..… a great video that made me laugh
Number one for my Happiness File
Did it make you laugh?
Cheers!
Paper is not Dead
3
Monthly Archives: March 2013
My Happy File – Day 3
…. found this great YouTube Video on Simple Tom’s blog
Happy moments I experienced today:
At the start of our morning walk (a happy moment in itself) we ran into our neighbour J. After talking to J for a few moments you can’t walk away without a smile and a laugh. J is one of those people who is always happy and sees the good in every situation. He also has a sharp sense of humour and that twinkle in his eye can light up a room.
J and his partner own a small business in town where they design and manufacture the Buddy Belt, a great harness for dogs of all sizes. When we got Frances six years ago they started giving us Buddy Belts to ‘test drive’. I guess you could say we’ve become part of their consumer test group for their product.
Today Frances was wearing one of her original belts (as a puppy she chewed through her first one after we forgot to take it off) and J decided it was probably time for a new one. K jokingly said something about St Patrick’s Day coming up and the look in J’s eyes told me he was searching his memory for a green belt. Wouldn’t surprise me if one is hanging on our door knob in the next day or two.
The second happy moment took place this afternoon. My husband and I needed to get out of the house so we decided to check out the new hardware store up the street. After looking around for awhile K was need of coffee so we headed over to one of our favourite bistros. Just before leaving I looked up and saw a former student and his mom. I couldn’t get over how tall he had grown.
When I walked over to their table they were both surprised and pleased to see me. EC was 6 foot 3 and very handsome. He wasn’t particularly tall when he was with me in grade 5 but now at 16 he stands out in a crowd. It was good to hear that he was doing well in school and the problems he had when he was in junior school had pretty much disappeared. I love it when kids experience success and are working towards attainable goals.
Yesterday I told you that my husband couldn’t complete the 3 day cleanse with me and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it without him. I’m happy to report that I completed my second day and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. As an added bonus the smoothies were even better today.
Did you experience at least three happy moments today? Feel free to share them with us in the comment box. As you know those comments make me happy.
Cheers!
My Happiness File – Day 2
…despite sad news I still had moments of happiness
Not everyday will be perfect. Sometimes the job gets stressful, people disappoint us, goals aren’t met and bad things happen to good people. Unfortunately a colleague’s partner died unexpectedly and I learned of it this morning. After sending a message of condolence, reflecting on a similar personal experience and phoning and emailing friends to notify them of the death I had to move on.
So today is more about what I’m grateful for. Any problems, that I may have, seem insignificant to what happened to L yesterday.
I’m grateful for my husband’s healthy heart. In the last eight months since his chemo treatments I have my old husband back. He feels better than he has in a long time. All good news.
I’m grateful for good genes. Most people who are as heavy as I am are not nearly as healthy or as fit. I took the “What’s Your Real Age?” quiz today and discovered that I am five years younger in real years. Now that’s something to be happy about. If you’re interested in the quiz go to: http://www.doctoroz.com/realage
I survived my first day of the Dr. Oz Three Day Cleanse. I’m happy about that but my husband couldn’t do it. Without his support I’m not sure I can continue. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m happy because we got out for our walk early this morning despite the rain. Being out in the fresh air just lifts my mood and makes me feel better.
I hope you’ve had to time to reflect on what made you happy today.
Cheers!
My Happiness File – Day 1 Continued
….. now that the day is coming to an end I can complete my list
Earlier today I introduced ‘My Happiness File’ and I posted one thing that had made me happy. Since the idea is to post at least three things that you are grateful for or happy about I need to beef up my list.
Today was a very satisfying day. Here’s what made me happy.
2. I’m always happy when new people come to my site and make a comment and I’m doubly happy when they answer a question that I post. Today I was introduced to Erica at Gratitude Equation. It’s a lovely site with quotes, challenges and reflections about happiness and gratitude. You should check it out.
3. The weather was beautiful and my husband and I got out to a favourite organic market in the Junction. We’ve decided to try a 3 day juice fast (more about that later) and everything we needed we were able to purchase today. I love it when things come together when working towards a goal.
