Creating A Long Distance Custody Plan For Your Kids And Your Ex

Regular contact and shared custody is always important for families in divorce situations, and long distance shared custody can be hard on everyone involved.  However, a manageable long-distance custody plan can be worked out in such a way that everyone benefits.  The key to making these types of plans work for everyone is detailed planning and taking into account the needs of each family member.  A long distance parenting plan should cover the following aspects:

Routine Monthly Visits

Some long-distance custody arrangements will require regular monthly, or even semi-monthly visits.  This type of plan works best when there is ample notice given and open communication between both parents.  However, depending on distance and scheduling, such visits can become quite disruptive to the lives of the children and can become rather expensive.  In these circumstances, it may be better to schedule visits over long school breaks and holidays.

Time During School Breaks

To help make up for lost time during the normal school year, arrangements can be made for children to spend time with the non-residential parent over school breaks, holidays, and the summer.  In fact, in these circumstances, children may spend a large majority of their summers and breaks with this parent.  The non-residential parent should always consult the school calendar that corresponds with the district the children are in when making plans for visitations.

Major Holidays

Family holidays, such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, are generally split between each parent.  Most parents prefer having the children for at least one major holiday per year and the holiday can alternate.  Additionally, longer holiday weekends, such as Memorial Day or Labor Day should be a designated time for the out of state parent to spend with the children.

Communication and Planning

A long distance parenting plan will go smoother for all involved if parents communicate about their intentions, desires, and plans.  Both parents should be fully aware of their children’s school calendar and be willing to develop a visitation schedule based on that.

Work with an Attorney

An experienced family law attorney can help guide you through developing and executing a long-distance parenting plan.  This will allow both parents the time and opportunities they need to stay connected to their children.

Long distance custody and parenting plans are not easy.  However, with open communication and ample planning time, they can work for all who are involved.  Parents should be willing to communicate and compromise, as well as plan family time and vacations well in advance.  Hiring a family attorney can help your parenting plan run as smoothly as possible.

Continue to follow us for more parenting tips and advice.

Use This Advice To Ease Your Public Speaking Fears

If you speak well in public, it generally leads to greater self-confidence and self-esteem. This skill can be useful in almost any situation. If you are looking to improve your skills with public speaking, try the tips shared here.

It is important that everything you say during your speech is related to the topic. Even if you are going to tell jokes, they should be related in some way. This will help keep the audience focused on the subject at hand and prevent things from going too far off course.

Understand the material thoroughly. It is useful to know all the facts, figures and a few jokes or stories relating to your topic, whether your speech is memorized or not. Use them when needed to bolster your persuasiveness. They can also be used to make the speech stronger or to answer audience questions.

Make eye contact with your audience as much as you can. Don’t turn your attention elsewhere. Since you are attempting to convince the audience with your words, they should command your complete attention.

Do not give your speech without going over it many times. Sometimes, people think it is okay to just get up the podium and figure out what they are going to say right there and then. The thing is, you may find yourself unable to keep the speech going. Be sure to create your speech and go over it numerous times.

It is important to realize that most people really want you to succeed. The most important thing is to deliver relevant, interesting information. To help keep your speech entertaining either tell a story about yourself or a joke to warm the crowd up. This will not only warm the crowd, but it will also allow you to relax.

Public speaking skills will come in handy in all aspects of your life. You should be able to make your points clear so you can effectively convey your ideas, no matter the size of your audience. Try these tips to really build up your speaking skills.

Home Decisions – Comparing Gas Furnaces Vs. Oil Furnaces

The northern states have been buried in snow for weeks and will be for several more. Winter often brings periods of extended cold. Coming home to a warm house is not only comfortable but necessary for survival.  We can all agree we depend on our furnaces to keep our homes cozy and to protect our families from frigid temperatures.  We don’t necessarily agree on the type of furnace that is best for accomplishing this goal.

The Basic Job of Any Furnace

A furnace burning fuel produces heat measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs).  The efficiency rating of any furnace is determined by the measurement of the unit’s combustion. This efficiency rating is called the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency or AFUE. The higher the furnace’s efficiency, the higher its AFUE rating will be.  Most new oil burning furnaces will have AFUE ratings in the 80 percent to 90 percent range.  New gas furnaces achieve AFUE ratings in the 89 percent to 98 percent range. By AFUE ratings along, gas furnaces seem to be the best heating source. There is more to be considered however.  The initial cost of a gas furnace  is at least 10 percent to 25 percent more than that of an oil furnace.

Fuel Sources And Prices

Furnaces can run on natural gas, heating oil, electricity or propane. The U. S. Energy Information Administration published heating costs in the winter of 2013 indicating the costs of these fuels for the winter season per home:

• Natural gas  $690
• Electricity  $964
• Propane      $1448
• Heating Oil  $2558

 

Almost half of American homes are heated with gas, most likely because its production is centered here and in Canada making its cost very affordable. The price of oil is more volatile and is subject to global changes in supply and demand, making it more expense.

