Thursday, November 21, 2013

Education System: Know Your Role

So after watching a video that disturbed me yesterday about a father who was arrested for trying to pick up his children from school, I decided that it was high time I voiced my opinion about the education system today. I think the education system has gotten way to big for their britches and need to learn their role.

I believe the cop that arrested the father in the video had better calm the heck down because all he was doing was abusing his badge. Police are put in schools to protect the students and give parents a piece of mind while their children are at school. But to arrest a parent who wasn't even raising his voice for coming to pick up his children and voicing his opinion, can anyone say violation of rights?

My daughter is not of school age yet, but I will be damned to see the day that any school will tell me I can not take my child out of school when I want to. I have had this problem with some local daycares in my area as well. My daughter hasn't taken a nap since she was 15 months old but every school tells me it is their policy that she has to lay down for 2 hours.

If my daughter lays down for two hours she will be up all night, I as a parent don't want my daughter laying down at all during the day, I am paying for her to get an education not for her to sleep. As her mother if I am paying her tuition and my child has the ability to play quietly at a table while other kids nap, then that is what she is going to do.

I carried my daughter for 9 months, went through an emergency c-section, spent 6 weeks recovering from the surgery, I know what is best for my child and I decide what is best for her and I believe if I am paying you to watch my child, than you are going to play by my rules and not your own.

Now I have worked in a daycare facility and all you hard working parents are paying up to $200 a week for your child to be educated by these facilities, which in turn is paying their employees. Not only are you paying their employees to teach your children, but you are paying their employees to sit around on their cell phones for two hours while your child sleeps.

 I also don't agree with the fact that these daycares have a set lunch program. I think that food programs are great, especially for parents that don't have the money or the time to provide food for their child in daycare. My daughters father is a cook for a living and we prefer that she have meals that we deem fit for our child, but being told we can't send her with food because other children have allergies is the biggest pile of BS I have ever heard. I am sending a lunch for my child not for other peoples children, so why does some other kids allergies matter? As far as children sharing on their own goes, this is why we pay teachers to be there, to keep an eye on these kids.

I understand the educational system has to improve to help kids get better test scores and keep children safe in a crazy world, but telling the parents what to do has gone too far. Schools are there to teach my kids ABCs and 123's and that is all, I don't care what degree you went to school for or what your damn policies are, I gave birth to my child and you will not tell me what is best for my child or what my child is GOING to do.

Smartin up schools!

-Miss Information

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Quitting Smoking, Kicking The Habbit!

I personally have been smoke free for almost 6 months now and I have had a lot of questions and speculation about quitting smoking, so I decided it would be a pretty good blog topic and would probably get quite a bit of reaction. So I wanted to address some of them here, I am not lecturing about smoking, but I am going to share how I did it and why it is so hard for other people to quit.

A Reason To Quit

Now when I was a smoker, my biggest problem was that I enjoyed smoking, but at the same time, I want to live my life to the fullest. I have read so many stories about how people quit smoking when it was too late. I don't need to lecture you that smoking is bad for you, in fact I found when I was a smoker it was annoying when people would say "Smoking is bad for you!" I always wanted to give some obnoxious response like really? I must have missed the warning! Everyone has a reason for wanting to quit, you just have to figure out why, because if you don't have a reason, you won't want to quit.

How I Quit

I personally took he route of e-cigarettes. I do want to take a second to debunk because I have had some people doubt my quitting because I used e-cigarettes. One of the more popular responses I get is "oh I read they are bad for you!"

So being the researcher I am, I am going to debunk some of these for you. Yes it is true that the FDA is still out about e-cigs, but you are going to find a million of blogs that claim they are bad. Everything is bad for you, but if you want information you have to go to a credible source.

E-cigs have nicotine in them, which isn't great for your body, but it isn't going to kill you in such low doses and you can buy them without nicotine at all.

So if you read an article that e-cigs are worse than you for cigs, check the source, I bet it isn't credible.

