And so I celebrated my first!

Last Saturday I celebrated my eldest daughter's birthday. Can't believe how big she gets and how fantastic it is to get to know her little being as the personality gets grander and vocabulary wiser.

But we had a fun little late afternoon/evening event at our home, family and friends were mixed in, pink balloons, a princess cake and some sun which was suppose to not show up this weekend and it was a successful little day. Never seen my daughter this excited.

She got her much anticipated Candyland from her aunt and was excited by the tissue paper in her gift bags. She was all over the idea of getting gifts and has only wanted to read the books, play the games and tinker with the educational toys she received. She stayed excited about getting clothing, shoes and even a hat.

I was so proud of her, she didn't get a chance to blowout her candle as her little friends were so excited to help, her sister her biggest cheerleader singing Happy Birthday in her not even 2 y.o. voice. They had far too many Lollipops that they kept stealing from my lovely little tin I had placed at the front door for all guests.

I will be boastful today, because I was so proud of both my daughters, excited that my daughter only gets older as time goes by.... but am looking forward to the years to come.

SICK!!!

Ugghhhh!

I have been sick the last couple of days and finding it hard to pick myself up and do stuff. Luckily my Husband is so wonderful and has taken daddy duty to it's fullest.

But I've been busy putting together my eldest's birthday party and trying to figure out some work related stuff.

But when I am back there will be a ton to read, crafts for birthday parties, chapter 3 of the Happiness Project and various other stuff.

Cheers

And that was the day I gave birth!

I always wanted to be a mom, had decided my children's names before even getting married and was certain she'd be a girl.

My birth story isn't some vivid tale of waters exploding in the middle of the mall... or frantically waiting in traffic during contractions. More like the reality of what a really long delivery is actually all about.

I was scheduled for a 9 am induction at my hospital of choice, got their slightly late for the planned time of when I should have been there. And to my luck everyone felt like going into labour that day there would be a waiting line to get into a nice and large labour room. I was told not to eat and I thought that wasn't going to fly for very long this 39 week pregnant ( I was induced early because they thought she'd be too big if I let her get full term.)

So arrival time at Hospital was 9 am, line up to get a room allowed me to go to an A&W to get a Teen Burger thank goodness I did, I didn't get into my room til 11pm. So far I have been in the process of having this baby for over 13 hours. I got the pitocin fairly quickly, it wasn't as bad as I was told it would be, told the nurse I was handling it no problem, she upped my levels. Was asked if I needed an epidural and said no, was told that the anesthesiologist was on the floor and I might not be able to get him if I needed him urgently. I thought yeah whatever, this is a cake walk so far.... my nurse who was really nice said to me that Pitocin contractions are far worse than any other contractions and that I was doing really well... but by the time I would be fully dilated the pain would be unbearable.

Decided I needed to go to the ladies room... as I was there I had a severe contraction and my knees buckled right under me! The pain wasn't bad, but my body couldn't handle it. So I turned to the nurse and said where is the epidural. Quickly enough the most fearful thing happened, some man came into the room with a needle far longer than my head. Well it went easy, so easy that they put a drip system into me, never had to top it off, never waned the whole time... my feet continued to swell. I was told I was heavy medicated and should get the most sleep possible because the contractions wouldn't let me sleep. HA! Sleeping kicked in and like throughout my whole pregnancy when I slept so did all my organs. Contractions disappeared til the late AM when I fully woke up.

And I asked to get some more pitocin. For hours--- NOTHING! Visitors after visitors who assumed she would have been here from the night before wondering what was taking so long. Well 36 hours after we got to the hospital she arrived. It was a beautiful Saturday, and she was a night baby. My sister who witnessed the whole pushing part of the birth went and celebrated with cousins with rounds of shots.

But that day my eldest came into the world... and I was a Mom, the Adult in the relationship and well hopefully someone she could look up to! We are best friends, and no one can make her laugh as hard as I can. Her sense of humour far drier than my, her necessity for her to clean things, but a stubborn and serious streak that is all me--- she makes me proud to be her mom!

Don't go near my Pots!?!?!

I grew up in a household where there was always a deep frying pan on the stove full of oil whenever my mother needed to make french fries (why this is so horrible is that before the age of 23 both me and my sis had to take out our gallbladders).

But here sat this pot, with caked on grease that I don't even know if the pot had a colour or was of a metal shade. And I go into others kitchens and see their baking sheets, their skillets, frying pans, sauce pans and even roasting pans blotchy, with stains, colours of caked on items that well others deem to be clean.