Pros And Cons Of Oil Furnaces

Oil furnaces provide more heat per BTU than any other heating source.  In the northeast, where oil furnaces are particularly popular, temperatures are much colder and efficient heat production is important. These furnaces can be easily and regularly services your chosen delivery company and oil furnaces are less expensive than gas ones.

They are less efficient even though they produce more heat per BTU; their oil costs more; they require an on-site storage tank and oil has to be delivered and stored in it. Maintenance is more involved because of soot and dirt buildup. Oil filters have to be changed often and chimneys must be cleaned.

Pros And Cons Of Gas Furnaces

Gas furnaces heat more efficiently. Natural gas costs a great deal less than heating oil. These units require very little maintenance and operate cleanly and quietly. Your home must be located in an area served by natural gas lines.  They cost more than oil ones and gas provides less heat per BTU than oil furnaces.

Regardless of the type of heat source you prefer and choose, make sure to use a qualified, licensed and reputable HVAC contractor to service your unit or install and maintain a new one. If you have a unit that is ten years or more old, the energy savings you can achieve with a new model will pay for the unit in a few years in you replace it with a modern, Energy Star® model.

The Best Bay Area Services – Schmitt
Commercial HVAC Repair South San Francisco

WordPress For Dummies – Some Tips And Tricks

For more than a decade, WordPress has given bloggers an option that is easy to use for posting online content and publicizing their ideas to a bigger audience. Regardless of how long bloggers have been using WordPress, there is always more to learn. The information that follows will help anyone looking to learn more.

Be certain you avoid using the same designs as all the people who have WordPress. While it may seem appealing to use a common design, your readership may not be impressed. It is imperative to make a site that highlights your individuality and the personality of your business.

Make sure you learn everything you can prior to installing WordPress. Planning ahead will give you an advantage when you start. Search engine optimization is another thing you want to be concerned with.

Make sure that your work is saved at all times. This is likely not the case. Clearing the cache can help solve this. Save changes by holding the ‘shift’ key while refreshing the browser.

Your posts will always show up in chronological order when you have not specified otherwise. If you want to rearrange the list, you’ll have to change the date first. Do this by opening a post, and you’ll see the date in the top right-hand corner. Click on date, modify it and save the post so you can change the position.

Do you get many comments on your posts? If you do, it can be cumbersome to sift through all of them. You can install a simple plugin that will put page numbers into this section. Navigation will be significantly easier, and the site itself will appear far more organized.

Rank higher with the search engines by paying careful attention to the images that you upload. Putting in alternate text and title tags is crucial. Remember, the title you select will be what your visitors see if they hover the mouse over your image.

The greeting appearing at the head of the WordPress website page should be very engaging. This makes your site more personal when trying to relate to the visitor. This helps things look natural and you can find it on the plugin called WP Greet Box.

For a long time, WordPress has been a great way to make blogs. When you get familiar with WordPress, blogging is easier and more fun. This material should help anybody who wants to get a blog going quickly.

Need The Best Answers To Your Personal Development Questions? Check Here

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably interested in personal development Personal development can help you improve yourself on every level, and can fundamentally change your life in a variety of different ways. This article will give you some great tips that will guide you on your quest towards self-improvement.

Know what you stand for and make any needed adjustments! Identify and rectify your life principles. Everyone has a set of internal principles that guide their daily activities and interactions. These guiding principles are the foundation of our habits, attitudes and values. Bad habits stem from bad values, and a bad attitude comes from a bad or negative set of principles.

You should always be exacting. If personal development is a goal for you, you need to be precise at all times. Having high expectations for yourself is really just having a high confidence in your ability. Being precise will bring you closer to your goals with each small step you take towards them.

Try working in blocks of 10 minutes to get more work done. It’s true that 10 minutes is not an eternity or a great deal of time to accomplish everything, but when used correctly, you can get so much done in that short period of time. After that time is up, take a break and start again.

Focusing on personal development non-stop could burn you out and make it difficult to stay on track. Take the time to relax and recharge to keep your energy and committment levels high. Allow yourself to be an imperfect person! Keeping a balance in your life gives you more energy for those areas you are working to change.

Personal development is something that can benefit absolutely everyone, no matter who they are. Putting real time and effort into improving yourself can make you happier and more satisfied with life. This article has given you great advice that will help you achieve success in your personal development efforts. Everything else is up to you.

College Time Is A Good Time With Our Advice

You might feel very overwhelmed if you are going away to school. It’s not that simple to leave your home and start living around people you don’t even know. This article is geared to those who have some fears or confusion about how to successfully make the transition to college life. These tips will teach how to make college fun and rewarding.

Read the course syllabus first thing. The syllabus will tell you when your instructor is available to answer questions and provide extra help. You will quickly see what will be expected of you in the course. The syllabus tells you what your instructor wants you to learn, and thus how to prepare for tests.

Don’t try to do everything in one semester. It’s easy to be an overachiever when there’s so much to do and everything’s new. You will burn out quickly if you try to take the maximum number of credits and join every campus activity that sounds interesting. Take a reasonable number of credits and try one or two activities your first semester.

