Last weekend was my husband’s Highschool reunion. It was a 2 day affair, starting with a bbq at his old Highschool on Friday and then on Saturday cocktails and appetizers at a Lounge. Funny thing happened on Friday… I get all gussied up (had my hair done the night before, coloured, straightened, the whole gamut) only to arrive to a group of men. My husband went to an all boys Highschool. Imagine my surprise when we walk into a room full of men and no other women??? Yup, you guessed it, Friday night was only for the alumni. Needless to say I was quite embarrassed. My husband has to learn to read emails a bit better. I went home, curled up in bed and caught up on my shows, but not before I got a bit embarrassed. One of the wives the next day told me I should have just announced that I’m the entertainment for the evening!!! Too bad I didn’t think of that at the time :). Anyways below are pictures of what I wore to both nights.
A shameless selfie taken on Friday night
In front of my husband’s Highschool Friday night as I was leaving (sorry for the squinty picture, the sun was shinning right into our eyes)
Another shameless selfie taken on Saturday night
At the O Lounge for my husband’s Highschool reunion
It’s that time of the week for my link up. Thank you to all 93 of you fabulous ladies that linked up last week!!! A great turnout, I love it!!!!! If you are interested in co-hosting please email me at vodkainfusedlemonade@gmail.com. If you’ve already co-hosted and would like to again, don’t hesitate to email me.
I recently read a blog “Why Your Only Child Is Going To Be Just Fine” and it was very refreshing. As someone who only has 1 child, I do feel guilty some days. This article made me cry, because sometimes I do feel like I am depriving my son of a playmate. But should I really have another child just to give my son someone to play with? Or should I have another child because I want to have one? Society makes it out that if you only have one child, your child will be anti-social, that they miss out on having a sibling, they are spoiled, they are lonely and they are used to getting their own way. And that’s not true. Sure my son has moments where he is lonely, but I know plenty of kids that come from a big family that are spoiled, lonely, anti-social and used to getting their own way. So what’s their excuse?
There was a Facebook thread going on about how another reader, who is an only child, said that it is unfair if parents only have one child. Having siblings isn’t always a fairy tale. I know plenty of siblings who don’t get along and aren’t close at all, me included, so please stop romanticizing the idea of having a sibling for your child. I think it’s up to the parents to socialize the child, to teach them that they can’t have everything they want and that it’s ok to learn to be independent and to play by themselves. The commenter was very bitter at the fact that she was an only child and that’s not fair. We don’t always know the circumstances in which kids end up being an only child.
I’m constantly bombarded with comments like “when am I going to have another child?” and “I must have another”. I actually don’t have to have another child. Is there a rule book that says that everyone must have exactly 2.0 children, one boy, one girl, no more, no less? Yes I’m annoyed because I get it asked all the time and I get told all the time that I have to have another child. So let’s flip the situation. How about I start saying to people that have more than one child that they must stop having children? How would they feel? I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it. Remember you don’t know what goes on between a couple. Maybe they can’t have another child, that’s not the situation in our case, but what if it was? Do you think that those questions and comments make that person feel good? No they don’t.
So thank you Kelly Flannigan Bos, from Yummy Mummy Club for writing this article. Please take a read, it’s a quick, well written post.
What are your thoughts?
May this blog inspire you to stop asking people when they’re going to have another child. Let’s be happy with what we have. I know I am. I have a healthy, happy, intelligent son who is thriving. What more could I want?