When I had my girls people would come and help me with small tasks, some would clean my dishes. I would REFUSE, honestly I would rather let my dishes go days on end then have someone wash my pots to their liking.

Don't get me wrong, I don't live in a house that is so immaculate you don't feel like you could sit anywhere, but I love my cooking items, I love my pots. Some of my pots are teenagers in their age, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from my newer Kitchen Aide pots that are a mere 2 years old. There is NO caking on. They gleam with perfection!

I have a ritual of SOS pad, followed by a good scrubbing of Green Palmolive with a regular yellow sponge with the Green scratch pad attached to it. I always do the SOS first and make sure to rewash them with the Palmolive. Why you might ask? Because if your using stainless steel pots and you are cleaning them with steel wool... which I believe allows for early corrosion, so you wash off any steel particles to avoid any rusting in your pots.

I had to post this rant because I got back a roasting pan from Easter that was borrowed, and spent the evening scrubbing it to my liking, which means spotless! I will never understand how any caked on oil could ever be considered clean, sit and scrub it will come off I promise you that!

What are you anal about? What is your pet peeve?

Ohhhh Busy Week!

So this week is going to be a hectic one for me, not only am I on an almost Biggest Loser bootcamp for myself.... I work out all the time. But I am planning my eldest's Pink inspired birthday. I had figured I would have had more done, so I have a ton of stuff to actually DO!

I am so looking forward to doing this.... I want it to be extra special.

Now I need to find a cake last minute!

Say What???

I have been grinding my teeth for the last couple of days... working my buns off I finally got on the scale for week ends weigh in and I gained 3 pounds!!!



SERIOUSLY!!!!!



What the hell!?!?!? I will be honest I didn't change my diet much, but I haven't changed my diet much and haven't gained a pound in over a year. Same weight not even teeter-tottering on the scale.



But added 5 sessions of hard core aerobics classes, kicking my ass in the pool and just being more active I gained 3 pounds. I can see the physical change in my body... but don't Jillian and Bob say that you should lose weight with amount of calories consumed minus the calories expended!!!

My month in love!

Chapter 2 process done, and WOW!

Happiness Project was something I got onto looking towards a happier time, an energised time and where smiling was occuring regularly. I wanted to be that girl I was in High Schools whose smile took over her face and you remembered my smile as much as you remembered my loud voice from down the hallways of my very large school.

I started Month 2 of my personal Happiness Project, here; and while I could have been stubborn because well I am stubborn like a mule when it comes to certain things, I thought I would take on this task.

Quit Nagging was the first step to my personal happiness within my loving relationships. For me it was to stop arguing, to stop needing my way to be the right way and to not need to fight about something simple. I have not fought with my husband once since this month started, and it's not to say we live the most easiest life, we have bad things happen to us to, please don't you know how happy I was to see 2009 leave and never come back.

I really never realised I need Praise and Appreciation and coming to terms with that part of me helped a lot with this goal. Not only would I not be getting praise, I also wouldn't be becoming someone else's first priority. I needed to take that task onto myself. I realised that others will take care of them and I needed to do so for myself as well. (This helped a ton with getting more things done properly from Month One that I struggled with, like sleep and excercising right, read about my struggle here!)

Biggest change in our house has been the fighting.., Fighting Right really was a wake up moment for me. Do I need to yell about everything that frustrates me? Do I need to fight over the fact that the girls were still wearing their PJs and Husband was watching them? Some things not worth it, I find that Husband is more likely to start yelling first because it has been the cue for our disagreements but now I am always saying stop yelling, I am not fighting with you. And I mean it. I love my marriage, fighting with my husband only causes unneccessary tension and we just don't need that getting into our relationship we already have enough to deal with resentment is now allowed in!

I DUMP, I POUR, I SOAK my husband with my problems. As if venting to him will take it off my chest and he can deal with it. I find I have far less to dump because my overall attitude has been much happier. But my frustrations with excercise has become something I want to dump about luckily I have good friends who I can bitch and complain with, who I motivate and they motivate me... it's a win win situation and Husband doesn't keep getting earfuls!

Give proofs of Love I know I wrote previously how this was something I use to do before we got married... it's not that hard to offer to make him a bowl of cereal in the morning, bring Timmies after my workout since he stayed home and watched the girls. Hugs have become abundant around here... and it has played a big part in our physical relationship as well... and I'll end that there. LOL!

But overall I am much happier than I have ever been... glad that next months reading is about work, because all this focus on me has given my new little company the cold shoulder and it needs some much needed attention but all is good on the homefront allowing me to make sure incase I need to dedicate more to my work it won't cause much of a rift.

