Nanny Adventures

Debuting tomorrow, is my newest blog, The Financial Nanny. I am so excited to be blogging about finances and the traps of being a nanny have sometimes financially. I will be sharing my financial articles I have been and will be writing, some giveaways and links to more giveaways as well as information on various financial programs and info.

I hope you join me tomorrow at the The Financial Nanny for a wonderful giveaway to kick things off along with Nanny Transitions.

The Great Dog Wash is the cutest bilingual book I have read! It has the words in English then underneath it has them in Spainish.  The illustrations are full of life and excitement.  It comes in a box of Cheerios right now.  You need to go to the store and get your box of Cheerios and The Great Dog Wash today! I received a copy from my friend in California, as I hadn’t seen them yet in the stores.   It comes out in hardback on July 7, 2009.

I love how the kids in the book get together to have a dog wash and invite all the dogs.  The dogs end up getting away from the kids. The kids use problem solving skills to finish up the dog wash.  I really liked how the story progressed from start to finish.

What is so exciting about this book is that it is written by Shellie Braeuner, who is a nanny in Nashville, Tennessee.   Shellie entered the Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories® New Author Contest. She learned in December 2007, that she won the contest! Shellie is now the author of The Great Dog Wash that will appear in 1.5 million boxes of Cheerios before being released in hardcover by Simon & Schuster on July 7, 2009

Shellie was recently interviewed by the INA.  Here is a snippet of the interview….

But story telling is something that has come naturally to Shellie, and she’s been writing and telling stories for her charges long before she became a published author. “I work with three boys and trying to get a boy to talk about his feelings just doesn’t happen.” But Shellie found a way to make it happen. “Getting the kids to tell stories with me helps them to better understand, explore and express their feelings. When we temporarily relocated to Atlanta, for example, we told stories about birds flying away. I would ask the children questions about how the bird would feel and about what he would do, and through these questions I was able to help my charges explore their feelings about relocating.”

And Shellie’s stories don’t stop there. When the youngest boy in her nanny family was going off to kindergarten, they wrote a story together called The Boy Who Walked (which she someday hopes to publish). “The boy starts out walking alongside the creek in his backyard. The creek turns into a brook and the brook to a lake and the water keeps growing bigger until it turns into the sea. When the boys comes back home, his mother is there waiting for him. It’s a story that taught my charge that no matter how big the world may seem, there will always be someone waiting for him at home.”

To read the complete interview with Shellie visit the INA Blog.

Cheerios Spoonful of Stories is accepting applications for the 2009 winner through July 15, 2009

 I just wanted to share with everyone my good friend Sherri’s new blog regarding her Stampin Up biz.  Sherri has helped me this year get out of my “hoarding” my stampin stuff and actually using the stuff.  This is partly why I was able to make over a 100 cards in April.  I am hoping to make atleast 50 for the month of May. We shall see.

So please visit Sherri at Sweetest Dreams.  If you are in the Northern Virginia area, sign up for her class this Saturday May 16th ..info is on her blog!

Over at Frugal in Virginia, I saw that Mars is giving away free chocolate on Friday May 8 and every Friday through September.  Hurry fast each Friday as they are only giving away 250,000 candy bars.  These include a  coupon that is redeemable for a free single size package of any M&M’S Brand, Milky Way Brand, Snickers Brand, 3 Musketeers Brand, Twix Brand or Dove Brand product. Your choice. You should get the coupon in six weeks in the mail.
Limit 1 coupon per email address each Friday, and limit 4 coupons per household total throughout the promotion.  Basically your family can get Four FREE Candy bars between Friday and September.  Those are nice little treats for the summertime!

Go here for your chance to get your free chocolate

The International Nanny Association (INA) now has a blog, a facebook page and a twitter page!

If you are still sitting on the fence about joining the INA, then definitely check them out on these pages.  Some great info is on here!

I was so excited to be in charge of selling raffle tickets again for the INA’s annual conference. I have so much fun going around to the nannies and agency owners & workers seeking their donations to help a local charity at the site of the conference.  This year’s charity was Jonathan’s Place, an emergency shelter for children to the age of 17 and is the only licensed emergency residential shelter for kids up to the age of 10. 

There were so many items up for bids in the raffle. I think we had about 60 items ranging from Dove Chocolates, jewelry, and memberships to various nanny organizations.  To see the list of donaters you can see them at the INA page.

After all the selling help I received from Janinne, April, Carol, Clelie, and others we were able to present Jonathan’s Place with a check for $875!

