Community, Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
Most moms are very familiar with all of the Halloween safety tips, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to review them for yourself and of course, review them with your children.
You may be surprised to find out that tainted candy is NOT the number one safety concern at Halloween…experts at a children’s hospital say the biggest hazzard is traffic, not tainted candy.
Doctors at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, advise parents to accompany their children while trick-or-treating and remind them to walk carefully, stay on sidewalks and cross streets at crosswalks or well-lighted intersections. Parents should take along a flashlight but try to get home before dark.
Other safety tips include those for costumes, trick or treating and candy. Here are some for your and children to review:
Costume Safety:
- Hem costumes so you don’t trip and fall
- Use only hypoallergenic or non-toxic make-up
- Try to wear make-up instead of a mask as it allows for greater visibility
- Keep costumes and wigs away from candles
- Swords, knives and other props should be make of flexible plastic so they are not hazardous
Candy Safety:
- Never eat candy until it has been home to be inspected by a parent
- Only eat homemade treats if you know and trust the person that made them
- Throw out candy or treats that are homemade, unwrapped or if they appear to have been tampered with (pinholes in wrappers, torn wrappers, etc.)
- For small children, remove any choking hazards such as gum, peanuts, hard candies or small toys
Trick or Treating Safety:
- Children should be well supervised and with an adult while trick or treating
- Add some reflective tape to costumes and/or candy bags for good visibility
- Carry a flashlight
- Only go to well-lit houses
- Follow traffic signals
- Drive extra cautiously
- Avoid short cuts…stick to the sidewalks and stay out of alleys
- Stay in familiar neighborhoods
- Watch for cars backing up out of driveways or turning
Trick or Treating Safety Especially for older kids:
- Never accept rides from strangers
- Be polite: always say ‘thank you’
- Don’t trample flower beds…stay off lawns…stick to sidewalks and walkways
- Don’t approach unfamiliar pets/animals
- Stay out of backyards
- Respect other people and thier property
- Report suspicious activity to the police
- Never go into a stranger’s house
- Make sure your parents always know where you are and who you are with
- If you are driving…make sure you have enough gas…don’t run out on a dark street
- If your parents give you a curfew…follow it…it builds trust
- It is NEVER cool to vandalize
- It is NEVER cool to hurt an animal
For homeowners:
- Be sure the dogs are restrained
- Be sure obstacles are removed from walkways
- Be sure your home is well-lit
And for everyone…please do not drink and drive. Here in Colorado the police will be out in force this weekend watching for drunk drivers. I would be it’s a common occurrence nationwide. Get a designated driver or a cab…it is not worth it EVER to drink and drive.
Be safe and have a very Happy Halloween!
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions, Resource Articles
All of us (mommy) bloggers want our blogs to be successful. Many want to secure advertisers to make their blogs something they can use to not only share their knowledge with others, but to also help support their families by making an income.
In order to do that, blogs need to be successful.
How is that done, you ask? It’s not overly complicated.
The first thing a blog requires is your commitment. You must post frequently. Search engine spiders look at your blog when it starts. They’ll go back in 24 hours and look again for new content. If it’s not there, it will be 48 hours until the next sweep. Nothing new again? The time doubles. Pretty soon, your blog won’t be indexed because the search spiders aren’t looking for new content anymore.
If your blog is in this situation, hate to break it to you… you have to start over with a new blog. Trying to resurrect an old blog is near impossible.
However, you CAN re-use the content from you old blog and get your new one up and running with consistent posting. In fact, when Our Milk Money decided to relaunch and upgrade the business directory, this is exactly what we did. (Worked like a charm!)
The next thing you really want to think about is your keywords. Long tail keywords, or keyword strings, are now used for indexing. Do a search on the keywords you are using to tag your blog posts. Ideally, you want the search to yield less than 100,000 results. Keywords should be nouns, as that is typically what is used to run a search. They should definitely not be ‘flowery’ words. Simplicity works best.
