Geinene Carson

Geinene loves thrift finds and dumpster diving, has always wanted to go on a great North American road trip in a souped up RV, and can use power tools like a boss.

10 Tips to Enjoy a Road Trip with Kids

10 Tips to Enjoy a Road Trip With Kids

My husband’s family lives in Canada, so we are well-acquainted with the undertaking of a long road trip with kids. With small children in tow, an estimated 18-hour trip can easily stretch into 26 hours on the road one way. If it isn’t little bladders or tummies demanding frequent pit stops, it is a temper erupting due to being restrained or a little mind bored of counting clouds in the sky. We have set guidelines to avoid dependence on screens until absolutely necessary. We all know that once they come out, there is no going back… even with toddlers. Rather than an endless stream of movies or video games from the onset of an excursion, we attempt to keep the kids engaged […]

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A Helpful Hack for Moms with Special Needs Children

Special Needs Child? A Mom Shares Practical Tips to Keep You From Drowning

Having a special needs child requires a certain amount of organization to cope with the endless piles of paperwork. In just the first five years of our daughter’s life, more paperwork has accumulated than in my life altogether. I never imagined the avalanche of white that would follow doctor appointments, test results, therapy sessions, medical bills, healthcare claims, prescriptions, as well as school, grant, and scholarship applications. I soon found myself overwhelmed and drowning in piles of important details. Too often I was caught unprepared without detailed information of my daughter’s medical history or current care readily available for inquiring professionals. This created significant hiccups at times. I already had to wait months to see certain specialists, and my face-to-face time with

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Tips to Declutter Your Life and Mind in the New Year

Tips to Declutter Your Life and Mind in the New Year

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to make our new year’s resolutions much simpler by consolidating them into one, easy-to-remember word: declutter. We made a verbal agreement to focus our efforts on removing the unnecessary from our physical living space, our daily schedules, and overall mental state. The strategy to achieve this consists of focusing on goals, individually and jointly, that line up specifically with this one theme. And, we plan to keep ourselves accountable by making a date once a month to take stock on where we are in the process. Decluttering—Room by Room As part of the initiative to declutter our physical space, I have loosely planned to focus on one room a month. I figure this

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Less is More in Your Child's Schedule

Less is More in Your Child’s Schedule

It doesn’t take long after a new school year begins for our family to realize we need to dial back our activities. With the start of a new grade comes the introduction of new opportunities and an abundance of activities that fight for our children’s attention. While many, if not all, provide great avenues for our kids to discover and develop their talents and interests, our family has come to the conclusion that less can often be more. It’s easy to fall into the temptation of signing our children up for every possible activity, but is it really the best? Certainly, as parents we hold a part of the responsibility in helping to develop our children’s character and gift sets with the goal to

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Mammograms, Waiting Rooms and Life

A Mammogram Taught Me How Strong and Beautiful Women Are

Everyone warned me that when I turned 40 the dreaded mammogram would be there to welcome me. It is like a rite of passage into the middle-age years for every woman. I had my official introduction to the infamous squeezing machine just a few weeks ago. Though not as bad as my imagination had made it, it was still pretty close. While amazed that someone so brilliant actually invented this potentially life-saving procedure, I still see a lot of room for improvement in its user-friendliness. It’s clunky and awkward, not fitting to a woman’s contour in the least. But, I suppose it gets the needed job done and that’s the most important thing. I couldn’t help but chuckle when the mammography technician

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12 Tips on Holding Your Ground with Grit and Grace

12 Tips on Holding Your Ground with Grit and Grace

I used to be a quiet, more reserved person, only sharing my opinion or pleading my case when asked. Perhaps due to age, a shift in personality, being an artist, or advocating for a special needs child, I have become much more vocal. Life provides countless opportunities to practice speaking up for myself and others. No matter the cause—disputing unsatisfactory services, navigating misunderstandings with loved ones, confronting co-workers, or defending deserved rights—I am learning how to be both firm and respectful while pursuing my needs. Here are 12 tips on how to stand your ground firmly and respectfully: 1. Identify the issue. You cannot plead your case while uncertain of the real issue. So many misunderstandings are fueled by ambiguity and sheer emotion.

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15 Ways to Care for Yourself When You Have a Child with Special Needs

15 Ways to Care for Yourself When You Have a Child with Special Needs

When your child has special needs, much of the day, and sometimes even the night, is spent taking care of someone extremely dependent upon you. A significant amount of energy and time is spent planning and strategizing to stay ahead of your child’s needs. Though I became almost intuitive in recognizing the signs and red flags of my own child’s health, I simultaneously became less in tune and downright negligent of my own. For the first few years of our daughter’s life, I did not manage my personal needs well, if at all. I dove into advocacy mode intensely and before I knew what hit me, I was suffering from sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, and physical health issues. What I didn’t realize, until

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10 Ways to Advocate for Your Special Needs Child

As parents, we are all aware of the need to advocate for our children. But, when you have a special needs child, the stakes seem that much higher considering the assistance you will inevitably need to face the extra challenges. Special education services and resources can be limited and in order to access them, as well as the obscene amount of finances they often demand, it will require tenacity not to mention information and skills. My determination to see my daughter’s needs met collided hard with the reality of a broken system. Files get lost, phone calls are not returned, valid needs get denied, and red tape is everywhere. In response to my expressed frustration, people often told me, “The squeaky wheel

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A-Parent’s-Strategy-For-Surviving-Summer

