Life's Whirlwind Adventures

I would say a lot of my feelings were from a longing to feel loved unconditionally and I felt I was missing that so my homesickness and increased desire to see my friends and family had to do with a lack of feeling loved in my own house.  I am in no way saying this is what was happening on my husbands side, but because we had let Silence become a bedfellow in our marriage we couldn't see or hear the others cries for love. This disengagement happened over a long time, and it was both of us.  I am a talker, and I like to talk out problems and I can be a visionary where I see where we need to be but I don't always have a clear path to get there so I tend to just bulldoze my way through.  My husband is more of a thinker, he doesn't always know how and he doesn't like to express his feelings, he likes to think them out and then find a path to a solution.  The problem is I would overwhelm him with my communication and then he would stonewall me and not engage with me a...

I've decided this year that I want to show my boys about giving back to others.  So I have been looking into charity organizations that we can work with as a family. 1) Ronald McDonal House: I think this would be an awesome opportunity for my boys to give back to families that are going through a terrible time and this way they can help out. 2) Women's Shelter: this one is more of donating some things to the Women's shelter to help my boys understand that everyone needs help from time to time and that it is important that you treat everyone as you wish to be treated. 3) Parkland CLASS: This is an easy one for me, I love helping out my old employer, I believe they do good things for the people they serve and I like to have my boys help out with their carnival so they understand that just because someone has a disability it doesn't mean that you have to be afraid of them or treat them differently than you would treat anyone else. 4) The Mustard Seed: This organiza...

I am a huge fan of Marian Keyes!! I own all her books and I follow her on social media, I brag about her writing to everyone who will listen! She is amazing and if you haven't read her before here are my favourite Marian Keyes novels and a brief summary of them for you to try! 1) Angel: Taking a holiday in Los Angeles to get away from the doldrums of life, the antics our protagonist gets up and the realization that the grass isn't always greener 2) Watermelon: What do you do when your husband announces he is leaving you on the labour and delivery bed?  What do you do when you realize its true and not some terrible bad dream? 3) Anybody out there: *This is an ugly cry book* Dealing with life after a tragedy, how one foot in front of the other isn't always the fastest way but it is a steady pace. 4) Rachel's Holiday: Life of fun and games, no responsibilities until your family tells you, you have a problem, then it's how do you keep yourself through the embarr...

A new strategy we are employing as a family this year is to buy our children less stuff and spend more of doing things with them!! BEST! IDEA! EVER! So for Christmas we told all our family to only buy them activities or passes to things we could do, like movies, Jump 360, Treehouse, the zoo, Royal Tyrell Museum, things we could do make a day or evening out of that the kids would build memories and maybe stop wanting so many things. Adrian took Lil Man to his Rebel's Game and I got to take Prince T!  It was such a fun night! He had so much fun and it was nice to get out with just him!  Here are some of our pictures from that night!  Waiting for Dad to get home so he could take mom out on a date!  Pre Date Selfie!! Date Selfie, mom was also getting a massage!! Best date Night!!

In my latest reading we read on different strategies to use to engage families of elementary school children, they ended the module with this question. List and describe three strategies found in the readings that can support families in helping their children's learning in elementary school. What are the implications for your own actions, strategies, and/or practice? The three strategies I would like to focus on and bring more into my teaching arsenal include guided teaching for parents of specific skills for their children (APTT), home visits, and purposeful, meaningful and consistent communication home with parents.  These three strategies were shown to be highly effective. It tears down that we versus them mentality and the whole idea that they should "know" what to do because it's elementary type school work.  These strategies would be super helpful to me as a parent because my child is in French Immersion and I don't speak French fluently.  So to be ab...

I like to spend time in the state of denial.  I like to find other things to blame how I am feeling, saying I'm homesick, that I miss my friends, my family, I need a break from life, that work is stressing me out.  I do, I spend a lot of time in denial, not wanting or not able to address the elephant in the room. By now we are in the Christmas Season, by now we are getting to the most wonderful time of the year,  and yet my Christmas spirit this year was at an all time low.  We do Elf on the Self with our kids, and I just didn't care.  All I wanted was to plan to go to Saskatchewan for part of the Christmas break and have my husband fly out to meet us for New Years. Then our puppy Sasha had to go to the vet, she fell down one morning and wouldn't get up, it was extremely scary.  My husband likes to live in denial about our pets and will often say that we have a lifetime warranty with them, I know it's a joke, but Sasha is nine this year and she's gettin...

