Fed Ex and Out of Office Blog

My daughter is all about being crafty, in the sense of imagination and working with anything she can get her hands on. Right now it is about glue so I will often find her using the scissors cutting shapes, coloring them and gluing them on a piece of paper to make her masterpiece. They all end up of the fridge as a work of art. I am always looking for new ideas to share this craft time with her and expand on her wide imagination. Fed Ex's Out of Office blog has some cool ideas to get your crafting side of your brain going, not only for kids but also for any occasion!

My daughter and I received a craft pack to make a bookmark, a great simple project to jump start her for Summer reading. We had a template to cut out, which was simple enough for her to practice using her cutting skills with the scissors. We also received some ribbon, stickers and a new 24 pack of Crayola crayons. This was great since our dog Hana has a sweet tooth for my daughter's crayons, we are missing a few. Stickers a re a kid favorite and right now the focus is flowers and butterflies. She practiced writing her name, adorned it with butterfly stickers and of course had to use the glue to cut a few small pieces of ribbon and glue them on the template. Once we were done, we headed out to our local office store and got it laminated, making it last and durable for all of the books she plans to read. To top it off, I hole punched the top and used a piece of ribbon to make a tail. How easy was that! See some other examples of this craft here.

How about something that is not just for the kids! I loved were the new address stationary cards, or even making them for a "mom"card to give out with your contact info. If you also have read this blog, you know I love to bake and I often do so for charity. Out of Office blog had some great tips for Bake Sale ideas, it's all in the presentation....and taste of course!

Have you got a great craft idea? You can send it to them via the "talk to us" button and your idea will be featured on the blog in the coming months. Spread your crafty ideas out to others and spread the word on this cool site!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of FedEx Office and received the items necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Allergy Relief with Halls

I had thought that I was going to escape the allergy season this year. In the past, I had been getting signs of allergies in March and dealing with them all the way into June. My husband had gotten all of the symptoms, headache, runny nose, itchy eyes and miserable. My daughter had the same including snoring all night long from blocked nasal passages. I had been clear and free.....up until May 5th!

On May 5th I woke up with a splitting headache, runny nose, itchy watery eyes and felt miserable! So much for avoiding the season. I had been taking typical allergy medication, always hesitant on taking too much for feeling drowsy, or just out of it so I tried to only take it when I went to bed. I recently received a sample of Hall's Sugar Free Mentho-lyptus, something I did not even think about trying for my symptoms. What I did find was that it helped relieve allergy related sore throat and cough symptoms and even help cool nasal passages. Halls started working within 10 seconds, offering an immediate break while waiting for my allergy medicine to kick in and take over. I certainly liked the taste of the black cherry versus taking the cough medicine with the cherry flavor which always made me gag! An easy and simple way to help get me threw the allergy season. Here are a few other helpful hints that I did to keep allergies down in my house.

1. Keep the windows closed during high pollen count.

2. Run a humidifier at night in the bedrooms.

3. Shower before bed to get the pollen off and keep it out of the sheets.

4. Do not hang laundry out on the line during high pollen count.

5. Nasal saline spray to keep the nose clear.

These hints can help make a hard allergy season a little easier. Do you have any helpful allergy hints to add?

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Halls and received products necessary to facilitate my candid review. In addition, I received a gift certificate to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Update on Murder in Colorado

It was confirmed here that it was a murder/suicide with their employee Rob Montgomery killing Staci and Sean Griffin over a change in commission and bonus pay. Have I been in this position of having to deliver bad news over a change in company policies? Yes, many times! I could not imagine anyone I have had to pass this information on to making this move.
Think about this, it can happen anywhere! I often think of the public positions held in office, disgruntled people with taxes or foreclosure on their homes. You never know what can trigger a person to make the next move. I think I will be reviewing my safety and the safety of my fellow employees where I work.

Life takes a dramatic turn

Yesterday I received a phone call from a friend whom I worked with at Waterworks with devastating news. Our friend and former manager had been murdered along with her husband and another employee on Monday. They were found shot dead in their store. I just cannot understand why or how. The news article is here.

Staci Griffin was a fun, positive, motivating person whom always had your back and would do as much as she could to help you. She was ambitious always looking to strive for more. Anyone who called her a friend loved being around her. She had decided to leave Waterworks and open her own Boutique store in Tennessee then from their her family moved to Colorado to start another business, a stove/hearth store which she and her husband was extremely excited about. Their only daughter was the focus of both of their lives and Staci had always given as much as she could to her.

My relationship with Staci was always a good one, she always looked to ways of driving the business and we fed off of her. On a personal note, she was there for me when I had some rough times and always was there to listen. I think in the final year she was working with me, she had lost her spark and was ready to move on, reasons relating to company visions versus where she saw the business going. I agreed in many ways with her vision and we had worked to try and pursued the company. Needless to say, they went another way which I think was a downfall in their current business, causing some stores to be closed, missed opportunity in markets that were hungry for the product. Water under the bridge.....hmmm.

Reading the article about the incident, it stated the police went to the house to gather the pets. I immediately thought of Buster their Boxer who absolutely loved Sean. Where he went, Buster went. I can only hope whom ever takes care of the daughter, he goes too. When her Persian cat had kittens, we got our first cat from Staci, his name was Bailey and was a grey Persian. He was such a great cat, an incredible hunter and loved Hana. He did not make it a year without getting caught by a coyote.

I cannot imagine why this happened and can only feel pain for her daughter. It makes me think of how something like this situation can happen to anyone, anywhere. I found myself hugging my daughter more yesterday than ever and thinking what would she do without myself and my husband. Staci, you will be missed by all.

ADHD linked to pesticides

This morning, NBC reported there is a link between ADHD and the use of pesticides on fruits and vegetables. The statistics are high for children who live on the farms being exposed, but these are for children who do not.
Organo phosphate, a man made pesticide has been linked in residue left on fruits, frozen is pointed out. You do not see organic when it comes to frozen fruits. Also you cannot just wash this away, it stays on and as you may flush it out of your system, in growing infants, it can still subside in the system. The fruit that amazed me as having the highest amount is frozen blue berries! Last year I went blueberry picking at a local farm and froze the berries after washing them. This year I will be asking them if they used this pesticide on the plants. I know my plants have no pesticides on them, and I am thinking I will be planting more bushes!
Some of the suggestions in dealing with this situation is peeling fruit when you can, eat local fruit and veggies and what is in season. I can testify with the strawberries we have been getting in the past several months, they look great but have no taste which leads me to believe they are picked way too early and never ripe to get the flavor they should have. Just another reason to grow your own!