What if there was one thing you could do to lessen the likelihood that your child would get involved with smoking, drinking or doing drugs; lessen his/her chance of developing obesity; and help him/her do better in school? What if that thing was as simple as having regular family dinners together?

I've been struggling with a secret, which is this: I'm really, really not in love with my body right now. I have, been keeping it secret for two reasons: 1) it's totally new to me - I've never really struggled with my body image, even after my last pregnancy, which added padding where no padding had hitherto existed, and so it just feels foreign and weird and (obviously) bad, and 2) it also feels so, I don't know, anti-feminist or anti-woman or anti-me (which, really, collapses into a kind of counter-womanism, to be anti-yourself as a woman) and I just so don't want to be that.

I gave birth six weeks ago. Since then, I've lost a lot of the baby weight. Partly because the baby that I was carrying was so huge that his expulsion from the womb represented a massive weight loss, and partly because I've hardly been able to eat anything since he was born, what with his unremitting need to be held ALL THE TIME HOLY HELL. Hardly anything but cookies, that is, and maybe the odd bagel or two. Which, you know, is not the best post-partum diet.

Buying local isn't just about food, even if the local 'code words' (you know, the language that suggests fresh and wholesome and all things good-for-you, ones like organic, sustainable, CSA/community-supported agriculture, locavore, green, whole food, free-range, humanely raised, flexitarian and the like) glibly fall from our lips if not as often onto our plates. But let's start there. Please know that unconventional thinking is NOT about dictating my own value judgments. It is simply to provoke conscious consideration, discussion and decisions about our individual buying decisions. Do I hope to jar our thinking a bit, to bump us out of our comfort zones, to make us challenge our own decisions? You bet.

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of V-Day and BlogHer's exclusive interview with the writer of "The Vagina Monologues" Eve Ensler, I was asked to focus this week's post on "The Vagina Monologues" on YouTube.

I became a vegetarian almost 20 years ago, and when I did Diet For a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé was one of those bibles you kept by your side. It wasn't just inspiring, but a practical guide to leading a healthy vegetarian lifestyle.Decades later Moore's daughter, author and activist Anna Lappé, carries on this tradition of activism that is both inspiring and dedicated to helping people make a difference via personal action. I'm thrilled to be conducting an exclusive podcast interview with Anna next week as part of our ongoing Earth Day is Every Day coverage this month. Our interview with Anna will coincide with a launch of an entirely new project that I'm also going to ask her about, and I'm also going to ask Anna about these three main goals in her work:

Recap: as part of the Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Wallet series, I'm talking about recycling and thrifty ways to feed our art/craft habits and pointing out the benefits of doing so. I've discussed the money-making recyclers at Etsy, the communities where recycling habits regularly happen and some of the interesting discussion there.

Living on a fixed income can present challenges especially for elders. The opportunities to earn additional income can be limited or non-existent. Opportunities to increase nest eggs through investments diminish. And during times when inflation grows faster than cost-of-living increases, if any, the challenges can be even greater.

So may people treat retirement like it is some sort of nirvana. I know for so many years all I heard from the people around me (mainly in the corporate cube) was them yearning for and dreaming about retirement. And these weren't only people who were a few years away from it. No. People who were "only 10 years away" or "only 15 years away" and they would pine and weep and wish away the years so they could get to retirement. I never understood that. Not when I entered the full time workforce at the age of 21 and not now.

Can I just say I heart eBay? As someone who does not like traditional shopping --that would be shopping in malls, discount malls, department stores and boutiques, I am an enthusaistic eBay shopper and a very occasional eBay seller. I just checked my profile and I have been a member since February 9, 1999.

Recap: as part of the Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Wallet series,  I'm talking about recycling and thrifty ways to feed our art/craft habits.  This weekend, let's examine Thrift Stores and Salvage Shops as our art/craft supply stores. Thrift Stores: Wool Sweaters:

What is credit and how does it work? We often forget the very basics behind credit as we go about our lives buying things (often on credit) and making payments on the monthly bills. Of course most recently the housing fallout and matters of subprime loans have only made the waters muddier but at least opened up the conversation around credit and how it really works.