 .Welcome to another post here at Createyou86. This is a post that I have wanted to put up for about three years. However, I was still employed by the industry, and wasn't willing to risk my job. I have since departed from the industry, but I feel that this is such an important post for so many reasons. I have to make a disclaimer, and say that my experience will certainly not be the exact same as any other childcare worker, but anything here is the absolute truth in what I experienced in my fourteen years in the industry. In my fourteen years I worked for four major childcare companies, and let me be clear. Your child is merely a number to whichever childcare your child attends. The company will always fit you in weather immediately overflowing a teachers classroom that is already completely full causing strain on the teachers already in the room or by putting you on a waiting list. When enrollment is down the teacher's hours get cut. For some completely honest numbers. I was a head teacher in a toddler classroom for three years, and only saw a 10 cent raise in those three years. Many times employee reviews are overlooked or seriously delayed because that means giving employees raises, and you aren't even guaranteed to be given a raise no matter how good you did throughout the year. I also knew teacher's with Masters Degrees who were making less money than teacher's with no degree at all. In the state I worked in you did not have to have a degree to be a head teacher (unless you were teaching private kindergarten). I didn't have a degree, but I had the previous work experience which was the equivalent. Some reasons I wanted to work in childcare were because I had previous babysitting experience, I could get decent insurance, I enjoyed watching children grow, and helping them learn with the intent to become an Early Childhood Educator (getting a degree in the field eventually). Through the companies there were options to go to school, and have a certain amount of money returned to you if you did well during the semester. You could also take classes such as the CDA (Child Development Associate) which the company paid for in full through a private college. I completed mine, and was about to get tested when I got injured three days before. This could have given me a fifty cent raise. In regards to training there is no real training. You go to a group training once a year with all of your local childcare's, but other than that there is no other real "training" unless you are required to be retrained in certain information such as cleanliness as one of the centers I worked for was required to do upon a failed state inspection. You are basically thrown into the lion den upon on-boarding, and they leave you alone with children as soon as they can because it is an inconvenience to have to double up on employees in one room when someone is waiting for their clearances to come through. Because of the lack of employees you are asked to work overtime. There was never a week that I didn't get overtime, and while I didn't really mind it this caused massive turnover sometimes before the person was even fully clearanced leaving other teacher's stranded for long hours. an example being opening the building at 6:30 AM, and being asked to stay until 4:30 PM and sometimes even later than that depending on how short staffed we were. This was a regular thing regardless of starting time not only for myself, but for most of the staff. Besides the treatment of works there is an even deeper reason that I will never bring my future child/children to daycare. The reason is rampant abuse of children. Several times during my career in childcare I had to report child abuse. I had to report teachers, directors, and parents of students. I witnessed a child with bruises all over their body. I witnessed a teacher take a child's paper lunch bag out of the trash can and put the food back in front of the child because the teacher was not satisfied with the amount of food that the child had eaten at lunch before throwing it out. In the same building I witnessed a teacher throw a large Lego at a two year old, and it left a bruise over the child's eye. In that same building yet again I witnessed a teacher put a child in a closet, and hold children down by putting her leg over their sleeping bags during nap-time because she couldn't get the child to sleep. I also saw a teacher walked out of the building in handcuffs because she had stolen someones credit card info, and had used to to charge her own energy bill as well as held a party for minors including her own children, and supplied alcohol. I also witnessed Director's who falsified a incident report of a child who had been bitten for the third time. (the parents has said they would unenroll their child if they were bitten again.) What this says to me is that there needs to be more strict background checks before on-boarding at daycare's, and more strict policies regarding training's, and previous work experience. I miss working with the children some of whom I started working with when they were six weeks old, but I don't miss the long hours, little pay, and blatant disregard for staff. Let me know in the comments if your children are enrolled in childcare centers, or if by reading this it might change your mind about doing so. 
