By Ellen Dolgen

Thursday, October 18th, 2012 is World Menopause Day. This is like a worldwide birthday party for the big M! This year, the sponsoring organization, the International Menopause Society (IMS), is launching a campaign to focus on the health implications of weight gain during menopause. (Coincidentally, I blogged about weight gain a few weeks ago.) How can you celebrate?  Open up the channels of communication and break the taboo that somehow still lingers around the topic of perimenopause and menopause. It’s silly, and it’s time we’re done with it. Raise a toast to you, your Mom, your sisters, Aunts, and to women worldwide who share this passage of womanhood.

World Menopause Day

What are some ways you can honor and celebrate yourself or other women you know who are experiencing perimenopause or menopause? How about throwing a Menopause Party? Quick! When you think of the word “party,” what comes to mind? The legendary toga party in Animal House? Jake Ryan’s house party in Sixteen Candles? The seniority in Dazed and Confused? Though all of these parties had different features—from ivy to paddles—they have one thing in common: the reason for celebration—each other. Parties exist for fun! Menopause parties are no different. As the taboo surrounding perimenopause and menopause  is peeled away layer by layer like your clothes during a hot flash, more women are looking to parties for support, the latest information, resources and sisterhood. READ MORE… »

Thanks to our amazing special guests & participants last month, #PeriodTalk now officially holds the title of being a Worldwide Trending Topic. So what do we do after reaching such a milestone? We CELEBRATE!!!

October 12th we’ll be celebrating Period Talk in multiple ways! With it being the second Friday of the month we’ll be hosting,…you guessed it…a PeriodTalk Tweet Chat!

Be Prepared Period Gift CardAnd as we announced during last month’s chat we are taking PeriodTalk from a once a month live tweet chat to a community that is available for support 24/7/365! If you haven’t already, check it out and chime in! Just click, “PeriodTalk!” There are many great questions and answers being posted already. To help get the tweet chat going & encourage conversation we’ll be featuring some of the top questions and answers to share with you!

Prizes & PeriodTalk, they just seem to go together. So this month we’ll be offering one lucky winner a $25 Gift Certificate to www.bepreparedperiod.com to purchase their favorite feminine hygiene products.

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PeriodTalk

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEATTLE— www.bepreparedperiod.com has launched what may be the only online community for women of all ages, developing girls and their parents, a safe place for questions and answers about menstruation, feminine hygiene, the female body and more.

 

PeriodTalk is free and open to anyone to ask and answer questions anonymously. www.bepreparedperiod.com founder Tara Bruley, a Seattle-area mom, said PeriodTalk is an accepting place for questions that women, parents, girls, “tweens” and teens may be uncomfortable asking about menstruation and physical development elsewhere. Other members of the community can offer their own insight, and PeriodTalk experts may also chime in with guidance and knowledge. READ MORE… »

KISS106.1Check it out, you can now hear us on Seattle’s 106.1 KISSFM!! We are absolutely THRILLED to be spreading the word about our site, services and resources on air!

If you’ve visited us at Be Prepared Period, you can probably see that a big part of our mission is to educate, whether it be helping parents prepare their daughters for puberty, assisting women achieve a Better Period, or informing females about healthier product alternatives.

Some of these efforts include providing:

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A guest post by our Irish friend, Samantha Kelly

Samantha Kelly - Funky GoddessBack to School!!

The sun is shining and all the rain has stopped! This can only mean one thing! Yes the schools are back! After a rainy summer here in Ireland, stuck indoors my 13 year old Daughter went off to Secondary School to start her journey into the world of Teenage Dreams, peer pressure and Boys!!

Aarrgh! I can’t believe She is going to secondary school already!  I remember her asking me could she get a puppy when she was five and spending hours and hours throwing the ball for our dog Candy.  The dog is lucky if she gets acknowledged when she stomps in the door with her overweight schoolbag now! (Why do they make books so heavy anyway)?

