slowly but surely gained momentum.  Groupon, a BILLION dollar company, made one of our network businesses take down their deal while the business was running a Groupon.  How crazy is that?  The biggest problem with these other companies was that, though we had a different model and mission, we were still competing for the attention of the small business owner who was now being hounded by several different companies.  This is the part we disliked the most – stalking.  Just call us the Logically Local stalkers.

Quitters.  Now quitting really sucks and I hate to call it that, but what a monumental relief.  Kelsey and I have resigned as the Logically Local stalkers and have created this new and improved Logically Local as venue to continue to connect residents to the local business community.  We will do this by providing basic local business information and even provide businesses with the ability to showcase a promotion.  However, we will discontinue the use of the card and instead of being focused on competing with Groupon sales people we are going to focus on creating content that, you, the interested reader will care about reading or sharing with someone who might find it interesting – a blog of sorts.  We will throw that word out there and see where it takes us.  We will have new content several times a week so check in with us often, like us on Facebook if you already haven’t and follow us on Twitter.  We would love to get feedback so comment often or send us a private email info@LogicallyLocal.com.

We will be populating this site with our current business network pages and keep you updated on any changes via Facebook or our RSS feed.  Thanks to all of you for your continued support!