Thankful Thurs ~ For the nothing times

Although I am a mover and a shaker and a taker-on-er of to much type of gal, I must say I am thankful of the times I have nothing to do.
These days are far and few between, but for some reason I have had a few of them in a row lately, and they have been great!

It gave me the time to get the little things done that keep piling up on 'the list'. But best of all it gave me some special moments with he kido's. Such as curling up in bed with my 2yr for a nap, looking over at him and he's smiling that teethy grin of his. Then he snuggles closer and smiles more at me over the covers and whispers, "Hi Mommy!" and leans in to give me a drolly, snotty kiss :-D

Or not even putting on my watch and going for an outing to Tim Hortons with my 4yr and talking about his big train station he built with Lego at school, "It was this big Mommy!, look look it was as big as this!!!" He says as he spreads his arms as wide as they can go.

And the best moment of all in one of these nothing times was when my 4yr who these days is ALWAYS a kitty cat and I have to call him that too. When he says to me, "You know what Mommy, Kitty cat thinks you are the best Mommy EVER!!! and Kitty cat loves YOU soooooooo much!"


I am so thankful for the things I get out of these nothing times! :-D




'Live in YOUR Awesome!'

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Last night made my heart smile

So I'm not a church going girl but me and the 'big guy' are pretty tight! And I must say that am just bowled over with what happens when I trust in God and get out of the way!

A BIG example of that was last night. It was the launch party to The Meredith Hagan Foundation. She was my trainer who died suddenly last year ..........wow still can't type that witout getting teary eyed.

So I was excited about this party and knew I needed to be there to honour the change that Meredith caused in me. In her life and in her death and for that part of her that I still carry around with me. However I couldn't afford the ticket :(

I asked if I could volunteer my time to help out at the night instead, but hadn't heard anything back. As the date was approaching I keep thinking of it and really starting to stress that I wasn't going to be able to be there.

Then a week ago I was looking at a picture of the Phat Chicks in their new coats on Facebook on my iPhone and up pops a text from Suzie (Head Phat Chick) asking if I still wanted to help out at the party!!!!........I was in tears with joy and am in fact crying right now as I remember this moment.

So last night was the party and it was awesome!! I got to see Phat Chicks I haven't seen in a long time, and Meredith's family (husband, sister, mother etc). I also ran into Shane from Raceday Rush! It was SO great I worked my tail off and loved every min of it. When I was given thanks for my help, my response was, "Oh I'm just happy to be here!" and I truly meant that.

A few awesome conversations happen last night for me, one being with fellow Phat Chick Kerri, I just love talking with this girl and her love and energy filled me up (just what I needed). Another convo, once again a fellow Phat Chick who confirmed to me that the path I am on is a good one and that me bringing my family along with me seems to be my thing and is working well. I needed to hear that cause sometimes I feel down cause I can't keep up with everything the Phat Chick/Friends are doing, do to having a family with young kids etc etc......So once again JUST what I needed to hear.

I got home sometime just after 2am still smiling and my had buzzing from the excitement of the night. I feel asleep to a vision of Mer up there looking down with white beautiful light all around her smiling her smile.....and cue the water works again.....




'Live in YOUR Awesome!'

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Thankful Thurs ~ Yummy food!

Ok so I LOVE eating, always have and I think always will. So as I was trying to pick one thing to write about today for Thankful Thurs it came to me as I was eating lunch.

I was eating a soup I had made and has now become one of my fav's and it's SO yummy AND it's good for you! That's when I realized, today I am thankful for yummy food that's good for you mmmmmmm mmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm :P


Here's the recipe:


Asparagus Egg Drop Soup

Need:
3/4lbs fresh asparagus, trimmed into little pieces and cooked
1 (32oz) carton chicken broth
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 (6oz) slice of ham, diced
1tsp soy sauce


To Do:

Boil broth, reduce to barely simmering.
Gradually pour in eggs, beating constantly with wisk, cook 1min
Stir in everything else, cook 5min
ENJOY!!!

Serves 4
Calories per serving 186

P.S. It freezes well and guest are always impressed with this too.

P.S.S I also make Ham and asparagus for dinner and use the left overs for the soup ;)


Let me know what you think!



'Live in YOUR Awesome'


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Am I even moving!!??

