Favorite Ornaments and the Story behind them!

 

Over in my GelMoment  VIP group on Facebook we are sharing our favorite ornaments and the stories behind them!

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite ornaments - it’s a handmade memorial ornament for my fur baby Nevada who passed away little over three years ago.I rescued her in 2003 from a pot light in Las Vegas when on vacation ~ she was the light during a challenging time in my life!

 

 

Several months later we rescued Lily and Luna, not to replace her but to help fill the hole in our hearts she’d left behind! 

 

 

Since being infertile and having had my hysterectomy so young I had never had a “shower” of any kind so my amazing friends threw me a surprise “fur baby shower” with all sorts of fun stuff for the newest additions to our hearts and one of the gifts was this memorial ornament for our dear Nevada along with some adorable ones of Lily and Luna to add to our tree!

 

Every year I pop it up I remember not only how much we loved Nevada and what she brought to our lives but how much I really appreciated my friends in showering me with the only “baby shower” I am gonna have - a fur baby one!

 

Do you have a favorite ornament you'd like to share the story about?

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

 

*post contains affiliate links

Do You have a Bad Habit to kick?

 

Happy Friday! YAY!!!!!

 

It is getting to be that time of year where we reflect on the year we are releasing and dream and plan for the new one we are about to embark on! 

 

 

Do you have a habit you want to kick in the New Year? Or a goal for something you want to add to your life?

 

Making a change in habits can be hard as our brain becomes wired in one habitual way and we basically have to work hard to rewire it into a new set of pathways and keep AT it until it is really ingrained otherwise the brain can be tricky and try to detour you back to an old path!

My 3 tips for helping kick a habit:

 

Write it down! 

 

Making a public declaration of your goals helps to turn it from a wish into an action plan cause now it is out there in writing for you and others to see. You do not have to do it online you can write it down and pop it on the fridge or your desk at work!

 

Make sure your goal is SMART ... 

 

Is it specific?

 

If your goal is too broad it is easy to get lost in the focus or direction you are going and feel defeated. So for example setting a goal for World Peace is WAY to broad - break that baby down into the goals you need to achieve with that as your end game! 

 

Is it measurable?

 

 How you are you going to know you have reached your goal? So for example I can say I want to loose weight  - but that goal is not really a clearly measurable goal as in I could loose a pound and whoop technically someone could say I met my goal - but if my goal is to loose 100 pounds well I have a journey ahead of me! I might need to break that down into even more measurable goals in order to succeed at it! I want to reach a goal weight of 150 pound - that is more specific.

 

Is it attainable/achievable?

 

So again is your goal about setting you up for success? So going with the weight loss cause that tends to be a popular goal this time of year. If my goal is to reach a goal weight of 150 pounds but than I add in the idea that by a wedding that's 4 weeks away - well that might not be attainable or achievable unless you are starting at 158 pounds. Conventional advice on healthy sustained weight loss is to aim for a 2 pounds per week .... so to ensure your goal is attainable you need to figure out how many pounds you need to loose to get to your ideal weight and than if losing 2 pounds per week to help you determine what time line is needed to achieve that?

 

Is it relevant?

 

This is a tricky one for some - you need to dig deep and ensure that this goal is REALLY something that you are doing for YOU and that you are motivated by a need/want that is within you! An example for my own life - I am a former smoker! Started when I was 10 smoking the butts of my and my friends parents cigarettes in the gravel pit fort we had made and by the time I was 14 I was smoking a pack a day by the time I was in my 20's that was a pack and half or more! I tried to quit NUMEROUS times over the years because loved ones complained about it, because doctors came out and said it was dangerous, because society was starting to shame smokers and restrict where you could smoke .... all reasons that were NOT relevant to ME in any meaningful way. I finally quit when I herniated my disc and found myself immobile for months and the  smoking on top of that started collecting in my lungs and I was waking up coughing up nasty crap ... now that was a RELEVANT reason to me because first GROSS but secondly have you ever coughed when you have a herniated disc or even if you have not herniated that if you've had an abdominal surgery - it is PAINFUL. I quit cold turkey because I was truly motivated to not have to experience that pain because of a nasty habit! 

 

 And lastly is it time based?

As mentioned early with the weight loss being attainable - having a realistic time line is vital when setting a goal! If your time line is unrealistic you are setting yourself up to fail from the start!

Set up a Support system! 

 

Ask someone to be your accountability partner to follow up with you daily or weekly or however often you agree to check in with how your doing and cheer you on or help to put you back on track with your goal also helps with successfully kicking a habit! 

 

Choose that partner wisely - you want to choose someone who actually been through what you are going through so they have understanding and empathy as well as the knowledge of what is going on. Someone who will actually HOLD you accountable to your goals, who can give you both positive feedback AND constructive criticism where you need it! Someone you trust to be both inspiring when you need it and that hard knuckle coach when you need that too!

