A big day and thanks to all!

Yesterday was a big day for me! I was featured in a huge article (complete with multiple HUGE photos) in the Toronto Star. The article was about being a mom entrepreneur and the joys of managing kids and work at the same time. It was also the official 4th birthday of my business Grace Announcements. Yes the same day that this amazing article about me and the business I was celebrating 4 amazing years since the official launch of http://www.graceannouncements.com/

I was all excited to take my son to school so I could stop at the store and buy the paper. I bought the last 3 copies that they had and opened it up right there. I showed the lady at the customer service desk the page and told her that was me! I then rushed back to my car to try calling my husband. He didn't answer either line as he was on the phone talking to everyone about it. When I got home I showed it to him and started chatting to my great friend and fellow mom entrepreneur Candace Alper of Name Your Tune Cd's. She told me she saw it at 8am and started tweeting about it right away. For those that don't know anything about Twitter you really should check it out! I have met so many amazing people on there, and the support from them yesterday was outstanding. I thought a great way of thanking them would be to post each and everyone of their twitter links here. So here is my big group thank you to all the amazing people on Twitter for your kind words and for helping spread the word about the article. NameYourTuneCDs, YMCbuzz, CocktailDeeva, ottawamom, mumby, SharonDV, CLBuchananPhoto, fdnstudio, rmcf_chocolate, LaurieStJ, bitofmomsense, MOMmagRocks, amotherworld, Mom2Michael, littlemissmocha, nummiesbras, womenandwealth, cbadov, Ecomomwannabe, MrsLoulou, modernemotive, optimom, Journeywoman, moggitgirls, Clippopotamus, BOREDmommy, qt_pie1602, MMPerspectives, fathomco, WonderMoms, Justymae, pinkpandafabric, MeditatingMummy, saravallier, those2girls, caffeinated_mom, TorontoEMN, ouacajax, PartyMummy, kellidaisy, moeturner, RachealMc, Dogpaddling, JackiYo, YMCbookalicious, CanadianNanny, t_flindall, krrley, diaperdisco, twirliewhirlies, InspiredCoach, ladybugbows

You guys are all the best!

Giving Thanks!

With the beginning of our Thanksgiving weekend I figured I would take a moment to give thanks to what matters most. I am thankful for:

1. An amazing husband who helps me every day and allows me to be the person I want to be. I would not be the woman I am without him! And he puts up with my crazy mood swings!! ;)

2. My two amazingly beautiful children who love me no matter what I do or say. For their hugs and kisses and for their laughter which can make any grey day seem bright.

3. My mom, who has been a great friend and even though we have had out tough times I still know that she is proud of the woman and mother I have grown up to be.

4. My dad, who has always made me aware of how much I mean to him and how much he loves me. And that we had a chance to dance together a couple of weeks ago at my big brothers wedding. We need to do that more!

5. The amazing friends that I have. Without your support and encouragement I think I would have folded many times over.

6. Twitter for giving me a social life again, oh and I can chat with real live adults during the day!

7. My amazing business which keeps me busy and feeling like I have purpose every day! I didn't now where it would go when I first started, and I am amazed most days at where it has gone.

8. My customers who allow me to share in their special moments and share their kind words about how much they love my work.

9. The amazing business women that I have meet over the years, and created some wonderful friendships with. You are my rocks!

10. My beautiful home that I have, it was a dream and now it is a reality. Thanks Hun!

11. My son's amazing teachers, I wish there was a way to thank them for how amazing they are and how much they genuinely love my son. Oh and they keep him busy and learning about binomial cubes all day.

12. Lululemon because they really do make my ass look great!!

13. Chocolate, it is my best friend and lover and it doesn't care that I give so much of myself to others. It never asks for anything in return!

14. Nap time, because it takes the crabby little girl and brings back my wonderful happy little girl.

15. Professional photographers who help show me the real me and how beautiful I am, instead of the me I see when I look in the mirror.

16. Spanx which help hide the muffin top that I have gained from slacking off at the gym over the summer.

17. A husband who works hard every day (even if it is now from home too) so that I can treat myself to some Lululemon from time to time!

18. To Butterball for selling a pre-stuffed cook from frozen turkey so I can still have a great dinner without all the work. I love Martha Stewart, but I have come to the realization that I am not her!

19. For the large floor space in my bedroom so when I "forget" to fold the laundry it has somewhere to go and I can still walk around.

20. For the need to go to the bathroom, because without it I would never get a chance to read. ;) And to 2 of my favourite authors - Kathy Buckworth & Alyson Shafer - for making me laugh and helping me realize that I am not a bad parent. I won't ruin my kids, and it is okay to love my iPhone as much as them. (Sorry Kathy I switched over to the dark side! ;))

I guess some of this might seem crazy, I guess what I should be most thankful for is my amazing family, the roof over my head, my health, and that I can put food on my table. Those are the things that matter most - without them the rest really wouldn't matter the same.

