The Mom Challenge!

I like to read blogs when I get a chance, and because Blogging is a mini community of people who feel like sharing, in longer format than twitter... because there really is a difference ( I like to do both); I always am envious when people are doing fun group blogging activities and either I missed out on, or really it isn't something I can do with my schedule and blog.

But when I saw Candace's blog (@seemummyjuggle) about the mom challenge, I couldn't wait to get on it.While a few days in... the challenge to be a bit more that just average is always appealing to me. While the list of a mere 30 items that don't take very long to do on some occasions it was a great idea.

Things have been extra hectic around here in our house, with a new kid in school, another in about to go into daycare and a new baby coming... I want to remind the girls that mommy loves them and hasn't forgotten how much I loved them. So with a task list in hand... I am off.

You can all join me on this fun activity, you don't have to blog about it... just perhaps doing it for the sake of being great moms!

~Cheers!

Are you the voice?

Sometimes I get invited to events. Some of them more meaningful than others, some more fun than others but none more poignant for me than the ones about empowering girls.

Every morning I wake up to a house of 2 girls, while I enjoy listening to everyone tell me how beautiful they are, I fear that I need to raise strong, independent, fierce, lovable and empowering females. Because while they are girls now they will become women sooner than I want, please I still can't believe they are already the age they are now. Where did the time fly to?

But when I read the invite for the Barbie I can be the Voice event, I knew I had to go. While Barbie might get all political, I was a Barbie girl, had 13 dolls of my own, each with their own separate outfits and personalities. I think roll playing in a creative manner is far more great than people might understand. Girls need to dream and imagine a future that might be... we must let them allow to imagine all the different ways they can achieve greatness.

The people at Barbie I think feel the same... because they are launching today officially the http://www.bethevoice.ca/ website for mom's of girls and boys who want to mentor their kids in being all they can be, with articles from various specialists and moms alike discussing mom issues in raising strong, independent and great individuals. Helped that we dined on cupcakes while we enjoyed the great view from Panorama Lounge.

It really was a fantastic event, even for a mom who sometimes feels unsure of her place in the world around her, to be with like-minded moms, who you can bounce ideas off, who want you to have as much as everyone else and really are cheering you on.

So the best part of it all, at the end of the day, I still get to call myself a Barbie girl!

My house in Chaos, and I like it!

My husband is a handy man... this is a plus in my head. But most people walk into my home and wonder why I live in a constant state of renos. It might be odd... there's dust, there's stuff and a lot of things that get left behind because I am helping with the renos!

But I love it, every moment of it!

Love deciding what is being torn down next, love that after hours of thought discussion together the husband and I come up with something great. We have something going on on every floor of our house. And while it seems like chaos, I am smiling when I walk by a newly tore down part of my house. Because the idea of what will be is far a superior feeling than the annoyance of a bit of disturbance.

While I get a lot of grief from family and friends about living in reno chaos, I am thankful to have met my family friend Linda; because she showed me that living in a home that is being reno'd is only a small part in the perfect end result. She's my home mentor... she doesn't know it! LOL

Projects I am working on:

1. Master Bedroom (which is HUGELY gutted; new electrical, walls down, and new closet)




2. New Railings on the front porch and new landing.




3. New Shed




4. New staircase to the basement.



5. New Furnace re-duct!--- we needed to re-figure the duct work unfortunately.

Are you working on anything in your house? Do you hate renos? Are you handy with renos ( I love working in the house, I laid tiles, painted and plastered the walls)?

My week eating!

Being Pregnant has really opened up my appetite, not literally I want to eat everything in sight as long as it doesn't have sugar in it... serious food turn off for my palette, yet my brains oozes and gawks at cupcakes and sundaes like I haven't had one in 10 years.

This week has been an especially hungry week. And so with some outings and well some staying ins... I feasted.

