Adjusting to the night shift can be a serious strain on you in a lot of ways. For one thing, most people aren’t used to sleeping during the day and the light and noise that doing so entails. For another thing, most people are used to having dinner after work instead of breakfast. However, if you really like to work the night shift, you certainly have the opportunity to do so. The following are a few things you can to do make your transition a bit easier.

Soundproof Your Bedroom

A lot of people have never even thought about soundproofing their rooms, but this can help a great deal for people who are looking to sleep during the day. While most people think that it’s perfectly fine to be as loud as they want to during the day, for day sleepers this can be a serious pain. It’s almost enough to make you want to blare your music at midnight, just to show those diurnal types how it feels. Soundproofing allows you to sleep easily without keeping other people from their right to be loud and obnoxious during the day.

Block the Light in Your Bedroom

Light can be seriously distracting. Your optic nerve processes every bit of light that enters it, and having an abundance of light can keep you from getting restful sleep. Block the light and you’ll solve a lot of the problem.

Ease Into the New Schedule

A lot of people find that if they try to just throw themselves into a new sleep schedule, it doesn’t work very well. However, if you go an extra hour awake every day for a week or two, you’ll find that you can organically reset your sleep schedule so that you’re up during the night.

Force Yourself Into It

Sometimes you aren’t going to want to get up for your night shift work. During those times, you’re just going to have to force yourself to do it. No complaining and no excuses. Just grind it out. It’s not fun, but it does work.

Working the night shift isn’t necessarily easy, but it can be done. If you’ve been thinking about changing to C shift, make sure you don’t try to do it in a sudden jerky motion, or you’ll be likely to crash. In some cases, people who have tried to go straight into the night shift have literally crashed their cars due to having crazy sleep schedules that don’t really work. So ease in and listen to your body.

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About the Author: Steffanie Olavarria works the night shift in a local hospital and had a hard time adjusting to life with her roommates. She used some mass loaded vinyl to soundproof her bedroom and switched bedrooms with one of her roommates so she’d be furthest from the ktichen and high-traffic areas during the day!

If your child is having a rough time in school, it may be time to hire a tutor. One of the most difficult things about hiring a tutor (besides finding the right fit for your child) is convincing your child that there is nothing to feel bad about. It is not unusual for a young student to feel that needing a tutor is something to feel embarrassed about or ashamed of . . . while that’s certainly the last thing on your mind. So how do you give children the benefit of a tutor and protect their self esteem at the same time? Here are some tips for how to talk to your child about tutoring:

Share your own story. Chances are that you, yourself, had some difficulties getting through parts of school while growing up. Make it a point to relate to your child on a personal level, and share any experiences you had as a child that might help your own child feel not so alone (and not judged).

Focus on the positives. Explain the benefits of having a tutor, and steer clear of including any negatives in your explanation. For example, instead of saying, “You aren’t bringing home the kind of grades that I know you can,” say something like, “A tutor is a great way for you to score those high grades I know you are capable of.”

Information will cure fear. It’s likely that your child doesn’t know a whole lot about tutoring and what it entails. This can be a great source of anxiety, especially for children who might have a negative concept of tutors. Sit with your child and read some books that illustrate good examples of tutoring experiences, or browse the web for information about the tutoring process, in order to set your child’s mind at ease and get him or her a little more comfortable with the idea.

Set goals. It may even be possible to get your child excited about tutoring if the two of you work out some realistic goals to accomplish with the tutor’s help. Of course, the most immediate goals will be based on school performance, but there should definitely be some other reward at the end. For example, if your child has been disqualified from a team sport for inadequate grades, then a great goal would be to be able to try out for that team at the beginning of next season.

As you can see, there are some very practical ways you can approach the subject of tutoring with your child. Follow these tips to ease tensions about tutoring.

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About the Author: Jake Saechao works with elementary students who need tutoring in math and other subjects. He finds that it is always easier to work with a child who is expecting tutoring than one who is feeling forced. Be open with your children and they’ll have more respect for your decisions!

Think you need to be rich to throw a great children’s party? Think again! A rich imagination is all you need to thrill kids with a party they will always remember.

For several years, Pam and Ed Dart of Spectacular Catering from Placentia, California have staged barbecues that corporations line up for. Want to know one of their secrets? Staging. This transforms a simple party into an event. Creating an atmosphere that sparks the imagination and enthusiasm of children is easy if you apply the following tricks of the trade.

Create Excitement Right From the Start

Your party starts with a great invitation. Planning a detective birthday party? Send a note with “Help me!” scrawled on the front of a torn piece of notepad paper. On the other side, write, “Celebrate my birthday. Find me at…” Include all the party particulars as part of a coded message.

Plan a Movie Set

The environment you create is central to the success of your party. Imagine being invited to a dinosaur party and arriving to find a steaming, foggy jungle at the entrance. This is easy to do.

1. Start with a few houseplants.

1. Add a silk tree or two.

1. Rent a fog machine.

If you can’t rent a fog machine, create the same effect using a bucket of water and a block of dry ice. Place the bucket behind a shrub and blow the icy mist with a small fan.

Search the Internet for dinosaur sound files and play them in the background. Your guests will be enthralled as they travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.

Keep Them Busy

Plan party activities around the party theme. A pirate party screams for a treasure hunt. Make a course the kids will remember.

1. Reverse engineer your route. Start at the end and make your way back home.

1. Add a “dead man’s bones” stop. Make this clue stop a screamer by wrapping a distressed pant leg around a clean, dry chicken leg bone. Bury the pants with just a bit of hem and the leg bone emerging from the soil.

