Idea Queen Tips & News

With the risk of tainted peanut butter and other health issues, I find myself asking WHY the schools are still serving it. Until my daughter started complaining of a stomach ache the other night, I didn’t even know we had a “Peanut butter and jelly sandwich table” at school for the kids who finish all their lunch. Since my kid is quite the eater and overweight, of course she joins that table.

Yesterday my son came home from school shortly after lunch complaining of stomach cramps, which the school nurse has said “is going around”. She listed a few symptoms that sounded an awful lot like salmonella, and I questioned her about the peanut butter outbreak. She was aware of it, but new little. This wasn’t the first time he was sick, either. A few weeks ago while visiting his dad, he was very sick after eating something from the local recall list.

With all this going around at school, I decided to do a little research. My son’s symptoms were probably not caused by contaminated peanut butter (or jelly, since these kids make their own sandwiches and that’s all he ate). At least not from yesterday’s lunch. Usually it takes anywhere from 6 to 72 for symptoms to start showing up (which my daughter’s complaint of a stomach ache very well may have been, since it was near bed time we started to talk about it, even though no real illness materialized).

I could be overreacting here, but then again, I may not be. What I don’t understand is why the school is not pulling the peanut butter products with the recall list growing daily. Are we waiting for a child to get seriously ill at our school before they stop giving it to the kids? The nurse even mentioned a few illnesses that resemble salmonella, so why not be on the safe side?

I’m sickened by all this, I really am. I also feel helpless with this school system yet again, because I feel like the one place my children should be safe they aren’t.  The best I can do is talk to my kids and tell them to avoid the peanut butter. I even sent a note the other day with my youngest, mostly because of her weight issues, telling them she is to be excluded from “extra meals”.

Check at your own schools to see if peanut butter is still being served. We may be overreacting, but I don’t see it being worth the risk to trust anything with peanut butter at this point.

See more information on the recalls here.

Since we live in a small town that lacks a true class system in the schools (at least for now), my kids are more or less friends with everyone in their classes. After school, though, they have some specific friends they play with quite often, mostly because they are in the neighborhood (although in a small town like this, no one is more than a mile away unless they live in the country).

I know my son’s little after school “group” quite well. There’s the boy across the street who he’s known since preschool (they are in 2nd grade now), the two boys on either sides of town who seem to wander over in this direction often, and the little girl up the street. Five of them in all who run together on a regular basis, and are all in the same class this year.

My son has always been an excellent reader and fantastic at spelling (where he gets that I’ll never know, since both his dad and I are awful at spelling). Last year he was constantly on the “challenge list” because those regular words were nothing to him. It hasn’t changed this year either, and rarely does he bring home anything but an A+ spelling test.

This week’s spelling list came home on Monday, and I got a good laugh out of what I saw. The review list and challenge words were on the same paper, with a note at the bottom as to who was doing the challenge list this week. Who did I see? All five of the “gang” with a few others. My son and his four best friends all passed their Monday spelling list.

Now he never really talks about it, but I have to wonder if somewhere down the line his little clique has made this into a competition or something popular. I almost wonder if it was my son’s doing, since he can be quite a leader at times (and even when he’s not the leader, he’s never the follower, but out in his own little world - ha!). It could have also been the girl of the group, who’s mother is a teacher in another town, or all of them put together. Who knows. But the fact remains they were all on that list, possibly motivating each other to get them all right.

I just thought that was very cool that he’s found himself a group of friends who care about grades. Quite rare, I think, so I’m very happy. Let’s just hope this continues in grades to come!

The first day of school is always bittersweet. I’m sad to give my kids up for the entire day and see they are growing up, yet at the same time I’m gaining a whole lot of freedom.

This year my youngest started kindergarten. That means no kids, at all, from 8am to 3pm.  Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this time. I know I should use it wisely, and get some work done (including housework and “real” work). Although sometimes the silence is distracting.

It’s a good thing I’ve got some good CDs to get me through the day. So I guess today I’ll focus and what needs done with Pearl Jam in the background. Nobody is here to protest my choice of music, so why not?

Still, this feels weird.

There’s about a million and one things to do before school starts, and my calendar is just absolutely booked. While I might find a few minutes here and there to post a little something for everyone, I’ve decided to make the announcement that I will be taking a short vacation.