***~~And the image was found over at Weheartit.com... I really love that site, even more I really love this image. How joyful and fun, one day I hope to feel unreserved enough to have fun like that!!!~~***

Trying not to be defeated!?!?!!?

I am on my weightloss mission as you all know, and I went to my first class on Monday.

There were no classes at the community center on Tuesday but 2 on Wednesday so I went to both yesterday. No classes today, so I thought I would take advantage of the Lap swimming that is offered on my pass!

I have been afraid to get back into the water since I broke my arm/shoulder. I sat in the Physiotherapists office as he told me chances are that I won't be anywhere close to back to normal til the summer of 2010. But I have been excercising the persistent frozen shoulder that I am suffering from as a result to the fall and the immobilising of my arm for so long.

Here I am lifting my arm over my head in a manner I realised I had taken for granted before my fall... the ability to lift a 2 pound weight multiple times seemed like a distant memory. But here I was back on the saddle and giving it my all. I even tried to do a plank the other night, it hurt but I did a few seconds of it (planks are hands down my favorite excercise) and hey, when you start excercising you have to take every physical achievement as an accomplishment.

But today I got into the pool... the warm chlorine touched my face and I was in heaven again. I missed the water so. I thought I would just warm up grabbed a board and did some paddling. Ohhh I could imagine myself doing laps and laps of breast stroke. The thought so tempting. Got back from my second lap and went for it. Felt the ache while I freestyle across the water, the strokes got harder and harder to do, by the time I reached the wall my shoulder was throbbing. But I figured I could do the lap to get back to the shallow end. I did not make it!

So, to my most favorite swimming style, the back stroke.... here I am moved to the fast lane because well just my legs alone I can make it across the pool in half the time I could forward. Started just legs and added the arms half way down the pool, and OOOHHH the pain! The lifeguard watching me bizarrely as I never went down a lane in a proper stroke. I felt like an idiot, sat there thinking about how I could be there for the whole hour, this time sitting winded from the pain and lack of swimming and I was DEFEATED!

Why don't you sweat it out???

Today I renewed my membership at the local Community center gym... ironically the Instructor also renewed her contract with the facility.

I always like to go to a Karen class... can't tell you how fulfilling it is to leave there, your legs feeling like jelly and your muscles aching for days afterwards. You know you got a workout that kicked your ASS!! But today, I put on my sweat band (I will share soon enough this little item with you soon enough) and decided I was going to give it my all at the gym. Dropped my girls off to my mom's for the hour, grab a bottle of water and went to class. A full class it was today, full of plenty of people I never seen in there before. Karen spotted me immediately with a look of where have you been?

The class started, I work hard when I go... there are somethings I can't do, there is plenty my shoulder can't do since the Incredible fall I suffered last August. But I went into it with as much gusto as possible. I don't do all the jump moves, I am not the lightest on my feet, but today I thought if I am going to do this I am going to give it my all.

The workout so satisfying... the sweat the most I remember from any class I had taken this last year. The sweat band drenched, my face a shade of Red Rose!! I hope I can keep this up... I need to lose weight, I owe it to myself.

I decided I was going to walk up the stairs of the CN Tower... over 1700 steps! My husband hasn't decided if he wants to do it with me, he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to--- but I turn 30 this year and I want to have been able to add something to my list of things done, and I want to do it with the most minimal of huffing and puffing. It would be something I can work towards!

Do you work out? What excercise keeps you motivated?

***image provided through weheartit--- from Women's Health Mag

Being a role model!

I am a mommy to 2 girls... to very young and very little girls. In a search and need to be the best me to make sure I can be the best role model possible for my girls I make choices that affect us all primarily teaching my girls that I too am important and beautiful as I tell them as well.

But what is beauty, is it beautiful to be on the cover of a magazine, if you are adored in Hollywood, or because all the boys flock to you??? French Elle decided to take a stab at someone truly beautiful. Tara Rayonne!

Never heard of her, neither have I! Never do they call her a plus size model, never to they refer to her as heavy or overweight. They do the opposite! She is referred to as not skinny, not unhealthily thin... she is beautiful! And she is! 27 years young (at my age it makes me feel young) it describes a scene where they are shooting nudes of her, and she doesn't balk or complain, she doesn't nit pick or fall into disgust about what her body looks like in an image. She loves the shots!

I know women in clothing who become concerned and will rip their own personal egos to shred about what they perceive as dismorphic proportions on their own physique. Belittling their own selves! This can't be healthy mantra, this can't be good for the soul!?!?!?!?!

