The American Red Cross supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood supply. The Red Cross provides blood for patients in approximately 2,700 hospitals across the U.S. Yesterday I walked you through the process of blood donation with the American Red Cross. What happens to the blood after you donate it? Being a Red Cross Minnesota Social Media Advocate, I was able to take a tour of the North Central Blood Services building to see what happens to blood post donation and all the steps (and checks!) it goes through before it reaches a patient in need. Here's a very simplified look: ***WARNING: There is a lot of blood (in bags) in these photos*** Blood comes into the center through triage. Here donations are inventoried and sorted by component (cryo, plasma, whole blood, double red cells, platelets...). Those components with a shorter life span are processed first. The blood center has to inventory and keep track of EVERYTHING that comes in and goes out including their waste and … [Read more...]
Blood Donation Process #GiveLife Part 1
Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. More than 41,000 blood donations are needed every day. Although an estimated 38% of the U.S. population is eligible to donate, less than 10% actually do each year. March is American Red Cross month. As a Red Cross Minnesota Social Media Advocate, I was given the chance to tour the North Central Blood Services building. I donated blood (for the very first time!) and learned what happens to the blood after it is donated. It was fascinating and I'll take you through the process! First you'll decide to donate blood. I hate needles so this was my first time donating. This is what I looked like on my way to the donation center. Once you get to the blood donation center, you'll check in what a photo ID. You'll get a name tag, and if you are a rookie donor like me, you'll get a rookie sticker too :) You'll be asked to read a packet with all the rules to blood donation. It lays out who can and can not donate based on … [Read more...]
This Year’s Leprechaun Trap Find–Leprechaun Letter
Last year the girls and I put out a Leprechaun Trap. When they woke up in the morning, they were NOT disappointed that they did not catch a Leprechaun because, instead they found a Leprechaun letter with gold dollars. I set the bar last year with this Leprechaun trap find! They were so excited by the Leprechaun letter and coins last year that they decided to do a similar trap in hopes that they would get gold again. They didn't even want to actually catch a Leprechaun! Ugh. How was I going to beat the poem and gold?? Come up with another poem! Instead of gold though, I folded dollar bills into clovers. You can find the tutorial on Crafty Journal. Unfortunately I only had 6 dollars instead of 8 so I had to use paper for the stem instead of another dollar. I thought it was a pretty good idea but my girls were a bit disappointed with this year's Leprechaun trap find. The Leprechaun didn't even have to fight his way out. He just put a note in the hole that said the … [Read more...]
Plastic Egg Spin Art
I saw plastic egg spin art (or Easter egg spin art) on Pinterest and thought it would be fun for the girls and I to try. So... We got out our paints, plastic eggs, paper, a cookie sheet (to contain the eggs when they spin), and a paper plate to put the paint on... We dipped our eggs in the paint and attempted to spin them... As you'll see in the video below, our art did not turn out quite like the Pinterest photo shows. The final project looked more like marble painting then plastic egg painting. … [Read more...]
Why I Didn’t Potty Train My Girls
I didn't potty train my girls. Yup, you read that right, I didn't potty train my girls. I don't believe in potty training. In my online mom and blogger groups people ask potty training advice all the time. I rarely pipe in with advice but when I do it's, "let your kids do it themselves." Your child's ability to go to the bathroom on the toilet is both a physical/developmental process and a mental process. Despite you and your child's greatest efforts, if your child's body is not developmentally ready to potty train, it's not going to work. I'm going to say it again, "Potty training" is a natural physical and mental development. That's why I disagree with a lot of the methods out there to help potty train children. I believe, when children are ready both mentally and physically, they will do it themselves. Here are my issues with a few potty training methods: The Timer Method This method does nothing but potty train you. Your child needs to learn his/her body cues for when to … [Read more...]
Painting Snowflakes with Pine Needles
A few months ago I pinned a painting snowflakes with pine needles craft. I thought it would be a fun craft for my girls to do. I would link to the original post for the pin but spoonful.com is redirected to family.disney.com/crafts and I can't find the post anywhere on that site. Instead, I'm showing you a screen shot of the pin. Don't those painted pine needle snowflakes look cool? Yeah, I thought so too. But, as you can see from my featured photo at the beginning of the post, ours didn't turn out quite so well. Tottie and I went out to our back yard and clipped a few small branches from our pine trees. We clipped from two different types of trees. I then cut off the tips so that the pine needles could lay flat when pressed onto the paper. Next the girls dipped the pine needles into white paint... ...and pressed them onto the paper. Yeah...ours look NOTHING like the perfect snowflakes in the Pinterest photo. Oh well. Tottie thought it was cool … [Read more...]
