August is here and that means the return to school for your young ones. Shorter autumn days bring a hectic round of sports, activities and events and calendars fill with cryptic notes. The holiday stress will follow and a new schedule will interrupt your relaxing summer. Get organized now with these tips so you can have a great school year!

Ease the Family into a School Year Schedule

The first day of school is no time for a drastic adjustment of household sleep schedules. Instead, ease children back into a school year routine gradually. During the last two weeks of summer, re-introduce a school year bedtime. Begin waking late sleepers earlier and earlier, closer to the hour they’ll need to rise when school begins.

Don’t neglect mealtimes! Younger children, in particular, need to adapt to new meal routines before the school day demands it of them. Plan meals and snacks to accustom little ones to rituals of the school day before the school year begins.

Create a Calendar that Everyone Can Use

Each school year floats on a sea of schedules. School functions. Lunch menus. Scout meetings and music lessons. What do you do when you’re drowning in paper?

You’ll need a family event calendar to track after-school activities, school programs and volunteer work. Add specialized calendars and schedules, and you have it: a one-stop shop for family time management.

Form is less important than function. A paper calendar with large squares lets you enter information easily. Pre-printed white board calendars are easy to revise when necessary. Color-coding entries by family member helps keep busy lives straight.

Paper planner fans dedicate a planner section to serve as the main calendar, while tech-savvy people store the info in a smart phone or tablet and sync with multiple computers. Choose a calendar format that works for your family.

Post the family event calendar in a public place near an area that gets a lot of use (like the kitchen or living room). Use magnets to attach the calendar to the refrigerator, or tack it to a bulletin board. Add other branches to the calendar as well: school lunch menus, class assignment sheets, sports practice schedules. When the teacher calls for field trip volunteers, you’ll know at a glance whether you’re free to join the group on the bus that day.

Plan Before You Shop

August is the second-biggest sales month for clothing retailers. Back to school clothing sales begin as early as July! Are you prepared to run the school clothes gauntlet? An informed shopper is a savvy shopper, so prepare before you shop.

Take an afternoon and assess each child’s clothing needs. Empty drawers and closets of outgrown or worn-out clothing, and either store or donate the discards. Develop a wardrobe needs list for each child. Check for possible hand-me-downs from older siblings as you make your list. If you discuss the needs list and the family budget with your children before you shop, you’ll avoid in-the-store tantrums.

Similarly, ask the school for classroom supply lists before shopping for school supplies. Do shop early! With back-to-school sales beginning in mid-July, tardy shoppers have a tough time locating needed supplies among September’s Halloween costumes and Christmas decorations.

The school year always brings a large amount of stress with it. By utilizing these tips, you’ll be sure to ease into coming months without as many headaches as you’ve had last year. By planning ahead, you’ll make back-to-school time far more easier and you’ll enjoy it more too!

Although your regular power supply is proven to be a steady source of electricity for your home, it’s also known how a major storm can knock out your electrical connections on occasion. Typically, it’s only a short time of power outage for an evening or maybe an afternoon, so you go to bed early or take a much needed nap and the power is back on when you wake up. Two situations result in situations that aren’t so cute. One, you have work to do that can’t be postponed even though your power is off for a couple of hours. Secondly, when power is out for several days so you know you need to cook all the food you kept frozen, but can’t cook it because the power is out.

Preparing for Natural Disasters

When a major storm approaches you’ve certainly seen long lines at the grocery store of people buying last minute needs in case they won’t be available over the upcoming days. A better idea is to prepare ahead of time so you have no worries should a storm take your power out for a few days. A flashlight, bottled water, canned goods, a heater with fuel and perhaps a camp stove are always good to have around in case of an emergency. Better yet is to have a generator so you can continue to run your home as a home and live your life according to how you live on a daily basis.

Generators and Solar Panels

Solar panels may seem like a perfect solution, but unfortunately they don’t work very well when the sun is blocked by the storm that knocked out your regular electric supply. Generators, on the other hand, are ready to run as long as you keep them fueled and can keep you going during a power outage. A temporary outage for thirty minutes won’t be a problem as the generator will turn on so you never know the power went out. You may need to conserve energy for an outage expected to last several days, but your basic needs of heat, refrigeration, and cooking will be met.

When a home or commercial building needs electrical work, many owners make the mistake of only getting a single estimate for the job. Getting multiple estimates may take longer than just having one Denver electrician visit the premises, but this extra time could lead to substantial savings and a better quality of workmanship.

There are several important aspects of any project that should be included in an electrical  estimate. Both material costs and labor costs should be specified. Any special fees for work permits or city inspections should also be listed. Sales tax and hazardous material fees should be indicated as well. In addition, the estimate should include a date that the amount is guaranteed through as well as a “not to exceed” price point.  . Any estimate should allow home and business owners to compare the quality of the materials used by different electrical contractors and getting multiple estimates in writing can help property owners compare the hourly labor rates of contractors as well as any other service fees.

Choosing a style of lights for a particular room can be a very thought-provoking process. This is largely because each room typically has its own purpose, and lighting should be selected to best facilitate that purpose. For many more contemporary spaces, one of the favored lighting options is LED downlights. Many homeowners choose to install this type of light fitting into a variety of rooms around their homes, including bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchens to provide not only light, but a certain level of style.

Mounting

LED downlights are typically mounted to narrow openings in the ceiling of the chosen room. In most cases, this type of fixture will be completely hidden from view. As a result, it appears as if the light is coming from a hole in the ceiling. When you choose to have an electrician in Santa Monica install LED downlights for you, then you have a wide variety of different sizes, shapes and even colors to choose from. This is often used to accentuate different elements of a room, due to this type of lighting’s ability to focus light downward on a certain area.

Efficiency

LED downlighting is not only an attractive and effective source of light, but also very energy efficient. Because these fixtures use LED lights, they use very little electricity and emit almost no heat. This results in more comfortable spaces, and a functional light source at a very low operating cost.

Regardless of whether you are installing LED downlights or another type of lighting source, choosing an LED bulb to provide your light is always a smart decision. These high quality, long-lasting and energy efficient light bulbs will provide spectacular lighting to any area for many years to come. To learn more about LED lighting, or to talk to someone about installing some new fixtures, call one of our technicians at The Electric Connection. You can also get in touch with us through our website at www.theelectricconnection.com.