Happy Family Day Everyone!!

I am struggling with this post.  I just don't know what to include in it. I have made it to the gym once this week, and I played soccer once this week, which is totally not on track for my goal, and my eating was better, there were no chips, chocolate bars or unhealthy snacks. I've been moving a lot during the day getting my steps in (I have gotten 8000 steps each day and some days I've doubled that). The weirdest thing is that my wake up is 5 am every morning! This is completely nuts because I had set a goal to be up at 5 so I could go work out, but when I first set that goal it wasn't happening, I could set alarms and they'd go off and I would want to die.  So I said nope, morning workouts aren't going to work for me.  And now that I've cut the 5 am wake up, I'm up at 5am.  I just fear that if I start using this and try to get up at 5 and go to the gym I'll have a hard time waking up! I did lose another pound, and no I am not looking for it...

I have a few collections in my life and some of them are fairly pointless, while others, they are super important to me.  Not everything I have on this list is part of a collection but some things are. 1. My Carebears.  I love the carebears! They are adorable and cuddly, and I bought a lot in the early 2000s when they were re-released.  Currently, they are in a duffle bag downstairs and will be given out to my future grandchildren or grand nieces/nephews. 2. I have some old jewelry, I NEVER wear it, and it's in a draw of one of my jewelry stands to be taken away and sold, yet I look at it and every time I am like nope, I'll do that later. 3.Hockey cards from when I was a teenager.  And I don't even just mean those hockey cards that might be worth something, I mean all of them, and there are even some baseball cards.  They have moved everywhere with me and I don't even look at them anymore yet I keep them. 4. Old Journals, this one might be normal, but I ...

Today I am going share with you five images in the media that have given me pause, five images that show something more in them each time I look at them.  This post is mostly starting off because of the Florida School Shooting, seriously, another school shooting in the states. Is anyone really surprised? 1)This is the image I remember seeing back when Columbine happened.  An event so shocking and out of the norm that just seeing the grief on these kids faces, people roughly my own age, I would think that once they could vote they would want something to change, a Columbine law brought forth to protect schools from needless violence.  No one knew what to do back then, and bak then it was two shooters, taking revenge on those that they felt had bullied them, does not make what they did right, but it definitely brought things to discuss, and after Columbine, bullying was a huge topic in all schools. 2) Who remembers Sandy Hook?  Yeah we all do, and I really take...

I spent most of my life growing up in the prairies and it would not be unreasonable to assume that I would learn to love some winter activities.  And to be complete honest I do like to go skating, skiing (cross or downhill) and sledding but I have NEVER liked the cold.  I just hate being cold, I hate ski pants, mostly because I don't have any that actually fit me, and winter activities like skiing are so expensive if you don't have the equipment.  So I've always struggled to find things to do with my boys in the winter.  Lil man is easier, he loves hockey and skating, so even if it's -20 he is happy to go out for a bit and skate it up, often I am sitting in the vehicle trying to warm up before he's even considered that it's time to come off the ice.   But sledding and skiing haven't been something Lil man has ever wanted to try, and when he learned to skate, Prince T was born so only one of us (his parents) could go skate with him and usually dad...

I'm going to have two different posts on Wednesdays, some Wednesday it will be Wanderlust, about places I have travelled and done.  And sometimes it will be Wondering Wednesdays where I answer a question I have had and the answer I have found to that question. Today I'd like to share about my trip to Alcatraz!! In complete honesty, I have never in my life been to Alcatraz, two or three times we've talked about and tried to plan to go, but we didn't realize how far in advance you would have to buy tickets so we've done other things instead.  In November when I went to the states I told Alex that the only thing on my list of things to do besides visiting everyone I could was to go to Alcatraz. Alex booked the tickets, I let my cousins know when we were going and then a whole group of us got on the Ferry and headed to Alcatraz. Talk about a place that has a vibe to it, there is an energy at Alcatraz unlike anything I have really experienced before, and the fe...

Yesterday, I blogged about my trip to California, it was a great trip, but I went on that trip because I felt an emptiness in my soul, and I couldn't place where it was coming from. I felt that maybe I was burned out, maybe I was overly stressed and needed to take a time out.   A time out from my life, and maybe the best way to do that was to go somewhere that was like home, but wasn't my home. So I looked into flights, and found a cheap one for the fall break down to San Fransisco.  I sent out messages to everyone I knew in San Fransisco area and we made plans to meet up.  It was great to see everyone and I don't regret the trip, not one bit. While on this trip I had a great visit with so many people that I love, that I connect with on a whole different level. Who I know I can share things about my life with them and there is absolutely no judgement and no suggestions for how I should do things. They only listen and allow me to talk out my thoughts until I f...

