Whatcha Wearing Wednesday?

Wednesday ... I am still over here wondering and worry about what colour polish to wear for my next manicure!

 

 

 

Sometimes when you have anxiety it’s just easier when someone else makes the decision for you … when I had the home childcare running I would get the little ones to help choose my next manicure colour by majority vote wins and they’d be all excited to see it the next day … somehow Paul is not quite as excited to help nor invested in the outcome as the crew was. Men, eh?

 

I am lucky that thanks to my GelMoment Fortify treatment my natural nails look fairly stunning even when they are naked!  

So help me choose - what is your favorite Spring colour?

Be as Bold as your GelMoment polish!

 

Margaret!

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

 

*post contains affiliate links

$10 per day childcare - celerbation or concerned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So want to say “for now” to all those answers from politicians and advocates like the AECEO and OCBCC for this … based on historical precedent of what happens when the government is responsible for the majority of funding I find it hard to trust promises like “ratios won’t increase” also do not see funding being distributed equitably to see improvement to wages across the board - large licensed centres are going to end up eating up the majority of funding because well they are the least financially viable model of childcare and have the highest overhead model and overtime easy to hypotheses that there will be less and less for the tiny amount of licensed home childcare that is currently is represented in the licensed model let alone if the “unregulated sector” starts to try to migrate over placing more demand on said funding that’s been allotted which is based on the currently model that only meets 25% of the actual childcare used in Ontario. 

 

Again based on precedents of history - hate to keep saying it but look at Quebec …. despite the sector being unionized for 25 years now their home childcare sector, under this same model being represented here, gets the scattered crumbs that are leftover and preCovid had started roaring strikes because 25 years in and home childcare was still making LESS than minimum wage because they were getting away with paying them daily rates vs hourly wages and the length of the days just kept increasing as parents worked longer hours and had longer commutes you know to help pay for these programs … and this is despite the reality that home childcare has the least amount of overhead, provides the lowest ratios/group sizes for children and the access to a responsive attentive primary caregiver throughout their early years journey that all the brain and trauma informed research shows is vital to success in the early years. 

 

Currently licensed programs cannot properly staff programs NOW where are they gonna get all these new staff from to open up new spaces or to be home coordinators for agencies?

How quickly are we gonna see more and more centres who currently only hire ECE because they believe that’s what high quality program should be having to resort to hiring unqualified staff a because of shortage and b because they can pay them LESS and the burden of the pressure from the government not funding enough in wages to keep up that practice - which is gonna put more responsibility on the ONE RECE required per group because with the CECE and protected practice laws the non qualified staff are not SUPPOSED to be doing program planning, discussing development with parents and array of other “only a RECE” can do

As always people get hyped about the sound bytes and then are greatly disappointed by what actually rolls out! 

 

FDK is almost 20 years in between the pilots and than the full roll out is STILL underfunded and looks NOTHING like what was promised

Based on conversations with peers I it is likely that majority of home childcare providers will WAIT and see what actually rolls out before being concerned about this … I am willing to guess that any families going on wait lists NOW for this new program will likely have children in university before they actually opening up spaces for them! 

 

I would also bet money that the majority of these 86,000 spaces being promised  of which 15,000 are already been already created in 2019 and counted in this promise will be for SCHOOL AGE children and not the 0-4 age group which they do NOT tend to open up  too many of at a time in comparison! School age care is the ONLY care that can actually balance an operational budget because their ratios are so much higher than current infant and toddler or even preschool programs which is why programs choose to focus on those age groups with school age and preschool spaces being in abundance and toddler and infant spaces in great demand in the licensed sector!

 

And I have to say it once again if parents cannot access this 'social support' $10/day program to let a parent stay home and DIY their own childcare or get their nanny, extended family member or neighborhood home childcare costs covered via the program too than it’s NOT gonna fit the definition of ‘universal’. At best based on the current landscape it is going to be a very expensive investment that is only reaching 25% of the children in Ontario and that just does not seem like a EQUITABLE investment in the early years or respecting CHOICE for Ontario families!

 

Can’t help but be concerned about the future generations that are gonna come up through this model specially when again the research that shows that Quebec’s long term studies on the actual social/emotional and mental health outcomes for their program users has been alarmingly poor So sure the program got more parents into the workforce cause both can work but at what TRUE COST to children and families living there cause there’s more valuable things in life than lost INCOME.

