All posts by Anne Younger

Anne is a 30-something full-time SAHM mom of 5 ranging from 3 to 17 and grandma of 1 who resides in Ashwaubenon (Green Bay) Wisconsin. She started blogging in 2008 as a way to regain her sanity. She enjoys coffee, chocolate, cheeseburgers and vodka along with spending time with her husband and kids.

Totally Random

Single during Valentine’s Day? Here’s what to do

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There are certain stereotypes that are associated with single women on Valentine’s Day. If we had a penny for every time a single woman has been represented on Valentine’s Day crying in a bathrobe and sniffling into a tub of ice cream as they watch a hunky teen idol say ‘I love you’ on the TV – well, let’s just say we’d never have to write another blog for as long as we lived! We’re here today to show you that just because it’s Valentine’s Day it doesn’t mean you should feel sad; this day should be about celebrating love, having fun and enjoying yourself!

Remember, being single is awesome!

You might feel deflated and sad at the fact you’re single on Valentine’s Day, but remember, being single isn’t all that bad. It’s actually super fun and fantastic to be independent and be able to do all the stuff you want to do. Use this time to focus on yourself and do everything you can now that you’re single! Focus on the benefits of being free; you’re not chained down by someone else, live a little and celebrate!

Don’t compare yourself to people in a relationship

Remember, every couple has their issues. Even the happiest looking couples, who are celebrating Valentine’s Day with lovey-dovey selfies and romantic rose covered celebrations have their own problems. Feel grateful that you don’t have these issues! Romance does NOT equal happiness.

Also, be easy on yourself. Lots of people feel ashamed that they’re single on Valentine’s Day or like they’ve somehow failed – we’re sure that we don’t have to tell you that that is utter nonsense! Your worth should NOT be dictated by your relationship status. It’s hard as every film, book and song seems to suggest otherwise but this just isn’t true. Most people truly discover themselves when they aren’t too busy being distracted by a relationship. Treat yourself, love yourself, be yourself.

Treat yourself

Make today about how much you love yourself! Buy a gorgeous dress from your favourite online outlet or, better yet, get some new designer shoes from the Mr Shoes webstore. Always wanted to get tickets for that show on at the West End? This is time to get them. Always wanted to eat at that fancy restaurant but felt guilt just thinking about how much it costs in there? Today is the day. Go for mega-shopping spree and get yourself a knock-out party outfit or some rock-solid, attitude oozing Dr Martens to show the world you mean business this Valentine’s Day.

Pamper yourself at a spa

You are the focus of today! Treat yourself with a facial or a massage at a luxurious spa. You will feel relaxed, at peace and gorgeous after your pamper day – what could be better? Indulge and feel decadent this Valentine’s Day with a mud bath or a lavish body wrap session.

Galentine’s Day!

What are your other single friends up to this Valentine’s Day? Go out and celebrate with all your friends at your favourite bar or restaurant. If you’re looking for something a little different, why not have an evening at a comedy club or a trip to an art gallery? Drink some cocktails and surround yourself with the people you REALLY love this Feb 14^th. Unite and rejoice being single.

Be cheeky and get a bestie to do all the ‘Couple’s Deals’ Valentine’s offers with you

It’s annoying that you can’t take advantage of all the 2 for 1 spa deals floating about your inbox right now. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case though… choose a partner in crime to be your companion as you indulge in all the half off couple’s massages on offer!

Host an Anti-Valentine’s Evening

Have a themed Anti-Valentine’s Day party and invite all your single friends to laugh at the sentimental nature of this love-sick holiday. Deck out your party pad with all the bells and whistles… but minus the love hearts, pink streamers and lovey-dovey accessories. Dress yourself up in your best little black dress and drink some well-deserved bubbles with good friends whilst blasting some Single Ladies Beyoncé beats! This is the way Valentine’s Day should be spent.

Get out of town

Maybe you just want to get away from it all this Valentine’s Day, which is absolutely understandable. Maybe you’ve just broken up with someone and you’re looking for some peace and quiet away from the bombardment of flower bouquets, ‘I love you’ animal cushions and honeymooners parading the city in utter infatuation with each other. No, now is not the time for that.