4. I saw a recipe recently on Lattes and Leggings that I wanted to make. Pasta with Kale, Beans and Turkey Sausage I made a few changes to the recipe. I replaced the recommended pasta with 1/2 the amount of Kamut pasta (gluten free, low GI), doubled the amount of turkey sausage, increased the amount of kale by 50% and replaced the mascarpone cheese with cooking cream cheese. I found myself singing and dancing while cooking dinner. I was in a happy place. The recipe makes enough to serve 4 and with a salad possibly more. My husband loved it and that makes me happy as well. Good thing because we have at least one more meal in the freezer.
5. We got out for our evening walk again tonight. I love how my legs feel lighter and my pants fit comfortably. Being able to walk quickly and without pain makes me happy and makes me feel good.
Did anything make you happy today?
My Happiness File
…. I’m going to try something new
I came across an interesting article about the benefits of gratitude. The author, Linzi Wilson talks about how every day she writes down three things that make her happy that day. It could be as simple as a smile from a stranger, a compliment from a friend or enjoying a favourite food. Perhaps you received an unexpected gift or achieved a goal that you’ve been working on. The idea is to write down what makes you happy.
Here is a list of Linzi’s benefits of recording your happy moments:http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8048/want-a-5-minute-practice-that-will-change-your-life.html
Here are my top three reasons for starting your gratitude practice today:
- When you get into the habit of appreciating things, you tend to see life with a fresher, more optimistic perspective. Who doesn’t want that?
- You’ll start creating a blueprint of what makes you happy. Certain things will keep popping up again and again. They say success leaves clues… Well, happiness does too.
- Your journal will serve as a beautiful reminder. Whenever I’m having a sucky moment, I can take some time out and read through random entries. It always brings a smile to my face.
I’ve decide to use this blog to record my “Happiness File”.
Here is one thing that made me happy so far today:
Recently the school was gifted a large number of cheap digital cameras to use with the students. I didn’t have very much success with the camera itself until today. I’m happy to say that I was able to get some pretty good pictures from this simple, shoot and point camera. Now I have to come up with a project that uses these cameras. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few pictures from the camera.
What makes you happy?
Dogs’ Nirvana
…. took the dogs to High Park off leash area today
It was a beautiful day and our youngest daughter came over with her basset hound, Lucy. There was a bit of a nip in the air but the sun was shining and when you were in the sun it felt warm.
We decided to take the dogs to a great park we have in here in Toronto called High Park. The park sits on 161 hectares (400 acres) and was gifted to the city of Toronto in 1876 by John Howard. One third of the park is still in a natural state and there is a large fenced-in off leash area for dogs. I like this area because there are lots of options for dog owners. You can stay in a large area where dogs can socialize or you can opt to take some of the trails where dog owners can also get some exercise. We chose the latter option.
As you can see from the photos, winter is starting to leave us but sections of trail are still snow covered and pretty icy. Where the snow has melted it has been replaced with lots of mud and puddles. I’m glad I wore my rubber boots.
The dogs loved it for the most part. Lucy doesn’t like water but mud didn’t seem to bother her. Frances on the other hand loves the puddles. Doggy heaven!
Eating Out, Food Poisoning and March Break
….. health wise it’s been a difficult weekI
It all started with a sore throat last weekend and then it became a full blown head cold by Monday. A friend of mine was supply teaching at my school and she suggested that I take off a morning so that I could sleep in and get the rest I needed to recover. She offered to come in and teach my library classes. I took her up on her offer Wednesday morning.
Getting that extra rest really did help and I started to feel better. My cold is pretty much done. On Thursday my husband took me out for dinner. We went to a new restaurant where the menu was completely unfamiliar to me. There was a lot of pork and sausages on the menu but there were some healthier options or so I thought. I ended up ordering an arugula salad with mushrooms and a small grilled steak. To drink I had a mineral water with a wedge of lime.
The food was delicious but soon after I finished my meal I started to feel sick again. At first I thought that my cold was coming back but it was worse than that. I started running a fever, I had a headache and I ached all over. Once I got home I knew that I probably had a case of food poisoning. After being home for about an hour and a half I was violently ill. I never throw up. In fact the last time I did vomit happened over 30 years ago when I was pregnant with the twins and suffered from a bout of food poisoning.
I felt immediately better after losing my dinner but I wasn’t 100% so I went to bed. Later in the evening I woke up and I realized that I was dehydrated. I took some water and went back to bed. In the morning I didn’t feel too bad so I decided to go to work.