Way back in November during the fall break I jumped on a plane solo and flew to visit friends and family in California. I hadn't been back to California since my wedding, so this visit was long, LONG overdue.  It was a great flight, it was on the smallest plane ever, I think there were a total of 12 rows so we were all in coach, but I was in row two so that was super nice and I was able to read and disconnect from everything around me for awhile. Upon arriving my California Sister, Alex picked me up from the airport.  It was my first time meeting her husband Ethan and her two young sons.  They were amazing and felt like I'd always known them, and Alex and I got to catch up. The next day I headed out to see my dad's grave site.  That was a definite bitter sweet moment for me, I realized that having my dad interned so far away from me, limited my ability to seek out his guidance.  That is actually weird to say, because I shouldn't need his resting place ...

This week wasn't my most stellar week.  I struggle with road trip snacks, when I go to Saskatchewan I always end up eating snack food that I buy at the gas station or eating at A & W. I did better this time, I didn't buy a meal from A&W I only bought one bag of chips and it took me three days to drink the bottle of pepsi I bought (I used to drink a 600ml in an hour sitting).  So there were some changes for sure, but it wasn't an amazing turn not. So Sunday we got home from Saskatchewan so there was very little to no exercise. But I did have booster juice and subway instead of fast food so that was a good choice. Monday---->Protein shake in the morning, salad at lunch, left overs for supper, left overs consisted of fries, fish and carrots.  Snacks included a protein bar and crispers.             ---->Played Soccer Tuesday ---> Protein shake, salad for lunch, I don't remember what I had for supper,  I know that I ha...

When you go through tough times, it sometimes brings to the forefront those things that make life amazing.  And right now things have not been super great in my life, but there are things that if I didn't have those, my life would suck, and be worse than it is.  So these are the six things I have found keep me ground and keep me from spiralling out into the utter darkness. 1. My family: I have such a great supportive family, they let me bitch, they let me complain and they keep me grounded. I've been blessed with two best friends in my siblings and couldn't imagine not being as close to them as I am.  I've also been blessed with a mother who is my rock and supports me at every decision I make, even when she doesn't agree with me. 2. My friends: For letting me bitch, for letting me cry on their shoulders, for sharing their situations to help me see that I am not the only one to have gone through this and that it might be bad right now but there is another sid...

I have a collection of books on my desk, it's like a mini collection of books I want to read but I just have not sat down and read them.  So I am making it a goal this year to put in the work, time and effort to read these books. 1. The Break.  This is Marion Keyes newest novel and I haven't even started it yet even though I bought it back in November.  I've just always had so many other books to read so I haven't set it in my queue, but now it is. 2.The Power of Now.  This book by Eckhart Tolle, is about living in the moment, living for the now, not the future, not the past but the present.  I've started reading this one, but it asks you to reflect and think about things and I just didn't feel in the right mindset, but I think living in the Now is very important for me especially as I move myself back to being my old happy self. 3. Braving the Wilderness.  Brene Brown's newest book, I love reading her books, and once I am done these five I am going t...

A couple weeks ago I took the boys to meet my brother and his family at the new skating oval.  That was a long day out with the boys because we started with morning hockey, a visit to the library, the skating oval and then a play date. This was the first outdoor tournament we participated in in 4 years. The skating Oval was a lot of fun, Lil Man and Mr L skated with uncle, Prince T played in the snow with Auntie and I got to take all kinds of pictures! There was entertainment, and food so it was a good day!  I'm glad my brother told me about it and glad that I went!  Handsome Prince T  Lil Man and Mr L  My brother being all westside  playing in the snow with auntie

I've decided that I want to keep my brain moving, and so each week I am going to come up with a question to which I want to find the answer.  This means I get to do some research into subject matter that I am interested in. I'm super excited about some of the questions I am going to answer, and hope you will be too.  I'm hoping to be able to figure out how to have guest bloggers as well so that they can add their own, thoughts, so friends that blog, I could be coming to you! For the first two posts I am actually going to answer questions from an online professional development course I am taking because I am half way through the course and I have answered some of their questions anyway. The course is offered from Harvard X on EdX online.  The course is titled Family Engagement, the reason it caught my eye is that I struggle with family engagement in my classroom and I was hoping to find some ways to strengthen my family engagement and build a better school community. ...

