March, 2010 | The Angel Forever

Monthly Archives March 2010

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Coming out of my bloggy shell

Posted on March 12, 2010 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

For three years, I have been blogging and never actually stated where I live. This has partially been to protect my children/family. Plus, I’ll be honest, I never really felt the need to come out and say it. Could someone figure it out? No doubt people probably could have narrowed down the part of the country and possibly the state from photos of snow, places we go and so on.

Recently, things have been cropping up that have made me change my tune. The Disney Social Media Moms Celebration got my real name out there. In addition to this, local opportunities have come up and some big plans/projects are in the works. If I do not let places know about my three years of blogging history, it pretty much defeats the purpose of my hard work over the years. Of course, anyone really close to me knew who I was from the start. Will I have my full name on The Angel Forever? Not yet. Again, no real need for that. People that need to know will continue to get that information.

Of course, the timing on this is really good. Recent events in my home state of New York have gotten me very angry. Born and raised in New York, it absolutely disgusts me when I watch the news and see how things are falling apart. Up until now I have stayed quiet about news events, but thanks to coming out of my bloggy shell I can vent, collaborate and work with others to see what more I can do via my blog and beyond.

Right now, my brain is in hyper mode. A recent PTA meeting at my son’s school has me disgusted. Budget cuts, broken political promises and powers that be who do not see how their actions will kill our schools. Ultimately, our children are the ones that will pay the price. You know, the children that are the future of not only New York State, but our country and world.

*sigh* This is a topic that I will definitely be addressing another day. I will be looking to others for advice on where to go with the people from our school, to fight long and hard to save teachers, nurses, art/music and most importantly our school that may be on the chopping block.

So my question to you this week:

If you blog did you come out of your bloggy shell and tell people where you live and why did you this? If you always were upfront did you have any negative experiences with this?

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #90

Categories:
Aloha Friday bloggy friends decisions DisneySMMoms looking back me moments vent

Children Count Too – Census 2010

Posted on March 11, 2010 10:31 am by TheAngelForever

Every ten years, the United States does a Census to update important information about the population within each area of the country. This will actually be the first time that I participate in this event. In past years, I was unmarried and still living with my parents while going to college. In mid March, we will be receiving these important papers and it is extremely important to fill them out and record information accurately.

Right now, the United States Census is trying to get the word out to all Americans that children count. Why is this so important? Here are some of the facts:

Why Children Count Too

Children have been undercounted in every census since the first one in 1790. Local communities rely on census information in planning for schools, child care, health and other critical services. Babies need to be counted today, so they can benefit tomorrow from community services.

Census counts are used, in whole or in part, for more than 140 programs that distribute more than $400 billion of federal funds to states and localities, including such child-focused programs as:

Special Education Grants to states ($10.8 billion)

Head Start ($6.9 billion)

State Children’s Health Insurance Program ($5.9 billion)

Foster Care Title IV-E ($4.7 billion)

Improving Teacher Quality State Grants ($2.9 billion)

Unlike adults, who may bear some responsibility for making sure they are counted in the Census, children are dependent on others to make sure they are included. Yet in 1980, 1990, and 2000, Census Bureau data show children, particularly young children, are one of the groups most likely to be missed in the Census. In fact, in the 2000 Census, there was a net undercount of more than 1 million children under age 10.

As a parent, teacher and more importantly citizen of the United States, it frightens me that our children are not properly counted and could possibly not get federal funding for needed items because of something so simple. The Census form that will show up in about a week will consist of 10 simple questions. Please do your part and fill it out and remember to count ALL of your children – including infants. You can learn more about the 2010 Census here.

My question for you today:

Have you filled out a Census for your family in the past? If you did, did you make sure to count your children?

Disclosure: I am posting this information as a public service because I feel it is important to get the information out to my readers. Global Influence is helping spread the word about this public service campaign.

Categories:
interesting real world news

National Geographic Kids – Weird But True (Review/Giveaway)

Posted on March 10, 2010 10:36 am by TheAngelForever

Have I mentioned lately how we love books? Seriously, we are constantly getting new books,going to the library and reading something with the boys. NHL is in first grade and likes to read books with history, science or things to learn. Yes, our first grader is slowly warping very nicely into a mini-Geek!

When we were asked by Family Review Network to review the new National Geographic Kids: Weird But True! 300 Outrageous Facts book, we jumped at the opportunity. As a teacher, I had many National Geographic Kids books in my classroom, so I knew it would have amazing photos to share with my boys.