Use keywords people will use to conduct a search so you can be found. When in doubt, think about the words you enter into a search engine. When writing, you can certainly put the words into your own voice, but make sure it is direct and to the point with words every age can understand. You may be tempted to show off your vast vocabulary… and while your mom would be proud, it won’t help you get found. Write specifically. For example, when describing a building, don’t say the beautiful building, say the 1920s victorian style building.
In addition to being specific and using keyword strings, be sure to use your name and the name of your business and company as tags. Make sure to hyperlink tag words that are in the body of your post.
Another important thing to remember when blogging is that once you hit the ‘publish’ button, it is out there in cyberspace for ever! It cannot be taken back.
Set up your blogs to automatically update to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Be sure to add your blogs to different blog directories, such as:
- Top of Blogs
- Blogtoplist
- Blogarama
- TotalBlogDirectory
- TopBlogArea
- SpillbeanDirectory
- Bloghub
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Julianne Wish
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is the new Director of Communications for OMM. In addition to working behind the scenes to promote OMM and you, she also works with legislators and the national and state levels as advocate for parents in business. She will be writing a column for OMM, entitled Wishful Thinking, in which she will bring you items of importance from a legislative, business and parental perspective. She looks forward to serving you and your comments and suggestions.
Part I – What’s at Stake: As parents, there are many things in life we are passionate about – our children, our spouses, our families, etc. The political landscape of today has brought another passion to the forefront for me: Freedom. Continue reading here.
Part II – The Excesses of Democracy – The Framing (Federal) Convention’s record proves that by dcrying the ‘excesses of democracy’ the Framers were not opposing a popular type of government for the United States – their whole purpose was to create a sound system of this type. To contend to the contrary is to falsify history – which not only maligns the Framers but also the spirit of the Free Man in America – all those people of that period who were grateful for the Constitution. The Constitution provided, under the Republic it created, liberties protected against abuse by all possible violators, including the Majority. Continue reading here.
Part III – Our Form of Government – With regard to the Republican form of government (that of a Republic) Madison wrote in The Federalist:
“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the influence would be that there is no sufficient virtue among men for self government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.” Continue reading here.
Part IV – Doing Your Part – There are many political organizations online that offer free newsletters to keep you informed. Simply search online for liberal newsletters or conservative newsletters…or liberal or conservative political organizations. There are a plethora of them. Continue reading here.
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Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
by Julianne Alvarez-Wish
In the ‘good ole days’ kids used to be able to play outside and walk places with very little to fear. I certainly did as a child. I would go out to play after school and had to be home by a certain time as did my friends. There was little adult supervision.
The same cannot be said of today’s environment unfortunately. In the blink of an eye, children, young adults, women and even young men are kidnapped, attacked and worse. Also, there are children in school suffering from being bullied.
We do all we can as parents to ensure the safety of our families and nothing should substitute for that. However, adding good tools to our ‘toolbox’ for caring for our families is a terrific idea and I’m all for adding security and some peace of mind.
One such idea is the line of ISafe Bags. The ISafe Bags were created by a Chicago entrepreneur. He heard about a woman who was attacked by four men. The story upset him so much he decided to do something about it to help protect people from attacks.
In full disclosure, I did receive an ISafe Bag at no cost to review. No other compensation was provided and all opinions are fully my own and in no way influenced by the receipt of the bag.
ISafe Bags look like regular back packs, laptop backpacks, or laptop messenger bags. They come in an array of colors that will please children and adults alike. I reviewed the pink laptop messenger bag. My laptop fit in the bag easily as did a bunch of other things I carry with it. It’s functional, pretty, light, durable and well-constructed. It has lots of pockets for storage and even has a handy removable key ring. I love it!
Hiding in each of these bags is an alarm system with a strobe light. The alarm is quite loud and the strobe light is very bright…they will easily attract help to whoever set off the alarm. Another great feature is that the alarm and strobe light system are very light, only adding 1/2 pound to the weight of the bag so you won’t get tired carrying it around.
ISafe Bags are easy to activate and deactivate. ISafe Bags also have a replacement policy. When your bag gets worn out, you can purchase a pre-wired bag from ISafe Bags at a fraction of the cost of the original. Simply insert the alarm system into the new bag and you are all set!