My son is being picked on...

It makes me sad to think about my poor little guy, who is still so small to me being picked on at school. He came home and told me a week ago that kids were being mean to him at recess. I didn't say or do much about it because he acted like he could care less. Well every morning this week he has cried when it came time for us to give him a hug and say goodbye. At first we thought it was just the reality of being back at school. Not being home all day to play like his little sister does. Or that he is at school all day now, no more only going for 3 hours and then coming home, he is there for 7 long hours.

Well I decided when I picked him up to say something to one of his teachers. She told me that she noticed a couple days in he got all timid and upset when it was announced it was recess time, and this has gone on since (besides today). My heart dropped, I knew that when he said kids were being mean to him it was real. That there are kids who are being mean to my baby boy, my sweet guy is being hurt and I am feeling lost on how to help him.

I know I need to tell him to be strong, but I can't tell him to fight back like my husband thinks. I don't really want my 5 year old getting kicked out of school! Ignoring doesn't work. I feel like I need a book on how to deal with this, so that I can refer back to it for tips. There must be a book for this, there is a book for anything, right? Okay I don't really need another book. I just need to help him, and if I am having trouble with this what am I going to do 5 or 10 years from now when he is 10 and 15!

Where did the summer go?

I sit here at my computer, it is a Sunday evening at 9pm and it is dark outside. Really dark, like you know summer is coming to an end. We really have not had much of a summer this year, the weather has been really crappy and when it was nice it would be hot during the day and cold in the evening. Never once was there a night when you wanted to sit out and chat with friends. Anytime we tried we were dressed like it was winter and drinking tea instead of martini's! I can remember one night a month ago when I decided to go an unpack my Uggs from their box and put them on. Yes I had always said that I would not wear them in the summer, that I thought that was foolish. But when it is down right cold out my feet wanted warmth. And since I was practically wearing a winter jacket I felt that it only made sense to wear my warm boots too.

I reflect on this summer and wonder where it went. I am sure any of my readers who are still around have wondered where I went! Yes I know I am slacking... but in my defense I have been so overly busy that I don't think I had any real downtime this summer to just kick back and relax. Probably my own fault as I have become a self proclaimed workaholic. I realized this when my husband and I were driving back from my mom's place after picking up the kids. She lives 3 hours north in a beautiful place called cottage country. She was a great "Hamma" as my kids call her and took the kids for 5 days to enjoy the lake. After about an hour in the car I looked at my husband and told him that I could not stop thinking about how I could be working while we were driving and that was a good 4 hours of work time that I will never get back. Yes folks I think I need a 2 step program for this.

My husband and I went away for a few days to Chicago to enjoy the beautiful city and see Pearl Jam in concert. I brought my laptop with me so I could work in my spare time, you know the hour on the plane, the waiting at the airport, and the hour or so early in the morning when my husband is still sleeping because guess what - I can no longer sleep in. Even if I stay awake until 3am which we did for 3 nights straight I can't sleep in. Oh how I wish I could, sleep and me are best friends and I really need it, a good solid 8 hours of it. I am not cut out for the party life anymore. I am old... and okay with it...

So back to my summer. I hired a mothers helper to come and take care of my kids while I worked. I wanted them to be able to have fun and I wanted to be able to work. Well it was a good thing I did because this summer has been soooo busy. Not the normal couple orders here and there so I can enjoy the warm weather. I have had to work each and every day, and evening and play catch up most weekends. I realized I work a lot when I overheard my son tell Kalina, our helper that all his mommy does is work. I tried to force myself to step back more and spend quality time with them instead of looking at my Blackberry or bringing my laptop outside with me. There were some weekends where I didn't even turn on my computer! That is the way it is supposed to be, and that is the way it will be now. My kids are growing up so fast, my son turned 5 a week ago. The baby that helped me start Grace Announcements. And my youngest, the baby is not a baby anymore, she is 2.5. I don't want to miss them grow up because I was too busy working.

I did have some fun though. I can remember many days or nights with friends, enjoying the poor excuse for a summer we had. We didn't care, we all sat and ate and drank and had fun. I think my kids had fun too, because most days they didn't want to leave the house and their friends to go anywhere. We still don't have fences so it is like one big huge playground in our backyard. We have play structure, another has a trampoline, a few with small pools or sprinklers for those few hot days, and lots of kids to play with - who would want to leave that? I can even laugh now about the time I got on the trampoline and bounced a few kids, I thought I was having a heart attack, but after eating a few Tums my girlfriend gave me I learned it was just indigestion! Then there were the cart wheels, oh how I hurt my groin doing that. It is okay because my other girlfriend did too, in the exact same spot!! We were just talking about those tonight, and how we are going to try to perfect them.