 

Keep the eye on the prize ... part of setting a goal and following through is to have a very good 'visual picture' of where you were and where you want to go and WHY! As you set your goal you want to create a daily mantra of what you are going to GAIN by changing this habit.

 

Word your mantra as if you have ACHIEVED your goal! Something like "I have reached my ideal weight, I am able to run and play with my grand-daughter without pain. I am strong and confident and comfortable in my skin again! I am living my happiest and healthiest life surrounded by those I love.' 

 

I know it sounds simple but in my experience those are the top 3 things to have success! It is basically setting SMART goals, accountability and gratitude for what you have now and will have when you get where you want to be!

 

You've got this and if you need an accountability partner - message me I love to help others rock their goals or come on over and join us on Facebook either in my Totallyawake4-life Community or my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' It community or both they each off a bit different content focus on living a healthy happy life! 

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

Tasty Tuesday

So what did you serve up for dinner? 

I admit I am proud of myself - I had a shitastic day yesterday with the house falling apart around us right before Christmas followed by another less than steller day at the Dr with the test results from the last round of tests trying to figure out what’s going in with my body raising more concerns than answers and with my trauma response to stress I REALLY wanted to eat a shit load of crappy comfort food to drown my sorrows and get those serotonins flowing for that temporary relief  … but I opted for some extra fresh Parmesan on my salad and I am gonna have a Keto Hot Chocolate with a shot of Forty Creek in it bit later and decompress with some PVR CSI catch up! Than tomorrow I am gonna get myself some healthy and longer lasting serotonin working out the stress in the POOL!

Bon Appetite 

Margaret 

Live, Laigh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

How cute is this little Santa manicure?

Is it this the cutest little Santa that you ever did see! 

Let’s recreate this look!! It’s as easy as 1,2,3….4!

I would recreate using:

• In the Mood is a nice nude for skin tone
•  Lovee Dovee 
•  Ravens Kiss
• Gilty Soirée or Chandelier for your buckle
• Choose whichever Christmas Red you want for Santa’s

Be as Bold As your Gelmoment Nail Polish 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh,Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

*this post contains affiliate links 

Fathead Dough Pizza

 Nom nom - tonight we are having a fan favourite grain free / keto pizza crust recipe!

What you need:

12 oz shredded mozzarella cheese - melted until gooey quickly mix in following:

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp xanthum gum

2/3 cup coconut flour

2 eggs 

Mix together and roll out evenly onto non stick silicone baking tray - I used some parchment paper over top to prevent my rolling pin from sticking to the crust.

I also added some Epicure Pizza seasoning sprinkled on top! Than bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes!

Then take out and add sauce and toppings and bake again for another 10-15 minutes or so to heat those up! 

Take out of oven when cheese is bubbly and cut into desired slice sizes!

The crust was AWESOME and loved being able to pick it up eat like a normal pizza without it being a floppy disc where the toppings all slide off! Definitely my new favourite! 

Bon Appetite

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

November Nail Art winners

 Congratulations to all of our November 'Nails of the Month' Distributor Contest Winners! 🏅

📸: Ebony Wylie, Jamie Leigh, Kimberley Klassen, Shauna Dewar-Siwik, Sheralyn Guilleminot, Stephanie Thiessen.

GelMoment is great for recognizing its distributors and offering lots of chances to win prizes and awards! So many wonderful Lee Asian to join the team!   

Be as Bold As your GelMoment nail polish! 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be a Totallyawake4-life

*this post contains affiliate links 

Should all RECE be supporting the need for Universal Childcare?

 

This question came up in a networking group on Facebook today! My views on this are likely not popular among many of my peers however at the end of the day I would advocate to put myself out of a job before I would advocate to put children and families health and wellness at risk in a system that might sound good on bullet points but could actually do more harm than good when you look deeply at the over all picture and under currents of the challenges faced by families with young children in Canada!

 

My response is thus to 'Should all RECE be supporting the need for Universal Childcare?' : 

 

If it is going to be modeled after Quebec $10 a day childcare as they keep promoting than I would vote no not all RECE should be supporting this initiative  - because IMO the Quebec system is FAILING both the children AND ECE so I strongly advocate that the ECE here in Ontario need look past the government propaganda about its success where they seem to be focusing only at getting more woman back into the workforce to REALLY see what the program looks like after 25 YEARS and get feedback from those actually on the front line working in it on is this really a system worth 'replicating' all across Canada. 

 

From my research - they have the highest ratios of children to adult across the board in ALL age groups - do we WANT to be caring for MORE children than we already do? There infant ratios are 1:5 for under 18 months 1:8 for 18 months up to 4 years all in the same room and no apparent rules about how many can be only 18 months in that 1:8 ratio. 4 year are 1:10 and 5 year old are 1:20. Are those ratios what is considered 'high quality care'? 

 

Look at their LOW PAY with an average of $19 meaning that most front line make LESS than that just making the minimum wage and a few in management roles make more at the $25 mark in order to average out to that $19 and that is even with them all being unionized after a QUARTER OF A CENTURY. 

