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! 

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.

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

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.  

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!

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.

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?