If you live in Toronto and haven't been to Joy Bistro I am sorry you are missing out... I have never been disappointed with my meal, they never miss out it usually is PERFECTION. I like to rant and rave about how great it is... but it really is. On Sunday's they do a Prime Rib, and well I am a sucker for a great cut of beef. So I packed the whole family and feasted.

A few nights before I wanted to eat something grubby and sticky... nachos won me over. We headed out as a family again and went to the kids favorite place Boston Pizza. Now sometimes you just go to fast friendly dining because it's where your kids want to go. But the nachos are sooo darn good, covered in ground beef (this is the way to go) and a extra jar of sour cream and it's perfection.

But on some nights I make dinner too... and because I live the motto that my kids only eat what mommy and daddy eat, it appears I am raising a set of Foodies! So with a large salmon fillet pulled out of the fridge, I made Salmon with seared Caramel Apples and Pepper Squash. So simple and so easy.

Salmon w/ seared Caramel Apples and Pepper squash.

Salmon cut into 4 pieces.

2 apples (I used granny smith this time around)

honey

half a lemon or lemon juice

1 pepper squash

2 tbsp of brown sugar

1 tbsp of butter

salt/pepper

Olive Oil

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, cut and de-seed the middle of the pepper squash. Put the sugar and butter in the cored middle and place on baking sheet for 45-50 minutes. Cut the apples in horizontal slices, peeled and cored. Pour lemon juice on top not to brown, then cook in pan for 2 minutes on each side, drizzle honey (I drizzled a little but go nuts have fun cooking should be fun) and let them caramelize slightly.

Pour olive oil in pan and cook salmon to person specification, and then plate the salmon on top of the apple slices. Take squash out of the oven, burning sugar is extremely horrible if you get it on you so be careful. Cut the squash to preferred serving and FEAST!

I won't lie, it was awesome... my daughters cleared their plates. Do you have any food recos for this very hungry pregnant girl in search of good food?

To pierce or Not to pierce!

these are earrings I have created

I let my eldest get her ears pierced!

Yeah, while many of you might be reading this as what's the big deal, it actually was HUGE to me. I didn't get mine pierced til I was 7 years old.

When my first daughter was born, I was berated with questions about when I would be piercing my daughter's ears. Why I haven't done it yet? The first year went by and I began to become hassled on my choice not to have them pierced while she was young enough to do it.

I knew someone when I was younger in High School who never had her ears pierced and really never wanted them done. This always brought great pause to me... maybe we don't want our ears pierced. Why as a parent should I just assume they do? This actually caused a debate in our household, husband assumed girls need their ears pierced and I didn't oblige his request to do it for them (maybe if I wasn't terrified of needles my stance would have been weakened.) I did state a decision, that if the time came and I was "asked" for ear piercing on multiple occasions I would oblige.

So about 6 months ago, my eldest mentioned she wanted her ears pierced. I took it lightly. Then she asked again, she perused my earrings, asked to wear them over and over again. I sat with her and discussed having to go and get them pierced. I informed her of the slight ouch, I told her a gun would be put near her ear, not a bad gun I stressed, a ear piercing gun.

After it was decided this was something she wanted anyways, I went to the location and asked on what shift did they have 2 girls to pierce the ears. Because I have heard horror stories of one ear being pierced and not the other. I had a date, a daughter who was willing and all my emotional bases covered. We set out and did that on a Friday night and she got her ears pierced. She picked out her set, she sat on the stool like a big girl and she cried.

But at 14, 18, 25 or even 40... when she asks me why I got her ears pierced I will proudly say because we discussed it at length and I let you decide, honey!

What have you been reading lately?

I have a bit out of the loop lately, I will take the liberty to blame it on pregnancy disassociation--- when you really are in your own head space you don't care to really see what's going on with the rest of the world; at least that's how I feel.

