#40SilverLinings: Happy Easter!

I did not post one every day, but having the thought of my #40silverlinings posts in my head, made me focus more on the good things going on in my life. It was a good exercise in positive thinking, in seeing the happy moments in days that can sometimes seem overwhelming. So here you have my last list to wrap up all 40 of my silver linings for Lent.

31. A hot bath after a long day, a real book (I don't do e-readers) and a husband who brings me a glass of wine after I am all settled in the tub!

32. The "Oh My Darling" twisted London fog tea latte from my neighbourhood cafe. Darjeeling tea, almond milk and coconut flavouring. It just makes everything better, I swear.

33. Date night. The best bowl of Pho in the city followed by chilling at what my husband is calling his new favourite cafe. {So much so, that he wants to use it as the blueprint for our basement development!}

34. Sprinter. It's what I am calling this ridiculous Spring/Winter season in Edmonton. It means rubber boots and mitts and sometimes a toque and sometimes just a fleece vest and FINALLY being able to have some outdoor play time!

35. Picking up my puppy after day surgery at the vet. She hasn't wanted that much cuddling in a long time and I didn't realize how much I missed it too.

36. That moment when every piece of laundry is clean, folded and put away. I am dead serious, this is total happy dance time around here!

37. Napping with my baby nephew. {Even though he cried for 20 minutes before actually falling asleep.}

38. Women all over the world (and very close to me) standing up for themselves, breaking the cycles in their  lives and knowing that they are worthy of happiness. XO.

39. The Toca Tailor stylings and designs of my four year old daughter!

40. A long weekend surrounded by the family that I love. A movie date with the little cousins, girls night out with my sisters {in-law} and making a special Easter dinner for my mom, my sister and her family.

I am truly blessed in this life. Maybe that is the true lesson of Lent. Perhaps it is not so much about sacrifice and giving something up ,as it is looking closely and really appreciating all that we have. All the little things we likely take for granted in our day to day lives can add up to a whole lot of silver linings and happy moments. It is up to us to choose to see them, to live in those moments, to take a deep breath and thank whomever or whatever you believe in for that special moment in time.

And then it is up to us to take that attitude of grace and gratitude and spread it around...

...it's the best kind of infection you can pass on to anyone.

Love and light to you all,

natasha~

430,000.00 Silver Linings

I am exhausted. A really good exhausted.

Today I spent the whole day moving my butt, shaking my groove thang and busting some moves with over 400 other people at the 2nd annual Bust a Move for Breast Health.

I was part of the BamBassadors Social Media team with the lovely @JenBanksYeg, the superb @realturkeylady, our at-home-with-a-concussion tweeter, @AprilWiens and the ever a good sport, wearing his pink tutu with pride, @ChrisTse_ . We are Team Hello Titties and we all had a blast today tweeting, Vine-ing, Instagram-ing, and Facebook-ing all about this amazing event (and we managed to get the #bamyeg hashtag into the top trending topics for Edmonton too)!

Bust a Move for Breast Health is a six hour fitness extravaganza that will have you move more than your feet to raise valuable funds for the Cross Cancer Institute. One small step for events, on large step for all breastkind!

And raise funds everyone sure did this year!  Over $430,000.00 to be exact! THAT IS A LOT OF RESEARCH DOLLARS FOLKS! It really hit me today during the yoga session, just what we were all doing there. We unwrapped our yoga mats and while most of us had purple ones, the pink ones stood out. These were the cancer survivors, the ones who beat the odds. What really made me pause and appreciate all that was going on around me was the fact that every survivor that I could see around me was younger than me. Breast cancer does not discriminate based on age, race, religion or otherwise. It affects us all, either directly or indirectly and we can and need to make a difference and do what we can for all the pink mats out there.

I am grateful to have been a participant and volunteer at the event today and I can't wait for next years BAMtastic day of fun and fitness! And you know what, YOU too can join our team! We are going to be bigger, better and have even more fun (if that is at all possible, because my abs hurt just as much from the Bootcamp session as they do from laughing today)! Or make your own team! Do it for all the women battling breast cancer, do it for someone close to you, do it FOR YOURSELF!

