Sunday 22 December 2013

Makeup Artists, Salon Owners & Estheticians Wanted (and WAHM too)



As we enter 2014, a time to create something new, we're looking to add presenters to our team. 

We offer a naturally based line of cosmetics and skin care. Some being completely 100% natural and gluten free. 

Younique's mission is to uplift, empower, validate and ultimately help build the self-esteem of women around the world. Through high-quality products that encourage these core values - along with spiritual enlightenment - we're enabling opportunities for personal growth and financial reward to women everywhere.

We believe you shouldn't have to wait for your commissions. If you make a sale, we think you deserve your money instantly!

Founded by a brother and sister team, Younique's philosophy is centered around the core values of simplicity, spiritual enlightenment, positive influence and the celebration of inner and outer beauty.

Derek and Melanie firmly believe that all women should feel valued, smart, and empowered through opportunities of personal growth and financial reward! Joining the Younique family provides opportunities for women to belong to a company that truly believes that the sky is the limit!


Click this link for more information:
https://www.youniqueproducts.com/Gorgeous/business/presenterinfo



Saturday 23 November 2013

Black Friday Special!

Younique
We're having a special from November 28th - December 2. With any purchase, you get this exclusive Younique compact mirror. Any purchase. Even a purchase as small as a single pigment ($10US/$12CA). Or our 3D Fiber Lashes for only $29US/$35CA

But let's be honest, we have a product line to die for. Our mineral pigments are 100% all natural, no parabens, no talc. We also offer naturally based skin care. Our Awake cleanser is AMAZING. I've always had problem skin, oily and acne. As of now, I have no acne and my skin is glowing. My blotchy skin has evened out.


makeup

Monday 11 November 2013

Contest time!

I'm hosting a contest on my Facebook Fan Page.
What do you get? A set of free 3D Fiber Lashes! I love this product and want to share it with someone free of charge. Be sure to follow the rules!
Go here: https://www.facebook.com/YouniqueByShannon

Contest

Enter daily! 

Thursday 7 November 2013

A 50th wedding Anniversary

This past weekend we traveled to Toronto to celebrate my husbands foster parents 50th wedding anniversary. 

The celebration was so much fun and so full of love. They moved here to Canada to have a better life, raise a family and provide a foster home for over 100 children.

What was really moving is all the kind words that their friends had to say about them. Friends that they have had since they came to Canada.

My husband and I married a bit later in life, but I do hope we hit this milestone. We will be 85, but I know we'll still be in love.

Happy Anniversary Sam and Barb!

Thursday 31 October 2013

The race is on!

THE RACE TO 10K PRESENTERS - We have less than 3500 right now.
Join the Younique family as we race towards 10,000 Presenter registrations. Every Presenter who registers during the Race to 10k will receive the following:

Free personal website for 10 months
$10 Younique Cash for you and your sponsor
10 beautiful Younique product catalogs
An exclusive "Race to 10K" charm
A chance to win an Apple® iPad mini every month!
A chance to earn a $10,000 bonus!

Click here for more information.

Direct sales

Wednesday 30 October 2013

November Kudo's

Younique continues to impress me.

Last night our co-found Melanie announced that we are partnering with an organization called Kid's Against Hunger. With every collection sold, a portion of the proceeds will go towards creating meals to help feed hungry children all over the world.

Details: Purchase any of our six collections and the proceeds of each order will towards creating 12 meals for children. Isn't that amazing? 12!! All of our collections also come in our Signature case for its great for gift giving.

November is the time to shop Younique!


Images below are children that have actually been helped by Kid's Against Hunger. Let's help!

Direct Sales



Tuesday 29 October 2013

Way to go team!!!

Our group of Younique ladies are having a fabulous month. Promotions all over. Giving ourselves a raise. Way to go team!

I asked one rep what stood out the most with Younique compared to her last company. Her reply "No autoships. Those were killing me."  I can sympathize with her big time!

Be sure to check out my website and get some holiday shopping done.
Younique By Shannon


Monday 28 October 2013

I love fall!

My favourite season ever is fall. It's finally just starting to feel like fall here in southern Canada. It's stayed relatively warm until a few weeks ago.

Fall brings sweaters, chili, snuggles and beautiful colours in nature.



Last night pumpkins were carved. My husband seems to take great pride in this.  We were challenged this year to carve our business logo and it have to say it turned out wonderfully!



I'd love to hear about your favourite season.



Let's talk lashes!

