Thursday, January 10, 2013
Well, we're nearly two weeks into the New Year. How are those resolutions working for you?
Once that mesmerizing bejeweled ball dropped in Times Square two weeks ago, New Year’s hugs, kisses, and unwavering resolutions were exchanged from one end of the country to the other. Champagne toasts were giddily declared as well intending folks across the world embarked on what they hope will be their best year yet. Can I just say I’m not going there this year? – Absolutely not! Instead of banging out a list of my usual culprits that could use a little improvement: Eat healthier, weigh less, find my true purpose, sell custom-made wonder girdles to help pay for eight college funds, learn to play a classy instrument like a viola or the harp, and finally — mastering the fine art of clipping our Pomeranian’s nails so that we don’t succumb…
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Even if you hate the thoughts of making a single resolution for the New Year, our Gansett Moms' Council has 10 suggestions to freshen up your parenting routines in 2013.
Ah, a brand New Year is upon us once again! This is such a pivotal moment in time for so many of us because it offers us a clean slate. Goal-oriented individuals love this time of year because it’s a great opportunity to set personal resolutions that will be life-changing. It’s also just as refreshing for parents, because we want nothing more than to improve our parenting skills and make good on the major blunders that took place the year before. In light of the fresh start that comes with a new year, here are 10 parenting resolutions from our Gansett Moms’ Council that offer up a way to lighten up and make this your best parenting year ever. Resolution #1: Be More Selfish Have you ever heard that analogy of parents placing the oxygen …
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Silly snow stories, because we all have a few.
As I'm watching the snow fall outside my bedroom window, I remember when I was little and hearing that snow was in the forecast. It was like a gift from the gods. No weather event makes children giddy quite like a snowstorm. It truly has something for everyone. For the nature enthusiasts, there's the fun snow filled nature walks. There is something very peaceful about walking through the neighborhood during a snowstorm. For the active kids who like to do crazy things, there's sledding and snowball fights. And who hasn't enjoyed those at least once or twice in their lives? Then for the artistic folks like myself, snow just became another canvas to express your creativity. Snowmen, snow forts, snow angels, snow turtles, whatever you want. …
Friday, December 28, 2012
Whether you're the type of person who resolves to do better in the New Year or not--check out some of our unique resolutions that just may entice you.
Are you one of those steadfast types that love the tradition of making a list of motivating New Year’s resolutions each year? Or, have you “been there – done that” one too many times and have decided that the only resolution you care to make is not setting yourself up for disappointment by breaking the list you made less than one week into it? Go ahead, be honest! Most people are not going to keep their resolutions all year long. They’ll start out with the best of intentions but the worst of strategies, expecting that they’ll somehow find the willpower to resist temptation after temptation. In an interesting report done by Roy F. Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State University and co-author of the book, Willpower, he and …
Friday, December 21, 2012
OPINION: The benefits afforded the president of URI are excessive and violate the R.I. Constitution.
- GOVERNMENT
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Friday, December 21, 2012
As reported in the press (here and here), the University of Rhode Island has spent close to $500,000 on repairs of its president's tuition-funded home, which is among the fringe benefits that come with the president's job, such as a car, an expense account, and club dues. Excessive administrative spending is but one of many results of nationwide privatization of public education. Particularly distressing in this context is the root cause of this development, namely the decline of the fraction of the URI budget that comes from the Rhode Island general revenue, a percentage that has dropped from 60 percent in the 1950s to less than 10 percent currently. Privatization has resulted in an explosive increase in tuition. As documented in Trends…
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
How's your holiday season going so far? Are you loving every second of the chaos or are you scurrying through each day, just praying for it all to be over?
If the idea of spending the next couple of weeks shopping for gifts that you really can’t afford, standing in long lines at the Post Office to send out those precious photo cards that nearly cost you your sanity, trying to keep your kids from climbing the walls with excitement all while juggling your job, fitting in one too many holiday parte on top of wrapping, baking, and decorating your humble homestead so that you can create the near-perfect holiday for your family, let the Gansett Moms’ Council talk you off the ledge. Too often the holidays get a bad wrap (No pun intended!), but it doesn’t have to be that way. ’Tis the season to be joyful and merry, but thanks to all the pressure we put on ourselves, it often ends up being the season …
Monday, December 17, 2012
Dealing with the aftermath of the horrific Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.
Writing this piece in the aftermath of the unthinkable tragedy in Newtown on Friday, Dec. 14 is eerily surreal. To learn that 26 innocent lives, 20 of them precious young children, were killed in a shooting massacre in their very own elementary school is just incomprehensible. As a mom of eight kids, the youngest who is 7 and in the first grade, I was stricken with immense grief and disbelief that sweet, trusting young elementary school aged children as well as their devoted and loving teachers and staff that cared and taught them were so brutally murdered. A tragedy of this magnitude is horrific, but knowing that so many helpless children were the victims takes the pain and horror to a whole new level. I am not a certified professional …
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Alternate Title: Oh, How I Wish I Was Writing About Christmas Instead
I really was hoping I could write about Christmastime approaching and all the joys of the holiday season. I wish I would rant about the whole obsession some people have with the Mayan apocalypse and how people who seem to be rooting for it to happen and being disgusted with that thought process. Or even writing about a silly Christmas story about how flat cookies mislead my dad into thinking I had a nervous breakdown. Okay, that last one needs a ton of context in order for it to seem funny, but regardless, I wish those were the things that I could write about, but not this time. After what happened Friday in Connecticut, all of those topics have gone by the wayside. And all I feel as if I need to help my own peace of mind by discussing it …
Friday, December 14, 2012
Think YouTube is only for listening to great tunes? Think Again!
I consider myself a reasonably creative person. Just last week, for instance, I created a winter wonderland in our living room with branches I found in the woods behind our house. After dragging them several miles, I managed to spray paint them with shiny white paint, sprinkle them with snow glitter and then strung lots of white lights on them all without batting an eye. It’s a shame no one in my family has noticed this festive venue yet, but the dogs and I certainly are enjoying it. Sure I can bring a dead tree to life, but ask me to assemble something like those UNICEF boxes the kids come home with for Halloween, and I break out into a cold sweat. Just because I’m good with a hot glue gun doesn’t mean I’m good with a set of written …
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Christmas comes but once a year - but the cost of it can last much, much longer!
Pay no attention to the yards of yellow tape currently draped around our home, and don’t worry—it doesn’t indicate a crime scene—but possibly something just as ugly—a construction site. Make that a “Holiday” construction site! Regardless of your religious affiliation, this is the time of year where most families are gathering their most festive ornamentation to decorate their front lawns, their mantels, their 7-foot pre-lit designer trees, their wardrobes, their pets, and some even the hoods of their cars. Since we are Christians, we celebrate Christmas, which if I recall correctly, all started in a manger with hay, not in a mall with credit cards. Forgive me if I sound a little sour, truly that’s not the case at all. My friends and …
Karen
9:26 pm on Thursday, January 10, 2013
Hilarious! Love the article! more ›