If that’s the case, why not take yourself on an adventure to somewhere you’ve never been before. Go to the country for a day trip filled with quiet, self-reflection and serenity. Stay overnight at a country cottage and make it a relaxing weekend getaway. Or you could go and discover a new nearby city and visit all the sights and attractions it has to offer. This is a great way to spend the day without any loved-up Valentine’s reminders getting in the way.

travel tips

7 Must Have Accessories for Every Road Trip

Anne Younger Leave a comment

Going on a road trip should be a fun time for everyone. When it comes to planning for a road trip, I like to make sure we can make a lot of fun stops on the way but I also like to make sure we have everything we need.

There are all kinds of accessories available for today’s road trippers, and I mean all kinds. When we head out on a road trip, we have our must have accessories, and here they are!

1. GPS Honestly, a GPS is a must these days. Save yourself the time, the hassle, and never get lost! A lot of newer vehicles come equipped with an in-dash GPS, but if you have an older vehicle, a GPS unit is a very affordable investment these days.

2. Multi-USB Charger What doesn’t need a USB cord to charge these days? Phones, iPads, tablets, e-readers, GPS, you name it. When we travel we have at least 3 iPads running off of a mobile hotspot which means they all need to be charging while we travel. Having a USB charger that plugs into your vehicle that can charge multiple things at once, is a game changer.

3. Car Organizer For our family, this is a must. A car organizer is a great way to keep the items you know you will need at hand and in a convenient place. Worried how an organizer will look in your car? Check with your local dealership, like Barkau Automotive, to see if there is a specific organizer that was made as an add-on for your vehicle and order one.

4. Wet Wipes This is an item I cannot stress enough and also something I never, ever, leave home without. Wet wipes are great to have on hand because you never know when someone will spill something, get sick, or just need to clean their hands.

5. iPad/Tablet Mount If you have kids who like to watch movies and you don’t have a video travel system, grab a mount for your iPad or tablet so everyone can watch at once.

6. First Aid Kit Be sure you really are ready for anything and equip your vehicle with a fully stocked first aid kit. You can pick up a pre-made kit online or at most major retailers or you can put DIY a roadside emergency kit.

7. Travel Cooler We always pack a small travel cooler that is accessible to us if we are going to be driving for more that an hour. Kids always want drinks and snacks and this way, we can pack something from home and save on extra stops to feed everyone.

These are a selection of our must have road trip accessories, let us know if the comments below if you have anything to recommend.

Child Safety/Recalls

How To Ensure You’re Being Safe Online

Anne Younger Leave a comment

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Although it may not feel like it, a lot of the things you do will usually involve having to use the internet at some point. Whether you’re updating your Facebook status, ordering a new book on Amazon or trying to find out which actor is playing your favourite character in a TV show – you will be using the internet.

If you’re not already, you need to be sure that you’re using the internet in a safe way, avoiding jeopardizing vital information about you and your family. If you’re not careful your cards could be cloned, your house could be burgled or your identity could be stolen, all whilst using the internet.

With that in mind, here are 7 ways to ensure you’re being safe online:

1. Use Passwords That Are Hard To Guess

If you use a password that is easy to guess, the likelihood of you being hacked is much higher than would be if you used something more complicated. Try setting a password that is a combination of letters and numbers that you’ll remember, but no one else will be able to guess.

2. Don’t Store Passwords Anywhere Online, Or Near Your Computer

If you’re the kind of person that needs to write down their passwords in order to remember them, it’s important you store them in a safe place. Do not store them on your phone or on your computer as if it was to be stolen, they’d be able to login to all of your important accounts. If this is the case, they may also be able to access your online banking.

3. Install An Antivirus

Antivirus is a great way to protect your computer and laptop against anything that may be harmful towards it. A virus can often clone all of your important information with every keystroke you make, making it easy for people to hack all of your accounts. With options available for a small price each month, this is definitely something you don’t want to forget.

4. Use ID Verification

If you have a smartphone that uses face or identity verification service, set it up immediately. This will ensure only you can unlock your phone if it was to get lost or worse, stolen.

5. Make Sure You’re Checking A Sites Credibility

Before you purchase anything from a website make sure you’re checking whether or not it is credible. The best way to do this is to check whether or not it has https:// in its URL, rather than just http://. This means the site is secure.

6. Don’t Download Anything Suspicious

If you’re unsure about whether or not something you want to download is safe, don’t download it. Viruses are often carried through digital downloads, so it is better to be safe than sorry.

7. Don’t Overshare On Social Media

A lot of people share absolutely everything on social media without realising that it’s a great way for thieves to gather the information they need to hack into your online accounts. Think about what you’re sharing and whether it can be harmful to you.

