ICE Could Save a Life

While reading my latest issue of Woman's Day, I came across an informative article that could help save lives.

It was entitled, 'The Importance of Ice.'

ICE, in the medical field, stands for 'In Case of Emergency.' In a nutshell, the article recommended that emergency contact information be included in both paper address books and cell phone address books.

In the event of an emergency, an EMS (Emergency Medical Service) person could have an emergency contact phone number quickly.

I immediately programmed ICE into both Joe's cell phone and my cell phone, and also added it into our paper address book. In Joe's cell phone, I programmed our home number, my cell number and a neighbor's number. In my cell phone, I programmed our home number, Joe's cell number and a neighbor's number.

All of these are listed under the ICE heading. If you can't program several numbers under one heading, you can always title your two or three emergency contact numbers, ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3.

Then, I went a step further. I included these emergency numbers right on my fridge. I also included the medications Joe is on in the same place, as well as in my wallet and his wallet.

Nobody ever wants anything bad to happen, and hopefully it never does. But in the case of an emergency, it's always best to be both organized and prepared.

Staying Calm When an Unexpected Trip Comes Up

Due to a family medical emergency, my husband, my daughter, and I will be taking an unexpected trip to New Jersey next week. My sister, Jude, will be having surgery and will need someone to assist her while she recovers. My sister and her husband, Ed, have a toddler, Mary, who is 21 months old. Ed has already taken off many days from work as my sister went through testing and a previous surgery, so we're flying in to help out this time around.

My sister was recently diagnosed with liposarcoma--a cancer of the fatty tissue. When they originally did her first surgery, the doctors weren't expecting it to be anything to be concerned about. So imagine how Jude and her family felt after they received the diagnosis after the biopsy. Now, it turns out that they didn't get to all the tumors, thus the surgery that must happen again next week at Sloan-Kettering in New York.

In many cases, people have to fly out to their loved ones who are going through medical issues with less than a day's notice. In this case, luckily, we have a week to prepare before we have to leave.

Workwise, Joe and I will work a bit later each day this week-- probably an extra hour or so. We'll try to get some things we were planning to do next week, finished, or at least get them started. We'll also transfer any files we need to our laptop, so we can do a little work while we're over my sister's house. We also have to reschedule some personal appointments and do a bit of planning for our trip-- extra planning is always involved when you have a toddler. In addition, we'll be getting some help from our neighbors to check in on things, pick up the mail, etc.

We already have our airline and rental car reservations in place--all handled quickly and painlessly on the Internet earlier today.

Of course, we're not going to stay up all night this week to check off everything on our To Do lists. After all, sleep is required to stay healthy and I don't want any of us to be sick for this trip.

The work we need to do will still be here when we return and we'll just catch up later a little at a time. Knowing this, we're able to focus on my sister and her family in a calm, collected manner--which is what she needs from us right now.

A 90-Minute Walk Around the Block

It snowed yesterday and several inches blanketed our town. What a pretty sight it was this morning, with the white snow sparkling in the bright sunshine.

Amanda (our toddler) couldn't wait to get outside this morning. She wasn't even out of her pajamas yet, and she was begging me to please get her boots.

I got her dressed, put on her snowsuit, boots, hat and gloves and took her outside where my husband, Joe, was busily plowing the sidewalk and driveway.

Soon after, Amanda wanted to take a walk. Joe stopped what he was doing and the three of us proceeded to walk down the block.

At a normal pace, it would take about 15 minutes or so to walk around the block. But today, it was a very slow walk, because Amanda stopped every 3 feet or so to jump into a snow pile, dip her hands into the snow and toss some in the air, or to watch someone shoveling.

It was so gratifying to see the facination in her eyes and her smiles.

We didn't say much, but just enjoyed a peaceful, snowy morning out in the fresh air. The temperature was around 24 degrees or so, but since there was no wind at all, it was very comfortable to be outside.

Ninety minutes later, we made it around the block. It was a wonderful way to just relax, unwind and enjoy family time on this beautiful Saturday morning.

Birthday Party Planning

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Our daughter, Amanda, will be celebrating her second birthday at the end of this month, and I've been taking a few moments here and there to plan for it. We're just having a small party with a few of her closest friends (and their parents), but there are still details that need to be handled, such as sending invitations, ordering some decorations, balloons and a cake, what I'll be serving our guests, what our party agenda will be and what we'll be buying (or making) to use as party favors.

