CPRMom

I've always felt it was important to vote in elections and to participate in Town Meeting. This gives each of us an active role in our communities and how they are run. Today I was reminded of how important each individual voter is in the process. My town voted to approve a bond to renovate and expand our library. This is a project near and dear to me as an active library user and part-time employee in our library. In a town of only 753 residents (according to the 2010 census) we are the 16th busiest library based percentage or population using the library in the State of New Hampshire out of 234 towns. For a small town we have an active library. Today's vote represented months of work done by the library trustees to come up with a plan that allowed for the growth of our overcrowded library, but yet kept the costs in line. This has been a difficult journey. Today's vote was a ballot that required a two thirds majority to pass. Discussion was heated at times, ...

Click to Enlarge Image Do You know what to do when someone goes into Sudden Cardiac Arrest? Learn to Save a Life. Take A CPR/AED Class. Be the Person who can save a life. Brought To You By Health & Safety Institute For CPR AED and First Aid classes on the Seacoast visit Coastal CPR & First Aid

Last month I had a phone call I was initially really excited about. It was from an organization that provides training and continuing education resources for childcare providers.  A child care center I had taught CPR & First Aid at referred me to them.  Can I say that I absolutely without a doubt LOVE referrals?  I do, I truly do.  It means I did a good job training their staff and they're not embarrassed to admit I taught them.  Anyway the caller from this organization was thinking of trying someone new to provide classes for them. Sadly I know they will never call me back. I didn't scare them away.  At least I don't think I did.  I told them how long a CPR or First Aid class is and what is covered.  A full class is 6 hours long, but can be broken up into 2 3-hour classes.  A renewal class can be about 4-5 hours long and can also be broken up into 2 classes.  I can do really focused skills-based renewals through the American S...

There are some events or situations that no one can really explain why they happen.  The senseless shooting in Newtown, CT is one of them. I'm having a really hard time comprehending what happened.  I'm struggling with it because I have children.  These beautiful children in this picture are the same ages as my son and youngest daughter.  I have yet to explain to them what happened and I know I need to do so soon as it will most likely be discussed in their school.  I am extremely thankful that we had a snow day today so I have more time to think on how to approach this.  Although I have been out teaching for most of the day so I have to figure out a way to ease into this conversation. How do I explain this to them when I still cannot understand it myself? A good friend is a parent educator.  She has posted some brief advice on her Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/ProactiveParentingTips .  Another good friend shared this link:...

Last month my Visa debit card was hacked. It was a week of ... oh I so want to type the word but I don't swear, at least not usually.  But you can insert the word that you think is coming out of my mouth. I won't go into details, but all is now resolved and I have my money back.  But that is not the horrible part of the whole situation. The horrible part was the lack of communication with my banking institution.  There was only one person everyone said I had to speak to, the person who pretty much never returned any of the messages I left (many of which were how to fill out their forms!).  I would have to call and complain to customer service to get a return call.  After 2 days of leaving messages I finally reached this person on day 3 - to find out that my fraud report hadn't even been looked at.  I was stressed, and freaking out.  This began at 8am on Monday and by Friday I had reached my breaking point.  I was so frustrated I thought I wo...

All this month I've been seeing friends posting what they are thankful for this month.  This morning as my children's CCD program began the kids were sharing what they were thankful for this month.  I realized I'm thankful for random acts of kindness. I didn't realize how true that thought would be until a few hours later. I bet you're wondering why there is a picture of a set of keys with a CPR barrier on the dashboard of my van.  What do my studio keys have to do with this post?  They tie in with why I'm thankful for random acts of kindness. This afternoon I arrived early for my CPR for New & Expecting Parents class.  I managed to snag a really close and prime parking spot in downtown Dover.  It was a good afternoon, until I reached in my bag for my studio keys.  And they weren't there.  [you can mentally insert ominous music and images of me beginning to panic...] Over the next hour I managed to: Dump my purse and search it. Se...

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to teach something different. I taught 2 sewing classes at the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains Older Girl conference. I had a quite a few requests for the patterns for what we made. The second project was an online pattern for an over-sized tote bag . The first project was a fleece hat. We made 2 - one to keep and one to donate. There isn't a pattern for this hat, so here are the directions. I'll try to add pictures of each step at a later time, but for now here's a pic of the same pattern but with added ears I did for my son's Halloween costume. 1. Measure your head, or the head of the person you are making the hat for. 2. Cut a rectangle out of fleece. It should be 18" high and the width should be the head measurement plus 1". For little kid hats cut only 16" high. The height is measured up the selvage, the width is across, so the measurement of your head is the stretchy part of the...