I have pretty nice lashes. Not short but now as long as I'd like. What drew me into Younique was their product Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes. The claim was it provides a 300% increase to your lashes that looks completely natural. I knew I had to promote the amazing product myself.

Does the product do what it claims? You bet! This product gets rip of the need for falsies. It gives ladies with very short lashes an amazing look! 

The fibers that are used are made of Green Tea and are 100% natural and this product is gluten free! Love that.

Price point? Love it! $29US/$35CA. 


This photo is me as well.


Saturday 26 October 2013

Soup and snuggles

Me, dl and ds are all a bit under the weather. It appears we have a cold knocking on the door. Today will be spent snuggling and consuming soup and hopefully I won't have to referee any fights. 

Today hubby is off to London to teach at a karate seminar. 

Thursday 24 October 2013

Rep support

Younique continues to impress me. When a company is new there's always so many bugs to work out and because other companies put so much work into working out the bugs, they can lack in their rep support.
Not Younique. They definitely have all of their bases covered and then some. I got a reply to a question literally 7 minutes after I requested. That certainly never happened with my old company. We'd have to wait days for an answer.

So here's my public Thank You to Younique! Amazing product, amazing rep support. :) Together we're going places!!


Tuesday 22 October 2013

Younique


In July I became a founding presenter for a brand new company. I love every product we offer. Please visit my site.

 www.youniqueproducts.com/gorgeous 

Tuesday 23 April 2013

A new venture...

I'm super excited to be a part of a new company. I love jewelry and these lockets were screaming at me! Please visit my site!
www.cherishedlockets.ca



Saturday 20 April 2013

I can run

Wow it's been a while since I posted. Diet is a disaster but I am able to run outside and I'm getting closer to the 5k in Detroit on May 5th.




Sunday 31 March 2013

Planning to Plan and Easter Weekend

The plan for tonight is to finish off this glutenous weekend by going to sleep and starting over tomorrow. Tomorrow I will wake up, do things right and hit the gym. Then I'll come home and plan. Plan a grocery list and meal plan for the week. Stress seems to be the factor that throws me completely off track. We live a very busy life during the week, so planning helps so much.

Today a friend and I connected a newer level (Hi Rachel!). We're both struggling in the same areas of our lives, weight loss and work at home goals. We've committed to each other to check in with each other daily. The thing I find about being a yoyo dieter is, I know there's 1000000's of others going through the exact same things as me, yet we're all very reluctant to verbalize it. Maybe this could be our new edge to success. Also, I still need to search deeply to find an answer as to why I continually sabotage all of my hard efforts.

This weekend was amazing. It was a great wind down weekend and we have amazing weather. We got to spend lots of time as a family which is rare so I truly cherish it. Took the kids to the park, snuggles and of course the Easter bunny left eggs all over our house.
"Strive to live each day to its fullest, squeezing all the joy you can out of each moment. Instead of measuring your life's value by your progress toward a single goal, remember that the direction you're headed in is more important than temporary results." - Tony Robbins



I hope that everyone else had an amazing weekend! 

Wednesday 27 March 2013

I've fallen off the wagon. Again.

I'd love to beat myself up about it, literally. But I know that's not going to  fix it.

I just have to get to the bottom of why I do it. Why do I become lazy? I certainly don't like how it makes me feel.

I could start over again tomorrow. Nothing is stopping me. Nothing has ever stopped me.

I won't quit trying.

Mind set. Mind set. Mind set.

Friday 15 March 2013

That Crazy Wrap Thing

You've either heard of it or you haven't.
If you've heard of it you either believe in it or you think it's impossible. Am I going to try and convince you it's amazing? Maybe. But it's one of those things that, until you try it, you'll never really truly know. I was a skeptic too.

What is the Ultimate Body Applicator?
It's a non-woven cloth wrap that is infused with a powerful, botanically based formula to deliver maximum tightening, toning and firming results in as little as 45 minutes! It continuously hydrates for firmer, smoother, more youthful skin, and reduces the appearance of cellulite and skin slacking.

It's is not water loss like most people might think. It's not the same kind of "wrap" that you find at most spas. Our product hydrates the skin. If we were taking water out, you'd end up all wrinkly.

When it comes to products like this, everyone is expecting the quick fix. Now this is probably as close to magic as you can get, but lets be honest, fat and cellulite didn't accumulate over night, so it's going to take some time to improve the appearance of it.  We've had many people have AMAZING results with just one wrap, but the full process is the entire box of four applicators. People will see results at different rates, but for best results, the applicator goes hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle.