Do you worry about being safe online? Let me know if you use any of my tips, or if you have your own, in the comment section below!

Education, Parenting

Supporting Your Child To Improve Their Future Career

Anne Younger Leave a comment

It’s easy to forget why your child gets up for school each morning when they are feeling unhappy about it. With their reluctance to spend time in a place like this, you’d think there was something wrong or unpleasant about learning, even if it is preparing your little ones for their future. This leaves a lot of kids ignoring areas which are very important to their career. The job market is more competitive than ever before, and this makes your background more crucial than ever, giving you something to think about as your family gobbles down their breakfast. To help you out, this post will be exploring some of the work which can go into improving your child’s future career.

Help With Homework

Most kids will be happy to avoid doing their homework, with the consequences for missing something like this being small compared to halting their free time. Of course, though, this sort of studying isn’t given to your child to make their life worse, instead being used to build their skills and make them into strong independent learners. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how important your support can be in this area. If you’re unsure about whether or not your child is being truthful about the amount of homework they have, you can talk to their teachers to get the full scoop.

As a big part of this, some parents will find it hard to help their kids because the work is like nothing they have seen for many years. With the help of the internet, though, you can learn practically anything, and a little bit of a refresher shouldn’t be too horrible to handle. You don’t have to be an expert to help someone with their homework. In reality, even if you don’t know anything about the subject in question, simply being there to offer your child moral support and to keep them on track can provide a great benefit to them.

Expose Them Early

It’s very rare that people are able to achieve their dream jobs. Even after working hard for many years, it can be impossible to reach the goals you had set for yourself earlier in life, and a surprising amount of this is down to motivation. With this in mind, you should be able to give your kid an experience which will shape their future. Say they wanted to be a professional footballer, for example, taking them to spend a game or two on the pitch would give them a real taste for the action. If they have fun, it will inspire them. If a child doesn’t like something like this, though, it may be worth looking at other options.

A lot of modern roles can offer the chance to do this from the comfort of your own home, and your children don’t have to go through a real job for this to work. Instead, if they have a skill which they seem interested in, you should be looking to build it up while they are still young. If they seem obsessed with how things work, for example, giving them access to some broken tech and a toolbox could be a great idea. People find it far easier to learn when they are young, with new information being hard to fit in once you get older.

Push Their Studies

Getting a good enough education to do the jobs which they like will take a lot of hard work and dedication from your little one. They will need to work hard at school and into college, without dropping the ball or letting their grades go down. A lot of parents use rewards as a way to motivate their kids during these times, though reminding them about what they are working for is usually a far more effective option. Their future will be directly influenced by the time they have studying, and they need to be able to get good grades.

Along with having the passion for their learning, your kids will also need to be learning the right things, with slightly different courses providing much higher incomes in the future. Take becoming a registered nurse, as this role can be slipped into in a matter of months of you learn the right things. Taking an RN to BSN online course, though, would take a little bit longer, but would give you the chance to start in a much higher position. Not only will this improve the salary which comes with a job, but it will also ensure that you have the respect of your colleagues, even in very successful hospitals.

Supporting Their Choices

It can be hard to know what is going on in the minds of your children. The sort of work they want to do will often change throughout their life, with some people finding new passions, and others simply going off the old ideas they had. This transition often happens when a person is going through college. A lot of parents will work to avoid letting their kids change courses at this stage, forcing them to keep pursuing a career which they may not like. If you want someone to be successful, though, you need to give them space, and this can mean letting them make their own poor decisions.

The types of support you give your kids can vary, and this is your chance to really shine with this work. Some parents will do very little, simply expressing their pride for their little one, and letting them go about choosing their future by themselves. Those with the right kind of attitude, though, will do far more, with some moms and dads going to extreme lengths to find alternatives to the options their kids pick. Whichever route you choose, it will be essential that your children have enough choice along the way.

With all of this in mind, you should be working hard to start improving your kid’s career. It can often feel like you have all of the time in the world to work on this, especially when your kids are still in school. The years will fly by, though, with a lot of people finding it hard to get started if they leave it too long.