Ah but one of the best things about going back to school is the fact that she has a bit more knowledge of periods and is always prepared with her ‘Secret Casket’ in her schoolbag.  Of course, because She is the daughter of Funky Goddess, her friends know that she always has a supply of pads readily available, so she tends to pack a few extra these days, due to girls approaching her in case of emergency. She says she likes this as she feels like she is helpful to her peers. This isn’t a bad quality to have at all and I am so proud of her for it. (could be worse, she could be the go to person for much nastier reasons)! READ MORE… »

September 14th we’ll be celebrating the Back to School season with our wonderful co-host You ARE Loved with a Back to School: Periods 101 Tweet Chat. One of our special guests this month will be Jenn Leggett, Chief Executive Mama at Earthy Crunchy Mama.

Earth Crunchy MamaEarthyCrunchyMama.com is a website committed to making earthy crunchy mamas’ lives a bit easier through detailed product reviews, a library of articles to guide your pursuits, and a store full of hand-selected products.

Jenn has generously given us a $40 Earthy Crunchy Mama Gift Certificate to giveaway to one lucky participant help promote the chat.

Be sure to check out her site and all that she has to offer at EarthyCrunchyMama.com

 

*With this giveaway being designed to promote our upcoming TweetChat, Friday, September 14, 2012 the winner must be present to win. (Present, being defined by posting at least one #PeriodTalk tweet between 1:40 and 2:40pm Eastern on September 14th, 2012.) READ MORE… »

September 14th we’ll be celebrating the Back to School season with our wonderful co-host You ARE Loved with a Back to School: Periods 101 Tweet Chat. And thanks to Ann Germanow, founder of Scensibles we have another great giveaway to offer.

Scensibles: A personal disposal bag systemOne concern many parents have is their daughter’s feminine hygiene while at school. An issue that can be magnified when there is a lack of receptacles in girls bathrooms (especially at elementary school levels). This makes Scensibles a perfect giveaway for September’s topic. To help promote and encourage participation in next month’s chat we’ll be giving away a box of Scensibles to two lucky winners.

What are Scensibles?
Scensibles
are sanitary disposal bags specially designed for safe, easy and clean disposal of feminine care products—sanitary pads, tampons and applicators, disposable cups (like Softcups), personal care wipes, and panty liners. Scensibles are personal size oxo-biodegradable scented plastic bags with a contemporary pink on pink design, tie handle closure and built in antimicrobial agents to inhibit the growth of odor causing bacteria.

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September 14th we will be celebrating the Back to School season with our wonderful co-host You ARE Loved with a Back to School: Periods 101 Tweet Chat. One of our special guests this month will be Samantha Kelly, founder of Funky Goddess (an Irish business withWelcome to womanhood gift box a similar goal of helping young girls prepare for womanhood). Samantha has generously given us one of her Welcome to Womanhood gift boxes to giveaway to help promote the chat.

The Welcome to Womanhood gift box includes:

Our favorite “time of the month” happens to be the 2nd Friday of every month when we get to join forces with You ARE Loved to offer Twitter fans the opportunity to participate in our monthly #PeriodTalk tweet chats. August brings a special guest, Valarie Carey, Founder of TOTM (Time Of The Month), author and menstrual educator.

Menstrual Calendar - TrackerNot only has Valarie agreed to be our special guest, but she has generously given us two prize packs (Planner + T-Shirt) to giveaway to encourage participation.

Prize #1: TOTM! Time Of The Month! The Essential Planner for Girls and Women of All Ages (3rd Edition: October 2012 – December 2013) The book offers tips and advice for girls and women of all ages who are cycling.  With easy to document pages, one can measure and track the flow of her menstrual cycle.

“This journal is a MUST have for every menstruating age female. No matter young and beginning the journey or older about to end.

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As many of you know, Be Prepared Period sponsored a team in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event last month in Arlington, Washington. Since we wrote about our “Why do we Relay” in our post, Be Prepared Period Supports Relay for Life we thought it only fitting that we share some of our favorite moments from the event.

Realizing words are simply not enough to express this year’s Relay for Life experience, we figured it would be better to share some pictures from Relay. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words!READ MORE… »