I probably should have taken the day off but because it was the day before March Break I knew that the board could insist that I get a doctors note to say that I was ill. Without a note they could dock me a day’s pay. When I got to school I had a terrible headache. I found some Tylenol and it did help. I had no appetite. I had a coffee and 3 small cookies. I couldn’t even eat lunch.
By dinner tonight I was looking forward to comfort food and my husband made a mashed cauliflower, chicken marsala and a vegetable succotash. It was perfect. After dinner we did our 3.6k walk. I think I’m on the mend.
Tomorrow we’re planning on getting out the bikes and going for a nice long ride. Do you have a March Break or Spring Break? What kind of things are you planning to do?
Welll I thought I had sent this off yesterday but apparently it’s been sitting here in a draft. I thought I had solved this problem but I guess not.
Update: I didn’t get out for that bike ride but we did go to High Park with the dogs and I got some great shots that I will post later.
Cheers!
A Sneak Preview
…. our pioneer quilt blocks are coming along
I look forward to the art classes where we are working on sewing our quilt blocks. The boys and girls in grade 3 are enjoying the project but everyone is at a different stage. A few students only have one square sewn in place and a few more are almost finished sewing all their fabric pieces together and are almost ready to start their fancy stitching and adding embellishments.
I decided to take a few pictures of the partially finished blocks so that you could see how well eight year olds can sew.
Letting Their Creative Juices Flow
….or how grade 2s paint when left alone
Yesterday in my art class I worked closely with my grade 3s while I asked the grade 2s to work more independently. In the last class the grade 2s started a monochromatic multimedia painting. They were instructed to find black and white pictures, puzzles, headings and text from the newspaper that represented a theme (e.g., numbers, words, sports, puzzles, love, money) and glue them onto a piece of paper in an interesting pattern. Then they had to choose one colour and using water colour paint they created a wash over their pictures and words.
In yesterday’s class they continued adding more paint and detail to their art work. I allowed them to use acrylic paints, stamps and sharpies. The only instruction I gave them was to bring the paints to me so that I could squeeze a small amount onto their plates. They were very excited about using acrylics for the first time.
As I was helping the grade 3s with their quilting project the occasional grade 2 came to me to ask for advice. No one brought the paint to me. I should have been suspicious about their use of the acrylics but I was so caught up in the sewing project that I didn’t check how the acrylics were being used. I was totally oblivious until one of my students came to me to tell me that the brand new tube of white acrylic was empty. What????????? I couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t really fault the grade 2s for using too much paint, except that the only instruction I gave they chose to ignore. In the end I love the finished projects. Some of them need a little more tweaking but they are 90% done. Only one student didn’t quite get the monochromatic theme but I liked how it turned out and it is mostly green.
Some of the students finished early so I gave them an old floppy disc that we had gessoed in an earlier class. I showed them some pictures of famous paintings for inspiration and then gave them free reign to create anything they wanted. They loved it. Here are some of their masterpieces.
Getting Ready to Run
… I’ve signed up for Girls on the Run
Last year I started my weight loss journey in April. Earlier in the year I had agreed to be one of the coaches for a group of 8 to 11 year old girls who wanted to run a 5k race. Little did I know how much I was going to enjoy running. My original goal was to walk the 5k but as I trained with the girls I found I started to run. It started with running 50 metres and then walking but gradually the running distances became longer. The day of the race I ran about half the course.
Today I’m happy to say that we’re participating in Girls on the Run again. This is a big deal for us because we really believe in the program. Not only does it promote fitness in young girls but there’s a huge emphasis on building positive self esteem and treating others with respect and kindness. 
For me personally I wanted to start running again and I needed a venue to get me going again. As some of you know I’ve plateaued with my weight loss. Even though I’ve been sick I started walking again and it feels great. I’m also back on track with my eating.
Today I started with a two egg omelet with lots of vegetables and a cup of coffee. Lunch consisted of left over chicken from last nights dinner and a Brussels sprouts and spinach salad and dinner was oven baked salmon and sweet potato and a large salad. For a snack I had raw carrots and humus and 1 oz. of cheese. I also drank a lot of tea today to keep my throat hydrated. Drinking a lot of water and tea also helps keep your appetite in check. I’ve always known this but I’m not very good at it. Maybe being sick was a blessing in disguise because it forced me to drink more than I would normally.
My next fitness goal is to run the entire 5k without stopping. Wish me luck!
Cheers!
Mama Cormier 