NOW SELLING AVON!!

AH… the beauty and grace of AVON products fills my home. I am in shock at how many things Avon has to offer. They are more than just make up and perfume. I have found presents for my Daughter all the way to my grandmother. I feel prettier and more elegant as I come accross new and exciting products from this company. Their perfume has brought tranquility into my house. Their skin care products has added a radiance to my skin that has my husband groping and clawing at me the minuet he walks into the house. AVON’s nail care products have given my nails the pop of class that only AVON can deliver. Their “Foot Works” products have softened my heels and heeled their cracked look. Their jewlery is the perfect accesorie to any outfit I wear. Their really isn’t anything else I can say about AVON products that hasn’t been said before, except I am in awe of their marvelous ability to do all they say they can plus more.

Veggie Tacos

I made the best veggie tacos this morning. It tasted good and was filled with good for you ingredients. Go to my website for the recipe. I grantee it will be delicious. No I am not a vegetarian but I do love healthy ways of eating.  These tacos are filling and kid friendly, my daughter loved them.

It’s OK to Cry.

I shed tears for you, knowing that right now you would be kicking my insides asking for more room or just awareness. It is marked for me, your existence. I saw the fuzzy blur on the monitor in the doctors office. You would have been born in September 2009, around the same time as your cousin. He sits in your Aunts stomach kicking her and feeding from the cord of life. No one thinks that I have the right to feel this way. They think that your sister should be enough. I love your sister and would never want to hurt her but I loved you the same. Dad bought you bottles. He said he wanted to feed you, something he didn’t do with your sister. He doesn’t cry for you. “It’s over, it’s done” he says “Why should I cry.”

Your Aunt and the rest of the family say that I shouldn’t feel this way. They say that I am silly to still be crying over something that was out of my control. I read an article today that said it was Ok for me to feel this way. They said that I was allowed to cry for the loss, the hole that will forever be tracked by another’s progress. When he walks would you have already taken your first steps? Where are you? Why did you leave me?

You would have liked it here. There are a lot of toys and fun things to do. The dogs always keep your sister entertained. She would have loved you. She would have wanted to change your diapers and dress you.

Your sister would lie her head on you and whisper secrets to you. She doesn’t understand that you are not in there anymore and I often find myself having to explain to her as she lies on my stomach that you can’t hear her anymore. I shed tears for you again. Where are you? Why did you leave me? I can’t cry anymore, I can’t hurt anymore it is tearing my family apart but how? How do you talk about something that people answer with condescending words? How do I move on when your birthday will be another’s. He will grace your Aunt and Uncles home, our due dates were days apart.

Your sister says “Hi.”

Leaving your Campsite

Remember the days when you went camping with your parents. Maybe you never went camping with your parents, or camping with your parents meant that you grabbed the nearest Hotel room, Motel room, or went to RV only sites. Now that you are the parent you want your kids to experience the fun of sleeping in a tent, and roasting marshmallows over and open fire, and the widely used term “roughing it.” You want them to catch dinner, and you want to teach them to love nature in a different way.

So you went camping, you fished for dinner and brought pancakes for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. You swam in the lake, ocean or river. You told the scary PG stories around the campfire and roasted marshmallows. You watched the stars as the children slept and may have even snuggled with that special someone, as you watched the flurries from the fire float into the night and disappear. The peaceful getaway of family vacation time has come to the last night and soon you will be on the road again.

Before you hit the sleeping bag, though it may be uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time, be sure to pack up what you can tonight so that you can do as little as possible tomorrow. You could pack up all but your PJ’s and put the suitcases or luggage in the car. You can pack the games and snacks into the reachable areas. You can pick the songs that you will play on the way home. Remember to leave out breakfast and put the ice chest in last so if you stop for lunch you can reach it with ease.