A Parent’s Simple Strategy For Surviving (and Enjoying) Summer

As most parents are privy to, summer is not the time of year to get things done. Once the kids are out of school, it’s all hands on deck. After the first week of whiplash, my husband and I try to pull ourselves together, get our tag team mode on, and pursue the establishment of some sort of rhythm. Our work demands remain the same, but the amount of time we have to complete our duties suffers a significant decrease. Without a plan, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the chaos, not to mention battling guilt on both the home and work front. Working mostly from home, my husband and I have some flexibility of when we do things; however, when kids are in

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10-Ways-to-Make-the-Most-of-Your-Staycation

10 Ways to Make the Most of Your Staycation

Traveling can take a lot out of you and can even leave you with the need for a vacation to recover from your vacation. It is easy to forget about all of the planning, preparation, and time it takes to get to and from somewhere, especially when everyone you know seems to be posting pictures of their dream vacations on social media. Not to mention that your wallet and energy levels are really the ones often determining your destinations. Contrary to what the exotic travel pictures imply, to achieve optimum refreshment some vacations may best be spent close to home. Consider an official staycation to explore things locally for a fraction of the cost and energy expended. Uncover some of the gems in your own

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finding-a-muse-in-the-mess-of-grief-through-art

Finding a Muse in the Mess: When Grief Becomes Art

Being a parent is demanding and intense, but so is being an artist. It can feel like a constant tug of war. When I had my first child I struggled with how time and space were no longer my own, and I was unable to create when inspiration struck. I wrestled with guilt and giving myself permission to make art when there was always something more “responsible” to do. Yet, I couldn’t deny the God-given passion in me to create. Often tempted to despair that I may never make art again, a voice broke through my frustration proclaiming: “I haven’t called you away from being a parent or being an artist. It isn’t an either or, it’s an ‘and.’ You get to

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7 Ways to Find the Right School for Your Special Needs Child

7 Ways to Find the Right School for Your Special Needs Child

Finding the right school to meet the unique challenges of our special needs child has been like trying to locate a needle in a haystack. I spent the better part of three years researching our options and kept them all on the table: private, public, montessori, inclusion, special ed exclusive, etc. I scoured school websites, engaged in forums, actively sought recommendations from therapists and various professionals, arranged a slew of school tours, and enrolled our daughter in a wide variety of educational settings throughout pre-school. While each place we tried had its strengths and weaknesses, none seemed like the best fit for our daughter’s needs. Some schools loved her well but didn’t have enough experience or expertise to appropriately challenge and develop

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appreciating winter and the forced rest it brings

Appreciating Winter and the Forced Rest It Brings

Winter can feel so dead when seeing the trees, gray and bare, seemingly lifeless against the flat whitewashed sky. Within those outstretched branches one can find that last withered leaf still clinging, albeit weakly to its post, determined to defy the season. I cannot help but see a bit of myself in that one leaf. I have come to survive many a winter season, physically and emotionally. But it was in a recent, longer than desired, weathering that I had this epiphany. Winter is not only what it appears to be on the surface: frozen, bitter and bleak, but also what cannot be seen—life teeming underneath. A tree doesn’t cease to live during the winter months, rather it is still very much

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Grace When You Take More Than One Year on Your Resolutions

Grace: When You Take More Than One Year on Your Resolutions

I rarely accomplish my new year’s resolutions. There, I said it and the transparency removes a load of burden from my shoulders. Sure, like every year previous, I desire to exercise more regularly, eat healthier, stress less, rest more effectively and all around live more intentionally. However, life can bring the unforeseen, leaving the process of meeting my goals greatly affected, if not altogether thwarted. When making resolutions I recognize the high probability of not seeing them come to fruition within the next year or even two for that matter; however, I am determined not to let that reality stop me from the ambitious attempt. Why? I am wired to need something to strive for in the day-to-day, desired ideals perpetuating a

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16 Recommended Games for Special Needs Children

16 Recommended Games for Special Needs Children

I belong to a game-playing family, a love that is especially exercised around the holidays when looking for gift ideas and spending wintery nights at home with the family. With our oldest son in the middle of elementary school, we are just beginning to play more strategic and complicated games. However, our younger, kindergarten-age daughter has special needs that affect her gross and fine motor skills, as well as cognitive and verbal abilities. None the less, we are determined to involve her in our board game binges. No more sitting to the side watching the rest of us; therefore, my newest mission involves finding games that will include and challenge her at the appropriate level. This has required a decent amount of research

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What Being A Guest Abroad Taught Me About Hospitalityb

What Being A Guest Abroad Taught Me About Hospitality

Having traveled and lived abroad, I have encountered a wide variety of welcomes, some of which still challenge me in creating a more generous and fuller expression of hospitality in my own home. In North Africa and the Middle East, it was common to be invited spontaneously into the home of complete strangers. The openness to host a foreigner and eagerness to share however much or little they possessed deeply impacted me. Rather than extending invitations only to the closest of friends and relatives, I witnessed a desire to engage and connect to those barely known. This displayed to me hospitality for the sake of creating connection, not only maintaining. Prevalent in North Africa, when entering a home the tradition is to

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Helping-Your-Child-Develop-Their-Own-Voice

Helping Your Child Develop Their Own Voice

Words and how we use them have a special emphasis in our family. Our son, a chatterbox, expresses himself to anyone who will listen. He formulates every thought that comes into his head aloud. An engaging storyteller, words effortlessly fall out of his mouth, creative and abundant. Yet for our daughter, who is nonverbal due to a genetic disorder, it takes great effort and concentration to communicate even the simplest of thoughts. We usually try to decipher her needs and desires from a mixture of gestures, signs, and utterances. Our children, ages four and seven, are completely different individuals beginning to engage uniquely with the world around them. Words or no words, they each have a valuable voice. And when I say

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