Also I want to point out something that people are confusing our wrap with. This wrap does not cause weight loss. But it may give the appearance of weight loss and might even kick start an unconscious decision to make some healthier choices because your jeans just zipped up a bit more easily.

Where can you use the "wrap"? Anywhere you want to target from your chin down. Not on your face (we have one specially formulated just for that). Stomach, thighs, hips and that wonderful back fat. It's designed to fit anywhere.

So if you've got some saggy skin you want to take care of before summer, contact me. It Works Global is changing lives!



Product information 
Website: www.caniwrap.com
Facebook Fan Page <-- more before and afters
Email: Shannon St. Jean

Monday 11 March 2013

Parents Do You React or Respond?

I just read a fantastic article. 
Parents Do You React or Respond? It Makes a Difference! 
While parenting our children it is important to consider the effects of the way in which we choose to relate to them. 
Do you 'react' or 'respond'?
The one you choose will make a difference in how your relationship with them evolves.
I react almost all the time. I can make some excuse as to why. When I'm busy, that's when Kaylee needs me the most. So if I'm on the phone and distracted, she'll ask me something and my immediate reaction is NO! Pretty rotten I know, but I bet I'm not the only one.  I work from home and I'm sure most customers would understand if I had to say "can you please hold for a moment?" Yet I put them first. Big mistake!

In situations of being interrupted and reacting I'm at fault for both. It's my fault of how I reacted and it's also my fault for Kaylee's interruption, because somewhere down the line, I failed to drill into her good manners. I have failed to remind her she needs to be patient. And really, how can an impatient person like myself even teach patience? 

There are two very important considerations to be made when communicating with your children, regardless of their age or the topic of conversation.
The first is to always allow them to speak without interruption. 
The second is to not share your thoughts and feelings until you are ready to do so without emotion 
Wow, that's an eyeopener. I fail at both of those important things. I guess most of the time I'm just so high strung and not taking the time I need to communicate properly. I don't want to be my children's best friend, but I have to make sure that they know they can talk to me about anything and if I don't make some changes FAST, they will never come to be with anything. 

So looks like some new things for my 2013 list. Patience. And taking the time to communicate with my children properly.  

Sunday 10 March 2013

Time to get out of this funk

Old habits are easy to fall back to whether they are good or bad.

That illness we all had really messed up my plans. Being out of commission was not fun. Being sick and taking care of the sick really takes any extra time a mom has to plan the things she needs to plan. I must get my focus back.

I will not let a week of being unhealthy undo everything that I have done. I will keep trucking. I will keep moving.

Today I will spend time preparing for the week. Planning meals, workouts, getting back into a healthy routine. Planning a new play list for running.

Also I need to get back to blogging and reading all the wonderful mommy blogs out there.

Sorry this is short, but I have some planning to do. I hope all are well and you enjoy your day. I'm leaving you with one of my newer running songs. It's an eargasm!


Thursday 28 February 2013

Mama was down for the count

Mom's can't be sick. If they get sick who takes care of the dishes, the laundry, the homework, supper, breakfast, etc. When a mom is sick, it's total chaos.

So that mystery illness made it's rounds. Kaylee became the second victim and it hit her at her fathers house in the middle of the night on Saturday. She ended up coming home a bit earlier on Sunday afternoon so that she could rest. Later that night it hit Emmett again and while I was doing 1am laundry and cleanup, my stomach really started to hurt. I too had got the mystery illness. What were we to do? Mom and 2 kids sick, puking. Rob had to call in sick and help to hold down the fort. This is turn, made him victim number 4, and put his job at risk.

So clearly this is some sort of "gastroenterological " illness possibly Norovirus. I only suspect it's that as it seems impossible to kill. Yesterday during the day I disinfected everything that I could think of. But I clearly missed something. Emmett woke up again last night and vomited everywhere. I have a sneaky feeling it was a bottle of water that I missed beside his bed and he chugged it. So again today, I've disinfected everything that I can think of and I took all of our comforters to the laundry mat and did a super wash of them. I'm crossing my fingers for a good night. If it happens again though, we're going to have to get this looked at a bit more. From what I've read it's not a long illness. Have a read here.

I've felt completely useless these past couple of days so I really hope last night was the end of it. I have so many other fellow mommy bloggers to catch up on. Not to mention dishes, laundry, etc.

Sunday 24 February 2013

Sacrifices

As a mother is there a limit? I bet for some there is. Is there a wrong answer to how many limits? I don't think so.

