Archives for 2019

Staten Islanders love to celebrate the important benchmarks in life– from birthdays to religious events, to graduations and milestone events such as weddings, engagements and sweet sixteens. Spring is inherently the season for First Holy Communion and Graduation parties, but when you add in the other festive events, there seems to be party after party every weekend until summer barbeque season arrives.

While each occasion is unique, the common thread linking social engagements of all sizes is the need to plan.

Event planners are certainly a unique breed of organized individuals, but everyday hosts and hostesses can borrow from planners’ tried-and-true techniques to help parties run smoothly from start to finish.

Begin with the Venue

A great party starts with a good venue. In fact, the right venue can make a party, while the wrong one can break it. Consider the type of event and the size of the guest list when shopping for a venue. If the goal is to provide guests with an intimate setting to mingle, avoid large spaces. If you want guests to dance and plan to provide additional entertainment options, choose a venue that has a dance floor and/or a stage.

Size is not the only thing to consider when choosing a venue. The location of a venue is important as well. The venue should be easily accessible to guests and convenient for guests traveling by car and public transportation. Have a contingency plan if the venue is outdoors and weather may interrupt the festivities.

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Remember, the venue is the foundation upon which the rest of the party will be situated, so take extra time to find the right party spot. As soon as you have a date pinned down, reserve the venue. There are a finite number of places on Staten Island, so book early to avoid being disappointed. Take your event to the next level via party bus rental.

Make a Checklist

Take some time to jot down a list of what will need to be done for the party. Relying on your memory alone is not sufficient, as you’re bound to forget some details as the party draws nearer.
Purchase a planner to help you keep track of details and payment deadlines. Store receipts in your planner, and keep it with you at all times so you can jot down ideas as they come to you. Don’t just jot down the things to do. Assign specific deadlines to each task so you will stay on track.

Get Help When You Need It

It’s easy for hosts and hostesses to feel overwhelmed when planning a party. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you begin to feel overwhelmed. Delegate tasks based on your helpers’ talents and experience. Catered food is ideal for those who do not like to cook. If a friend is crafty, put him or her in charge of decorations or the layout of the venue. If the budget allows, hire professionals to create the right ambiance for the party. Store-bought supplies are shortcuts that can keep you on schedule. The more help you have, the less stressful the planning can feel.

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Focus on Food and Entertainment

When guests walk away from a party, their thoughts tend to linger on food and fun. Spend time planning the menu and testing foods that will be served, and hire entertainment that suits the mood you are aiming to create. If there will be children at the party, consider some entertainment or activities targeting their age group. A dedicated crafts or coloring table can keep the kids busy while they are waiting for food to be served. It’s also a great ice-breaker to meet other children attending the party.

The Take Away

Party favors add a nice touch for guests exiting the event. Gone are the days of tchotchkes that just collect dust, though. Special desserts to take home, bottles of wine, or useful items that tie into the party theme have become increasingly popular. Check Pinterest for cool ideas and let’s get this party started!

Need help getting started? Check our our Party Planning Directory!

Not sure if you are registered to vote with a specific party? Or whether you’re even registered to vote at all? CLICK HERE to find out.

Whether you really “Feel the Bern” with Bernie Sanders or wish to “Make America Great Again” with Donald Trump (or if your heart is with a different candidate altogether), your opinion won’t count if you aren’t registered to vote. The primary election, which is when the presidential candidate for each political party is selected by registered voters, will be held on April 19, 2016. If you aren’t yet registered to vote, it isn’t too late. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 25th and received by a board of elections no later than March 30th to be eligible to vote in the Primary. Staten Islanders may register in person at the Richmond County Board of Elections Station (located at 1 Edgewater Plaza), but your application must be received no later than March 25th.

If you are registered to vote but not with a specific party, we have some unfortunate news for you. The deadline for New Yorkers to change their political party passed in October. This means that all New Yorkers currently registered in the Independent Party, Green Party, or Working Families Party will not be eligible to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential primary election. In addition, if you are registered as a democrat, you will only be eligible to vote in the democratic primary; conversely, if you are a registered republican, you can only vote in the republican primary election. All registered voters, however, are able to vote in the general election in November. New York is one of 11 states requiring this type of closed primary election. Of those 11, our state has the earliest change-of-party deadline.

CLICK HERE for more information on important voting deadlines.

CLICK HERE to visit the New York State Board of Elections website, where you can print out a voter registration form, an absentee ballot form, a change of address, name, or party form, and more.

Let’s face it, our years with children under our roofs slip past us when we’re not paying attention. Suddenly we find ourselves with preschoolers, then grade-schoolers, and pretty soon teens. We do our best to make the most of these years, but sometimes it helps to know we aren’t missing out on our children’s childhood by engaging it full on.