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I wrote a post last October called “Moms vs. Moms: Why can’t we just all play nicely together?!?!?” In it I discuss how women, especially moms are beyond mean to one another; how we take our own insecurities and put them onto another mother. I’m honestly tired of it!!!! I had an incident happen a while ago, where someone I knew totally blew a situation completely out of proportion. The reaction was not appropriate for what had happened. Another friend of mine pointed out that it has nothing to do with me, but all to do with that person. Well can I just say that I’m tired of that!!! We all have shit in our lives, all ofus!!!!!!That doesn’t give anyone the right to treat the other person disrespectfully. As women, especially mothers, do we have to take our own insecurities and issues out on another person and treat them like garbage? It’s not the other person’s fault that you feel the way you do about your life. This is a great quote that I try and remember whenever someone is mean or hurtful:
Here’s the thing, the reason why I’m rehashing this topic is that I recently read a blog post: “10 Types of Moms That Suck“. I was enraged after reading this. The person, being a mother herself, should not be perpetuating this kind of childish, spiteful, hateful behaviour!!!!! What are we teaching our children?!?!?!??! That if someone is prettier than you, or smarter than you, or dresses better than you, or is more conscientious about what they feed their kid more than you, or is happier than you, that gives you the right to treat them like shit or write a post like this. THIS IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH WOMEN!!!!!!! Why must we always tear the other person down to make ourselves feel better??? Why??? I’m so sick and tired of it!!! Let’s get one thing straight, the grass is not always greener on the other side, that what you see on the outside may not be what’s going on in the inside and who cares if that person dresses better than you, or feeds their kids Kale, or chooses to use hand sanitizer? It’s none of your business or your concern!!!!
I recently read a funny saying/cartoon on Facebook that said “If women ran the world, there wouldn’t be wars, we just wouldn’t talk to one another!!” Isn’t that the truth!!!!! What really hurts me regarding this post was when the author wrote this: “The ‘Always Super Chipper and Well Dressed,” Mom. I hate you. No really, I just… hate you. I’m 100% sure you sold your soul to Satan, or maybe Martha Stewart. Nope, don’t even speak to me, I feel more disgusting and unworthy the closer you get. I’m not even sure these Yoga pants are clean, I may have worn them to the gym yesterday, who even knows anymore?” So how are you justified in writing this? How does a person who is well dressed affect you? They made the choice in the morning to get dressed in something other than yoga pants and you made the choice to dress in yoga pants. You both made a choice. They aren’t holding it against you that you chose to wear yoga pants, so please stop holding it against them.
Yes I’m pissed off because I’m sick and tired of women tearing each other down and not supporting one another. You should see the hateful speech I read on a mother’s forum last week regarding Vaccinations. It was awful. I mean down right hurtful and malicious. Honestly women, we need to start getting our heads of out of asses and start standing up for one another instead of tearing each other down.
I didn’t include the name of the author of that blog because I don’t want to out her or start something. The point of me writing this is so that we can stop this hateful speech against one another. What are we teaching our children? We need to be better role models than that!!! Shame on us!!! So let’s stop writing posts about why the other mom is making you feel insecure and let’s start writing posts about supporting one another, even if we don’t practice what the other person does. I have to admit that yes some of her points the other made were valid and funny, but I don’t like the tone in which this article was written.
At the end of the day we are all just trying to do our best. What my best is may not mesh with yours and vice versa. But who cares!!! If we stopped judging one another, we may even learn a thing or two from each other. Being a mother is the hardest job ever, so why are we making it harder?? Let’s band together and help one another. If we see another mom struggling we should support her, instead of standing there judging. None of us are perfect mothers and women, we all could do things a bit better.
May this blog help us to stop judging one another, to stop writing hateful and childish posts and to stop treating other women badly for our insecurities. Let’s start leading our children by example. Let’s teach them that it’s ok to be different and that we support other people and help them. Let’s teach them to perpetuate love, not hate.
What are your thoughts? I would love to hear them.