1. Make the map part of the fun by creating intriguing clues, embellishing it with swirling fonts and pictorial hints. S. E. Overmyer, a graphic artist and owner of Kitty and Nevermore, suggests downloading free fonts from online sources to add a realistic charm to the map.
2. Stain the maps with a strong tea solution, slightly burn torn edges, and add a drop of cooking oil here and there for a truly authentic-looking treasure map.

Fun With the Food

Don’t serve burgers and beans on a paper plate at your party.

• Use old or disposable aluminum pie pans for plates and serve drinks in mason jars for a cowboy theme.

• Make a volcano cake with flowing lava frosting or a dinosaur-shaped layer cake.
• Move beyond JELL-O brains and spaghetti guts at your mad scientist party by serving real food in beakers and test tubes.

Your rich imagination can create party effects that will make unforgettable memories for the kids that attend. Choose a theme and let your creative juices flow.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3.

Jessy is a stay-at-home mom and family blogger for Dobovo, the family-friendly accommodation resource of Kiev apartments on a budget.

Guest Author: If you have trouble figuring out what to wear every day, or you can’t find a certain piece of clothing you’re looking for, or you have shoes that have lost their partners, it might be time to organize your closet. If looking through your closet makes you feel anxious and feels like an insurmountable pile of stuff, you definitely need to organize your closet. Giving your closet an organization overhaul will make you feel refreshed about your wardrobe and style. Suddenly you’ll realize you have more to wear than you did before, and it might even feel like you have an entirely new wardrobe. And if you live in a small apartment, reorganizing your closet is a must to save room and get the most out of your living space.

If you have a very large closet or your closet is jam-packed with stuff, organizing it may seem like a really daunting task. It doesn’t have to be. Just start slowly and do a little at a time. Any improvements at all should make your life a little easier. Here are some tips for organizing your closet.

Clear It Out

First, take absolutely everything out of your closet! You will need to go through it all and organize it, so it’s easier to start with a clear space. After you pull everything out, clean out the floor and shelves of your closet by dusting and sweeping. It will also be a lot easier to evaluate your closet and make alterations to your storage options if necessary.

Pare it Down

Now go through everything you have in your closet and get rid of absolutely everything unnecessary. If you have clothes that don’t fit you or you never wear, donate them. If you are unsure about something but haven’t worn it in over a year, just let it go. The worst thing you can possibly do for the organization of your closet is to hold onto items that are only taking up space.

The Hanging Bar

The hanging bar in your closet is the best place to store your clothes. Hang up everything you can, except for items that won’t go on a hanger or will be stretched out by one. Hang your clothes up in groups, according to whatever organization method works best for you. A common method is to separate clothes by type – all long-sleeved shirts together, t-shirts, pants, coats, skirts, etc. To save space, consider adding a second hanging bar your main one to create a second row of clothes. Do not have it go all the way across to leave space for longer items that need to hang.

Shelves

If you can add a couple shelves to your closet, it will be very helpful for storing things that don’t hang. You can fold sweaters and put them on shelves, or you can use your shelves for storage boxes. You can add some inexpensive shelving if need be.

Storage Boxes

Use storage boxes for your shoes – clear works best so you can see them, or put a label on the outside. Label all your boxes. You might use them for other things, like storing jewelry or accessories like gloves and hats. Try to group together everything you can so you can easily locate whatever particular piece you’re looking for.

The Closet Door

If possible, get a rack for hanging ties, scarves, and belts and hang it over your closet door. This will help maximize your space and is a great way to organize those items.

Rotate Items

If you are short on space in your closet, consider rotating your clothes. Only keep clothes that are in season in your closet, and store the others. Get storage bins to put your summer clothes in when it’s winter, and vice versa. Put them in your attic or your parent’s basement; anywhere but in your closet will help you stay organized and keep the amount of stuff you have in there to a minimum.

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A couple months ago my clothes dryer developed a horrible squeak. The heavier the load, the louder the squeak.

Not having the money to do repairs right away, I opted for using the clothes line to get us through the summer months.

Let me tell you – it was so nice to see such a drop in our electric bills. But, as with all good things – that too must come to an end. With all the cooler weather and rainy days as of recent, it became painfully obvious that I was going to have to do something about the dryer.

I only had a few options:

1. Call a repairman

2. Get rid of the dryer and get a new one

3. Fix it myself

I did try to call a repairman first. Let me just say that finding an appliance repairman these days isn’t an easy task. There used to be several of them locally, but now – the closest one is about 20 miles away. When I spoke to the closest one, he told me what he thought the problem might be and how much it would cost to have him fix it. Frankly, it would be cheaper to replace the thing with a nice used one from a local vender known for quality used appliances.

Next, I phoned the used appliance store – they had several in stock ranging from $80 – $175. For me to get what I wanted and needed, I was looking toward the higher end. Knowing that, I wasn’t quite ready to settle on that option. I still felt like there was more I could do and more I could save.

With the knowledge I’d gained from the first phone call, I hoped on Youtube and searched squeaky dryer, replacing bearing and glides.

After seeing how easy it would be to do the work myself, I clicked over to Amazon to see if I could find the parts I needed.

Of course, Amazon has just about everything under the sun – they had the parts I needed for $25! I placed my order with a shop called Partshouse.

The parts arrived in just a few days and earlier today I decided it was time to tackle the job.

My husband asked if I wanted help, but I felt confident this was a job I could do on my own and TWENTY minutes later, I had the job done, the area cleaned up, swept, vents cleaned out and was on my way with the weeks laundry.

If your dryer is squeaking – I would start off looking at the glides (sometimes called slides) and the front bearing. The job sounds WAY bigger then what it actually is – the parts are affordable – especially on Amazon and you can save yourself a bundle!