About the book (from their website):

At last, all those weird but true facts that readers of National Geographic Kids love so much are collected into a fun-filled book that you’ll come back to again and again!

Weird But True is based on the hugely popular magazine page of quirky, fun facts that many readers of National Geographic Kids magazine turn to first. Why? Well did you know that…

Peanut butter can be converted into a diamond?

The world’s oldest pet goldfish lived to be 43 years old?

The world’s longest soap bubble was as long as four school buses?

On Neptune, the wind blows up to 1,243 miles an hour?

An elephant’s tooth can weigh as much as a bowling ball?

All of the facts in this handy book will amaze friends and family: Animals Superpowers, Chills and Thrills, Eat or Be Eaten, Mini and Mega, Wild and Crazy, and much, much more. Adjacent pages for such facts present a one-paragraph explanation of how that fact is possible or why it is so.

Purchase your copy for $6.95.

What we thought:

Both of the boys are fascinated with the photos within Weird But True. Yes, even my 2 year old will sit with the book for an extended time looking at all of the photos. JSL will chat away and call out all of the items that he recognizes. NHL, in first grade, will read the facts to me and then talk with me about what it says. Our conversations actually made me think about ways to use this book in the classroom. (I am always a teacher, even when on hiatus.) I could see the fun facts in this book being used as a prompt for classroom discussion and/or a writing exercise. In addition to this, the facts could easily create interest in a subject for kids to do more research on. Anything that excites children to learn gets a thumbs up from me.

Giveaway:

Thanks to National Geographic Kids, one lucky reader will win a copy of National Geographic Kids: Weird But True! 300 Outrageous Facts for your family.

Rules for Giveaway:

MAIN RULE – Answer the following questions: What is one weird fact about you that you are willing to share with others?
1 Bonus Entry – Who will this book be for if you win and why would they love to have it?
1 Bonus Entry – Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter. Be sure to include @TheAngelForever and National Geographic Kids Giveaway in the Tweet. Please leave a direct link to your Tweet in a separate comment for each daily entry. Example Tweet (feel free to use): Chance to win National Geographic Kids – Weird But True book from @TheAngelForever http://bit.ly/9YBplK
1 Bonus Entry – Subscribe to my RSS feed (or let me know if you already are) in a separate comment.
1 Bonus Entry – Leave a comment on any of my non-giveaway posts from the month of January/February/March. Be sure to leave a comment here to let me know which one. This Bonus entry may be done only twice per person.
3 Bonus Entries – Add my blog button to your website and leave a link with the location. Be sure to give yourself 3 comments for credit.
5 Bonus Entries – Write a post on your blog linking to my blog about the giveaway. Be sure to leave 5 comments about this to get credit for all of your extra entries

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Contest starts today March 10th and ends at 10:59 EST on March 24, 2010. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. residents only.

Disclosure: This post was written for Family Review Network as part of a program for National Geographic, who supplied the book for review and giveaway. No other compensations was given. The opinions expressed in the review are my own feelings about the product.

Categories:
books Educational giveaway Product review

Lucky Leprechaun trap project

Posted on March 10, 2010 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Categories:
holidays nhl school Wordless Wednesday

Houston. . . we had a BIG bloggy problem

Posted on March 9, 2010 12:49 pm by TheAngelForever

Welcome back to TheAngelForever.com If you tried to stop by here over the last 31 hours, you probably noticed there was a problem going on. When TechyDad and I woke up yesterday, I went to check something on my blog. Much to my horror, my website was down. I went to TechyDad’s blog and nada there either. We were getting 500 Error messages about the server.

As time went by, we contacted Arvixe, the company that is our webhost. No real answers, lack of time schedule on the fix and on and on throughout the day. By noon, they finally admitted it was a hardware fail and were trying to fix things on the server. Then we noticed that data was not there. Thank goodness, TechyDad backs up our information nightly. The worst case scenario would have been me losing my Betty Crocker post (could redo if needed).

I had people that were questioning what was going on, so TechyDad set up something on the URLs of our blogs to let people know we were aware of the problem. We updated and put up a clock. This is what was here if you looked recently (click to enlarge):

Thankfully, we are up and running again and looking for a new host. We understand that things happen, but there is no excuse with not telling paying customers what is going on and updating things regularly – especially when we are talking over 24 hours of down time.

With a day lost, I will be trying to play even more catch up, so please bear with me as I settle back in. If you have any suggestions on web hosting companies please let us know. TechyDad is in charge of that and knows what he needs for our websites and his work.

Thank you again to everyone for understanding the technical difficulties that were beyond our control.