Now when you wake up you can make that roaring fire and let the family get warm as you cook breakfast, coffee, hot coco, and or tea. After you all have enjoyed breaking the fast of the night look around your camp site for any items that may have gotten blown away, moved from the garbage pile by a patient trying child or animal, raccoons are famous for wanting the chips, hotdogs, and marshmallows. Make sure the campsite is left in the same manner as when you arrived. It is respectful of the earth, the campsite managers, and the other campers that will be coming after you. This is a great opportunity to tech children respect for others and the world around them.

After the campsite is cleaned up and the fire has burnt through the burnable items it is time to put the fire out. In the summer of 2008 almost 90% of California’s forests were burned. Campfires and lightning are the leading causes of forest destruction. The fires destroy plants and animals. They force animals to abandon their homes and protected way of life. It takes years for that growth to regenerate. Teach your children to respect for the forest by respecting it yourself. To put out the fire you will need to collect water from the river or lake or ocean, or you can simply plan ahead and bring extra water with you for this purpose. Be sure and eliminate all red glowing or smoking pieces of wood or embers in the fire pit. Stir the fire once or twice with a stick to be sure that the water extinguishes everything.

After the fire is out, the tents are down, and the car is loaded with kids and stuff, be sure to take one last glance around the site to make sure nothing, or no one is left behind.

Vacation Prep and Safety

    Every year My family and I would go to the ocean, the mountains, high lakes, rivers, or travel other states during the summer months. I remember one summer, we call it the “hell trip” in our family, where what ever you could imagine going wrong went wrong. My Mother and her work friend had decided to go on a beach trip and wanted to take their families. So we pack upp our station wagon and truck and headed the four hours to the beach. We should have guessed everything would be going wrong when the wagon looked as though we were on our way to “Wally World”. One glance at our car and you would have thought our last name was “Grizwold.” Alas that was not our names but we did possess their luck. 

As we sat and baked in the sun, drinking nothing but cream sodas, we waited for my Mothers friend to return with hope. When they finally returned they were eating ice cream and drinking water. We had finally gotten help on the way. Several hours later, dying of thirst, heat stroke, vomiting,  we made it to the campsite. When it came time for dinner my Mothers friend refused to share the food with us, enthough my Mother had shared the bill with her. So we ate hotdogs. We woke hoping the new day would be brighter. We ate pancakes, hotdogs for lunch and decided to leave for dinner ( my mother refused to fight on her vaction and the decision was made). We were still a little sick when we returned home that night but we will never forget to bring the water.

Right now families are getting out their summer clothes and mapping out their favorite trails for that camping trip they look forward to going on every year. This may be your first time taking your children with you, or you may be taking them for the annual family vacation. My experience with family vacations have lead me to composites must haves.

First the first aide kit needs to be in a reachable spot in the car. No one wants to be digging for it while their child bleeds or is in pain. Second always make sure that there are games and snacks in an accessible area of the car. Screaming from the back seat as you drive gives you a bad start to a wonderful time. Always remember more than one game, movie, type of snack, or CD. The more variety you have the easier it is to keep the kids entertained. The difficulty of dealing with children in the back seat makes it hard to be handing things back and forth, so if you are the only parent in the car assign one of the older children the duty of passing out snacks and games so that you can keep your hands at ten and two and your eyes forward.

Remember to map out your destination before you leave and always let someone (a friend, neighbor, or relative) know where you are going and which route you are taking to get there. Always be sure to pack enough water for your trip and enough water for unexpected car problems (if you don’t have AAA). Soda’s and juices are fine to take along also but remember to have plenty of water to drink on hand also. It is also important to remember that, if traveling with friends or in groups, that each vehicle has their own snacks and water for the people in each vehicle in case of separation or in one story I lived through the people you are traveling with are not who you thought they were.

Remember to check the cars oil level, water level, transmission fluid level and air in the tires. Remember to take several extra bottles of oil, water, and trany fluid with you in case of emergencies. It better to be prepared for the unexpected and not have it happen then not be prepared and be stranded with the hot sun baking your family and nothing but sodas for them to drink and quench the thirst of your car.