I don't think they should start filling magazines with only fuller models, I am disturbed at the trend with the grotesque bony ones too--- if you don't fit into a sample size the stylist shouldn't be reshaping the outfit to fit on a frail body, and I have seen this happen with my own eyes. I am talking about clamps that are the size of my head to hold dresses and shirts tight enough to get on these bizarrely thin girls. But we all have shape, our models should reflect the various shapes of people.

My daughters as young and little as they are, their bodies are different from each other. Mine completely opposite of my sister's as well. A normal phenomena in a sister household... but I don't want one of my daughters to ever believe her body is wrong or disproportion compared to the other ones. So I will grow to love myself, just to teach my girls to love themselves! I will be their role model (hopefully!!) and I am glad that Elle France decided that they could make a role model out of this beautiful girl!

If you can read french or have Google Translator on your Internet server, please go and read this beautiful Dossier as they call it!

OMG.... I got so excited when Fabbrunette posted this on her blog; I almost nearly pissed myself with excitement at the idea of getting to see this in the Theater. I didn't get that pleasure the last time as I gave birth to my youngest the weekend the first one came out.

How excited are you to see this???

My Deadly Sin!

I deal with my weight in a precarious manner, I deal to deal with it in an even more ridiculous manner... I don't deal with it properly at all!

I have come to the terms that I am continuing to work towards a deadly sin, I suffer from Gluttony! I am a sugar addict, a meat addict, a milk addict, a carb addict!! I don't have a trigger behaviour, I can go all day without eating no matter if I am happy or sad. I don't eat for any other reason than I am wanting food.

I usually want SUGAR, I won't lie as I ate my last cookie covered in whip cream just before I started writing this post. I will look for something sweet, I guess a mental and physical trigger to get the greatest amount of calories inside of me since I had been starving for the last while. But I feel the twinge and didn't really enjoy it after it has been consumed. This is no buyer's remorse I am describing... the after taste left behind isn't pleasant.

I am a Man's woman too.... bring me a big beautiful steak and my carb induced potatoes and I am a happy woman. Actually I am happiest eating this meal. The sheer pleasure in eating something that I cooked that tastes fantastic I could keep going and going. The idea of enjoying it is truly happiness to me.

So fasting ended on Saturday.... and this brought the reality of how easy it was to lose weight without meats and milks but turning vegan would be so mentally unsatisfying. I love my meat and what can be created with a milk product. I don't do imitation, I am not an imitation kind of girl, there are no fake Louis in this house if you know what I mean!?!?!?

So Easter dinner done, Lamb (not something I chose to eat, but I made it this time and it was fantastic if I say so myself) which I learnt unhappily that each serving is around 700 calories and that is just referring to the lamb not any of the side dishes. I make the greatest Greek Lemon Potatoes, and I think I consumed 5-10 servings I lost count somewhere during the meal. Bring on dessert, a drink of some sort and I had a symphony all night... NOT what you think, my poor tummy growled and moaned, talked to me, keeping my up all night.

I am going to continue to deal with my food issues, but share along how you deal with food???

Fashionably yours...

When you see me walking by you down the street you just wouldn't know, you wouldn't guess or even imagine... I am a Fashion WHORE!

That is a wrong word choice, I am a fashion junkie! I have read more articles, seen more collections and could quote you a colour trend even before it happens just from my knowledge of the colour directions of season pasts.

I do not own anything with the label Chanel, Armani or even Cavalli in my closet. Doesn't mean I couldn't school you on it...

I have been someone who pushes the fashion limits, and NEVER afraid of colour. I have refined my look since high school perhaps something that needed to be done since I don't weigh anywhere the same weight as I use to. But this lady loves out there in your face Betsey Johnson, loves Pucci and Missoni. Would love to wear Versace or Cavalli and one day I envision that much!

But this is my passion and my hobby, what makes my bomb tick, my mental perversions keep going and my constant need for knowledge takes me. I love to bring you along in my world of constant thought... my brain is a funny place--- I, not so funny... LOL!!

So until I can squeeze myself into the latest piece of perfection, until I can afford it without taking a hit at my mortgage payment... I will continue to live through my shoes. Shoes are so good to you; it doesn't matter what size clothing you are your shoes usually are always going to fit. And if you buy shoes that are far too expensive their shelf life in your closet will far outlast that in your face dress or over the top Top.

What makes you tick, what's a hobby to you? And do you love fashion as much as I do??