This song, originally from the Beatles, from the Love Actually soundtrack, is very apropos to this post:
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It’s been 10 years since I moved here to beautiful British Columbia. I can’t believe it!!! 10 years ago I packed up my life, drove 15 hrs and started a new life with my now husband. Little did I know that my husband was planning on proposing to me that night. I joke that he decided to propose to me that night because he knew I would be too exhausted to say no. I’m kidding. All joking aside, it’s been an interesting, amazing, emotional, life changing 10 years. Since moving here, I got my first job as an RN, did my specialty in Perinatal Nursing, work in LDR for the past 8 years, got married, bought a house and had a baby. If you would have told me 10 years ago that this is where I would, I’m not sure I’d believe it. When people say that time goes by quickly, it’s true. Below are pictures of our drive down to Vancouver and the potato my husband proposed to me with.
What?!?!?!?! Yes I know, what’s up with a potato? You read correctly, a potato!!! When we first starting dating and my husband told me he had a surprise for me, I would answer that I didn’t care what it was, it could be a potato for all I care, just as long as it has meaning. Well that little monkey took me literally and carved out a potato and inside it was my engagement ring. Fast forward 10 years and this August we will be celebrating our 9 year wedding anniversary.
Tonight, our friends kindly offered to watch our son and we are headed out for dinner, nothing fancy, but it doesn’t matter. I get to spend a few hours alone with my husband uninterrupted, am able to enjoy a cocktail or 2 and eat my food without someone nagging at me. My husband bought us a special bottle of red wine that we will enjoy once our son is in bed. I’d say it’s a good start to the Easter long weekend!!!
May this blog inspire you to celebrate your relationship milestones with that special person in your life. It’s important to reconnect with one another and remember why you got together in the first place.
This past weekend, Spring finally decided to not only make an appearance, but to hang around. It was a glorious weekend, filled with sunshine, birds chirping, flowers blossoming and me fighting off the worst head cold I had all Winter long!!!! Although I spent most of the weekend resting, I did manage to head to the park with my family to enjoy some much needed Vitamin D. Honestly I don’t know how you guys feel, but I’m a different person when the sun is shinning !!! Below are some pictures of our fun in the sun.
My son decided to dress himself, can you tell???
While my husband builds a sand castle, my son decides to make a sand angel.
Hard life!!!!!!
Someone is a bit tired from all the fun
Tomorrow I return to a fashion post, I just couldn’t resist posting some pictures of us having some fun in the sun, finally!!!!!!
May this blog inspire you to get out and enjoy the sun. I even managed to get my Spring and Summer clothes out of my storage bins!!!!! It’s like rediscovering a new wardrobe :).
About a year ago, a good friend of mine’s son was diagnosed with Autism. Before his diagnosis, she had a feeling that something wasn’t right and thankfully because she listened to her instinct, her son was diagnosed and is getting the treatment that he needs. Before meeting my friend, I had never met a child with Autism. Honestly I wouldn’t have known he was autistic, if she didn’t tell me. He behaves better than my 5 year old :). I’m writing this post, not to tell my friend’s story, but to help bring awareness to this very misunderstood and underfunded disease.
In the Summer I read this amazing book called “The Spark“, by Kristine Barnett, which helped open my eyes to what Autism is all about. It showed me how these children are absolutely brilliant but they can’t communicate or express themselves, which then leads them to become frustrated. I wrote a post about it, click here to read about how much this book touched me and how being diagnosed with Autism is not a death sentence. We need to start looking at Autistic children as true gifts to us and to society. In Kristine’s book, she explains that her 15-year-old son is on track to win a Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics. She also recounts how her son had predicted Hurricane Katrina, just by examining weather charts and patterns. Imagine what a mind like this could do to help this world, to help society? Imagine that there are hundreds of thousands of children like my friend’s son and Kristine’s son, just waiting for their potential to be discovered!!!
A study just released some very alarming stats that 1 in 68 children in the US have Autism and Health Canada states that 1 in 150-160 are Autistic. Is this because we have better ways of testing children? Do we test them earlier? Do we have more environmental causes? No one really knows, but without further study and funding we will never know. We will also never know the full potential of these beautiful souls. The symbol for Autism is a puzzle piece, because the illness is a puzzle that has many sides and facets and that in order for scientists and researchers to put the pieces together, they need to better understand Autism and in order to do that, they need more funding!!!