Most of all do it because, I may be exhausted and sore and in need of a good gluteal massage, but I'll take this kind of pain ANY DAY over the pain and suffering that breast cancer causes to 1 in 9 women's bodies. And I will do whatever I can to help lower that number until it is ZERO!

Oh yeah, and we met Richard Simmons too! He REALLY liked Chris! A LOT!

This was one day so full of silver linings, that I lost count! Let's call this one #30.

I am so tired....

natasha~

#40silverlinings: Catching up on a weeks worth!

OK, fine, almost two weeks.

#22. A massage. A beautiful hour and a half all to me, about me and for me! And I booked another one too!!

#23. My slow cooker. Coming home to a meal that is cooked and ready to eat is the BEST THING EVER. Now if only I could get more organized and on this for more days in the week.

#24. 2.5 pounds. That is how much weight I have lost in the last couple of weeks. It's not a lot, but slow and steady is going to win this race.

#25. SCHMUTZIE!! And Palinode too! A night out in real life with two of my favourite internet folks. They is good people yo!

#26. My new front teeth. I am the only one who really notices them, but I feel damn sexy with these new chompers! {And the ability to eat apples again!}

#27. Jen Banks and her obsessive need to see more seasons of Sons of Anarchy. And Netflix. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

#28. My kid doing a Foghorn Leghorn impression mid conversation with himself that almost made me fall off the bed laughing. Teletoon Retro for the win!

#29. And this. An artistic breakthrough for my little dinosaur aficionado. I am one proud mama! In case you are wondering... THIS is a Spinosaurus, biggest mofo of the Cretaceous period!

Here's to tomorrows silver lining, whatever it may be!

natasha~

#40silverlinings: Vet bills, zombies and Taylor swift

Some days the silver linings are harder to see. I haven't posted anything since last week. We have been busy. The kids had Thursday and Friday off because of teacher's convention and we had a lot going on.

I know the silver linings were there, I just had to look really hard for them through the fog of the migraine that I had for two days and a road trip on my own with two kids.

#17. A new vet who actually gave me some answers and proper treatment for my poor puppy's infected ears!

#18. My kids deciding to sing along to all songs on the radio these days and how cute C sounds when he is singing Maroon 5's 'Daylight' and the hilariousness of my 4 year old daughter belting out "We are never, ever, ever, getting back together!".

#19. Getting to know my step-mother (my late father's wife) better and seeing my kids embrace her as their 'new' Grandma.

#20. Realizing that I do not have to keep every single piece of paper my kids bring home from school and subsequently clearing out two bins of crafts and two binders full of said papers.

#21. Sunday night and zombies and Rick and the gang.

It's a new week and the sun is shining.

That is a good start.

Won't you join me in this quest for #40silverlinings and share with me your daily moments that shine?

Also, this is what happens after two hours on the road and less than five hours of sleep the night before. I'm warn you, it's not pretty!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/5uQ_inuD9FI[/youtube]

Till tomorrow,

Natasha~

I love my twitter stream....

Because I find hashtags like #MAKERSchat, that take me to the most inspiring, frustrating, idealistic, political and personal piece of television I have ever seen! I just spent the last 151 minutes watching Makers: Women who make America, and I highly recommend you watch it too. Download the video from iTunes, catch it again on PBS, find a friend who saved it on her PVR.

Just watch it.

It is our story, the story of women, the story that is not over...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OOBo4hnk2g0[/youtube]

That my dears, is my silver lining for today (#16).

Good night my sisters!

Natasha~

gap

When I was 12 going on 13, I was kind of a messed up kid. I was dealing with my father remarrying and in my mind abandoning us for a whole new family, I was still hiding the fact that a neighbour had molested me and I was facing the terrifying prospect of starting Grade 9 at a brand new school. And I had a gap between my two front teeth.

