The winter is finally over and spring is starting to appear all around.  Tulips and daffodils are popping up from the ground, temperatures are getting high enough to stop wearing coats and I am feeling the urge to retrieve my bike from the garage.  If you walk outside, you can’t help but hear all the birds chirping in the trees.  This is of course a sign of all the spring love going on.  Humans seem to have this same desire whenever spring comes around.  It’s like we’ve been hibernating all winter and now, when the sun starts to come out, we come out and start interacting with people again.  If you are one of those who have this desire for love, finding the right person is harder than it used to be.  We now have the internet to help with our dating endeavors.

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Published Mar 24, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

When I was a kid, I played on an Atari for the first time and thought it was very cool and so high tech.  I remember playing Keystone Kapers, Frogger and Pitfall for hours on end.  I never did win any of them, but every time I hear one of their names, I get a smile on my face.  If you’ve never heard of them, you were probably born either before the 70’s and after the 80’s.  I am now married with a five year old daughter and this past Christmas we purchased  the Kinect game system for our family.  When I watch my daughter play soccer, go down a river on a raft or do the long jump on our high definition TV with high tech motion sensor tracking her every move, I am astonished at how things have changed.  I have to admit, I fought the idea of having video games in my home with children, but with the recent development of family friendly gaming, I think it can be a great addition to family activities.

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Published Mar 22, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

Eco Friendly Dollhouse

If you’ve never been a full time mom, you probably can’t understand why moms that stay home with their children are often frazzled.  It doesn’t seem that hard to get kids dressed, fed, taken to the park, driven to school and dragged along to the grocery store.  But as any full time parent knows, it’s much harder than meets the eye.  Besides the daily tantrums over what to wear, what to eat, when to take a nap and how to put your seat belt on, you have to keep the house clean, plan out meals, do the laundry, run errands, pay bills, change dirty diapers, do the dishes and still find some time to feel like you’re a human being.  Anyone who doubts how hard this can be should take the opportunity to watch kids full time for a day or two to see what it’s really like.  Because of the difficulty of the task that we face, parents need to come up with ways to “occupy” their kids so they can have some downtime to make the meals, switch the laundry batches, and take an occasional shower.

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Published Mar 19, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

Parenthood, they say, is the biggest joy one can experience in this life.  As a parent I agree with this, but what they fail to mention is that parenthood is a double edged sword.  For every joy you experience, you will also likely face that same level of frustration, sadness or disappointment.  Does this mean it’s not worth it?  Of course not.  Most parents will attest to the fact that the up side of having a child outweighs the down side of having a child in the big scheme of things.  That being said, parents have to strategize how to minimize the bad stuff so they can enjoy the good stuff more.  One constant battle is finding ways to positively motivate your child to make good choices.  Like any historical battle, both sides will face victories and defeats, and each will come up with new tactics every time they face a temporary defeat.  My 5 year old is now at the point where time outs or taking away toys no longer motivates her to make the choices I would like her to make.  She thinks her temporary victory will last, but she is mistaken.  What she doesn’t know is that I have launched a counter attack disguised as a way for her to get new toys.

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Published Mar 17, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

My daughter recently turned 5 and she is very tall for her age.  Everywhere we go, people ask her how old she is and if she’s excited about starting kindergarten soon.  Ever since she turned 4 she’s been aware that  once you hit a certain age, you start going to a thing called “school.”  She knows kids ride a big yellow bus, they wear their back packs and get to play on the playground at some point during the day.  However, for my daughter, school is not going to fit this “regular” profile because I’m going to home school her.  Before I made this decision I read a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of home schooling to make sure it was the right approach for her learning style.  I found books about community collaboration, organization, balancing home schooling with regular home life, different styles and curricula, getting physical education during home school, rules and regulations, and facts and stats about home schooled kids.

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Published Mar 17, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

Shopping Helper

Life is very busy these days.  Between jobs, kids, carpools, cell phones, bills, vacations and everything else in between, it’s easy to let our lives get cluttered and out of control.  My house growing up was very busy and chaotic, being the third of seven kids.  To this day I don’t know how my mom managed to keep us all fed, clothed, taken to school, sports practice and games, music lessons, church activities and everything else we did each day.  As I look back I realize how truly organized she was.  I am now a full time mom that works from home and I can’t stand having clutter or chaos in my home.  Things like coats and shoes left on the floor, random papers on the table, opening up my fridge to find out I’m out of milk, or missing a sibling’s birthday drive me nuts.  I’ve tried different methods throughout the years and have come up with a few simple things that really help me.

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Published Mar 12, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

The temperature outside  is in the mid fifties today, the tulips have popped out of the ground and I have a sudden urge to get my bike out from the garage and take it for a spin.  All of this signals to me that winter is just about over and spring is at my doorstep.  I’ve made it through the long and dark winter, managed to maintain my exercise levels throughout the holidays and now I want to get outside and feel the warm sun on my legs and arms again.   The only down side is that every spring I open my closet and am not very excited about what I have to wear.  In the winter I don’t really care what I wear as long as I’m warm, so I end up wearing a lot of jeans with hoodies or sweatshirts.  When the weather turns warm, for some reason I have a desire to look cute again, but the clothes I wore last summer don’t seem as cute as they once did.  I don’t have a ton of money to spend on new spring clothes, but what I do have, I want to make it stretch as far as possible.  In my search to find inexpensive spring clothes, I found a few sites that will work nicely.

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Published Mar 09, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

My husband is a such a deal hunter.  He is constantly looking for the best deal on everything he buys and belongs to several websites that send out daily online deals.  Often times he’ll buy an item from one site and sell it on another site to turn a small profit.  He loves it so much, I have to limit how much he buys to prevent it from turning into an obsession.  I, on the other hand, like to find deals but don’t aim to resell items that I buy.  I am happy with finding a great price on something and calling it good.  Many of the great prices I find are on sites that have special deals of the day.  More and more sites are including daily deals to sell certain items and encourage shoppers to visit their site each day to see what the deal is.

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Published Mar 03, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

Do you ever stop to think about why you celebrate certain holidays?  Do you wonder why they started in the first place?  Do you think about how the holiday traditions have changed over time?  I never thought too much about it until this past year when my 4 year old daughter began asking more about holidays.  She wants to know the reason behind everything and it forces me to learn more about things I’ve always just accepted.  This year she kept asking over and over again if Santa were real and so my husband and I finally told her the truth about St. Nicholas, who he was, and how his legend transformed into the modern day story of Santa Claus.  With each new holiday that comes, she is ready with new questions so I try to prepare myself for when they inevitably come.

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Published Mar 02, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome

Doggy Love

There are so many pet stores out there, it’s hard to know which one to choose.  Some have more products, others specialize in organic and earth friendly items, but those aren’t the things that I look for when I go to purchase an item for my dog.  I want to know if the company really cares about dogs.  Do they encourage you to help dogs in your area or donate money to help animals in need?  Do they encourage a sense of community among dog owners by putting you in touch with like minded people?  Do they assist you in learning even more about your well loved dog?

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Published Mar 01, 2011 - No comments yet, your thoughts are welcome