With that in mind, here are twenty-five activities to get in before taking them to college:
1. Sleep out under the stars. Pitch a tent or just drag blankets and sleeping bags out into your yard or balcony.
2. Visit a lighthouse. Take a picture while you’re there.
3. Pick apples, blueberries or another fruit. Enjoy eating produce right from the source.
4. Have a Silly String fight – just because. Launch a sneak attack, but leave an arsenal in plain sight for them to retaliate. Then take what you’ve dished out.
5. Take them to meet a favorite author or sports star.
6. When winder comes, drive around at night looking at holiday light displays. To make it extra enchanting, put the kids to bed first then take them out in their pajamas and give them hot cocoa for the ride.
7. Swim in the ocean. Or at least wade in up to your knees and feel the rocking motion of the waves.
8. Carve a pumpkin. Encourage your kids to grab out the seeds with their fingers and get up to their elbows scooping out the gooey flesh.
9. Build a sand castle. Or create a sand sculpture – turtles and snakes are easy.
10. Serve in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.
11. Eat ice cream sundaes for dinner. Include fresh fruit like strawberries and bananas among the toppings to make it “more healthy.”
12. Own a pet (fish, bird, dog, cat, lizard).
13. Catch lightening bugs. In your hands or in a jar. Have a contest to see who can collect the most.
14. Climb a mountain or go to the top of a skyscraper. Then take in the view from up high.
15. Go on special dates, just parent and child. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s about one-on-one time.
16. Try skiing – water, cross country, or downhill.
17. Teach them how to waltz. Or hip hop or line dance. Get out some music and show them your moves.
18. Take them to a big concert event. Whether it’s kid music or classical, give them exposure to a live performance.
19. Go on a picnic. Grab an old blanket, make up some sandwiches and hit the park or beach for an old-fashioned outdoor meal.
20. Make and take a meal to a shut-in neighbor or friend – together.
21. Plant flowers. Give them a garden trowel and invite them to dig in the dirt with you.
22. Attend a funeral. Then talk about life, death and the future.
23. Go to a theme park. Ride the roller coasters and eat cotton candy.
24. Let them make you dinner – by themselves. Even if it’s PB& J sandwiches.
25. Attend a major sporting event in your city – baseball, football, hockey. Cheer loudly. Enjoy the energy of being surrounded by your fellow fans.

Whatever you choose to do, soak up each moment. It might not slow down time, but it will capture memories you can share with your kids long after you’ve shared a home.

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Wanna hear something ironic? I work for a parenting magazine, and a huge part of my job is finding fun stuff for people to do with their kids and then sharing the great stuff I find with the Staten Island community. I love my job, but I spend so much time looking for fun stuff for other people to do with their kids that sometimes it takes me away from me doing fun stuff with my own kids.

I did the stay-at-home-mom thing for a long time, and believe me, it certainly had its share of ups and downs. But now that I’m working, it’s occurred to me that I never realized just how much of myself I was available to give to my children when I was literally always available. We could pick up and go whenever and wherever we wanted. There were no schedules to coordinate, no deadlines looming, no emails to answer first. If we wanted to go to the park, off we went. If we were low on groceries, to the supermarket we’d go. If we were bored in the house, we’d go for a walk. We were together all the time and they loved it. And I did like it. Well, kind of. As any Stay-at-Home-Mom will tell you, being around the kids 24/7 is extremely draining. There are no breaks, no real help from anyone else. It’s all on you to keep those kids happy around the clock, which is no simple task.

So when the opportunity arose for me to take a job wherein I could keep a flexible schedule and often work from home, well, mentally and financially speaking, turning it down was never an option.

While I’m very familiar with stay-at-home-mom depression, I’m fairly new to this working mom guilt. And, boy, is it a something else entirely. When I tell people I work from home, I think they picture this utopian ideal where I’m simultaneously baking cookies, overseeing fun craft projects, and emailing my boss all in perfect unison. How lucky I must be to accomplish so many tasks at once!

Well, in fact, I do accomplish all of these things at once. But perfection it is not. Allow me to set the scene for you.

It’s 3:30pm on any given weekday. My son is working on his math homework, that vile math homework book open in front of him. He’s crying a little because he doesn’t understand how to solve 15-7 by “making a ten” first. Quite frankly, neither do I, and I’m about to start crying with him. At the very same moment, my three-year-old daughter is climbing on my back, shoving her Princess Sofia floor puzzle in my face and begging me to help her finish it. I glance over at the clock and see that if I don’t start dinner soon, I’ll have hunger meltdowns thrown into the mix. So I get up and head to the fridge to start cooking.

I wash and chop and slice and prep while my son reads his “book buddy” to me, hoping he’s actually reading what it says and not just making up random sentences to avoid thinking. My daughter lingers dangerously over the cutting board, narrowly missing my razor-sharp knife with her tiny fingers as she tries to reorganize the veggies in a futile attempt to “help” me cook. I pause for a quick minute to check my work email, remembering something I’d forgotten to do earlier. I see that I have 15 new emails and realize that the thing I’d forgotten to do has since spiraled into a whole new problem, and I then absentmindedly spend another 20 “quick minutes” attempting to rectify it.