Ok so with this nice weather out I have been itching to get out and run!! So I came up with a brilliant idea. After I got my oldest off the bus and gave the kids snack I announced that Mommy was going for a run and they will be in the jogger and I am going to run them into Bronte Park (we live off Burloak where the entrance is) and we will see the farm animals and play at the park there!!.......great idea right!!

So here's how it played out:


- started running, jogger is VERY heavy I think the kids have grown and there's at least 60lbs in there!

- turn the corner and start heading North up Burloak Rd.....right into the wind!!!

-tried to keep running while pushing 60lbs of jogging stroller into the wind at one point wondering if I was even MOVING!!!!

- hit a hill....OK forget that! I had to walk up it.

- 4yr asks, "Mommy why are we going so slow?"......I explain it's too windy for me to run.

- Make it to the park entrance to see that the sign says animal barn closes at 4pm...

-...it's 4:23pm!!!...AWESOME!

-run into the park anyways

-am now heading South so no wind and I am actually running at a good pace, it's nice and quite in the park and I enjoyed this moment a lot.

-got to the play barn, yup everything is locked up!.....I play dumb with the kids acting like I didn't know it was closed.

-let the kids play in the park for a bit then packed them back in to go home

-headed out of the park going North again, into the wind....AWESOME!

-started South down Burloak, now with the wind at my back, pushing my dragging a$$ along

-2yr decides to have a hissy fit and wants to get out...

- I continue to run while yelling. "SIT DOWN!", "ON YOUR BUM!", "IT'S DANGER!!", "NO THANK YOU!!"

-finally decide to ignore hissy fitting child and crank up my tunes

- finished my run to the tunes of..."It's raining men!" and "My humps,my humps, my lovely lady humps!" and my all time fav a song of my husbands that must have got mixed into my list. The theme song to Indianian Jones....when he's running away from the rolling rock! LOL!

-turn the corner on our street and as soon as I saw our house I felt AWESOME! Awesome that I got through that and awesome that I did it!

-told the boys thank you and that they did a great job and that I really needed that!

-looked at my RunKeeper app and saw that I had just ran over 10k!!!!!! WTF!







'Live in YOUR Awesome!'


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Thankful Thurs ~ Thanks for sharing

Ok so quit people make me nervous (sorry if I offend) but I just don't know what they are thinking, or what their story is.

So this week I was thinking about how thankful I am to those who share themselves with us. Either through posts on message boards where they take the time to answer questions of others and share their experince, or thouse of you who blog about your journey or talk about it face to face (you know the old fashion way LOL!)

As a talky-talker myself (I know surprising right!) I know the courage that it takes to put yourself out there. You are then open to judgment, gossip, 'options', bullying...to your face or behind your back and many other things.

So I want to say thank you to those of you that share your story with us and I cheer your courage and encourage you to continue......because it helps me know I'm not alone :->




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Spin, Swim and be freeeeeee....

So around this time last year I started going out to the pool to do some laps after Krista, a fellow Mommy in Motion invited me to come out. It was great to start training for the Tri.

However after I did my Tri in Sept I haven't been swimming...I wanted to just take a 'break' from it....well break time is over!

Now I know that Krista is training for a Half Ironman this year (you can read about her training journey here) It is SO inspiring to me and gives me hope about me doing a half ironman one year!! :-D

So I know that she is out there training every day. So I e-mailed her to say I was going to join her for the spinning and swimming she does on Wed nights. My first spin class at Millcroft Fitness is free!! bonus!

The spinning was sweaty, blood pumping, cheeks burning AWESOME!!! My face was burning red and it felt goooood....so good I almost wanted to cry. The music was awesome and at some points I was dancing in my seat as I was spinning LOL! Another cool thing was seeing face to face other members of the Mommy's in Motion team one being Adena who also blogs about her journey to health, "fewer french fries, more fun!" LOL
Now that I was all warmed up we headed to the pool. I popped on my $19.99 Wal-Mart bathing suit cause my $50 Roots one from last year is now see through in the butt and boob area...nice!...I was cheesed :S.
The first few lengths were a little ify LOL! My triceps were very sore from doing a hard arm workout the night before. I stopped and stretched them and kept going....oh MAN did it feel good! I love when I finally got into a groove of flying across the pool hitting the wall push of to the other side and repeat.
Now compared to last year I was dragging ass, but I knew I had to build myself back up and I can do that in no time. I just made sure that tonight I just kept going for the full hour even if it was at a turtles pace LOL!....It was great I was able to just let my mind wander...I thought about writing this blog, calculating the cost to swim lengths once a week, how my arms hurt, how good it felt to be in the pool again, how I was hungry and wished the water was a big hearty hamburger I could bite into......God I felt freeeeeeee yuppy!!!!

