Posts Tagged ‘ton’

I’ve been busy . . .

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Which is why I haven’t been posting here too often.  This last week has been a long and trying week for us.  Nothing major has went wrong — just a ton of little things.  I took last weekend off, and I just never got back into the swing of things. The highlights of my week — Will getting diagnosed again with impetigo and we got new cable, satellite, and phone service.  I’ve got a ton of catching up to do, so I’ll be posting a tad later with the other events.

LensShopper

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

If you aren’t lucky enough to have vision insurance or have vision insurance that will only pay up to a certain amount for your contact lenses, you should definitely check out LensShopper.  Now, my vision insurance will pay up to $250 a year for contact lenses.  That sounds like a lot, but if you wear contacts, you know it isn’t.  That only pays for a couple of months of contacts, and then I pay out of pocket for the rest.  My last order of contacts I stilled owed money on after they took the insurance off.  That is where LensShopper comes into play.  Their lenses are a ton cheaper than what I normally pay for my contacts!  They even have even better deals if you order in bulk!  I love that it tells me how long the delivery time is and whether or not the contacts are even in stock.  Nothing is more annoying than ordering contacts, and then after you place your order, you find out their are backordered.  I love that they even make it easy to find the best deals on their site by listing the best deals for each kind of contacts.  If you just want to search out your contacts, you can choose to search by manufacturer, lens type, and even popular lenses.

Now, I personsally use the Focus Night & Day contacts.  I found on their site that I can get a box for $40.95 (if I order bulk) and get free shipping!  I love free shipping!  That is a darn good deal for my contacts!  I would save almost $40 off my normal order of 6 boxes!  I can’t complain about savings like that!  If you need contacts, you need to definitely check out LensShopper for all your contact needs!

The Power Of Parents

Friday, November 14th, 2008

It is amazing that we are given this little gift of life without a handbook.  We try our best to keep them safe. However, there are some things as parents we should know.  I was lucky enough to be invited onto a phone call with the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and learned a lot of information about keeping my kids safe.  My goal is let you know what I have learned, so your children don’t become a statistic.

Did you know that most abduction attempts occur after school?  It is usually between the hours of 2 pm – 7 pm.  Almost half of nonfamily abduction attempts happen when a child is walking to or from school (or some related school activity).

Did you know that the majority of children affected by abduction attempts are girls between 10 – 14?

Did you know that only 58% of parents have talked to their children about this?

This is scary information.  I remember when I was a kid, and I could go play outside myself.  Now, I would never let my kids outside by themselves!  I am so glad to see that Duracell and The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) have teamed together to give us parents a handbook to start a conversation with our children.  Best of all, this is free of charge!  The Child Safety Handbook can be downloaded right from the linked site.

Now, we were able to ask questions and mine revolved around what to tell my 4 year old daughter.  I don’t want to scare her, but I also don’t want to not have this conversation with her.  The advice I was given for her age is that we really need to get away from “stranger danger”.  The problem with stranger danger is that it portrays strangers as these scary bad people, and that is not what strangers look like.  We need to talk about the situations that have been tried and are effective — like the puppy trick.  We need to teach our children that it is okay to say no to stranger and that if an adult needs help, they will ask another adult, not a child.  Our response cannot be fear based, and we must also reassure our children.

I highly recommend downloading that handbook.  You will find a ton of helpful information no matter how old your child is. The Power of Parents Child Safety Handbook provides safety tips from the experts at NCMEC for four age groups: infant to toddler, ages 4-6, ages 7-11, and ages 12-17. The handbook outlines age-appropriate tips and scenarios that parents need to be aware of, as well as some outside influences that may be impacting their child’s actions. If reading this handbook could potentially save your child, it is well worth taking the time to download and read it.