For the Home

4 Costly Ways Clogged Gutters Damage Your Home

Anne Younger Leave a comment

The vast majority of new homes built today have gutters, and many owners of older homes opt to install gutters at some point to improve water collection and diversion away from the structure. However, fewer people have taken the time to invest in gutter guards. Installing gutter guards on your home helps prevent clogging by blocking leaves and other large debris from entering the gutters and creating clogs that stop water flow. Many homeowners might opt to install gutter guards because they’re tired of climbing up and down ladders to clean out their gutters manually. There’s another important reason to install gutter guards though: to prevent damage. Clogged gutters might not seem like a big deal, but once you read about these four costly types of damage, you might think twice about skipping gutter guards on your home.

1. Landscape Damage

Starting the list with the least costly type of damage, let’s focus on landscape damage. It might not seem significant to focus on sidewalks, patios, and flowerbeds, but the reality is that clogged gutters can lead to a lot of different types of peripheral damage to landscaping. When water cannot flow properly through your gutters, the first thing it is going to do is well up and overflow. This uncontrolled leaking of water often results in spills onto driveways, entry steps, patios, and landscape beds.

In the case of landscaping, in particular, the damage is largely visible. Mulch and dirt are moved around by the water and plants can be damaged. You’ve spent good money on your home’s curb appeal with that landscaping, and you’ll be spending it again if clogged gutters result in overflowing water that spills into flowerbeds and mulch.

There’s another damage that can result here as well. Consistent dripping and flowing water over the side of a gutter can shorten the length of your driveway by wearing away at it and creating pools of water on asphalt and paver-patio surfaces.

2. Fascia Board Damage

Most homes are constructed of wooden frames and have a finished siding over that frame. When gutters are installed, they are anchored into wood or aluminum fascia boards underneath your exterior siding. If you don’t have gutter guards, you could face a chain reaction that results in thousands of dollars in repairs. When water cannot flow through your gutters, most of it is retained in the gutter and adds extra weight to the gutter system. This, in turn, puts greater stress on the fascia boards keeping the gutters connected to the home. If you live in a cold-weather climate, that weight is increased by the constant freeze-thaw cycle of winter weather.

Wood fascia boards cost roughly $6 to $10 per linear foot to purchase, while aluminum fascia boards cost anywhere from $8 to $20 per linear foot. Add in the cost of a contractor to the complete the work, which ranges from $38 to $72 per hour, and you could pay anywhere from $800 to $6,000 to repair the fascia boards on your home. This depends, of course, on how much of your fascia board is damaged and needs replacing. Given the average gutter guard system costs just $1,500 to $2,000 to install, it could actually save you a lot of money in the long run.

3. Structural Damage

Believe it or not, clogged gutters can actually result in significant interior structural damage to your home as well. If you live in a cold-weather climate, clogged gutters can lead to a situation known as ice damming. This occurs during freeze-thaw cycles as snow melts. When that melting snow doesn’t drain properly through gutters, it backs up in the gutters and onto the roof. As sunny days recede into cold nights, that water backup freezes. This freeze-thaw pattern continues and puts stress on your roof. On top of that, it puts a large pool of trapped water on your roof that will look for anywhere it can to drain off.

In most cases, ice damming results in damage to the interior of homes. Water seeps through roofing and siding, penetrating interior walls and damaging wall structures, insulation, and drywall inside of the home. Depending on where the leak occurs, it could also result in damage to carpeted areas of the home.

4. Foundation Damage

Finally, the most expensive potential damage resulting from clogged gutters focuses on your foundation. The primary role of your gutters is to channel water away from the foundation of your home. Rather than letting it pool up against your home where the structure meets ground level, clean-flowing gutters rush water off the roof, channel it into downspouts, and discharge it safely away from your home toward a downward slope. When this doesn’t happen, and water pools near the foundation, the most common result is cracking in the foundation. The worst-case scenario, if left unchecked for a long period of time, is the failure of the foundation and collapse. Another possible outcome is mold growth within the foundation.

HomeAdvisor has a breakdown of the average costs to repair foundation damage. If you catch a problem when it is small, such as a minor crack, you’re likely to pay as little as $500. However, the average foundation repair issue costs $4,060, and if major repairs are required that call for hydraulic piers to stabilize the home, you’re looking at costs that could soar beyond $10,000.

Gutter guards don’t exist purely to make your weekends easier. Yes, it’s great to avoid climbing up and down ladders getting your hands dirty in the muck that collects in unprotected gutters. More importantly, gutter guards serve a vital purpose in protecting your home against these various types of costly damage that result from clogging and inefficient water flow.