But near the end of the week I decide to get back to one of my most favorite mediums and get back on to twitter and see what was going on. (Yes that meant my FOMO kicked in for a few minutes: FOMO, Fear of Missing Out) What a pleasure it was to finally see a blogger to take the liberty to whip slash a PR firm who tried to strong hand them. Now let's not get me wrong , I have friends in PR, I have great relations with PR firms who send me fun products or invite me to great events. But let's call the truth the truth The Bloggess got email assaulted and did the best thing you can ask me Blogged about it and then sent it out to her 164K twitter followers who grew an extra 2000 by late yesterday night by calling out the VP from the PR firm who referred to her as a 'Fucking Bitch.' If you want to read it, you can here.

And if you need to fill yourself with a bunch of positive as well... I am not sure I mentioned on here yet that I love reading the Daily Love which is created by positivity professional Mastin Kipp this week Mena Suvari wrote about how she changed who she was to succeed in her relationships... it's a great read, an honest read, you can find it here.

And because I am a bit of a Canadian fan, Danielle La Porte is a self-help guru, not sure if she refers to herself as one, but she definitely wants everyone to strive to their greatness and you can see it from her posts on White Hot Truth which will link you to a great read about being in a slump and rising above it.

The Internet is fun, the musings even better... but when you can feel a certain something about humanity after reading a few posts, well then the Internet is a win for me. What have you read lately online that made you smile?

Do you TV?

I had my first baby over 4 years ago, and since she was followed by my second like some Irish Twin the one thing lacking in my life is the Television watching I use to do.

I love my TV, have since I was a little girl, use to wait for the September TV guides to come through the front door, made the TV schedule for the whole household, so we could all watch what we wanted to without interfering in each others shows... with 4 different personalities a TV schedule that made everyone happy was highly important.

Since giving birth, CNN and Slice TV had become my go to stations. I have not seen many shows that premiered and then died out... but with my daughters beyond early school schedule, by 8pm I have my night back to myself. So here I am looking to see what might be on TV... I have an idea of what I'd like to see, have become a bit of a fan of Franklin & Bash, looking forward to Walking Dead and luckily caught an episode of Parenthood and have been hooked since day 1!

But I have some new shows that I would love to see... like I would like to watch 2 Broke girls, the new Whitney Cummings show and probably a whole bunch of other shows I might have caught a preview of and have totally forgot that I wanted to actually watch that show!

So I am asking for your help... what are you watching, what is your not to miss show, what should I be watching that I am not already watching???

How many minutes in the day do you hate your husband?

A story came out this week while Sarah Jessica Parker was doing press for her new film 'I don't know how she does it' was quoted saying that she keeps things sane by letting herself hate her husband for about 20 minutes a day... people were up in arms thinking this is a sign of a failing marriage and an unhealthy one.

I DISAGREE!

On any day of the week you can catch me and ask me how I feel about my husband and I will speak his praises, he's awesome, he's beyond helpful, he picks up the slack when I am being a turd... but I see him daily, he does little things that set me off and for that moment I want to blow up and I just vent for a few minutes.

And perhaps for about 20 minutes I might even hate the man who I am deeply madly in love with at most time. Does it mean we are destined to fail... on the contrary I actually think it might mean we will succeed!

Entering my 30s brought a new part of my social life, in our 20s all our friends started getting married, and now enters the time of our marriage where we are watching others around me getting a divorce. It's sad, I won't lie! I always wish my friends the best, but having to part ways with someone you loved so much can never be easy. But in the age of dating for eons and then marrying after and learning to cope with the stresses of life; I think people get the ideas of Happy Marriage mixed with love and passion.

I have heard of many people in our age group who move out of mommy and daddy's home to get into their newly marital home and as soon as the going gets tough and that moment you realise you hate your husband... it's like a light goes off to get up and bail. If you can't get past the Hate, well let's be honest your marriage is doomed anyways but can you let go off the Hate, did you even try? You loved for so long... can you hate for as long as you LOVED?


