Your Moment is Now

There is an aspect for vacation planning that is typical for most people, and it does not relate to the trip itself. Well, that is, other than the fact the during the trip the vacationers themselves will be away from home. And unfortunately, many criminals prey on people specifically during their vacation time. There are some standard tip-offs to these thieves, and some of the obvious ones include a buildup of newspapers in the lawn, no lights on during the evening, mailboxes that are over filled and no standard activity in and out of the house. How do they know what is standard activity? Thieves can start to target homes early in the vacation season, meaning late spring and early summer. They will observe houses in a neighborhood and become familiar with certain routines. The initial indicators, newspapers and houselights, are the more obvious with routine comings and goings being a more determined house or neighborhood casing.

It has become standard practice for most homeowners to have their newspaper service temporarily held or picked up by a neighbor. The same neighbor or friend can also bring in the mail and move the car periodically. Homeowners can also have lights timed to turn on in the evenings. It’s also becoming more common to have a house sitter while you’re away. This is a great option, especially if you have pets . Meanwhile, protecting your valuables, whether it’s jewelry, cash, documents or other items, is an essential part of safety planning. Many people have safe-deposit banks, while others have secret hiding places in their homes. If you store valuables in your home, purchasing one of the numerous models of home safes is your best option. Enjoy your vacation, and part of that is ensuring that your home is safe while you are away.

For many bringing a child into your home is a wonderful thing. It often requires a lot of preparation; making sure they have room, clothes, food. It is also important to make sure they are safe. When new parents bring their babies home for the first time they have often gone to great lengths to ensure that all the cabinets and doors have safety latches and all the fragile items are safely stored. One area that is not often thought of is the window treatments. There are several things that you can do to keep your children safe from dangerous blinds, as well as preserving your blinds from rambunctious kids.
The concern that comes first and foremost is your child’s safety. Blinds that have very long chords can present a choking hazard if your child were to get caught them. The safest option is to install cordless blinds from Next Day Blinds or adjust them so they will be well out of the way of curious little fingers. Another concern with mini-blinds in particular is lead poisoning. Some brands of vinyl mini-blinds have been shown to contain lead. Poisoning can occur very easily by either chewing on the blinds or touching the blinds containing lead dust and then touching their mouth. It is important to find out if your mini-blinds contain lead by reading the box or contacting the manufacturer and replacing them if they do.
Once your children are safe it is time to move on the windows. Some of the easiest blinds to damage are mini-blinds. Because they are thin and made from either vinyl or aluminum, they bend very easily. Most of them also require a well-practiced technique to move them up and down; which is difficult for a child to master and will probably result in more damage to the blinds. Consider some sturdy wooden blinds or shutters from Next Day Blinds. They are made of much thicker and stronger wood so they won’t break easily, as well as an easy to use opening device.
The next time you do a safety check after your home, don’t forget to check the windows.

I was working at a bookstore in Saint Paul when I first heard of David Sedaris.  I was surrounded by a number of young people who read extremely esoteric works of fiction and non-fiction, and were some of the most intelligent, and poorest, people I knew.  Bookstores are always like that, because they attract those rare intellects that see reading as necessary as food, and will sometimes give the bulk of their paychecks to their library rather than their refrigerators.  Like some of my co-workers, I would make angry and embarrassed noises when I was close to the humor section, because it was one of those necessary evils of a bookstore.  Occasionally, writers of merit could work their way out of the category humor and into literary non-fiction.

One of the workers, however, had other ideas.  He saw this as a chance to get some connections in the publishing field, and would spend his paychecks on New York business hotels, where he would rub elbows with the literati during conventions.  We tolerated him the way experimental theatre artists tolerate movie stars.  It’s related, but it’s a degradation of the lofty occupation we all had.  It took a few months before I started to realize that his tastes were actually pretty extraordinary, and I started to think that maybe I should even have a look at this David Sedaris fellow.

He came to the store once to sign copies of his new book, and to give a reading.  I still didn’t know who he was, and hadn’t bothered to skim even the back cover of his books.  We had to give out tickets to the signing, which was unusual for our populist bookstore.  They were expecting a huge crowd.  The tickets were gone in twenty minutes, no mean feat in a city that’s often less than 0 degrees for most of the year.  After the event, which was a smashing success, Sedaris sent us a postcard from Amsterdam.  He wrote something like, Thank you for letting me smoke in your store.  He was a big cigarette smoker at the time, and Minnesota is one of those places where the smoking ban came long after we’d all decided to do the right thing and smoke outside on our own.  So this, more than anything, convinced me that he was worth reading.  If he can charm a crowd here, and blow smoke in our faces, then he’s got something pretty extraordinary.