The ISafe Bags web site is full of useful information from who should use the bags, common uses, to alarm system operating instructions. There is a link for personal safety tips for women and children. The web site will also feature a video on how to hook up the replacement bag to your alarm system.
The line of ISafe Bags are a terrific way to add some security and peace of mind to life using an ordinary item many use daily…what’s not to like! I highly recommend them!
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at Wishful Thinking. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
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Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
by Julianne Alvarez-Wish
A to-do list is a list of tasks to be completed or steps toward completing a project. DUH! We all know this – so what’s the point in going any further with this topic, right? Not so fast…
The reason we will continue is because it’s hard to argue the benefits that come from getting your commitments out of your cranium and into a consistent format.
Let’s begin by breaking down a to-do list by starting with the obvious: a to-do list should contain things that can and should be done. You say, DUH! again? You may be surprised to learn how many items wind up on to-do lists that don’t belong there – as well as how many are missed. So let’s continue on. To-do lists should have items on them that are:
- something for which you are responsible
- actions
- something that can be accomplished in a short period of time…say a sitting
- something that works toward achieving a larger goal
David Allen, in Getting Things Done, talks about the ‘next action’. He defines the next action as ‘the next physical activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion’.
For example, most people might put something on their to-do list like ‘get ready for the trip’. The reality is that this is really a project (here comes my PM background). Projects should be broken down into the activities required to complete it. ‘Get ready for the trip’ is too vague. Instead, it should be broken down into activities such as:
- call the kennel to make reservations for dogs from x/xx to x/xx
- take suits to the dry cleaners
- go to the post office to stop mail delivery until x/xx
These are specific and actionable – it’s easy to determine when they are done. Notice theses are all physical activities. Breaking these projects down into physical activities will help you
- clearly and completely think through the project
- make it easier to complete the project
- make the project more manageable for you
By taking this approach and have a ‘proper’ to-do list you may find you’re really not as busy as you thought you were (because you are now working smarter!), you’re better organized and have a better handle on what needs to be done!
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She also blogs at Wishful Thinking. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
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Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
Having a planner – whether it be paper or electronic – is the first step to getting yourself organized. However, just having a planner in your possession isn’t enough – you need to use it and maximize it to make it work for you.
- Size. This is largely a matter of personal preference. Some people prefer large 8 1/2 x 11 planner while others may prefer a slim electronic version. It should comfortably fit in your purse or pocket.
- Views. You planner should have different views so you can look – at a glance – at a day, week, month, etc.
- Location. Always have it with you. It won’t help you if you always leave it somewhere.
- Recording. Write everything in your planner. Your planner should be the first place an event gets recorded. If you follow this your planner will be up-to-date and a good central reference for you.
- Access. Use a tab or paperclip to ‘today’ so you can quickly reference your schedule. Many electronic PDAs have this feature.
- Lists. Have ‘to-do-‘ lists and daily action plans. ‘To-do’ lists should be categorized. For example, home, family, social, business. Items from your ‘to-do’ list will will become items on your daily action plan so you can work toward accomplishing your ‘to-do’ lists.
- Time. Learn to estimate time. When you add ‘to-to’ list items to you daily action plan you need to determine how long they will take to accomplish. If you’re like most people, you underestimate how long this take. Be realistic.
- Color code. This is one of my favorites. Not only does color coding make you planner visually appealing, it makes it easy to see – at a glance – what your day, week, month is bringing. Use general topics for colors: family, finance, health, personal, spiritual, etc. Use a different color for each topic. Use highlighters for paper planners and different color fonts/highlights on your PDA.
- Contingency Planning. Take into account ‘what-ifs’ when planning. Things pop up – phone calls, traffic, long lines. Don’t pack your day so full that you cannot possibly get your list accomplished. When scheduling appointments, allow enough time in between for travel, meals, etc.
- Changes. Changes are OK! You have the right to change plans and priorities. Your planner works for you!
Your planner is not rigid. Be realistic – your planner works for you – not the other way around. Your planner should be a tool to help you achieve your goals.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Most moms are very familiar with all of the Halloween safety tips, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to review them for yourself and of course, review them with your children.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
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