Life's Whirlwind Adventures

I love shopping local and supporting my local businesses! It's a passion of mine.  As often as I can I shop local. One of my favourite stores for my lingerie is The Bra Lounge.  The ladies that work there are so amazing and friendly.  And I've never left there not liking my purchase. I was a little sad I had to go visit them last week.  Not because it isn't a great time but because my last good bra had the underwire snapped in it and I had no other bras.  This wouldn't be a big deal but with surgery in 3 months it felt like I was not going to get my cost per use from my purchase. So I went in, gave a quick explanation to the ladies and got fitted with some new bras that were ON SALE!!!! I had gone in to spend no more than $110 and had resigned myself to buying maybe only one more to see me through to December.  But because the Bras were on sale I was able to get two, TWO for $107.  It was the BEST news EVER!! I was worried I would only find one...

Do you know how some people are collectors?  Sometimes they collect things like Beanie Babies, or maybe Italian Charm Bracelet charms, or Pandora beads.  Maybe they collect cars or movies or any number of items. I've been know to collect things in my life, things like movies (I had all the Disney Movies, I still do on DVD), and music CDs and Books, all kinds of books.  But the thing I collect the most frequently are girlfriends. I'm a girlfriend girl.  That's not to say that I don't have some amazing guy friends because I do and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but I am a girls girl.  I treasure my girlfriends and I keep them. If I were a collector and my girlfriends were dolls, they'd be dusted regularly and put on display for the world to see!! I've been so fortunate in my life to come across some awe inspiring women that influence me to be the best version of myself.   I've had some friends all my life, and others I've only met recen...

I swore on all things that I would not be a Hockey mom.  I mean I like hockey, I enjoy watching it, I even enjoy a friendly game of shinny from time to time, but to be a hockey mom, yeah that wasn't something I ever wanted to do. I remember how much time my Mom had to give of herself when my brother started playing hockey, and I feel that my sister and I missed out on doing some things because my brother had hockey.  Now this could be a misconception on my part, I mean I was young, like 11 or 12 when Nelson started but it was around that time that many of my extra curricular activities stopped as well.  Did the two events happen in conjunction or because of one I don't know. When my first child was born we really didn't have the funds or opportunities to get involved with hockey so we tried soccer.  I actually liked being a soccer mom, I enjoy the sport and I enjoyed taking my child to his games.  He did well in soccer and played until he was in grade 11....

Five things I remember from when I was sixteen!! 1) I got my license on June 8 three months after my sixteenth birthday. I remember the dread I felt when my evaluator was Pete, AKA Repeat Pete.  It was also during a big fire up north so there were a lot more people in Prince Albert than usual and I remember Pete telling me at the end of my lesson that I was just on the edge of failing because I hesitated at a corner that had pedestrians at it.  He told me I had 7 or 8 marks off and he could fail me but decided not too. I finally breathed a sigh of relief and did the happy dance into SGI to pick up my new license. 2) I changed schools when I was 16 as well.  I left Rivier Academy behind and went to the Public High School.  I don't regret this decision at all and I had some of my best high school years at Carlton Comprehensive High School.  I don't feel like a missed anything by changing schools although I did lose out on a trip to Europe, but at the end of th...

I enjoy doing six week training programs.  There are a multitude reasons for it but the biggest one for me is that I can see the end at six weeks so it doesn't feel like forever. And in six weeks that's when you or others will start to see a difference.  I read somewhere it takes 6 weeks for others to see the difference and 12 for you to see the difference.  And I think others have seen the difference, my brother who isn't big on complimenting paid me a compliment about looking good last week, so now this six weeks is for me to see the difference. In my first six weeks I wasn't as focused on my nutrition as I was on working out, towards the end I spent a little more time focusing on my nutrition and I carried that over on my two week break. I don't always take a two week break but I did this time, almost by accident and sort of on purpose. So let's recap the first six weeks. I started weighing over 220 lbs and my total body inches equaled 388.25 inches.  T...

So as many of you know I am a teacher, if you are one of my new readers I am a Teacher in a program for students with mild to moderate cognitive delays and adaptive functioning.  I seriously LOVE my job and I work for an amazing school district with Red Deer Public!  And my kids are AMAZING!! But each year as I work to improve my teaching and programming for the students, so here are five things I will be bringing into my classroom this year!! 1) Zones of Regulation: Since my kids often struggle with regulating their emotions this program is a great way to help them learn self- regulation.  I will talk more in another blog about what exactly the Zones of regulation are and how they work and how we are implementing them into our classroom. 2) Projects, Projects and more projects!!!  Because the focus of our program is to develop life skills our focus isn't solely academic.  It's important that our kids get numeracy and literacy skills that will help them in l...

Every year I tell myself I am going to be super organized and I am going to have lunch snacks pre-made as well and menu plans done for a month and without fail two weeks in everything falls apart and we are back to our rushing at supper to get something made, something we thought of at the last minute.  And well lunch snacks often look like those things you buy from the store in bags that may or may not be full of some very unhealthy chemicals.. (let the mom shaming begin :P) Life is busy, but I still believe it's important for our sanity and emotional health to try to make things that are easy and won't cause undue stress on the family.  It will also help with our budget to get things into perspective and only shop in our allotted amount each month/week.  So I got a head start this year. I decided to bake one day, it was the first coolish day of the summer, you could completely smell fall in the air and I thought it would be a good time to start and start I did. ...