So in all the work and crazy partying you can see why I have not been on here posting. I promise now that the summer is over, my son goes to school full time in 2 days, and it is back to schedules and more work I will try my best to post regularly again. Heck I could post every day for the next couple of months just to catch up on all my summer stories and adventures. Maybe I will, or maybe I will just do as I always do. Blog about all the craziness that is my life! Enjoy the last day or your summer break :)

Strawberry Season

We spent a few hours this past weekend enjoying some strawberry picking at our favourite local farm, the kids sampled and helped pick. Miss E thought she died and went to heaven just like last year. This year there was one difference, she was not eating the entire strawberry, stem and all! So with strawberry picking comes strawberry eating, and for me that means stains on a really cute outfit. Well that happened tonight, my mom was visiting so she took the shirt and tried her standby stain removal tricks but nothing worked. She came back downstairs and told me to google how to get rid of them, so I did. I came across a new website that gave me some great directions and it worked! Totally gone from her shirt on the first try. I could not control my excitement and my kids are in bed and my husband is at the gym so I just had to share with you all!

Instructions - How to Get Strawberry Stains Out of Clothes

Things You'll Need:
Vinegar
Baking Powder

Step 1 - Rinse stain with cool water and blot with paper towels (don't rub) to get off any excess that you can.
Step 2 - Combine white vinegar with baking powder. It does not have to be like a paste, no need to go too heavy with the baking powder.
Step 3 - Pour onto stain.
Step 4 - Let sit for 15 minutes. Rinse with cool water.
Step 5 - Wash in machine with cold water.
Step 6 - Check that stain is gone before placing in dryer as heat will set the stain.
Step 7 - Repeat if necessary but once usually does the trick.
Step 8 - If white material, hang outside in the sun to dry as the sun is the world's best bleach.

Thanks to ehow.com for this. I am so excited to know that I will be able to save many items from the trash can.

The first day of summer holidays...

...and this is what I find! It was not even 10am and I was on the phone with my printer when they come back being "kitties". Are they not cute?! Thankfully we only have Crayola in my house and there was no marker on my new carpet or walls!

Oh how much fun are we going to have this summer.

{Note to self: Lock all dangerous materials and items away; knives, cleaners, medicine and markers!}

Modern Work at Home Mom

So today I experience one of the joys of being a work at home mom. I am talking to a potential client on my Blackberry. She has called me because she loves my work and is interested in some graphic design work and having a logo designed for her new business.

I am outside at the time, walking my neighbours daughter home. The kids were all out playing in the rain, it is 5pm, and my husband just got home. He took our kids in to get dried off, I took my neighbour home. My Blackberry rings in my pocket and I think it is him telling me I am taking to long. What can I say I love to chat with my neighbours! I am home all day with small kids, forgive me Hun if I relish in adult conversation. Is it him? No it is a potential client, she got my number from my lindsaybrewda.com website.

I come into the house and he realizes I am on with a client, so he doesn't give me a hard time for taking a while. My little girl comes to me, I follow her into the family room for a moment and kept talking. She is behind me for a few minutes, I can't see what she is doing and honestly I am not paying attention. I am on a business call after all, and my husband was right there in the kitchen. Well all of the sudden she comes up to me with a wipe in her hand and I take her hand, notice as I am talking that her hands are covered in brown. I do the check in my head...

1. Did she get chocolate? NO
2. Is it mud from outside? NO
3. ...

This has a smell... OMG it is poo! My daughter has poo all over her hands and no diaper on which means... I look around for poo, picturing it all over my area rug and couch. All the while I am still chatting it up on the phone. Biggest talent of being a work at home mom is not letting the person on the other line know that everything is crazy around me. Heck I bribe my kids with treats if they will behave for important phone calls!

Well as I now know that there is poo on my hands, there is a little girl with poo on her hands, there is a diaper sitting on the floor with poo in it and I can't imagine what her butt looks like I give in. I tell the wonderful woman on the other end of my Blackberry that I am up to my elbows in poo and I really have to run. She laughs and tells me she has been playing with her baby trying to keep her quiet while talking to me, and totally understands! She offers right away to let me go and call her back. I know at this moment that I can't get a pen because if I did there would then not only be poo on my hands, my daughters hands, my floor, her butt, it would also be on my pen. I ask if I can call her back on the number she called me on, it showed up on my display. She said sure, I could call or email her back. I giggle and say thanks and I will get back to her as soon as I can. My husband takes and hangs up the call and I deal with the poop.

I have now had a couple of occasions with my sweet little girl and poop. You see, she is miss independent and she was trying to change her own bum. She probably realized that Mommy was on the phone and that Daddy doesn't like poop {thank god he does puke!} so the best option was for her to take care of it herself. Gotta give her credit for her go get em attitude. My son never did this to me, thankfully. So it is all new.

Oh the joys of being a modern work at home mom, talking business on my Blackberry while up to my elbows in poop!!!

I feel like a blog post in my new favorite book - The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood, by Kathy Buckworth