Kobi Maley

Sometimes you do things for yourself.

Sometimes you do thing for others.

And sometimes, when the stars align just right, you do something for yourself that winds up helping others in a way you’d never imagine.

That’s just what happened to me and my husband, Mark, in the summer of 2007. After talking off and on for years about becoming foster parents, we finally decided to attend an orientation meeting held by Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin.

Our initial interest in foster care came from our strong love of children. Our daughter was in her 20s and had left home years ago. We were empty-nesters and believed that bringing a young one into our home would brighten up our lives.

It did that – and so much more.

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March Madness continues and the elbows are flying. To help prevent dental injuries and cuts to the face, lips and inside of the mouth, any athlete playing a collision or contact sport should wear a mouth guard.

There are three main types of mouth guards: stock, boil and bite, and custom.

Stock mouth guards are available at your local drug store, and can be immediately removed from the package and placed in the mouth. Although they’re convenient, they tend to be very bulky and require the child to constantly bite down to hold the mouth guard in place.

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Did you change the batteries in your smoke alarm this past weekend as you turned your clock forward? How about your carbon monoxide detector? Carbon monoxide or CO detectors may not be as familiar as smoke alarms to some people, but they are just as important. And now, they’re the law.

Just like smoke alarms, CO detectors now are required in single-family homes as well as duplexes. They already were required in multifamily homes or apartments.

More than 15,000 people are treated for unintentional CO poisoning each year. CO is extremely dangerous because it is a colorless, odorless gas that only can be detected by installing CO detectors.

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