School here starts August 18th, so I expect to be back posting daily by the 19th. I’d really love a day of peace and quiet the minute they go back to school, but I’m not holding my breath. Since my son has some small behavior issues, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be at school most the day getting him settled in.

Hope you enjoy your own summer vacations (especially since I’m giving you a break from Tidy Tuesday)!

Today I thought I would post something a little bit different. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to be “when I grow up”. While I do enjoy running websites (most days), it’s not exactly what I thought my adult career would be.

Think back to when you were a kid. Do you remember how fantastic your imagination was? Sure we got bored once in awhile, but never for that long. We could think up hundreds of different games to play. During the summer you were probably outside for hours at a time, playing games with friends or just by yourself.

We also didn’t have the fear we’ve got now. Remember the first time you climbed to the top of a tree? I sure do! If you tried that now you probably wouldn’t get too far, since you’d probably be afraid of falling. But we didn’t fear that as kids, even if we did have a few close calls or branches break under our feet.

The point here is when we were kids, the sky was the limit. With no fear and loads of imagination, we thought of all kinds of things we wanted to be when we grew up. We never thought any idea was silly, nor did we think for a second we’d fail.

So what happened? When did our imaginations fade and fear creep in? Why aren’t we doing what we dreamed of as a child? I often wonder if money became our driving force - if we traded huge goals in for fast cash. Granted we all have to make a living somehow, but why can’t it be doing what we love?

Take a minute today to think about what you’re doing with your life, and if it’s anything close to what you wanted to be when you “grew up”. You might be surprised!

The lack of comments are making me wonder if “Tidy Tuesday” is really helping or not. If you are just wandering in to this blog for the first time and not sure what “Tidy Tuesday” is, you can click on the “Household Tips” category to see what exactly I’m talking about.

While my own house still needs a lot of organizing and work, I question if the tips here are really helping anyone else. Are you following along with each weekly challenge? Do you try your hardest to get each challenge done? Is it helping you get your house in order?

If there’s no comments or no one who wants to keep this weekly task, we’ll get rid of it. Although if you want to keep it just leave a comment!

Who hasn’t made a sand castle at come point in their lives? Well these people have taken this idea to a whole new level…

I was passed this link today, and it was just too good not to share. The sand sculptures were of course from a competition, and just absolutely AMAZING!

Check it out here: http://www.rense.com/general76/sandcastles.htm

If you haven’t joined Cafe Mom yet, what are you waiting for?

I’m completely in love with this site. There are so many different groups to join, and so many people to connect with. Just about any topic you can think of is here, and it’s amazing to meet so many different “types” of moms. Don’t see a particular topic? Start a group! Yes, it’s really that simple to do (I started one after about a week).

Right now I’m in love with the sewing group there, since the ladies have so many great ideas for sewing projects. There’s other groups there too that are designed to give support for specific issues moms have to deal with.

So if you haven’t signed up yet, at least go join CafeMom.com and check it out. You never know who you are going to meet, or what group you are going to find!

This winter was just terrible, and the snow days have been racking up. Last I counted, we had 7. That is, until our school board came up with a solution to cut that number down a bit.

Instead of making up full days, they’ve add 30 mins to the school day for the rest of the year. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet, but I’ll probably be thanking them when I’m sleeping in by the whole first week of June (our last day of school is now May 30th).

So how many snow days have you had this year, and how is your school making them up?

No, I’m not talking about the stuff you put on your wall in the house. I’m talking about “desktop wallpaper” - that picture that appears in the background on your computer.

Much to my surprise, searching for free desktop wallpaper is quite a hot search topic. Maybe I’m just so afraid of spyware and other icky things getting attached to my computer that I completely dismiss the idea there could actually be cool desktop wallpaper out there without a threat to my poor old ‘puter.

Although I did go out on a limb for the purpose of this post to see if maybe some of these sites weren’t bad - unfortunately my anti-virus program prevented me from even viewing the page. Hmmm, that’s not good.

So for those who are just as nervous and over-protective as I am, do you change your wallpaper often? Do you download it from a safe site, or do you use your own? I have no idea where my current wallpaper came from, but I do remember it was originally on my Windows 98 IBM. (Yes I’ve had the same background THAT LONG - sad, isn’t it?).

VERY interested in hearing replies!