It is also a good idea to bring extra battery power for your phone and extra change for a pay phone in case you are in bad or no reception areas. Remember to pack not just for the phone itself but the for the Bluetooth as well, or at least remember the corded ear piece as a back up. Keep the phone where you can reach it and remember that texting may be a cheaper for of communication but driving while texting can be the cause of accidents and even the deaths of those loved ones and someone else’s loved ones.
Now that we are ready to go camping the car is packed nicely and the children are comfortable with snacks and juice in reach. With games, movies, and music in reach we are ready to get camping.

Marriage

It is a sacred bond between two people. It allows you to share life as one person instead of two. It verifies your love for one another and should never be entered into lightly. Although marriage is wonderful, when shared with the right person, there are things that one should take into consideration before one enters that union. Marriage has no gender binderies, despite what some people think it hurts no one if the marriage is same or opposite sex related. The taxes are the same and the rules are the same. It is fine for others to have opinions on marriage except when they effect others.
Before anyone enters that bond that unites two people as one, they should consider who they are marrying. Is the other person a decent person? Do they respect your thoughts, and allow you to express your opinions. Are they kind to your children? Do they want kids? Would you want kids with them, would you want to be connected to them for the rest of your life? Divorce can only be affective if it done early in a relationship. When you have been with someone for several years you pick up habits of the other person. Soon things you do will remind you of them. would you want to be reminded of them? The human mind can forget but there are still traces of the other person, depended on how long you stay together.
A lot of people want to take finances into the thought of marriage. They want to be able to have good credit and know that the other person they are joining themselves with will be able to support themselves as well as add to their income. Although it would be ideal for someone to think about the financial situation they will be entering into as well as the person they will be marrying, it is not always as easy as that. Some people feel such a deep love for the other that they want to share their life with them no matter the financial situation they find themselves in. There has been many people that have said they would have waited to get married until they were financially ready, and then there are those people who feel that they did the right thing by getting married without thinking about fiancés. These people have said, while the road may have been rough it has made them a stronger couple.
People should enter into marriage with someone they love; someone who is nice both physically and emotionally; someone who is willing to share the remote, their seat, their food, their feelings, and their heart. Marriage is a conversation that picks up volume once and awhile but always allows for the opposing team to have their say. It is a conversation that excites the soul and evokes intelligent thought. Marriage is something that does more than places a ring on the finger; it does more than provides legal documentation that you have found someone you love. Marriage is more than a party and presents; its more than a cruise or vacation. Marriage is a commitment to taking another persons feelings into consideration before making the decision to change anything in your life. marriage is more than a two way street it is a long drive, in a compact car, in a traffic jam. Sometimes there will be arguing about the signs along the way, or the turn that you should have taken. There will be “I told you to get gas at that last town” comments; there will be annoying side-seat-drivers, but ultimately the driving should always be shared. A person who refuses to share the responsibility of the road may not be a person to enter the road of marriage.
While marriage is not always the glamour of Hollywood, it is worth the time for careful consideration. Marriage is worth the financial struggles. Marriage is worth the times that you look out the window on that long drive and the scenery has been the same desolate fields for miles, because while the barren fields may be in front and behind you the scenery will change as long as you stay in the car and find a way to peacefully pass the time together.

Spring

Family. Friends. Eggs. Fake grass. Flowers are blooming and children are dressed in pastels. The world sings songs of spring as the birds chirp in harmony. The only other season in comparrison is winter. What are the differences though? There is no holiday rush. There are no crazy shoppers willing to kick you to get that last toy, and the hole mess of entertaining family is done in the outdoors where you can easily slip into a corner of silent thought. Children are only off for one week and they don’t intently watch every comerical while you try to keep mental tabs on certain items they say they are going to ask Santa for. It is an easier season with all the same trimmings. It is a peaceful time when sharing and caring for strangers feelings enter the hearts of many. The shoppers are still looking for the perffect outfit and the perffect basket. Embrace Easter and enjoy the peaceful lingering of family and friends. Get out into that cool spring air and remember that every flower blooms with a little bit of tender loving care and a kiss from mother nature.