Start saving for next year’s raffle.  I will be asking for your dollars

Today Kidlet #3 didn’t have school due to a professional day–not swine flu that is shutting schools around us.    We both woke up around 10am.   I find out he is watching tv, great I will check email and get some other things squared away before we do some stuff. 

I go upstairs and he pitches a fit because he wants “alone-relaxing time” without me.  I responded with “But I wanna watch tv with you too”  Well that didn’t happen.   He informs me that I am not working today because Mom is home and they are going to the Hockey game later at 5pm.   I laughed and said oh ok.   I inform him that if he won’t let me upstairs then he has to listen for the doorbell because my new laptop is coming today. He agreed.

We talk two or three times over the next few hours. Finally 5 minutes before he is leaving around 5pm , the door bell rings…YEAH it is the UPS lady!  He grabs my laptop and hands it over to me.  Poof they were gone.

My Monday was very stressful :)  I had to avoid seeing the kidlet #3. I got some things organized like my magazines and mail etc-still looking for my post office/storage unit keys. 

Can’t wait to see what Tuesday brings!

Over the past 14 years of being a professional nanny, I have heard workshops and read blogs on how to get a great job, write a great portfolio/resume, how to talk benefits and ask for a raise…but I have only heard from one person Glenda, on how to leave a nanny family/job.    I have known Glenda since 1997.  We met via NAN via AOL chatroom for nannies and other online nannygroups.  We have seen a lot of how the nanny world has changed since 1997. 

In 1999 I believe we were at the NAN conference in Raleigh, North Carolina and Glenda did a workshop on “Gentle Transitions” -how to leave your nanny job.  It was a wonderful workshop and brought tears to many nannies who attended.   What people don’t realize is leaving a nanny job/family is almost like a divorce or a death of something you love. There are grieving processes to moving forward.   Throughout the years since, she has written articles and helped countless numbers of nannies online, in person and on the phone adjust to leaving their jobs.

The other weekend at the INA conference, Dr. Lynne Kenney spoke about “branding yourself”. Nothing is yours till you give it away.  Little did Glenda realize she really already “branded” herself as the Gentle Transitions Nanny. With that powerful weekend she created a blog to reach out to those in need with “Nanny Transitions” .     Please visit her site and pass it along. 

Thank you Glenda for reaching out to the nanny world and giving us something for the end of the journey with our jobs!

I got back from Dallas at 2am on Sunday night from my nanny conference there. I of course got the sinus icky illness…….which one could have confused with the Swine Flu because Texas did have 2 of the cases in the beginning of the week. My friend Kellie and I arrived at the airport to see her silver car covered in yellow pollen.  I wanted to cry! This just made my sinuses go crazier! 

I slept the week away to get better and try to relax the hacking of the lungs. I got up at 6:30am Thursday am and took a shower. I had a 9am doctor’s appt I had been waiting for. I go out to the car at 8:30am and see that my front left tire is flat as flat can be.  I just wanted to cry.   I got my boss’s AAA card and called them. This great guy came out and showed me where the spare tire was hiding magically under the car in a cover and changed it out for me.  The tire had a razor blade/sheet metal stuck in it, it was completely flattened with the tire. 

I go up to the tire place and see if it can be plugged, nope it can’t. He orders me a new tire because they didn’t have any in stock.  He just called to tell me it was in. YEAH!   I now get to go up to the tire place for like an hour to get them to change the tires out and put the spare back under the car.

I love having a car :)   This is my second flat tire I believe. The first one was ions ago and the car had to be towed because the axel was busted too.  Hope you have a better ending to your week!

Today Kidlet #3 said he was going to start dinner. Fine. He started boiling the water and put the spaghetti noodles in. He opened the meatballs up and put the sauce in the pot to warm the sauce up etc.  I came in to cut up the strawberries.

We all sit down to dinner.  Kidlet #3 and I had a little chuckle over last week’s spaghetti & meatballs as Kidlet #1 proceeded to have the entire heaping pile slide right off his plate into his chair and floor.  I jokingly asked Kidlet #1 to make sure he carried his plate with 2 hands.

Kidlet #1 wanted no talking about dinner based on some stuff we were discussing. He thinks I am out of mind on things lately. Oh well.   He asked if I had ever played the silent eating game. I laughed.  He dared me to go five minutes without talking.

I ended up losing for some reason.  The funniest part of all of this is who would have thought a high schooler would have had wanted to play the “silent” eating game for dinner!