 

Hug your little ones tight and if you believe in a higher power pray that today's announcement about Ontario joining the Federal government's $10/day platform turns out to actually be beneficial to the CHILDREN it is meant to serve as building blocks for their life long learning path! 

 

For the first time in two years I ironically now have something to be grateful for with the pandemic having closed my own early learning program and my health having forced me to retire from practicing early childhood education for the time being - I can advocate from the sidelines without the stress of having to live through this uncertainty of roll out first hand! 

 

Changes in childcare have never run smoothly as they rolled out and sadly far too often caused more stress and work for those on the front line than benefiting them! 

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

 

Apparently Multitasking is a BAD trait now?

 

Ok am I alone in thinking this is an unrealistic expectation???

 

 

 

Think I definitely need to find time to listen to the whole podcast being mentioned here for context but at first read of this meme and some of the comments over on IG all I got is that after spending 30 years working in an industry where you HAD to multitask or you risked children being injured or lost that I must have been able to adapt to having a big wide ass lens on my flashlight so I can see/do/manage more than one thing at a time … I am constantly used to doing 2-3 or more tasks/jobs simultaneously and having focus on ALL of them and yet still able to work quickly and yield great accuracy in my results! 

 

I will admit that when I was able to leave large centres and work in a smaller ratio of children that I was able to yield even BETTER results but I was still having to multitask constantly it was just way easier with only 5 littles vs having up to 12! 

 

Also admit on the last factor - YES it can be exhausting to work in settings where it’s required to constantly multitask … but there are SO many jobs where your are constantly expected to multi task simultaneously and where the ability TO do it is seen as valuable to employers - even when I worked in restaurants you had 20-30 orders up in the air at any given time all in various stages of completion and having to bounce between doing that and answering incoming phone orders or people coming to the cash to check out. You needed to be able to have great recall to snap back to where you were in which orders completion and so forth. Can you imagine how SLOW restaurants would be if they only worked on one order start to finish in the back kitchen. 

Or I think of people like Toad who are neurodivergent with ADHD or others on the autism spectrum who find having to focus on just one task very challenging to stick with and actually produce better results if they are, for example, playing with a toy in their hands, while focusing on being required to read and also needing some auditory stimuli like music on in background.

 

What are your thoughts on multi-tasking? Something we need to eliminate or a basic skill requirement to be honed to keep up in this era?  As always you are welcome to come join the conversation in our private Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' It Together community!

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

Seas the Day!

This stamp set is so darling! 

 

How stinking cute are these two card inspirations? 

 

 

 

Artisan team member Karine Lison created these two projects using the Seas the Day Bundle.

She says: “I used Sponge Daubers and two inks on my stamp to get a nice gradient on my octopus.”

 

 

 

Happy crafting .... looking for weekly crafty inspiration, self care and clean living inspiration come over to Facebook and join us in Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' It Together community!

 

Margaret

Live. Laugh. Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

Do you have a Saturday ritual??

Sharing is caring - drop us your must haves to help you recharge in the comments.

 

 

 

We spent some time out in the backyard cleaning up the deck to enjoy sitting out by the fire and discussing plans to have an overgrown pine tree removed, got creative digitally making fun content, Love my Aloette Muddy Up detoxification mask, added some DoTERRA lavender to my Epsom salts to help with the relaxing, currently working my way the through an Audible book Cognitive Behaviour therapy in 7 weeks by Seth Gillian PhD., Aloette has an amazing Hand polish and cream that helps turn back time on the hands & GelMoment cuticle oils are a must for healthy nails, we are currently working our way through the Mandilorian for Saturday night family movie night, I love using wool dryer balls with a couple drops of doTERRA Serenity make for amazing fresh linens and Sundays are the perfect day to plan for a sleep in - hopefully my brain cooperates!

 

Be well and if you are looking for more clean living, eating and self care tips and tricks come join our Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' It Together community!

 

Margaret

Live. Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

*post contains affiliate links

Be the Reason!!!

 

Love this quote!