Plus I was major impressed with the fact that our spinning class teacher joined us for the swim after. Two things that are way cool about that is that, one I was that girl who joined the spin teacher to swim after the spin class the second is that this teacher who I have never met before looked and reminded me of Meredith....It was almost like a sign that I am right where I should be :D.....thanks Mer xoxo

So what does this mean? I pick freedom so I'll being going back for more fo shoooo!!!









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VanAwesome hits the News!

As I shared with you here,Always Good News with Connie Smith came out to do a story on my VanAwesome journey :) Below is the clip that aired. My fav line in the whole thing is when Erin the interviewer says, "...but her fondest race is her shortest one"...the 1K I did with my son...nailed it on the head I couldn't have said it better myself and I am way MORE excited about the follow up show of when my 4yr does his first Tri in the summer!!!! :-D


Thank you Erin you did a great job, I'm touched that you thought of me as 'good news' LOL!

If the video below does not work for you. You can also view it here






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Thankful Thurs~ Tunes at the right time!

So all week I have noticed that every time I got in the car on my own just the right song was on. I am thankful for those moments when a song I LOVE comes on the radio and I get to crank it and sing my guts out!!! So if you see a mini van with a Mama dancing around in the seat and singing.....it's ME :D


I also LOVE LOVE Lady Gaga's new song, "I was Born this Way".... I am thankful that we now have songs that our kids can listen to where these are the words:


I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way ...and now you need to listen to the song so that it's in your head all day loooong! LOL!



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Look up....waaaaaaay up!

So it's that time of year again! My yearly out of the box moment...climbing the CN tower. I have climbed it twice before and you can read about that here...in fact I just read it again and WOW did it bring back memories! Last year the CN tower climb also fell on the same day that our first workout/training for the RockStar Adventure race was. I remember clear as a bell Mer and Suzie running up to me to see how I did and Suzie saying that I was 'Phat' cause I waited for my friend that year as she had done for me the year before....God!... feels like a life time ago.....huh...

So once again on April 16/11 I will climb all 1776 stairs and 156 flights. My goal this year is to do it in under 30min....I'll see how this goes cause it's not all up to me, sometimes people get in your way and don't move. So I'll do what I can and be happy with that!

Any support would be awesome as I am also raising funds for the WWF, you can find the link to sponser me on my home page

OR if YOU want to have bragging rights all year long and tell people that you climbed the CN tower go here to sign up and I'll see you on the way up....and up...and up! LOL!


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Thankful Thurs~ Biggest support

I am a member of Momstown and have been since it first started off as 50 moms and was called Burlington Moms Group. It has now grown into Momstown and has over 250 members in the Burlington chapter and has many other chapters around.
Having Momstown in my life was part of my decision to quit my job a year ago. I knew that I wouldn't be on my own and that I would have things to do with the kids and best of all I would have the other Moms of Momstown :D

I am SO thankful for these woman, they have followed my journey and voted for me when I need votes in contests, supported me in the races I have done and best of all they have shared with me their stories...One night I got an e-mail from a fellow Momstowner that said after hearing what I had done, she decided that tonight was her night and she got off the couch and started doing sit-ups and that she feels great for it and plans to continue her 'me' time in order to keep on a healthy path.....that made my night, SO cool!





'Live in YOUR Awesome!'


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MMMMM easy,stew-y, yummyness!

So I'm always the look out for new recipes that are yummy and easy. I just made this one for lunch today and wanted to share as as surprised as to how easy and yummy it really end up being :P


Lentil Stew (400 calories)
Saute 2 cups cubed eggplant and 1 cup sliced mushrooms in 2tbsp olive oil- 10min
Add 2 cups spinach and 1 cup cooked lentils (I used canned ones)- 4min
Top with lime juice, I used half a lime

As I was making it I had a taste and wasn't really impressed but once I added the lime juice BAM!!! there was a party in my mouth and everyone was invited!!

This was so fast and easy to make that I was able to sit down with the kids and eat lunch too!(and write this blog).....AWESOME!


'Live in YOUR Awesome!'

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