Wash before wearing

The other day I went to the store and bought my daughter an outfit. When we got home she wanted to wear the outfit. I would assume on average only a minimum of parents wash their children’s clothes before they wear them for the first time, this includes jackets and socks. But in the back of my head I kept remembering the story my mother had told me of a couple who wore new clothes without washing them and got a really bad rash from it. So I looked into a bit more.

I wondered if any of the department stores put a warning label on their clothes before they sell them? I also wondered if they inform their customers on receipts or somewhere in their store of this. Imagine where the socks or the underwear you are wearing right now where before they were placed on a shelf and bought with your hard earned cash. First they had to be made from material. This material is made from animals, plants, and some chemicals. Before they sell the material they wash it right. One only hopes they do but what do they wash it in? A quick rinse through the water and a soft scrubbing with a mild soap could be all they use. We sterilize our milk, and require certain sanitary conditions regarding our fruits and vegetables, but does the clothing we wear have any sanitary laws?

After further investigation it looks as though the cotton is picked and separated from the seeds. The cotton is packed into bails, and then priced according to cleanliness. This cotton is then sold to fabric making factories where they pound and pull the cotton until it is thread or yarn like. This then is weaved, by machine or hand, into bolts of raw fabric. To make it into fabric for clothes it is then sold to another factory or processed in another part of the same factory. This raw fabric is stretched, bleached, and treated with lye, and a alkali mix called Mercerize. This allows the fabric to better absorb color. Once dried the fabric is colored. It can be colored into a pattern or a single color. The fabric is then stored to later be made into clothes or shipped to fabric stores.

Ok they use bleach, which can kill anything, but what about the other things they use to add colors? What about the factory in which the fabric is stored? How is it stored is it packaged or just stored in the bolts that fall off the machines? I was unable to find information on how the fabric is stored. Then I started thinking about how the clothes are shipped to stores, in small boxes that are packed on other boxes and then driven by semi or train to the stores. Where they are thrown into a room where dust is sure to be, then ripped open and employees sort them. Did that employee wash their hands after going to the rest room? Did they wash after they unpacked the batteries, the washer fluid, or other things in the store. What if they had a rash that required treatment that they can hide because they put their hands in their pockets. Then I thought about how, as humans, we shed our skin and the dust in your house is made up of that skin. I thought about how that dust is also made up of everyone else that has been in your house, and how when unpacking that T-Shirt the employees, no matter how clean they are, can’t help sloughing off their skin on that new shirt. That got me thinking about all the people who try on the shirt before it is bought. I thought about all the different underarms that touched the shirt.

While most children’s clothes are not tried on until you get to a certain size, I could only came to one conclusion, after I buy any article of clothing (packaged or not, child or adult) I am washing before wearing. As for my daughter I decided not to let her wear the new clothes until I washed them.

 

Are your children safe at day care?

I recently read an article that said a day care provider mistakenly gave her daycare children windshiel wiper fluid instead of Kool-Aid. The article, that can be found here on yahoo, said that the woman aho owned the day care was very torn up over it. Was it trully a mistake or was this woman looking for an out from under her daycare and she just didn’t have the ability to tell her family or the parents of the kids that she was closing. Are our children truly safe while we are at work? How much do you know about your daycare provider? Is this the womans first time with any incident? Why has this not been investigated further, is it because she was so quick to give up her license? Does cooperation take the charge of misconduct away from the miss-doings of the care provider?

Blahgirls

I saw this posted on Twitter from Aston Kutcher. http://www.blahgirls.com/video/tiffany-vlog-2-call-center/ Wow they nailed this one. It is so hard to find good help these days. Even when a live person is promised to be avaliable to help you it takes twenty minuets of  press this number before you acctually get to talk to a live person, or you wait online for a live chat and never recieve anyone. Thanks for the laugh.