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 Welcome to the second post in the Createyou86 Hello October blog series. This post, and some others from this series are going to be repeats year after year (just updated) because i love these types of posts! Fall is my favorite time of year, and i would love to share with all of you my mood board in hopes that it might help inspire you in this beautiful season. The inspiration for this post comes from my love of the leaves changing colors, to pumpkins on front porches, and big snuggly sweaters. I hope that you all enjoy this post as much as i enjoy making it each year! *Just a reminder: I do not own any of these photos, and you can click on each photo to visit where they were taken from.         I hope that you have enjoyed my 2016 Fall Mood Board, and that you will come back to see the rest of this series. Let me know in the comments below what is your favorite fall color?   Welcome to the fourth post in the Createyou86 Hello October Blog Series. Today in the Northeast it was 82 degrees! That is right...82 degrees in mid October. In the Northeast we call this an Indian Summer, and it just makes me want full-blown fall even more (I am super impatient about fall coming as it is, and this makes it even worse!) Here is my list of 2016 fall favorites. Many of these will be the same from last year, but i have also added a few items as well. I hope that your fall has been beautiful so far. Fall Weather I have probably said this a thousand times, but i absolutely love the changing of the leaves in Northeast, PA. The colors are rich, vibrant, and almost every morning when i leave for work there is a fog that floats just above the ground that pulls the whole picture together.  Traditions While we were living in California we helped our local church celebrate Halloween (Trunk-or-Treat). We also tried to celebrate Halloween in our own way with fall decor. Some years i just pick up little decorations from the Dollar Tree such as LED pumpkins, but every year we drink hot chocolate (even when it was 85 degrees on Halloween night). I am hoping that the weather takes a dip soon so that fall can feel like fall, and maybe we can even go to a bonfire. Fall Clothing For many years when i was little i absolutely couldn't stand when it got colder out because i had to wear sweaters (not the soft cuddly kind either) the wool, horribly itchy kind. When i was younger sweaters, sweatshirts, and anything other than a t-shirt made me feel horribly confined, but these days (twenty years later) i absolutely LOVE fall clothing. I love the style of clothing (big hoodies, soft sweaters, jeans, tall boots, and Uggs.) I also love curling up on the couch in a super comfy fall outfit, and drinking an adult beverage. Football Season One of our favorite things to do this football season has been to go to the bar, and have half price appetizers during NFL games on Sunday's. This gets us out of the house, and hanging out together (most times for under $15.00) James' favorite NFL team is the Green Bay Packers, and my favorite team is The New York Giants.  The Food The foods of fall are just amazing! From pie (which smells amazing, but i don't personally like to eat), to turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes. These happen to be a few of my favorite foods, and leftovers are even better!  Scents of The Season I love candles, and....Fabreeze all year long, but i especially love the scents that are released during fall. In the fall i love anything pumpkin / pumpkin spice flavored, and right now Fabreeze has special pumpkin, and cranberry scents. On a recent Target run i saw a blanket scented candle, and a few other seasonal scents.  Fall truly is my favorite time of year, and i hope that i have been able to bring some festive feelings your way with this post, and this series so far. Let me know in the comments below what is one of your fall favorites?   Welcome to the fifth post in the Createyou86 Hello October Blog Series. While perusing the internet lately looking for content ideas i hadn't seen any of these types of posts, and in the spirit of fall i thought i would lay it all on the line (so far) to let you all know about my best blogging day, and my worst. I hate dwelling on the past, but sometimes you need to in order to learn from what mistakes you made in the beginning. My best blogging day was just this past week when i was stressing out about my November Blog Series, and i finally had an epiphany about where to find blog post inspiration (i'll be doing a post about that soon.) After my epiphany i was able to pre-plan THROUGH FEBRUARY! When i finally wrote everything down i was amazed at how many ideas i had, and how easy it was to create them. Below is a photo of my blog planner, through February. As you can see there is a ton of new blog content that will be coming out in the next couple of months here at Createyou86.  My worst blogging day started with an influencer company (who will remain nameless), and the Younique brand. I had requested to receive Younique 3D Moodstruck Fiberlash Mascara (for free), and in turn i would write an honest review about the product, and post it here on the Createyou86 blog. For this specific company you had to submit your blog posts back to each brand before they would send you a code to include in your post which would track views. I did everything that was required of me, and i turned in my post. My post had both positives of the product, and negatives included. As a product reviewer you are required to give an honest opinion. The response that i received from the Younique Brand Manager (the person who was collecting social media/blog posts) was appalling. The man basically asked that i take ALL negative comments about the products out of the post, and resubmit the post for approval. I contacted the influencer company, and asked about weather i should do what the representative had asked. The company told me that it was up to me if i wanted to make the revisions, and that i would not be penalized at all for backing out of the official product review. I did however post the review HERE I had already used the product, reviewed it, and done all of the work on the blog post, and i wasn't about to let it go to waste. Thank you so much for stopping by, and i hope that you have been enjoying this series so far. The next couple of months are going to be great so i hope you come back! Let me know in the comments below what was your best blogging day?   