So as you can guess from the title of this post it's not all rainbows and unicorns with roses blooming in the spring. But it's not all bad, and I'm not yet hibernating in my bed because the thought of facing the world is horrendously overwhelming, panic attacks aren't happening, and I can still find laughter and good times with my friends. I'm not in the bottom of the pit of depression, but I am definitely dancing along that pits edges and some days I slip down a ledge and others I pull myself up. So this this and this is what my depression looks like. To an outsider looking in, it actually doesn't look that bad, I blame social media for that.  I feel compelled to post positive things because I do not want people constantly coming up to me wanting to help, I appreciate that they want to help, but I have reached out and gotten support from those I feel I need it from at this point in time. I am in counselling right now, and I am working through t...

I am struggling with this blog post, like really struggling, I don't really know any quirks of mine that I would classify as weird.  I mean I am certain there are some, but I can't really come up with any.  So I am simply going to reflect on the last 36 days of blogging.  WOW I am so impressed with myself that I got 36 days of blogging done in a row.  Some of those blogs were WEAK, but I sat down and wrote on all of them.  There were definitely some that had some strength and substance to them which I am totally proud of.  But I am most proud of the fact that I posted something for 36 days in a row.  It was definitely easier having a guide of different posts to write about, to get my creative thoughts flowing and moving forward I may not do one everyday, but I am going to try.  February is only 28 days and we have 5 days completed now, so that means I have to come up with 23 more blogs to complete February. I believe I can do this, I have a fe...

When it comes to comfort food, soup is at the top of my list.  When I am not feeling well, I want soup.  When it's cold outside I want soup.  When I don't feel like cooking, I want soup.  I like most soups, but my favourite is probably hamburger soup.  I've talked about it on the blog here . When  want to try something new I head over to pinterest and find a new soup recipe.  It's never failed me, so I am all good with soup. Send me your favourite soup recipes, I need more because, can you ever have too much soup??

Welcome to my new Saturday Series, this will be a series of six things I love, admire, want to accomplish but all will be related to a new topic each Saturday. Today's focus my bucket list, so here are 6 things on my bucket list. 1. Becoming a published author.  I have wanted this since I was in Grade 6 and I am working daily, on this blog to help me get back into writing, I'm also setting up 45 minutes each week in school to do Creative Writing during a flex session with some students.  I figure this way I will commit to it and hopefully it will get me out of my writing slump. 2. Travel to Norway, Denmark and Sweden.  Finland is cool too, but I need to see these three places first.  I'd love to take a train up the coast of Norway seeing all the Fjords and then walk the quaint streets in Copenhagen and take a boat across to Sweden.  I'd rather travel these places in the summer but I'm sure winter would be beautiful too. 3. Travel to Greece, and take a myth...

Disclaimer: It is the last day before my holidays are over as I first draft this post.  It is likely scheduled for a February release date. I am a huge supporter of social media, so many great things come of social media, but there is a dark side. I am not naive about other people's practices with social media, for the most part, the people I follow or the people I have in my circle of friends are people I know and have a relationship with them off the computer.  Sometimes that relationship is nothing more than greeting each other and finding out how they've been doing in passing in the mall, but there is a genuine connection, a genuine interest to know them. However, some people are just there to be keyboard commanders and to spread hate around.  I tend to just block and delete those people from my social media circle but if they are determined they will continue to come out and cause havoc. Maybe they were bullied in their real life and this is how they attack back,...

I have this great new planner that I bought at Michaels, I had one last year and started using it then but now it's taken over my organizing life.  It's great and I love it! It's helped me plan out my financial habits, my gym habits and all the activities in my life.  So this is where I was at the end of last year.  There wasn't as much movement as I had wanted I definitely didn't stick to my healthy eating as much as I could have, but there were no serious back slides and I did have some movement. In December I changed my weight loss goal, I have a big goal, but each month I didn't make that goal, it became discouraging even though I had made it a portion of the way there.  So right before Christmas I wanted to lose 6-7 pounds I gave myself 4 weeks to do that and I did it.  Even through Christmas I have kept that weight off, so my jeans still love me. I reset my goals in January deciding I'd like to lose 2 pounds per week for a grand total of 8 pounds i...