We've pretty much settled on a Blues Clues theme (well, at least I did and Joe agreed), since Amanda is quite fond of that show.

Anyway, just as I was in the middle of sending out Blue's Clues invitations, Joe showed me two pages from his Dave Barry desk calendar. There were some funny clips that I thought I'd share--detailing the differences with moms and dads when it comes to planning kids birthday parties.

(Click photo to enlarge.)
By the way, if you're unfamiliar with Dave Barry (is that possible?) he is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. His column appears in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad.)

Here's what Dave had to say . . .

* * * * *

MOMS
Like many moms, my wife believes that a child's birthday party requires as much planning as a lunar landing--more, actually, because you have to hire a clown. Serious moms plan birthday parties months in advance, choosing a theme-- Bob the Builder, Disney Princesses, Snoop Dogg, etc.--and relentlessly incorporating this theme into every element of the party, including invitations, decorations, music, games, craft projects, snacks, cake, entertainment, favors, little gift bags for the favors, ribbons for the little gift bags for the favors, and on and on until the mom has lost all touch with human reality.

DADS
Things would be different if dads planned birthday parties. First off, the party would be about a month after the child's actual birthday, which is when Dad would remember it. Dad's party theme would be delivery pizza, which would also serve as the cake, the craft project, and the party favor. The entertainment would be pulling dad's finger. The kids would have just as much fun at this party as the one Mom would plan.

* * * * *

Ok, I'll admit, I've got a lot of Dave's description of the Mom above in me, but I'm also taking some advice from the Dad description and ordering sub sandwiches instead of cooking something that day. Joe isn't handling most of the details, which leans towards the Dad description above, but in his defense he knows I love to do things like this and he promised he would drive to the party store that morning and pick up some Blue's Clues balloons and get the cake.

So, we do have a bit of birthday party teamwork going on, and I'm sure in the end, it will be a fun day for everyone.

Transfering and Storing Files--in a Flash!

Joe and I went to Best Buy the other day and picked up a 512Meg flash drive, for $39--with the $10 rebate, it came to only $29--and two 100GB external hard drives for $69 each. That's a lot of storage for a little bit of money.

I don't know if you've ever seen a flash drive, but they are the size of a key chain. Ours has 512Meg capacity, although there are some that store 2GB. You basically plug this tiny piece of equipment into your computer's USB port and you're ready to store tons of information.

Joe and I didn't want everything transferred from our old computers to our new computers. Our flash drive has been helping us easily transfer the data that we do want.

If you have two computers, such as one at home and one at work, with a flash drive you can easily store files and work on them at either location.

You can even store files permanently on flash drives, although at the cost, there are definitely less expensive ways to do this.

For instance, you can store files on CDs or even an external hard drive. Joe and I are going to use our extra hard drives for easily backing up our important files. We can back up our entire C Drive with one click of the mouse.

Just like the flash drives, they just need to be plugged into your computer's USB port.

With flash drives and external hard drives, it has never been easier or less expensive to transfer and/or store enormous amounts of data!

Dangerous Hoarding

While reading another BLOG today, I came across this story that is both heartbreaking and frightening. The headline read Woman Suffocates Under Piles Of Clutter In Home.

You can read the details on the following link:
http://www.local6.com/news/5917330/detail.html

It's an extreme, but very true example of how dangerous clutter can be when it gets out of hand.

Our New Computers

Joe and I bought each other new computers this past Christmas. We plan to get them out of the boxes and set up this weekend. Boy, we can't wait!

One of the reasons we decided it was time for new equipment, besides the fact that both of our computers are over 5 years old, was because of all the different software versions Joe and I each have between each computer.

Just one example is that Joe has an older version of Publisher than I have. I can open Publisher files he sends to me, but he can't open newer version Publisher files I send to him. Due to space issues, he can't upgrade his version. Even if I attempt to save my files in a lower version, they always seem to get corrupted when saving them back and forth.

As you can imagine, computer problems like these (when you're not a techie) are frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, these new machines are powerful--they have bigger hard drives, more memory, better graphic capabilities, etc.

Part of being organized is knowing when something you're currently using just isn't working any longer.

No, new computers aren't cheap. But, I feel that anything that helps save time and energy, and increases productivity, is an excellent investment and almost always worth every penny in the long run.

We bought the same exact computers, so our programs will be exactly the same.

We're putting our old computers in the basement, and they will exclusively be used for non-business related software, such as games or music programs.