 

 

Here in Ontario everyone keeps saying 'if only we were unionized than we'd get better pay' .... how is that working in Quebec? Fact is that a union cannot demand blood from a stone! When the cost of offering childcare rises above the income a parent can earn working, regardless if it is the parent paying it out of pocket or the government anyone with a lick of 'budgeting' will choose to say 'lets pay the parent to stay home instead' because than we are not investing millions in fancy infant and toddler centres and other overhead costs so it's actually a better investment. And the sad reality is that while we do this for public education system the reason that flies is because most tax payers do not think they have the skills to 'home school' their child and even if they do they do not get keep the cost of public education for themselves. When it comes to childcare to the youngest among is, while it definitely takes some skill set and understanding of childcare development to do it really well the fact is that for centuries parents have been doing 'childcare' themselves and raised strong innovative generations without help so society is less likely to invest in outsourcing childcare and more inclined to support a system where THEY are supported financially to stay home during the early years rather than trying to balance full time work and full time childrearing in those early years when they do not sleep through night and are very emotionally taxing due to lack of language and communication skills! 

 

Even the Quebec's unionized home childcare sector is currently doing rolling strikes because they do not even make the current MINIMUM wage of $13.50 an hour because they pay them a daily rate vs an hourly one and most providers work 10 plus hours a day not the 8 that most centre staff do! So from what I am reading the universal childcare has not really benefits the FRONT LINE at all - still low paid and have higher ratios for their trouble! 

 

And is it really benefiting ALL families equably?  It has been over 25 YEARS and it is still not UNIVERSAL and yet the cost of operating it is bankrupting the province so they have no money for other infrastructure like roads or hospitals - according to the Finding Quality Childcare in Canada website as of the last survey in 2019 the program only services 54% of the demand when looking at 0-12 year olds and that drops to only 42% when you look at 0-4 year olds! They seem to have a inequitable TWO TIER system where there are limited 'subsidized' spaces and everyone else is either paying higher out of pocket fees OR arranging for family or other types of childcare with lower out of pocket costs.

 

 

And most importantly the research coming out on the CHILDREN who've lived this system for 25 years in high ratios and with parents who are over taxed balancing full time work and full time child rearing and full time household management is VERY troubling - showing increased emotional and mental health challenges and increases in physical illnesses and societal challenges over all. 

 

So sure the upfront cost of $!0 a day childcare might  look great at first glance and sure on paper it increased the number of woman in the workforce and increased their financial security of having their own income but we really need to look at the OVERALL cost to children, parents, early childhood educators AND the taxpayer over all! The system is FLAWED and we really should not be holding it up as a model to emulate! 

 

There are way better models in other countries that can result in more women in the workforce, betting paying jobs for woman by ensuring EQUALITY in parental leave programs so that it is not the woman who has to choose to remain out of the workforce! Look to those!!!!

So if we are going to look at modeling a Canadian Universal Childcare system like NORDIC countries do and instead fund an actual living income for a proper parental leave for the first 3 years. A leave that can be shared equally between both parents if desired so no one has to give up their career entirely but where so parents can share the load to provide FULL TIME CARE at the low ratio and primary caregiver that brain research shows children thrive best with while also working part time to keep themselves up to date with career advancements and such - yes please!

 

Create a universal childcare system where we were to invest in have community family centres and playgroups building on the EarlyON programs we already have where highly trained RECE can offer EARLY LEARNING via playgroups but can be done at the higher ratios of children serviced because their parents are also there providing the CARE. A family centre that can also act as a resources to parents with workshops and support groups for connection designed on helping them gain the skills they need to thrive at the demanding role of parenting. 

 

A system where 'universal childcare' by an actual THIRD PARTY highly trained RECE waits to start once the child is 3 and goes until 6 with a ratio that is more conducive to that age group in order to publicly fund both the early learning and care needed while ensuring well compansated educators. 

 

A universal system where children do not move to a formal public education setting until they are turning 7 within the school year - where they wait to introduce formal reading/writing/ expectations until all children would be developmentally read. Early years are spent instilling a love of reading and literacy awareness through play based interactions with adults and their environments!

 

If we are going to model a universal system like THAT where everyone is winning than sure sign me up! 

 

 Because they have been at it since 1975 and unlike Quebec studies show THAT model actually results in positive outcomes for all - parents are not pulled in two directions in the early years trying to work full time and do the full time job of parenting so they are better rested and have better mental health outcomes, children form strong family attachments with their parents during those first 3 years thus have the social emotional growth to thrive in the universal preschool programming! They hold off trying to cram unrealistic reading and writing on 3-6 year olds making children stressed and turning them off of learning and therefore they have might higher rates for both that carry out through their entire education system. Our FDK approach is not providing those same results - ratios are too high and the reading/writing/ expectations are not developmentally appropriate for the majority of children that age creating stress and anxiety around 'learning' for children!

 

You only get one childhood. Lets make sure it is full of magic, nature and discovery!

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life