 

 

We definitely need more lifting of each other up, more seeing the abundance of opportunities out there verses seeing others as in competition with us, more collaboration and support for each other, more sharing of our life and business stories so others can learn from both the successes AND failures or others rather leaving others floundering to get hit by the bus of life’s tough lessons. 

 

Life can be so hard sometimes and a simple smile, a hand to reach out for or an ear to listen to can make the world of difference for someone! 

 

Be the reason someone smiles today! Looking for more inspiring conversations come join us in the Totallywake4-life & Nailin' It Together community!

 

Know someone who could use some pampering? Or do you want to enjoy some pamper time yourself? Check out the GelMoment body spa line for some amazing scrubs and bath products to help you escape and recharge! 

 

Margaret

Live.Laugh.Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

*post contains affiliate links 

Watercolour WOW!

Love this tip on making an abstract water colour effect using water colour paper and spritzer from SU Artisan team member Tami Hewlett. 

 

 

 

Such a pretty end result! 

 

3 easy steps!

Step 1 spritzing a sheet of water colour paper with water. Spritz both front and back to prevent the paper from curling.

Step 2 Ink up a stamp ad stamp off on scratch paper twice to lighten the colour. then stamp on the wet water colour paper. Spritz again if the paper starts drying between colours.

Step 3 Dry the paper with a heat tool. Then stamp on the image full strength over the water colour for a fun artsy look!

I can think of a few of my favorite stamp sets to use with this trick! How about you? 

 

 

Happy crafting

Margaret

Live.Laugh.Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

Living with Chronic Illness

This is so very very true and sometimes we can pay dearly for that one day of “enduring for sake and benefit of some socialization” with days afterward of increased pain and decreased coping cause we used up all the resilience and energy we had in one go!

Sometimes I think of chronic illness as waking up with, let’s say 5, energy chips and I have to be reflective of which activities I will do to make it through the day without running out of chips  - and if something I am being asked to do is going to take 20 energy chips that means I am going to have to accept that for the next 3 days after I am likely gonna be useless for doing anything. And sometimes that’s ok one is willing to go into debt so to speak cause I really want to participate and other times something is offered to me that I really WANT to do but I have to decline because I already used up all my energy chips on something else and I am now in debt and I KNOW from past experience if I say yes and borrow any more energy chips from my tomorrows that my autoimmune system will start demanding significant interest on said debt in way of new symptoms to knock me back a peg! 

It is a delicate balance and sometimes someone with chronic illnesses can get into that spiral of borrowing more and more chips from tomorrow because they hate having to miss out on things and hate that their disease controls so much of their life that they end up hitting rock bottom again with a nasty flare that sets them back that peg or two  before remembering that unlike others they cannot gamble with their chips and hope that they will somehow win more of them and it will balance out in the end.

Just a little PSA that when someone says yes to one persons invite and the next day says no to another persons invite it’s often nothing to do with the INVITE and often much more to do with the timing and the same invitee just being out of energy chips to be able to say yes. Please don’t take it personally and KEEP inviting them out for the next times so that they can trust that it’s ok to say no to “this time” and do get into the spiral of borrowing energy chips from tomorrow out of FOMO in future.

We never know what someone else is going through which is why it’s important to act with empathy and kindness to all! 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life 

I Propose a little Pampering

Who is excited for all that spring has to offer?? 

What’s your favourite thing about spring? 

Longer days for the warm sunshine, return of colours with the gardens budding and the promise of summer nights hot on her trail and most of all the return to OPEN TOE SANDALS!

Proposal shown here with an adorable accent toe using stamping plates and silver gel is the perfect colour for spring! A gorgeous pinky coral that really pops against those first sun kissed signs of warmer weather to come! 

Get your feet sandal ready with our amazing Eclipse exfoliatator and moisturizing treatment! 

Pamper yourself with a home pedicure today!! 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Friday night snacks

Looking for a fun Friday night treat? 

Low Carb Mozzarella Sticks - Yes please! 