Talking Turkey & Help Me Please

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

I wish I had some great Thanksgiving stories.  However, we normally end up going to somebody elses house for Thanksgiving, so I dont’ have to cook.  Ever.  Honestly, it is nice.  However, this year my parents are coming here for Thanksgiving, so I have to cook my own dinner (with some help from my mom I hope!  Though she won’t be coming up till Thanksgiving day itself, so I may not have as much help as I’d like! They are coming here so I have some company doing some Black Friday shopping (though my mom is refusing to go stand outside at Best Buy at 3 am.  Yes, I am that dedicated.  LOL)

I have a feeling this Thanksgiving I will have a ton of material to post about regarding my experience.  I don’t think Bill and I have ever made a real turkey by ourselves.  That is why its nice to know that Butterball has a Turkey Talk-Line.  You can call 1-800-BUTTERBALL  and talk to their meal preparation experts (writing that phone number down myself), or you can visit Butterball.com for Web chats with a few bloggers – Chris Jordan (Notes from the Trenches), Susan Wagner (Friday Playdate), and Roxanna (Miguelina) on November 11, 18 and 25 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. CST.  They will answer all your turkey related questions. Now, if any of you have any advice for me, I’ll gladly take it.  We just won’t tell anyone.  :)

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Butterball.

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Bad, Bad, Bad Sunday

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

I hate when your day starts off so well and then quickly goes downhill from there.  Sunday morning was one of those days.  Sunday started with the kids sleeping in till ten.  Yes, ten.  I was just as surprised.  I also decided that we were going to go to church.  I swear my husband is sometimes worse than the kids because he whined more than they did.  My kids have not gone to church very often which I know is my fault.  However, since Madison might go to Catholic school next year, I felt we should definitely go to mass.  Mass was at 11:30 AM, so we had plenty of time to get ready and go.  We made it to church with plenty of time to spare.  Will made it about three fourths of the way through the mass before I had to take him out.  Madison lasted till about five minutes left.  However, she had to go to the bathroom, so she had a good excuse.  we liked the church.  Madison told us she loved it and wanted to go back.  After that, Madison wanted to go to Denny’s and get alien pancakes.  That is her favorite food.  Since she was good in church, we decided to go there and eat dinner.  lunch took forever but it was good.  After that, we decided to go get Bill, Will, and Madison’s hair cut.  That also went well.  We came home, and Bill noticed that Madison seem to have gone to the bathroom quite a bit while we were out.  After being home for about 30 minutes, Madison was in the bathroom about four times.  I asked her if it hurt, and she told me she had “hot pee”.  as a woman, this definitely sounded like an urinary tract infection.  I personally have had a ton of them.  Now, it is Sunday afternoon, so there was not a whole lot of places we could go.  I first tried CVS minute clinic, but they would not treat her because she was under 12.  I took her to the local urgent care.  We got there one minute before they closed.  However, at CVS, Madison had went to the bathroom.  She did not have to go when we got to urgent care.  She also was refusing to drink any water.  While we were there she went four times, each time she only went about four drops.  the ended up giving us an antibiotic and sent us home.  However, Bill and I had a dinner downtown at Navy Pier for his work.  It started at six.  I got out of the doctor’s office at six.  Downtown is over a half hour for us to get there.  Seriously.  in my area, I went to the only Walgreen that was still open.  I hate that Walgreens, because they have horribly slow service.  They told me two hours, I told him I would be back in a half hour.  I went home and got ready in about 20 minutes.  While we were gone, Bill had packed the kids bags to spend the night at grandmas.  we packed the kids in the car and headed back to our brains.  Of course, her prescription was not built yet.  Also, while we were waiting in the car, Madison had to go to back them.  I then had to take both kids out of the car and go into Walgreens.  In the meantime, Bill had gotten her prescription and could not figure out where we went.  we finally caught up to him, and we were on our way.  Bill and I ended up being around an hour and a half wait for his dinner.  However, they had just sat down to dinner when we got there, so our timing was great.  The party was actually pretty fun.  All in all, I guess it was not that bad of a day — the afternoon just stunk.  Madison is doing well now.   I swear, my kids never get sick during the week — the only get sick after hours or on the weekends.

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