A winner, and a war against smut.

Congrats to Gloria of The Mama Familias, who has won herself a brand spankin new copy of Harry Connick Jr.'s CD, Your Songs. I hope she loves it.

In other news, guess what I did today? I got a pedicure, and I got a haircut. One was courtesy of my lovely Mother-in-law who sent me a giftcard to the spa, and the other was because I was starting to look a little like a horse with my totally unruly, heavy hair. It looks much better now. Almost as lovely as my toes.

That isn't really the point though. After I left the salon, I stopped into the grocery store to get milk. Because yesterday when I went to the store for bread, milk and fruit, I left without milk. Seriously. HOW does that happen?! At any rate, I had to go back today. While I was waiting in the check out line, I noticed the Cosmopolitan cover gracing the isle. Oh, how raunchy. I won't tell you about all the disgusting words on that cover, but I can tell you how grateful I was that my reading children weren't with me. I thought of Stephanie of Diapers and Divinity and her campaign, The Protecting Innocence Project, that encourages mothers to speak up about this very situation and many other things that threaten the innocence of our children. I thought of Denae, of My Real Life was Backordered, and her demonstration of courage when she took down the grocery store manager because of raunchy magazine covers.

"If they can do it, why can't I?" I thought to myself. So I did. I asked to speak to the manager. I told them I bought all my groceries at their store, then asked if they would like me to bring in my six year old so they could explain to him the various meanings of the words on the cover of Cosmopolitan. I told them I wouldn't hesitate to take my business elsewhere if something couldn't be done. I told them that if they asked their magazine distributors to provide black sleeves to cover the trash on the covers of certain magazines, the distributors would do it. And if they don't ask, I and many of my local mother friends will be very annoying until they do.

I was polite, but insistent. The manager nodded, face only a little stunned, and said she would absolutely see what could be done. It felt good, speaking up like that. I'm not sure any changes will be made from that one conversation, but I'm formulating a game plan. I'm emailing my friends, I'll write letters, I'll call. I'll persist, if need be. And hopefully, my grocery store will become a little less smutty.

Next time you are at the grocery store, take a look at the magazines in the check out line... the ones that are EYE LEVEL with your children. It's despicable. And then do something about it.

You can read more about Stephanie's Protecting Innocent Project here. It's awesome.

We don't have to sit down and let smut overtake this world. We have a voice, and we can use it. And it feels good to do it.