So if anyone ever asks me how do we work I say we have our great days and sometimes we might bicker like crazy, but we love each other, want growth and happiness for each other and we still have passion (this could be long and versed so I'll pass on sharing now)... but we might hate each other for a few minutes, sometimes we might even hate each other for the whole day because we are stubborn mules who want our way for a certain decision... but at the end of the day... We love each other so much!

I grew up in a household where fighting between parents never happened, but resentment infested their spirits and love, and like many people my age I come from a divorced home. But learning to fight it out like normal adults and learning to get over it... (like something I teach my daughters every day, she can hate what her sister might be doing but learning to accept her for who she is and how different she might be or how she sees something is nothing to stay angry about)... so I actually recommend you take a moment to praise the ones you love, accept their difference and love them and accept when you can stand them for that moment!

My husband and a friend of mine

~Cheers!

I am a mother to a child in school.....AAAAHHHHH!!!

Where do I begin, the excitement is palatable for me!

I am a secret nerd, back to school was never a big deal in my household as a child, I use to get hand me downs from my way older sister, and entered class with kids with new pens and pencils, crayons and funky pencil cases!

My mother never understood the fun that was school, she wasn't the first to be in line at the library or the book store... she liked that I was smart but had no idea how to encourage it. My eldest is smart... I know this sounds biast, but my eldest could sit from the tender age of 1 and read, colour or paint in large increments of time. Her gusto to learn is so endearing to me I want to feed and feed her little brain.

Getting her back to school stuff was far more entertaining and exciting for me than I could have ever imagined... I walked through the Business Depot saying "I am so excited, I am so excited!" I think my eldest enjoyed the aspect of me being happy for her, my poor husband on the other hand is slightly more emotional. Just yesterday he couldn't contain his emotions as she walked around the house with her new knapsack excited about getting on her school bus.

But I am a in sheer joy, I always anticipated the idea of being a mother to a child who would grow and flourish and I am relishing it like a kid in the candy store luckily for me! My poor husband will have to grow into that concept!

To vacation or not...

I use to go to Greece as a child a lot, actually very much alone!

While you are going to read the end of that sentence in a very bizarre manner, my parents would put me on a plane alone with supervision and send me off to see family over in Greece, doing it alone actually gave me a ton of independence. Never did I feel I needed to be in the company of others to feel safe, I felt safe with myself. But it's been 10 years since I last step foot on Greek soil and I am yearning to go back.

Was thinking about going back as a family unit, debating about the costs associated to take toddlers across the pond, plane tickets that are outstandingly high, car rental fees that are crazy (we have 4 people to move around a whole country) gas, food, souvenirs and some tours. We decided to postpone til the next baby arrives.

But the other day my husband sent me for a loop when he said why not go at it alone. It would be so nice to go, pregnant to see all my friends and family... so much has changed since the last time I swam in salt water, since I saw my cousins and now meet new additions to their families. But I am being guilt ridden, I have always wanted to take my husband to Greece, to show him all my favorite places in Athens, Sparta, my favorite beaches in Stoupa, cliff diving off rock beaches in Mani and well just drinking a Frappe at a platia in the middle of any city in Greece and being up swept by the culture.

Many wouldn't understand what I mean, but I always dreamt about the day returning to Greece to see my girls run through a platia with other kids whose parents are also enjoying their coffee! Teach my girls to swim in the Mediterranean like I first did, get them to be spoiled rotten by family who has only ever seen them in pictures, talked to them on the phone. Get them to meet my oldest friend, my friend Rania that I first met at the tender age of 8 and who also is expecting her first this month.

I long for small jaunts to Greece, I miss the feeling of being there even if it's for a few days, I hate how far it is, how I can't ever go and island hop because I have to much to do when I am there, too many people to see to much excitement to be missed. It will never be a destination vacation, like a home away from home for me.

So next week, I might wake up deciding to take myself onto a very long 8hr plane ride and be one with the wind and go, just go... but it won't happen if I can't stop eating at myself that I should be there with all my family!