Ingredients

• 6 Mozzarella Sticks
• 1/2 cup grated dry Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups pork rinds
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning blend - want to spice it up add a little Cheyenne pepper 
• 1 egg
• 2 tsps water

Directions:

• Cut Mozzarella sticks in half cross-wise and set aside
• Place egg and water in a small shallow dish or pan. Whisk to mix.
• Crush pork rinds with rolling pin or crush in blender. Should make about 1/2 cup pork rind crumbs.
• Place Parmesan, crushed pork rinds and Italian seasoning in a shallow baking pan
• Dip Mozzarella sticks, one at a time, first in egg wash, then crumbs, then repeat both egg wash and crumbs for second coating.
• Set mozzarella on dish or pan that will fit in the freezer.
• Freeze for two hours
• After two hours: heat oven or air fryer to 500 degrees.
• Working quickly cover a baking pan in parchment or grease it.
• Place frozen mozzarella sticks directly from freezer onto pan.
• Spray with a light coating of olive oil. (optional)
• Bake for 6-8 minutes, just till coating is brown and cheese is warm and soft.

Serve immediately with warm marinara sauce, if desired.

Fun low carb snack for all ages! 

Bon Appetite

Margaret

Live, laugh, love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Can we get a WOW?

OMG how stunning are these cars creations from Stampin’ Up! Artisan Team member Yvonne? 

Oh 

I love the turquoise colour combo with the pops of gold and definitely nailed her challenge of creating structure and texture - just 💗💗💗

Want more details check out her blog - there’s a translate button up at top if needed. 

Happy Stampin’

Margaret
Live, Laugh, Love
Be Totallyawake4-life

Tasty Tuesday Teas!

Good morning - this quote is SO true! 

Hands up if you’re a tea lover? 

Did you know that GelMoment also carry’s an amazing tea lovers line??

Not only are the ingredients that make up our amazing teas sourced from women-owned farms, they are also really delicious loose leaf teas that also contain biotin to help nourish healthier nails and hair. 

Seriously I came for the polish but I stayed for the TEA! I love that we have black, herbal and caffeinated and caffeine free choices depending on the time of day I am relaxing with a cup! Plus with the weather warming they make GREAT iced tea flavours too! 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life.com 

*post contains affiliate links 

National Crab Meat Day

Today is National Crab 🦀  Day! 

Celebrate with this tasty appetizer!

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Low Carb Raspberry Coconut bars

 

Recipe adapted from here: 

Ingredients

Crust

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1 3/4 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup coconut four 
• 1/3 cup sugar substitute
• 1 egg

Filling

• 1/2 cup sugar-free raspberry preserves (for test purposes I used Smucker's Sugar-Free Red Raspberry Preserves)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar substitute 
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line an 8c8 square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an inch or more to hang over the edge for handles.
• Mix flour, butter, cream cheese, and sugar in a bowl until mixture is crumbly. Alternatively, you can use a food processor and pulse ingredients until crumbly. Add egg and process a few times until egg is incorporated. 
• Press crust mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake 375 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. 
• Meanwhile, add eggs to a medium-sized mixing bowl and beat with a whisk. Add sugar, almond extract, and coconut flakes to the bowl. Stir until incorporated.
• Remove crust from oven and spread raspberry filling evenly over crust. Top with the egg and coconut filling, spreading evenly over the raspberry layer. 
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Allow bars to cool completely then remove from pan and cut into 20 squares.

These freeze well - place parchment or wax  paper between layers in freezer safe container and remove desired serving and let defrost before serving. 

Bon Appetite 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Pancake Tuesday

 I’ll take any excuse for pancakes over here! 

My favourite recipe is from All Day I Dream about Food 

Ingredients
4 large eggs
¾ cup almond milk
¼ cup avocado oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ½ cups blanched almond flour (about 250g)
¼ cup Swerve Sweetener
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
Additional oil for the pan

Instructions
In a large blender, combine the eggs, almond milk, oil, and vanilla. Blend 30 seconds to combine. Add the almond flour, sweetener, baking powder, and salt and blend again until smooth. Let the batter rest 5 minutes.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat and add lightly grease with a little oil. Use about 3 tablespoons of batter for each pancake and spread into a 3 or 4 inch circle. Cook the pancakes until bubbles begin to appear on the tops and the edges are set and dry, 2 to 4 minutes.

Carefully flip the pancakes and continue to cook until golden brown on the second side, another 2 to 4 minutes. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding more butter or oil to the pan as needed.

Bon Appetite 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

#pancaketuesday #grainfreeliving