Suddenly I hear the sizzle of hot liquid hitting the stove and I see my potatoes boiling over, which is my reminder to check the oven and find that I’ve overcooked the hell out of the chicken. I look up to find Princess Sofia puzzle pieces and sliced vegetables strewn about the living room— my daughter’s passive aggressive way of displaying her resentment for my ignoring her. My son hands me his homework to check and I try to explain that “We bilted a snwmn” is spelled incorrectly, which immediately prompts a tantrum because, according to him, it IS spelled correctly and I’m the MEANEST MOM EVER and he just wants to go play video games but I WON’T LET HIM even though his homework is DONE!

And then my night shift-working husband emerges from hibernation, complaining about us all making too much noise and waking him up, and demanding to know why the house smells like burnt chicken.

Fast forward a few hours: dinner is over, baths are done, husband’s off to work, kids are tucked in bed. And me? I’m on the couch, laptop open, fingers flying over the keyboard, finally able to get some work done.

The funny thing is that I’m actually lucky. I’m fortunate to be home from work in enough time to make dinner and oversee homework and spend some time together as a family, as hectic as it regularly is. A lot of parents don’t return home from work until well after the kids are sleeping. And as chaotic as the afternoons with my family are, it’s a whole different struggle when you don’t even get to see your kids during the day at all.

The part I hate most is when my daughter looks at me with her heart-meltingly innocent, baby blue eyes and asks, “Mommy, can you play with me?” and I have to say no because I have work to finish. Or when my son’s school sends home a note about another school fair and I try to move heaven and earth to make it there, every single time, because I never want to let him down. Or when I’m up very late, typing away into the wee hours of the night, and I wake up like a sleep-deprived Oscar the Grouch the next morning, ready to bite the head off of anyone who dares ask me for plain Cheerios after I’ve already poured milk on a whole bowl of the honey-nut ones.

I love that I love my job. I don’t know how many people can say that and mean it, but I love having a job I enjoy, a job I’m proud to do. And financially speaking, I really love that I can finally start putting some money away to buy my family’s first home. Or our first trip to Disney. Or maybe even start up a college fund (well, after I’m done paying for my own college loans). As stressed as I feel most of the time, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m sacrificing a lot, I know. But I do believe that in the end, it’s worth it.

I just wish it wouldn’t feel like my kids are the ones making the biggest sacrifice. Hopefully someday they’ll understand why.

By Jeannine Cintron, a Staten Island mom of two. Read her blog at www.HighchairsandHeadaches.com.

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For a woman battling cancer, a day at the spa is probably the last thing on her mind. But it might be the break she needs, if just for a day.

That’s why Debbie Sestokas and Peggy Matzen started the Diva for a Day Foundation, a program that works with individual salons to sponsor a full day of spa pampering for women who need it most, free of charge. Each “Diva” receives the royal treatment on her special day, complete with the works: a manicure, pedicure, facial, massage, blow-out, and makeup application. Divas are even greeted with a fresh bouquet of flowers and a photographer to commemorate the occasion.

Debbie and Peggy are cancer survivors themselves, so their compassion for these women is deep-rooted. “When someone is dealing with cancer, it is so all-consuming,” Debbie said. “We wanted to give these women a little escape from it all; a day to forget about doctors’ appointments and treatments, a day to feel special.”

The Maya Angelou quote scrawled atop their website seems to sums it up well: “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.”

A rainbow indeed. In the six years since hosting its very first Diva in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, the organization has managed to partner with over 50 salons nationwide and helped to brighten the day of over 600 Divas thus far (and counting). According to Peggy, when a request is made for a Diva in a new location, the foundation will make an effort to seek out nearby salons willing to sponsor her – an undertaking which has helped them cater to women with cancer in 26 states to date.

Peggy says the number of nominated Divas in Staten Island is high, where word seemed to spread quickly about the foundation and the generosity of its partnering salons. The Island accommodates more Divas than any single town, where there are three participating salons thus far.

A.F. Bennett is one of the Diva for a Day participating salons, and they couldn’t be more delighted to team up with such a wonderful foundation. “The experience has been breathtaking,” says A.F. Bennett owner Frank Bennett. “Cancer can make a woman feel robbed of her beauty physically and outwardly, but it can also rob her of her inner beauty as well. We get the chance to turn that around and make her feel beautiful both inside and out. To take her spirits and heighten them to feel beautiful again – it’s priceless.”

Do you have a loved one battling cancer, someone who truly deserves the royal treatment? To qualify as a Diva for a Day, a nominee must be recently diagnosed, currently in treatment, or no more than six months past the completion of their treatment. Click here to visit the Diva for a Day website, where you can link to a nomination form and to see a list of participating salons in our area.

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