Use online resources to study at home. Popular study aids include Quizlet and Memrise. You can use these websites to create flashcards for your class. Often, someone else has already made flashcards for your class or subject of study. In this case, you can use what is already available to study.

When you are choosing a major, do not simply think about money. You do not want a career in something that you find boring or uninteresting. A good choice is a major that will keep you interested fifty or more hours a week for the rest of your life. Explore your interests.

As we discussed, the process of heading off to college can seem quite daunting. But, by using the tips in this article, these will be the best, and most important years ahead of you. Take the tips to heart and have fun.

Time Management Tricks For The Busy Person

Time may seem to slip away from you, but we all have the same amount of hours in a day. While we all have 24 hours in our day, not everyone uses that time wisely. That is the reason for the information we’re providing here. Read on to learn some valuable time management tips that will benefit you.

Maintain a schedule that contains thoughts, activities, and conversations during the week. This provides insight into what you’re able to complete in a day and where precious moments go. This schedule shows what time you spend on results and how much you waste on the things that are unproductive to your goals.

If you’re packing a smartphone, investigate all of its abilities if you want to manage your time wisely. Most modern phones come pre-loaded with calendar and to-do list software which can make it much easier to keep track of your essential tasks. You can also download third-party apps designed especially for time management to boost your productivity even further.

Take some time to schedule some time for your interruptions. You need to be able to plan some time that you can be taken away from from the tasks you’re working on. For instance, maintaining concepts similar to “office hours.” Office hours can be thought of as planned interruptions.

An area that many people have trouble with in time management is setting deadlines. You have to set deadlines and stick to them. Any task you have is going to take a certain amount of time and if you have a deadline for your tasks, your life will run smoothly.

When you apply what you have learned from this article, you will soon know just how successful time management can make you. The more organized your day is, the easier it will be to get through everything you want to attend to. Follow the tips above and watch how fast your life improves.

Student Loans: Advice For College Students

Choosing student loans helps you postpone those steep education costs. That said, unlike scholarships and grants, they’re not free money. You have to pay it back. Read this article to figure out how to do this most effectively.

Speak with your lender often. Keep them updated on your personal information. It is also important to open and thoroughly read any correspondence you receive from your lender, whether it is through traditional or electronic mail. Do whatever you must as quickly as you can. Overlooking things can end up being very expensive.

There is hope for you if you find yourself in a tight financial spot where you cannot keep up with student loan payments. A lot of times, if you can provide proof of financial hardship, lenders will let you to delay your payments. Just know that the interest rates may rise.

Know how long the grace period is between the date of your graduation and the date on which you must start repaying the loans. The period should be six months for Stafford loans. If you have Perkins loans, you will have 9 months. There are other loans with different periods. This is important to avoid late penalties on loans.

When you’re trying to pay off a student loan, be sure you pay them in order of interest rates. The one carrying the highest APR should be dealt with first. Using additional money to pay these loans more rapidly is a smart choice. Student loans are not penalized for early payoff.

Your principal will shrink faster if you are paying the highest interest rate loans first. When you owe less principal, it means that your interest amount owed will be less, too. Focus on the big loans up front. Once a big loan is paid off, simply transfer those payments to the next largest ones. When you make an effort to pay off your largest loans with the largest payments possible and pay the minimum on smaller loans, you’ll find that it is much easier to eliminate your debt.

To make the most of a loan, take the top amount of credits that you can. While full-time status often is defined as 9 or 12 hours a semester, if you can get to 15 or even 18, you can graduate much sooner. This will assist you in reducing the size of your loans.

By reading and absorbing the information in this article, you can turn yourself into an expert on the subject of student loans. It can be a challenge to find the best loan, but it is possible to do it. Remember these tips, take your time, and do the proper research.

What You Must Know About HVAC Purchases

HVAC may seem challenging originally but it can be made simple. If you are someone that is interested in this sort of thing, know that this article can assist you. Keep reading if you want to get into HVAC.

Before you contact people to assist you in getting your system fixed, know what kind of system you’re working with in the first place. Learn the brand and the model. This will help make sure that the contractor you hire has all the necessary information.

To make sure your condenser fan works properly, keep the fan blades and the coils clean. Always shut off all power to your unit for any work beyond superficial cleaning. Clean the outdoor condenser as well.

Regularly remove debris from outside condenser units. Debris can pile up at rates that increase during rainy or windy weather, and this can foul up the inner workings of your system. It could overheat and cause a disaster with your unit.

Be sure to clean the fan blades and coils of the condenser fan. Turn it off first so you don’t get hurt or break something. Then, take the grill off, pull the blades out, and gently clean them as well as the unit itself.

Keep your outdoor units free of debris when your cutting grass. Now so the grass clippings are shot away from your unit. This also applies to leaf blowing and any other yard work that results in debris.

Try to choose a shady place to locate the outdoor compressor device. In this way, it will be cooling air that is already somewhat cooled. This saves energy.

Do you understand your HVAC system a little more intimately now? It’s something everyone can grasp with a little help. It is vital though to learn everything about it. Use all the guidelines that have been provided as you get to work.

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