We live in a vast world that allows us to parent in many ways. You may parent the way you were brought up. Either by habit, love for the way you were parented or maybe you're doing the complete opposite of what your parents did with you.

As long as your children are first safe and second happy, I think you're doing the right thing!

Our family (my husband, our children and I) live a very old school lifestyle. We've adopted the "stereotypical" rolls of dad goes off to work and mom stays home with the children. Some days are tough, but it works for us. We don't judge other families that require both parents to work and we hope that we're not judge either. You have to do what makes your heart happy while at the same time making sure everyone is taken care of. Life (financially) could be easier with us both working but we'd rather struggle a bit to always have someone home with the kids. That's one of our sacrifices.

This past weekend  we traveled to a neighboring city about 100km away to attend a karate seminar. My husband and my daughter were both taking this seminar. Emmett was going to stay with my mom for the night as it takes a bit of the stress off of us to travel tantrum free. But, when Emmett woke up on Friday he was unable to keep anything down. Not even water. I'm calling it the "mystery illness" as he had zero symptoms of anything. Between the vomiting he was in high spirits and bouncing off of the walls. We made the decision to bring him with us, in case he continued to be sick into the night. Added stress on us is better than him being stressed and sick with us away. But of course, he was perfectly fine once we go there.

It is very rare that we leave our children with anyone, and really it's only my parents. We don't go out much without them. We have many good reasons for this. We're older and our social life now revolves around our children. I'd rather spend time with them making sure they are happy and mostly safe. I hate that we now have access to read all about teenagers drinking and partying status' that they post onto Facebook. This shows me that there's really no one good enough in my books to watch my children. I do hope that one day I can find that responsible youth. I have my eyes on a few, but time will tell and we're certainly not hurting by staying in. Another sacrifice?

After writing this, now maybe they aren't really sacrifices and just duties of being a parent. What have you sacrificed? Does sanity count?

Monday 18 February 2013

Weekend Recap

This weekend was great indeed!

Friday started off with Kaylee bringing home a surprisingly good report card. It was A's and B's. Now I'm not surprised because I don't think she's smart. She is very smart, but she's stubborn and easily distracted. She'd much rather play and socialize, than to sit and learn.

Saturday was Kaylee's karate grading. She just received her Advanced Orange Belt in Kenpo Karate.  My husband is her instructor and while most people might think she gets special attention or would advance faster than other children, that is the farthest thing from the truth. She's progressing slowly and that's ok. Karate is clearly not her first choice in an after school program, but it's giving her some of the life skills that she'll need in the future. She did dance last year and wants to do it again, so in September I'm going to enroll her again. She's high energy and loves to dance. She did tap last year, but is interested in Jazz or Hip Hop.


Sunday morning started with a bit of a morning rush to get the kids off to church with my parents and to be sure we were ready to hit the gym as soon as they were gone to get as much time as we could at the gym. I've done something that I've never done before and I'm so proud of myself. I ran 5mi/8+km in 60 minutes, non stop. I know others can do it much faster, but I'm just starting and I'm ecstatic. We wanted to run outside on Sunday morning but we got dumped with snow again on Saturday night. Running on pavement is next on the list of goals and hopefully will happen soon.  And hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace a bit.

Goals! Everyone needs them! Hope everyone else had a great weekend.

Saturday 16 February 2013

4 week weigh in

I'm happy with my results, but haven't shared them really with friends. Why? Because if I tell everyone I feel like they are probably thinking "ya ya, you're just going to gain it back." It's a possibility yes, but I think with the other changes that I'm applying to my life, better results should be lasting.



I've also lost a total of 12 inches in the areas that I'm measuring. I haven't measured my arms and legs for some reason and I think I'm going to add that in for next month.

I'm at the gym consistently about 5 days per week with at least 50 minutes of cardio. I'm running again on the treadmill and slowly preparing myself to run on pavement. On Thursday of this week I ran 6.4km in 50 minutes, killing over 760 calories according my heart rate monitor. My heart rate gets quite high, around 85% of my max but cardiovascular, I feel pretty good.

Food is also going well. I'm finding a nice balance with consumption and then burning off any extra I may have consumed. I'm having cheat days guilt free which is huge. Cheat days used to completely destroy my diet. Also, I feel like the little cheats that I have are keeping me sane and keeping this journey real!  Most days I have a shake in the morning from It Works, which I add coconut milk to as well as mango's.

Goals over the next 2-3 months are to lose about 19 more lbs and run as much as I can outside on pavement so that I can successfully do a real 5k in Detroit in May.

