U Pump It Up

Have you heard of this website? I heard about it on CNN a couple of months ago and kept meaning to check it out. Yesterday I final got around to it and I love it. Here's the premise of the site: "This is a place where women meet up with friends, inspire each other to do more of the things that make us feel great, and help share that good feeling with others! Join our lively community and try the challenges you'll find here." Basically it is like Girl or Boy Scouts online and for adult women. You join and then pick challenges (merit badges) to work on. Each challenge has 4-5 steps to help you complete them that you get to check off as you go. Leaving comments as you go is also encouraged both to help you complete the challenges by creating plans of attack and to help inspire others. And as you do these things you get virtual merit badges that get attached to you name. This is my favorite part (well that and accomplishing some great things). I was one of those Girl Scouts whose sash was covered in badges and I have turned into an adult who loves lists (I have my to-do list in my pocket right now as we "speak"). Add these two things together and you basically get U Pump it Up.

So about each week or so I am going to be working on a challenge and you get to play along. You can either join U Pump It Up and officially play along or you can unofficially play along with me-- or you can even leave snarky little comments about how lame I am for being sucked up into this. To play along officially you need to go here to join or you can leave a comment below asking me for an invite and I'll send you one (I get points for that as well)--that is if I know your email address or your blog profile lists an email address; if you think I might not have your address you can email it to me via the email address I have posted with my profile accessed on my sidebar--don't leave your actual email address in a comment box cause then the whole world will have access to it.

OK, so this weeks challenge is a bit of a cheat since I have basically done it but it is a great challenge and I wanted to be a part of it. It is called Good Hydrations and is all about reducing bottled water waste. See I told you it is a bit of a cheat--I have told you lately that I love my Sigg water bottle? Anyway here are the steps:

Step 1: Take the pledge to use reusable water bottles. You can do that here:

Step 2: Choose a sturdy reusable water bottle.

Step 3: Stay hydrated green-style for 1 week.

Step 4: Encourage others. (Once I finish this post I am going to consider this last step done!)

So there it is challenge #1. I think it is a good one so I do hope you play along. Stay tuned for more challenges (I've actually already started another one dealing with clutter but I'll tell you about that later).

p.s. If you check out the site you will see some of my comments. I'm YankeeGirl (one word cause they don't like two-word names).