From her website:
Rachel Simmons is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, and The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence. As an educator, Rachel works internationally to develop strategies to reduce bullying and empower girls.

The talk will be focused on helping our daughters to discover and embrace the best parts of their authentic selves. It’s a topic I’m passionate about, and I’m sure you are too.

The conversation will take place on Tuesday, January 31 at 12:00 p.m. EST, on TheMotherhood.com.

Hope to “see” you there!

We’ll start with the Women’s Regular Long Sleeve Cable Turtleneck Dress.

Isn’t it pretty? It also comes in black, but I just love the Rich Red. It’s made from merino wool, which is soft and comfortable (and not scratchy at all). The cable knit adds a lovely design, without being bulky. I love this dress – it really looks and feels great.

It’s a great choice for a Christmas party… you could even add the Tartan Plaid Flower Pin for a little added festiveness (is that a word? Probably not, but you know what I mean. Festivity? Not sure. Anywho…)

But wait!

Want to wear it to the office in January? Belt it and wear black pumps, like in the picture above. Perfect.

OR, you could dress it down slightly and go with this look:

I love this so much, I can’t even describe it.

Put a white No Iron Pinpoint Cotton Shirt underneath…

Add tights, a belt, and slip on the Elizabeth Mid Heel Boot…

And there you go. One dress, three looks.

Love it.

So. We left Ikea and he was going to follow me to a Wendy’s across the street to get the kids a snack, only I couldn’t turn where I thought I could and passed up the Wendy’s, and he got stopped by a red light and was no longer on my tail. No big deal, right? EXCEPT – my cell phone battery was dead. Horror of horrors, I couldn’t call him to say I was going to stop at the next exit.

The only thing we could do was drive home independently, without communicating that whole entire 50-some minutes.

Yes, we both knew we were all headed to our house. Yes, we both knew how to get there. But it was so weird not to be able to touch base.

Of course, I remember the days before cell phones {shudder} and I know we all lived to tell about it. I remember having to, like, set a time and place to meet people. I remember holding up signs in the back window to communicate to friends in the vehicle behind us. But you’ve got to admit – it seems kind of hard to imagine now.

Here’s where I should jump on the whole “We are too dependent on technology these days!” bandwagon and pledge to throw out my cell phone and learn to use smoke signals.

But you know what? I really like being able to call my husband and tell him to meet us at the next Wendy’s down the road. It’s pretty darn convenient, and let’s be real, convenient is good.

Jenny and I held out a long time (in the world of bloggers, at least) before getting smart phones. It was not until last fall that we finally broke down and got Droids. Was it an absolute necessity that we get them? No, of course not. Does it make life easier at times? Yep. And not just so I can check Facebook every few minutes or tweet whenever I have a random thought – but in ways that are convenient and even safer at times. I’ve been in situations a couple times recently that I’ve been completely lost (that is hard for me to admit, as I pride myself on my sense of direction) and I’ve been really, really glad I had my Droid Bionic there with its handy GPS and Google Maps. Like I said, it’s convenient.

Right now I’m sitting in a hotel room using the Bionic’s tethering feature to provide a wifi hotspot for my iPad so I can write this blog post. I could live without it (and I’m sure you could live without this nonsensical drivel) but very handy at the same time.

So, what do you think? Are we too reliant on technology? In what ways does technology make your life easier?

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This post is part of our participation in Verizon Wireless’s Midwest Moms campaign. They are letting us try out the Bionic.

Jenny and I love us a good twitter party, and there are none we like better than those about Lands’ End!

We’re thrilled to be participating in this year’s Lands’ End 12 Hours of Twitter event again this year. We’re hosting the first hour, from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., and we hope you’ll join us. Here are the details:

@LandsEndPR on November 28, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. EST at #landsend and tweet along for a chance to win festive prizes, learn about great values, retweet offers and answer trivia questions. Participants will have the chance to win one of the more than 65 great giveaways over the 12-hour period.

Lands’ End gives away GREAT prizes during their twitter parties, and they are so much fun. This year they’re adding a Power Hour from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST, when they’ll give away three $250 gift cards, and if #LandsEnd becomes a trending topic on Twitter, they’ll also give away a $500 gift card.

Also on Cyber Monday, Lands’ End will offer lots of “St. Nick’s Picks” – great deals on gift items. Last year Jenny and I both bought monogrammed totes to give as teacher gifts at a great price, and we are looking forward to seeing what will be on sale again this year. As always, the Lands’ End quality and customer service can’t be beat – last year I needed to change something on my Cyber Monday order, and even on the busiest online shopping day of the year, a real live person answered my call on the second ring. Lands’ End is the best.

I hope you’ll join us for the Lands’ End 12 Hours of Twitter Even on Monday, November 28!

Starfish Spandex Terry Pants

They make my legs very happy.

These are a little more casual-looking than the other Starfish pants, and they have a drawstring – so if you’re a drawstring-pant girl, you’ll love them! The terry is so soft, and so warm – and the pants look great! Especially with the tops and jackets in the Starfish collection.