How is everyone else doing with their goals to obtain better health?

Tuesday 12 February 2013

The ripple effect

Have you ever noticed how really anything can have a ripple effect.

You know, wake up and stub your toe, drop your tooth brush on the floor and then can't find our keys. Thus in turn making you late for work and having zero time to get your coffee. Get to work only to realize you're not the only one having a bad day and everyone is just rubbing each other the wrong way.

Do you think that ripple effect is just because you were doomed to have a bad day or, did your mind set create all that negativity for you?

I truly think its a mind set. When we wake up and stub our toe we have 2 choices. Get over it or don't. It's that simple. I've had those days where it seems like everything can go wrong and only wishing for night to fall so that I can go to bed and wake up the next day with a fresh start. That fresh start can honestly start when you say. You don't need the night to come.

That being said, my laundry room purge seems to have created a small sense of calm over the house. I can wake up in the morning, walk in there (and be wowed) and find what I need in seconds. No more digging through the dryer trying to find that one missing sock. And anything that can take away a bit of the morning stress is a plus in my books. Everyone has a bit of a bounce to their step these passed 2 days. Even my husband.

Other areas of the house need to be purged as well, but that will come in time. We have a 3rd floor that would make a killer games room, yet it's filled with stuff that would normally go in a basement. Totes and boxes of things that we think we can't let go of, but we need to. A yard sale this summer would do us some good!

One day I will have a fully organized house. One day. :)

Sunday 10 February 2013

My laundry room had a hoarding problem

Until this weekend. :)

I tackled the mess!

We are a family of four with a enough clothes to clothe a small village. Seriously.

Now when it comes to clothes we (or I really) run into two issues. The first and most obvious for most families is the rapid rate that children out grown their clothing. It's truly nuts. I'm not very tall, I stand only 5'3", but daughter who is only 7, is 3/4's of height already. If she keeps growing like this, she's going to outgrow my by the age of 12. The second problem, and this is almost like a true hoarder (or so I've seen on TV) is that I have trouble parting with outgrown clothes of my children because they hold a sentimental value to me. A memory. Something fabulous happened when they wore something. These clothes trigger a happy memory. Surely I can't be the only crazy mom out there like that right?

Sadly though, I mustered up the courage to donate 3 garbage bags full of clothes to Goodwill. I just have to know in my heart that other families can enjoy some of these outfits and have their own memories with them.

Now the true task is to try and keep it organized longer than a week. We're lacking a dresser in Kay's rooms and I think that might be a great purchase to help me with keeping it looking like the rest of the house.

This past weekend involved a lot of cleaning, organizing and purging. Still more purging needs to be done (kids toys next) but its a start and having an entire weekend to tackle such things don't happen very often.

I hope everyone else had a fabulous weekend.

Thursday 7 February 2013

We Unleashed the Power Within

I've told this story a few times and shared it with team mates on Facebook, and I had every intention of copying and pasting what I had shared, but for the life of me I can't locate the posts.

My husband has been a huge Tony Robbins fan since his early 20's. Me, not a fan, only knew he was some sort of life coach. I had seen his picture before and seen him in the movie Shallow Hal.

My husband had caught wind that there was going to be an Unleash the Power Within in Toronto, just 3 hours from us. He was excited, but at the same time, questioned being able to go. He had just been called back to work a month or so prior after being laid off for those 18/19 months. So we were in some heaving repayment of late bills. Out of curiosity, he called to find out ticket prices. General admission was $999/person. That's more than a months mortgage payment. But stupidly, my husband was optimistic.

We always got "junk mail" from Tony's organization and really, it just sat around and never got opened. Always some class or seminar in Fiji that we couldn't afford.

So weeks were passing and its getting closer to the date. Agents are calling us now offering a lower price so they can fill the final seats left. The offer was $750. Still couldn't afford it. Another offer was called to us days later. We could both go for $499, not each, for both. Wow. Maybe this IS something we could afford.

The fun part now! I'm sitting on the couch one night thinking I really need to clean up the junk mail. There sat a Tony envelope. I figured, I'm going to open before I toss it. You'll never guess what was in it. Actually I didn't even know what they were at first. Two VIP tickets to Unleash the Power Within. $1299 tickets. I showed them to my husband so he could confirm if they really were tickets as he's been to an Unleash the Power Within once prior. They were tickets. Real tickets, that sat there for weeks, through all the phone calls, the hope, the questioning where we were going to come up with the money to go. We somehow knew we'd get there. But instead of sitting behind 1000's of people in the back, we were in the VIP section sitting 12 rows back.