Welcome to the third post in the Createyou86 Hello October Blog Series. Here in the Northeast the leaves are finally starting to change, the nighttime chill is in the air, and we even had our first frost earlier this week. With all of the change happening with the season i thought that this would be a great time to discuss five great organizational tips that I use for planning all of the time no matter what the season is, and hopefully you will find useful as well. 1. Try A System for About 10 Weeks Most people think that it takes about 21 days to form a habit, and when trying a new system for planning it can be a long, and arduous process especially if immediately after purchasing a planner or planner system you aren't IN LOVE with it. I find this extremely hard to do, but i always try to stick with it because i know that in the end i could end up loving the syatem or planner itself. However, the 21 day theory has become outdated, and the new magic number is 66. Yes, the number is even larger now to create a habit (sorry for all of you 21 Day Fixers!) You can find out more information about forming personal habits (the good ones) HERE, or just google it, and this link is the first page that pops up. 2. Plan How You Would Plan (Not How Someone Else Would) I am guilty! That's right....I have modeled my planner off of other people's planners, especially when i first started planning, and guess what? Those setups didn't work. Using other peoples ideas, and setups didn't work because i am not them. My life is different than your life is, and your life is different than mine. By no means am i saying not to borrow ideas, but make sure that they fit your lifestyle, and planning style in order to optimize your planning experience. 3. Experiment If you do not have a planning system yet do not be scared to try different systems. There are so many systems available which might fit your style, and you might even decide that you need a few different planners for different reasons. Just to name a few: Filofax, Erin Condren, Plum Paper Planner, Travelers Notebooks, MAMBI 365 Happy Planner, Sugar Paper LA, Big Sky, A Dollar Tree planner, Day Designer, and The Passion Planner. This may seem overwhelming, but you will learn from trying, and making mistakes. 4. Let Your Planner Do The Work Planners are just that....planners, let them do the work for you. Planners are a place that you can write everything down, and get it out of your head so that you can move on. Move on to something that you have been meaning to do for a long time, or move on to another planning adventure. It is so easy in the planner community to get caught up in the hype of decorating with washi tape, stickers, and embellishments that the planning can get lost. Focus on what planning is to you. 5. Have A Daily Plan So you finally picked a planner, and a system, and that is great, but make sure that your planner IS your daily plan. Planners are only useful if they are used, and keeping your planner close to you or with you on the go, or somewhere that you will see it throughout the day such as your desk is the easiest way to make sure of this. The more you use your planner, the more it becomes yours, and your planning system will become defined. We hope that you have enjoyed these Createyou86 planning organizational tips, and that you find the system that is right for you. Let me know in the comments below what planning system do you use?   Photo Credit: Createyou86 Welcome to another product review here at Createyou86. This product is available in paperback, is available for boys, and girls, and is recommended for children betweenthe ages of 4-7. I chose the girl version because....i'm a girl, and i can look at it from a female perspective. This product is the latest daily devotional from the brand VeggieTales. The updated content, and art offer the perfect opportunity for parents and children to share time together each day with short passages of prayer. Each entry in the book provides a Bible verse, short devotion. Thought of the Day, and prayer. The content of the book will help children learn more about God, and develop a daily practice to keep Him close in their lives. I really enjoyed the illustrations in this book, and the fact that the Thoughts of the Day are specific questions that the child can take time to think about, and relate to themselves, or things that may have happened in their life or throughout their day. You could even read with your child in the morning for a fresh start each day of the year. This book can be purchased on Amazon for $9.99 USD Click HERE for the girl version Click HERE for the boy version  Photo Credit: Createyou86  Photo Credit: Createyou86  Photo Credit: Createyou86  Photo Credit: Createyou86 We hope that you enjoyed this product review. We have quite a few more coming up very soon. Let us know in the comments below if you have a favorite VeggieTales product?   Welcome to the first post in the Createyou86 Hello October Blog Series. This series will be all about my favorite season here at Createyou86.....FALL! Fall is such a beautiful time of year. Fall is a time of change, color, and getting ready for the upcoming holidays. The posts in this series will range from things that i love about fall, to organization tips, and tricks, and much more. You will get a closer glimpse into my life as a blogger, and why i haven't done certain things in the planner world. I know this post is short, and sweet, but I hope that you are all as excited about this blog series as i am. Let us know in the comments below what is your favorite season?  |
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Photos used under Creative Commons from jeffdjevdet, spinster cardigan, One Way Stock, regan76, M. Dolly, Thomas Rousing Photography, Post-Software, kevin dooley, Alan Stanton, Photoshoparama - Dan, campbelj45ca