The month of April is Autism awareness month and the company, Stella & Dot, is selling 4 fabulous items and the net proceeds go to helping support Autism Awareness. This is a 2-fold, win-win, situation. You get to add some great colour to your wardrobe and you get to support a great cause in the process.
I dedicate this post to my friend, her son and to all mother’s, children and families who are affected by Autism. I hope that someday soon we will no longer have a stigma attached to Autism and that every child will be able to get the help they need.
May this blog inspire you to help support research for Autism and to help breakdown the walls of stigma surrounding this illness.
Last Saturday a few of my girlfriends and I headed out for a girl’s night out. It was 3 months in the making, thanks to my shift work. We had an amazing time!!!!! I laughed so hard, my stomach still hurt on Sunday. Cotton candy was a big theme at this restaurant and after a few drinks, I decided to style some of the cotton candy as a hat. Anyways enjoy the pictures. You can see that as the night progressed and more drinks were consumed, my smile got bigger :).
All gussied up and ready to go
The start of our evening
After many martinis…
Enjoying the donut “balls”
Just wanted to thank the ladies for a much needed night out. It was great to let loose after such an insane week.
It’s that time of the week for my link up. Thank you to all 99 of you fabulous ladies who linked up last week!!!! The best turn out yet. THANK YOU!!!!!!! . If you are interested in co-hosting please email me at vodkainfusedlemonade@gmail.com. If you’ve already co-hosted and would like to again, don’t hesitate to email me.
Before I continue, it’s come to my attention that people aren’t following my co-hosts. I would really appreciate it if you please took the time to either like them on Facebook or follow them via Bloglovin. I’ve received so much love and support for this blog, I would love it if we could all share it with my co-hosts as well. Thank you so much.
Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day and I decided to celebrate by wearing a green cardigan. Gotta say I’m loving that Spring is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to wearing more bright colours!!!!! To keep myself warm, I layered a green cardigan over a simple white 3/4 length t-shirt and paired it with trouser jeans, loafers and added a brown blazer.
I just wanted to say a very big THANK YOU to the 15 ladies who not only shared a picture of themselves without any make up on, but took the time to compose a thoughtful and heart felt post. It means a lot to me that you took the time to not only bravely pose for a picture sans make up, but that you took the time to compose a post that came from the heart. This post resonated with many people. I now am seeing people posting pictures of themselves without make up on, on Facebook. Hooray, let’s start celebrating our uniqueness!!! So as a big thanks, I wanted to give a special shout out to the following 15 ladies who linked up. I want to add that I wasn’t able to post a couple of the ladies pictures as it would not save properly, but I’ll include a link to their site anyways.
Inge from This Ever Evolving Life/ Sarah Christine from Sarah Christine Style/ Danielle from A Little Bit of WoWe/ Bri from Work Clothes, I Suppose/ Ada from Elegance & Mommyhood
In case you missed last Tuesday’s post, click here for details on today’s link up.
If you’re like me, you don’t take compliments easily and graciously. I am not gracious when accepting compliments, especially from my husband and that is something that I am working on. I have a hard time believing what the person is saying is true. I question their motives and wonder if it’s sincere. Yes I know that I have a problem. It stems from being a teenager and being incessantly teased. I understand that now I’m an adult and I shouldn’t let it get to me or affect how I see myself, but I do. It’s something that I am working on very hard to change. I wish I could see myself the way my husband and son do.
After reading this article, “When your mother says she’s fat“, I’ve made a conscious effort to always thank my son when he compliments me and to never criticize how I look in front of him. To him, I’m his beautiful Mama and in his eyes, I have no flaws. He just sees me as his Mama.
So ladies, repeat after me:
I AM BEAUTIFUL!
I AM BEAUTIFUL!!
I AM BEAUTIFUL!!!
I AM BEAUTIFUL!!!!