Now the big question is, how did we get these tickets sent to us? We have no idea. No one has ever said they helped us. But someone did. And it was life changing. That was in the summer of 2009 and we have always looked back at the MANY wonderful things that have happened to us in that year and into 2012. Tony lit the fire! Our fire has fizzled a bit, but we have the tools and we just need to take a moment to apply them again.

It was an amazing experience that I got to share with my husband. I got to walk on fire. I got to meet some great people. An experience I will never forget!

Wednesday 6 February 2013

3 years ago.....

I walked down the isle and said I do.

At the end of October 2009, Rob asked me to marry him. Life was going good. He had been called back to work months prior after being laid off for 18 months and I was back in college.

A little over one month later, we found out we were pregnant. How exciting! So instead of putting off the wedding until after baby came, we got into to some heavy planning and had a small ceremony with a few friends and family in Niagara Falls. It was quick and fun. I know it's hard to tell in the pictures but I was 16 weeks pregnant when we got married.

Looking back, I'm not sure we would have had a bigger wedding or not had I not been pregnant. It just turned out so perfectly that I have no regrets about it.

It was a very cold Canadian day, so we were limited with getting photo's taken outside.

I met Rob over 13 years ago at work. We had a hate for each other that was like a grade 5 crush that no one wanted to admit. He was so annoying, yet on days we'd stand around at work and literally talk for hours, getting little work done. We were both in relationships with other people and although I thought it was only a crush that I had on him, it would later prove it was more than that. I had a daughter with my ex and went off on maternity, never to see Rob again. I quit that job when my maternity was up. We were able to reconnect via Facebook in 2007 and my relationship with my daughters father was rocky and was ending.
In 2008 Rob and I began dating and I knew this was it. This was the man that I would be spending the rest of my life with. I couldn't ask for anything better.

I look forward to the rest of our lives together!
I love you Rob!

Tuesday 5 February 2013

I ran today

I sure did. I'm quite proud of myself. I ran over 5km. But it was on a treadmill and I do know the pavement is a whole new ball game. I'm getting there.

I ran a steady pace of 4.7mi/hour for 45 minutes.  Not fast, but it's something that I will slowly get better at. I'm short and so is my stride.

Tomorrow I either want to shave my time a bit or run longer. Wednesdays at the gym are really busy so it might not be best for me to hog a treadmill for an entire hour when there's really only 10 of them.

Now as for hitting the pavement, just need the snow to be gone. I don't care about the cold, but I certainly don't want to be that newby runner that slips on ice and puts herself out of commission before the race even begins.

Running goals - 5km in May and look for a 10 k for September or October.

I'm feeling good!

List! I'm ready to tackle you! RECOVERED



EDIT: I posted this yesterday and accidentally deleted it and with some help from here I was able to recover it. PHEW!!

In my previous entry I made my list of 2013 goals.  After some posting on Facebook today and in talking with some friends, we've found a somewhat more exciting 5k run. I'm so excited about it that I could scream! Detroit, May 11.

It is an event called Color Me Rad.  You start the race all nice and clean and cross the finish line looking like Rainbow Brite. How exciting! It's going to be a fabulous day for sure. Registration hasn't opened yet, but once it does, I'm all in!

We do have to cross the border to attend this as there's nothing around my area like this as of yet, but I can see it coming around here soon.

Watch this video and tell me it doesn't look like a ton of fun:


More event information here and other cities hosting: Color Me Rad


Sunday 3 February 2013

The list - Body, Mind and Soul Makeover

You can't overcome things if you don't face them.
Deal with them.
This is my year. This is my list.





  1. Get a grip on the yoyo dieting. 
  2. Instead of focusing on losing a set number of pounds, I need to focus on when I get to a better weight, I do something I've never done before. There's a 5k coming up on May 18th. That gives me over 3 months to prepare and I have no excuse why I won't be able to do it.
  3. Be accountable for what I put in my mouth. So what I ate a Whopper Combo. Just have to kill it at the gym the next day. Easy!
  4. Stop focusing on things I don't like about myself and put the focus on the things I do like.
  5. Be around people that have traits that I have or want in myself. No self doubting people. 
  6. Let go of things from the past. I've moved on from a very negative subject, but it still lurks in the back ground. I need to discover what is truly going to push me beyond and forgive.
  7. Adopt a more open mind. I will admit I can be very close minded. 
  8. Learn about and teach my children empathy. Yes I'm empathetic, but my insecurities stop me from doing good things out of empathy. Does that make sense?
  9. Break out of my shell and be crazy. A good crazy.
  10. Walk with my head held high. I always walk with my head down and avoid eye contact.
  11. Be a better mom. One that is not so easily irritated. 
  12. Enjoy my children more. 
  13. Relax.
I'm sure I'll be making revisions to this and adding more, but I'm happy to finally have some of these goals written down.