SO, who wants to win five pieces of this fabulous collection from Lands’ End?  Here’s how to enter!

1) Go check out the Starfish Collection and leave me a comment letting me know which piece you think looks the best. If you can’t pick one, that’s ok, just tell me what you love!

2) “Like” our facebook page and leave us a comment on this post telling us you did our already do

3) Tweet about this giveaway “Win 5 pieces of the #landsend Starfish Collection from @jennyitup & @momminitup http://bit.ly/w4j0Fr” then leave us a comment with your tweet URL.

4) Subscribe to our feed, then leave us a comment on this post letting us know you did or already do.

This giveaway ends Tuesday night at 10:30 PM EST.  If you don’t win this one, keep trying, we’ve got three more to go!

So this next giveaway is going to be SHORT! Only 48 hours, so enter & spread the word FAST!  For this giveaway I am going to tell you my absolute FAVORITE Starfish Collection outfit combo.  It is:

The 3/4 sleeve drape cardigan:

With the original Starfish Refined Stretch Pants:

Starfish Refined Stretch Pants

and any old (Lands’ End) comfy tee and a pretty scarf, like this one:

That’s my favorite way to style the Starfish Colletion!  I feel SO put together and comfy in this get-up!   Here’s how YOU can win five pieces of the Starfish Collection so you can style yourself any way YOU want:

1) Go check out the Starfish Collection and leave me a comment letting me know which piece you think looks the best. If you can’t pick one, that’s ok, just tell me what you love!

2) “Like” our facebook page and leave us a comment on this post telling us you did our already do

3) Tweet about this giveaway “Win 5 pieces of the #landsend Starfish Collection from @jennyitup & @momminitup http://bit.ly/rpdUTa” then leave us a comment with your tweet URL.

4) Subscribe to our feed, then leave us a comment on this post letting us know you did or already do.

This giveaway is going to be LIGHTNING FAST!  It ends Tuesday, November 15th at 5 pm EST.  Good luck!!

Just click the photo below to go purchase & download yours. And congrats, Erin!

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Also, you should know that we are affiliates for Erin’s book, SO if you buy one, we will make a small amount of money, which we will then use to buy Sammy a gold-plated name plate for his stool at the bar.

Lands’ End is keeping the Starfish looove alive by adding even MORE AWESOME PIECES to the collection!  Here are a couple of my faves:

Starfish Drawstring Cowlneck Tunic

Starfish leggings. So awesome they about make me weep.

And here’s me showing you how they look on and blabbering about how much I looooooooooooove them (because, seriously! The leggings? Tears of joy.)

Ok, here’s how to enter to win!  And don’t forget the winner gets to pick FIVE pieces from the Starfish Collection!

1) Go check out the Starfish Collection and leave me a comment letting me know which piece you think looks the best. If you can’t pick one, that’s ok, just tell me what you love!

2) “Like” our facebook page and leave us a comment on this post telling us you did our already do

3) Tweet about this giveaway “Win 5 pieces of the #landsend Starfish Collection from @jennyitup & @momminitup http://bit.ly/vFobVR” then leave us a comment with your tweet URL.

4) Subscribe to our feed, then leave us a comment on this post letting us know you did or already do.

This giveaway ends at 6pm EST on Monday, October 31st. That’s right it’s a short one for all you DIE-HARD readers!! SO get entering!!

As part of the Midwest Moms promotion with Verizon Wireless, Jenny and I have a chance to check out the brand new Droid Bionic from Motorola. Have you seen the commercials for the Bionic? They make it look like you could time travel using it or something. I already have a Droid X2, and I was interested to see what the big deal was. The first thing I noticed is that the Bionic is slightly smaller and thinner than the X, which I was very glad to see. But…

The big deal? That thing is freaking fast.

The Bionic is on the Verizon 4G LTE network, which is spreading rapidly across the country. Dayton and Cincinnati are both on the network, and from my experience, areas between those two cities are on it as well. It really is so much faster than 3G, it’s crazy. I could immediately tell the difference when I used it for browsing the first time, but when I attempted to keep Sam quiet installed the Netflix app and tuned into some Spiderman educational programming for Sam, the difference was dramatic.

With 3G, the picture is pretty grainy and there’s a lot of buffering time. Not so with 4G LTE! The picture was really clear and the movie loaded quickly without pause. Streaming video on a phone isn’t a necessity, for sure, but it’s surprising how often it’s come in handy for me. Last Sunday I used it to do a pilates video in my grandma’s living room. I got a work out in that day before I consumed a zillion calories at dinner when I definitely wouldn’t have otherwise.

The Bionic is really fast in terms of processing, too. I haven’t experienced many delays in opening apps, making phone calls, etc. The battery life is pretty short, but an extended-life battery for my X made a huge difference and I’m sure it would with the Bionic as well. Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the Bionic!