I AM BEAUTIFUL!!!!!
I AM BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!
BECAUSE, GUESS WHAT???? YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!
Many of you wrote such sweet, supportive and kind comments. Many of you also wrote “if I’m brave enough!”. If you have children, and even if you don’t, you have to be brave enough to show the world that beauty is found in all shapes, sizes, colours, ages, wrinkles, grey hair, stretch marks, cellulite and all. Our so called “flaws” are what makes us individuals, unique. If we all looked the same, then this world would be a mighty dull place. One of the women in the video, Photoshopping real women into cover models says: “Once you take away your imperfections, there’s not much left of who you really are!!” So true.
So many women are getting plastic surgery to look like what society is telling us you should look like, instead of embracing our true self. This brings me to a discussion that Deepak Chopra and Oprah were having on her show Super Soul Sunday. He discussed that there is a fundamental difference between self-esteem and self-image. We forget ourselves and we start identifying with our self-image. Deepak describes our real self ”as being beneath no one, immune to criticism and is fearless.” What a powerful definition!!!! What empowering words!!!! He says that he teaches this to young children and he is amazed at the twinkle in their eyes, once they make that connection. I only wish someone would have told me this when I was growing up!!!!!
Deepak continues to say “that we shouldn’t confuse self with image. Self-image is what other people think of you. Self is what you think of you.” I, like many others, confuse the way I see myself with how other people see me. I think we all do this to some extent and the sad thing is that we then start believing in what other people are thinking of us. We start to focus on the negatives, instead of believing in ourselves and how we see ourselves; the positives!!!!!
What Deepak Chopra said resounded with me so much and it couldn’t have come at a better time. It is exactly what we need to be teaching our children and we need to start practicing it, so that our children will then do it as well. All we tend to focus on is the negative even though there are positives. For instances when you are getting feedback and they say a bunch of positive things and then they use the word “BUT“, you forget everything they said before it and you only focus on the negative. I love how Deepak describes our self as being “beneath no one, fearless and immune to criticism”. This is something that has hit a strong cord within me and it’s something that I want to start adopting. I no longer want to be held hostage to all the negative thoughts I have. It’s about time we all realized that our self is worth it, that we can do anything, and that we don’t need to listen to the negative chit chat!!!!
This leads me to the purpose of my link up. It’s to show the world how beautiful we really are and that we don’t need to be airbrushed and photoshopped to be beautiful. We are all beautiful just the way we are. We just need to see it and believe it.
So here is my picture without any makeup and my hair not done to motivate and to inspire you to join my link up.
I hope you join me in my “I AM BEAUTIFUL LINK UP”. It will run for 1 week until Tuesday March11.
I wanted to thank you all for your support and kind comments regarding Tuesday’s post about being beautiful and how our uniqueness makes us all beautiful. Click here to read the post and to participate in next Tuesday’s link up called “I AM BEAUTIFUL”.
We had a very busy Sunday. We woke up and celebrated Canada’s win in Men’s Hockey. We then headed out for my son’s first Hungarian Scouts Luncheon. We then came home as we had quite the dump of snow and make a snow man, had a huge snow ball fight and made snow angels. We tried to get in as much Winter fun as we could, as I doubt there will be any more snow this year. Below are pictures of our Sunday escapades.
Scout’s Luncheon
A little monkey making monkey faces
Fun in the snow
It’s that time of the week for my link up. Thank you to all 87 of you fabulous ladies who linked up last week!!!! A great turn out. THANK YOU!!!!!!! Let’s try and get 100 this week If you are interested in co-hosting please email me at vodkainfusedlemonade@gmail.com. If you’ve already co-hosted and would like to again, don’t hesitate to email me.
A great turnout, I love it!!!!! If you are interested in co-hosting please email me at vodkainfusedlemonade@gmail.com. If you’ve already co-hosted and would like to again, don’t hesitate to email me.