While that list up top should have been tops on the priority list of un-messing me, it was my teeth that became the focus of my insecurities. I BEGGED my mother to take me to our dentist to have caps put on to get rid of the offending gap. For some reason that I still don't understand, she agreed to this, and before I started school that year my gap was gone.

As it turns out, no amount of dental work takes the target off your back once you are get in the cross hairs of the 'wrong' crowd. I won't bore you with the details of teenage cruelty, but let's just say that high school was not a great time in my life. I rejoiced at the end of each year of it, because that meant one less class of the mean girls and jackasses picking on me.

Fast forward to sometime in late 1998 and having grown up and lived and come to love myself a bit more, I decided it was time to let my gapped tooth smile shine for all the world to see. I was gonna rock that thing Lauren Bacall and Madonna style!

I went to my then dentist and told him what I wanted. What seemed to me to be an easy fix (take of the caps), was in fact, not possible. After too many years bonded to the front of my teeth, the old caps had to be drilled off and the only option I had then was to have full crowns put in place.

I remember being quite disappointed about this. I really wanted to own that gap of mine and be proud of it. To reclaim a teeny tiny part of me that I had lost so many years ago. This wasn't just about my teeth, it was about being proud of myself and celebrating my fight back to the land of self-esteem. Alas, this was not meant to be and crowns were made and new front teeth I got.

Those chompers have served me well up until now and it seems I have a new "gap" to deal with. My advancing age, an annoying case of receding gums and a new dentist who swears she can make my smile even better, all added up to me sitting in her office for three hours this morning, shedding the old crowns and prepping for my new, NEW front teeth.

So why exactly am I telling you all about my dental history?

I am not sure really.

Maybe it's because sitting in that reclined dentist chair, watching The Marilyn Denis Show on the TV in the ceiling, brought back memories of the reasons I wanted to get rid of that gap in the first place. Maybe it is because in those days, I was so worried about being made fun of, that my only thought was to get rid of any imperfection that I thought would give the mean kids more ammo against me.

And maybe because I was thinking about this so much today, that this video and the penetrating voice of the incredible Shane Koyczan hit me square in the teeth!!

Please watch it, and share it and remember it.

As I remember that gap-toothed tween from so long ago and give her a big huge hug and tell her she is BEAUTIFUL!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/59956490[/vimeo]

Thank you,

Natasha~

P.S. This whole getting new, new front teeth is my silver lining for today (#10) ... I have been waiting for a few years to do this and now was the time.

Daylight.

Oy! I am one tired human tonight.

It was a good day. Bikram yoga, skating with the kids, some shopping with the SILs and then dinner at the inlaws.

I have a post that I have been working on that I wanted to finish tonight, but I just can't. I can barely keep my eyes open.

So instead, I am going to finally finish folding Mount Laundry and then take my tired bones to bed... EARLY!

And that ladies and gents, is my Silver Lining for today.

#9. An early bedtime.

Oh yeah, AND...

I can't stop singing this song. {Badly, just ask my kids!}

[youtube]http://youtu.be/AqR-ElB5kXY[/youtube]

Score!!

It seems I have been hit with an early Spring Cleaning bug. This week I finally cleaned up and organized the laundry room and unpacked the few remaining boxes that had migrated there for lack of a better place. I now can actually see and use the counter-top that is in there and even managed to organize the drawers with all the kids crafting supplies.

Today I tackled the next room and cleaned and de-cluttered my half of our joint office and my desk. And yes, it took me the better part of the day!

BUT...

While I was cleaning and purging and shredding A LOT of papers, this is what I found:

•  $70.00 worth of Chapters/indigo gift cards.
•  A $25.oo gift card for Superstore.
•  A $150.00 gift certificate for Cosafina (a home decor store here in Edmonton).

And...

•  Not one, but TWO gift certificates for a one-hour massage!!

All in all, I'd say that this is not too bad for a days work and a definite silver lining for today (#8).

Now to just figure out what I want to put on that very bare wall that I am staring at all day???

Any suggestions?

Natasha~