Personally, I enjoy the e-cig because as I said, I enjoyed smoking and it helps with the putting something in your mouth sensation (Go ahead insert perverted joke here).

Quitting Isn't Easy

Now one thing that annoyed me about quitting smoking is people who want to quit smoking but say to me "quitting isn't easy." I quit smoking, I am aware that it wasn't easy. Just because I succeeded, doesn't mean it was easy, but these are some things I learned about the quitting process.

You can't quit while smoking. There are so many people I hear that are like, I will only smoke a few a day. While cutting down is good, you are still smoking, and your only paddling with one oar. Cold turkey is hard, but it is effective.

Stop making excuses. I hear so many people give me reasons why they can't quit smoking (ex. My job is stressful, I am out of work, I have tried and its hard) all these are is a reason not to quit and you are using them as a security blanket not to quit. Life is hard and there will always be an excuse not to quit. Don't let the excuses take over.

One thing I found that helped in the quitting process was challenging myself. The first few days are torture and you will be miserable, but if you make it through those hours without one and go back to smoking, you wasted hours of your life being miserable for nothing. It does get better and it does get easier, you just have to challenge yourself to make it to that point.

Don't Be Negative

I have learned when I quit smoking, I was surrounded with a lot of negativity and people who tried to drag me down because I quit smoking, but the truth is, those people are tearing you down because they feel bad that they haven't been able to do it. I know it sounds cliche, but don't give in to peer pressure.

So if you want to quit smoking, today is your day.

Taking A Breath Of Fresh Air

- Miss Information.


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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Planning A Disney Birthday Party On A Budget

Planning a child's birthday party can be a hassle, especially if you are not the planning type! So you will try to find the best resources you can that can help you out, so I wanted to help out by giving some easy tips for planning a Disney birthday party on a budget.

So my daughter recently turned 4 and she is a big fan of the Disney princesses, since her birthday falls in the month of October, really close to Halloween, we decided that we were going to add some fun to the mixture by making it a costume party. Since our daughter loves princesses, we knew that the little boys would struggle for a costume, so we made the party Disney themed.

Invitations

Now the start of any party includes an invitation. I was on a budget due tor recent events in my life so I had to think quick. Since my daughter was obsessed with princesses and my SIL is a genius who gave me the idea to make a scroll invitation, I literally spent $3.00 on the invitations for the party. I spent 2.00 on scroll print paper and created my own online. I added my own twist by sealing them with a scroll seal with my daughters first initial on them and complimenting them with some ribbon.






Costumes

Once the invites were sent out, we wanted to start working on the costumes of everyone who was participating in our household, my daughter has a love for Sleeping Beauty so I planned a month in advance and went to Party City in September and found a costume for $20.00. The rest were being left up to craft. Since the Little Mermaid was always a personal favorite of mine, as a couple, K and I decided to go as Ariel and Eric.  The Costumes were simple to make and required little to no sewing, all I had to do was go online to get some inspiration and the costumes came together.





Also joining us at the party included multiple cool costumes including:

-Mickey from Fantasia
-Ursula The Sea Witch
-Captain Hook
-Prince Phillip
-Tinkerbell
& More

Food

Once the big day arrived, it was time to reveal the decorations and Food. We decided that the food was all going to be food themed including setting up a table color coordinated to each princess and filling the tables with princess themed food. We used food coloring to color the pasta to match the princess and each princess got something special.




I labeled every part of the party with a special Disney themed sign to add an additional touch.





Finally, we had games that were all Disney themed including Prince Phillips Castle Pinata, Prince Eric's Fake Tattoo Parlor, and Tiana's pin the kiss on the frog (the kisses were real kisses with lipstick on paper).


Just like that we had a Disney themed party, we did the entire party under $200 and our daughter loved it. Since we planned more than a month in advance and did it little by little, the party was pretty much stress free.

The only stress we had was Wal-Mart giving us a cake with another child's name on it, which lead to us getting the cake for free!

Planning a good party for your children doesn't have to be hard, it can be simple and affordable all you need is a good idea.

Wishing Upon A Star*

Miss. Information