Keurig Coffee Makers

Going along with the whole lack of sleep.

Ok, I have to ask.  Has anyone ever used one of these things?  You get little creamer cups that have coffee in them? 

The whole thing freaks me out.

Perhaps I just worked too long at Starbucks, but now even they're doing instant coffee.

Let me know if you've ever tried this coffee.

Thanks.

Spring Garden Waldorf School

Hello all,

I just wanted to let you guys know a little about my daughters school.  She attends Spring Garden which is a Waldorf school.  It is run a little differently than a public school and most people don't have much info about these types of schools so I wanted to share a little info with you.
From the Website
"Waldorf schools are a cohesive effort of many groups of people working together in community for the health and education of the students."
I really like the school because they make an effort to get the kids outside and in nature.  My daughters class spends the first half hour of the day outside and then they take a recess around noon.

  They also have different festivals and celebrations that parents are encouraged to participate in, the Children's Festival is coming up and from what I hear from other parents it's going to be a good time.  I'm helping out in the kitchen so I need everyone to wish me luck!
All in all if you're looking for a good, non traditional education for your kids I recommend this school.  My daughter started the half day program at the age of three so they can start earlier than most schools and I find that the teachers on staff are very attentive and well trained. 

The program seems to develop kids as a whole focusing not only on math and science but also they try to develop children emotionally and creatively.  One of the children from spring garden made this poster for Arbor day.

If interested they have many different days that you can see the school, like where you can walk through the grades and see the class in session.

Check out the website SGWS.org for more details.

More sleep please!

I need more sleep!
My wife and I are both in school and sometimes it's hard to balance our schedules.  Currently my wife is working overnights and is sleeping during the day, therefore I have to watch my daughter in the mornings.  The only problem is that I get home from work around 2 AM, so that's about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night.  Not enough, I just wonder how I dealt with lack of sleep when I was in my twenties.
Here's a couple of tips for how to deal when you can't sleep as much as you'd like.


Good luck!

The Ronald McDonald House.

For my New Media Writing class I am working on a service learning project.  For this project my group is putting together a Non-linear story for a non profit organization.  My group is our project on the Ronald McDonald House.  We recently went down to visit the house and I never realized how big of a help that it is to the families. I wanted to share a little information about the house to spread the word. 
Here's a little info from the RMH website "The Ronald McDonald House of Akron was established in 1985. It is a home away from home for families of patients being treated at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron. For just a small cost, parents and families can stay close to their hospitalized child and have the ability to stay integrated with their treatment and medical team.  This allows them to focus on the healing of the child and not worry about their own daily routines.  Our House lets them be where they are most needed, with their children."

The amazing thing about this organization is that they don't require the families to pay anything for their visit!  They ask for a ten dollar donation per night but understand if you're unable to pay. 

This year the Ronald McDonald house housed 527 families and they had 9,981 people stay in the house using 4,836 rooms. That's all done with a staff of three full time workers, three part time workers and a around one hundred volunteers.

Based upon my time visiting this organization I hope that by me getting the word out it helps them in some way!

Making my life easier

Being a student and a parent I don't have much money.  But if I can find something that makes my life a lot easier I'll spend the money.  I recently found this Leaf Vacuum/Mulcher.  I live in Copley and we have to bag all of our leaves so to have a leaf vacuum saves me so much time.  And the time I save I can spend with my family and on my school work, bonus!  Another added bonus is that in the end I get to save money!  Since it's a mulcher I can fit more leaves in each bag and buy less leaf bags.

I recommend one for all of you!

Getting rid of the fall weather blues.

When the weather starts to turn I always get a little blue.  In times like this I like to focus on my household tasks and try to stay busy.  Today I did a little "Fall Cleaning"  the good thing is you feel satisfied that you accomplished something, and afterwards you can take a nap!

Saving for your child's education.

Being a parent I want to have the best of everything for my child, I want her to have the best clothes, the best toys and especially I want her to have the best education.  Right now my wife and I try to buy saving bonds for my daughter on all holidays hoping that she will use them to pay for college but in the future.  In the future we hope to put  money into a college savings plan.  Here is an article on ways that you can put away money for your kids.

Halloween Break

I just wanted to take a moment between all of the Halloween fun and games to post a quick thought.  Always remember that all holidays, even Halloween are great oppourtunities to get together with friends and family.  Now that we are entering the holiday season we need to make sure that we spend take time to enjoy each others company.
Happy Halloween!

Halloween Safety!

Halloween is supposed to be a fun holiday but we need to be safe. 