Self Improvement and MLM

As I've stated in a few previous entries, this is the year of a new me. Body, mind and soul makeover.

I've (for a few years now) been a big fan of a lot of self help topics, articles and the guru's who speak on these very topics.

Where I've failed in the past (as with diet) is getting to the bottom of my real issues and over coming them. Figuring out my why's before I can fix them needs the most focus. Why am I insecure? Why do I still yoyo diet? Why do I feel that I need to be in charge? What are my real fears of letting someone else take the reins?

Last week I was seeing some things repeat on Facebook through the time line. I was intrigued so I opened up Google and started my search. The buzz around a new company/product/app is huge right now. It's an app that is going to be loaded with topics that include goal setting, time managment, personal developement, business development, leadership developement, financial management, personal motivation and more. The neat thing about this is they've made into an MLM opportunity. Those who are in MLM would understand the excitement around this as its brand new and it's got a matrix like no other. I encourage you to watch the compensation video.  Now before I  lose the non MLM people, please understand this app is for everyone! It has a monthly fee of $9.95. What's great is, after time, this app can become free. It became from for me literally 23 hours after signing. How? Well I met the requirements needed to earn enough to pay for it. And how did that happen? I signed on under the #2 recruiter of iLA right now. So because it's a forced matrix, I get his "overflow" under me. In just a little over 1 week, I have 64 people under me.

Unlike most companies, there's no claims that you're going to make this much money in this much time. That was huge for me. What I also like is the app/product. It's something I would use anyway plus $9.95 is a small investment in myself I believe. As stated above, I have 64 people under me, and you might think WOW, you're going to get a lot of money, but I'm not going to lie. I'm probably only making about $14. But again, the app for me is now free and slowly my matrix is going to fill up.

With that being said, I installed the app last night (it was just released) and began to read some of the articles in it.  The one that really caught my attention is titled "Seven Life Lessons I Learned from an Evergreen". Now I'd love to share what these 7 lessons are, but I really suggest you get the app and have a read for your self.  I will share my favourite however:  "It shares its peace and beauty with all who come near it, no matter what they look like or what they believe."  This screams at me. In the world that we live in today, we don't have time to just slow down and share peace. One of my "mind makeover" topics.

Sorry to bombarded you with that. I hope I explained it well enough. This app, Inspired Living Application is really going to spark some great things in me. I'm excited! I need to make my "to do" list soon! 


Tuesday 29 January 2013

Please lock me in a closet

The topic of PMS'ing is probably going to come up every month.

This morning my husband asked if I was PMS'ing. Since him asking me that didn't drive me completely ape shit, I'm going to guess, no I'm not. I checked my calendar and the world should still be safe for at least 4 more days.

Word of advice to men though, if you really, really think your wife is, just assume and don't ask. Asking is going to set you up for a session of screaming, yelling,  and name calling.

Ladies, do you have extreme cases? I feel like I do. Only over the passed few years. I'd love to hear some natural ways to tame the beast within if anyone has anything to share.

On a different topic, I set a new personal record at the gym. I ran 1 mile in 12 minutes and 32 seconds. Yes it was on the treadmill but I'm proud of my little legs and heart too. I'm really hoping to hit the pavement in the spring and aim to do some sort of 5k to start and aim for a 10k. Goals! I have them!!

Sunday 27 January 2013

A lazy weekend gives time to reflect

I really enjoy having them as they are usually few and far between. We've almost always got something on the go.

Winter adds to the chaos. Getting the kids bundled up only to be uncomfortable in their winter gear. A hat is not on properly. Someone lost a mitt. Someone kicked off a boot and now their foot is cold. I'm sure as you're reading this, you're chuckling because you go through the exact same thing. My husband often asks how I don't totally lose it. I wonder the same thing sometimes, lol.

That's a picture of our son Emmett. He's 2.5. Can you guess what we're going through right now? Terrible two's! I wasn't expecting it. My daughter didn't really go through it. Maybe some issues at age 3, but nothing like Mr. ICANUSETHATSHARPKNIFEMYSELF.

His need for independence is rather quite annoying. It borders on major safety issues with a hand and a watchful eye always on him. He is insistent on making his own toast. From taking it out of the package, to putting it in the toaster and pushing it down, then to buttering/peanut buttering and even cutting it himself. The part that I think annoys me the most though, is the time it takes him. For some reason I'm always on fast forward and just want to get simple tasks done in the shortest period of time ever. I know, I know, that's my issue that I need to deal with. Really I should be embracing his independence right? I'm sure there's going to be a time in the next 7-9 years that I'm going to be summoned to bring the hungry beast his dinner at his command.

I'm done with the terrible two's though.

He goes to pre-school 3 times a week and absolutely loves it. He's got a couple of friends that he talks about a lot. Mostly an adorable little girl named Ava. I love to see the interaction that they have when I sneak in to pick him up a bit early.

This is my baby girl Kaylee. She's 7 and sassy to no end.

She's an angry and demanding little girl. Why's she so angry? She's got a pretty amazing life. She's fed, clothed, loved and has most things she's asked for. I would suspect her anger probably comes from her father and I no longer being together. I know she loves us both very much and somewhere in her head would love us to be together.

Her father and I together just didn't make sense, but I can say that we are very very good friends and don't have the usual drama that comes with co-parenting. We were good friends when we were together, but I don't think any real love was there beyond the love you have for a friend. I think that's ok. We've grown up over the years. Kaylee was 2.5 when we split up and I'm sure she doesn't remember much, but I'm sure there's still some impact.

Kaylee is in grade 2 right now and has a few struggles. I'm assuming its her very late birthday. Her birthday is right before Christmas so any child that was born in January almost is an entire year older than her. Her stubbornness doesn't help much either.  I can't for the life of me figure out where she gets that from (/sarcasm).

This weekend is her weekend at her dads, so I just spent my weekend with Emmett mostly as my husband was off for some karate seminars. I miss weekends with just Kaylee and I. I think a girls day/night out is in order. The few that we've managed to squeeze in were always fun and I could tell she was really appreciative of time with just me. Something she very much deserves and me too. She's not going to be little much longer.

Kaylee will be getting home from her fathers very shortly and then begins the fights over who hit who, who gets to watch what on the TV, etc.

I wouldn't trade my chaotic life for anything. I complain yes, but my family, they keep me alive, and well, even if they drive me nuts.

Friday 25 January 2013

Emotions - Primary vs. Secondary

A few months ago, my husband and I caught the tail end of something on TV. I can't even remember for the life of me, what it was. If it was a "Dateline" type show or a documentary. It was touching on Primary and Secondary emotions and it was very intriguing.

One that really struck out was Anger. Anger is a secondary emotion to a few primary ones such as hurt, humiliation and frustration.

Anger is often called a secondary emotion because we tend to resort to anger in order to protect ourselves from or cover up other vulnerable feelings. A primary feeling is what is what is felt immediately before we feel anger. We almost always feel something else first before we get angry.
We might first feel afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured. If any of these feelings are intense enough, we think of the emotion as anger.
As the drawing below illustrates, anger is like an iceberg in that only some of the emotions are visible. The other emotions exist "below the water line" where they are not immediately obvious to outside observers.
http://www.creducation.org/resources/anger_management/anger__a_secondary_emotion.html

The hard part about being angry is the ability to control your actions. At least with me and I think, the majority  of the world. When we lash out, we're trying to make a point about how hurt we might be, or how you were humiliated.  Instead I think there needs to be a great focus put on the PRIMARY emotion. If you've hurt me, I need to let you know that you've hurt me and deal with it immediately before it turns into anger and with most people, there's not much time. 

I think there's many reason why we avoid addressing the primary emotion. Too embarrassed to tell someone they hurt you? I know for me, I'm sometimes too embarrassed to address my negative primary emotions as I think it makes me feel vulnerable. I'm a mama bear and when I feel like I've allowed someone to impact me negatively, I feel powerless. Not something I like to feel. Again, another thing to focus on my 2013 body, mind and soul transformation.  I have to let people know immediately that I've been hurt by them. Many times it may be a total misunderstanding, or not their intention in the first place. Or maybe I'm just hurt and really its superficial, and in that case, I need to keep my big mouth shut. 

So this year, things to keep in mind. Life is too short to live with hatred, anger and the primary emotion HURT. Deal with these things. Don't let them fester. Forgive those who have hurt you, apologize to those you've hurt. 

Some links on this topic for further reading:
http://www.choosing-life-my-way.com/list-of-emotions.html