Here are some basic guidelines

Don't forget to Dress Safely!

And remember to hold hands!

Make sure to take the test to see if you fully understand.

Most of all have fun!

Happy Halloween!

Work/School balance. Dealing with Stress.

OK, this is going to be a short post.  This blog is supposed to be about how to maintaing the balance in your life going in between school, work, and family and I usually end up giving people ideas of fun things to do.  I found this great article that gives tips that'll help balance life.  I hope this helps.

Ghost Stories at the Mansfield Reformatory

I've been focusing on Halloween stuff lately and I thought that I'd keep up with that tradition and post some scary stuff to do this week.  My favorite thing that's going on in this area is the Halloween celebration at the Mansfield Reforatory.  This year they call it the "Death Row" experience.  This is a traditional haunted house set up at the reformatory but they also do an overnight haunted experience which is a whole lot creepier.  There's a lot of history here, the film "The Shawshank Redemption" was filmed here along with a number of other films and there's lots of cool ghost stories to check out.  They have theme tours like Ghost Hunts and a tour that follows the story of the Shawshank Redemption called the Shawshank Trail.  This is always a good place to check out this time of year.

Boo at the Zoo!

The Akron Zoo is getting ready for their annual Boo at the Zoo with weekend!  According to the website Akron Ohio Moms, "The Akron Zoo has been transformed into a fun, spooky destination for their annual Boo at the Zoo.  This is a safe, family-friendly, non scary event for every age.  The zoo will be lit up with theme lights and other non-scary decorations. Dress up your kids in their favorite costumes for trick-or-treating at the Akron Zoo. Treat bags will be provided and must be used when going to the 12 themed trick-or-treating stations."
Some pics from past Boo at the Zoo events.

 Happy Halloween!

More Halloween fun!

Check out this article from Parenting.com.  The article is all about home made Halloween costumes that people have posted on Etsy.com.
The article is here.
Here is a sample costume from the article.

Crockpot!

The Crockpot is a lifesaver!  Have 15 free minutes?  Now chop up some carrots, put in some cans of soup and some meat.  Voila!  Eight hours later you have a tasty meal!

Check out these tasty recipes for your Crockpot enjoyment.

http://www.crock-pot-recipes.info/

Sore!

I'm so sore after raking leaves all day.  I remember when I was young and I really liked fall because of the leaves falling from the trees.  Now, not so much.

Anger management

Recently my daughter has had some issues at school with hitting other children.  It's something that's difficult to deal with but I found this article to be of some help.  http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/why_is_a_three_year_old_child_hitting_and_what_to_do
Have any of you had to deal with a situation like this?

Reliving my childhood through technology!

I try to introduce my daughter to the shows that I used to watch when I was young.  We use streaming from Netflix to watch Ren and Stimpy, Rocky and Bullwinkle and all my other old favorites!

Sick!

It's tough enough being a parent normally but how do you keep up with a three year old when you're sick? Send me some ideas, please!

Sick day

My daughter and I had a sick day today. The babysitter was sick so no work today. Lemons to lemonade! So a nice day of snuggling with my daughter, a nice break! What do you do on your sick days? Share your experiences!

Support.

It can be hard for those of us who are going to school and raising a little one.  But there are services out there that can help.  The University of Akron offers many programs to help those who are in need.  The academic advisors have reached out to me to get the info out to all of you!  Check out this link for a little more info about help that is available.  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12b34aca6dc5a381&mt=application/msword&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D38756cbec0%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12b34aca6dc5a381%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbT9WKV_ESgO5d-U9jPG1NG56xtOuw

Halloween!

It's coming up and I am fearing the thought of buying Halloween costumes so I found a cool site that give cool costume ideas and instructions if you want to make them yourself.
Check it out!
http://www.robinsfyi.com/holidays/halloween/costumes.htm
Kevin

Family Dinner

Every here and again I find that it's important to see if I can get my daughter to eat something that isn't breaded and deep fried so tonight I'm making chicken tortalinni soup.  It's really good and easy to make.
Check out the recipe at http://www.campbellskitchen.com/swansonbroth/SpecialtySiteRecipeDetail.aspx?specialty=swansonbroth&recipeID=50717
Enjoy!

First Blog.

I've started a blog!

I'm writing about the challenges of balancing the work/school/family life.  I hope that this blog can become more of a dialog between members of a community as opposed to me just running my proverbial mouth.  I look forward to some good discussion to take place in this forum.

Talk to you soon

Kevin