Rediscover Yourself - WonderBra Women of Wonder

As they say, all good things come to an end! This is the last week for WonderBra's Women of Wonder campaign... I've had so much fun - this was such a fabulous opportunity and I will always be so thankful that WonderBra asked me to participate! This week:

Your Day

Reflect on the journey you've had over the past couple weeks. Share with us what you've rediscovered about yourself.

During this journey I got to:

1. take a cooking class where I learned to make healthy Asian recipes
2. be part of a newborn photo shoot with my husband and baby L
3. go to a spa for the first time in my life
4. take an acting class
5. reconnect with my sister from Montréal
6. take a yoga class with baby L

First thing that comes to mind - I would NOT have been inclined to go out at all if it weren't for these missions and that would've been sad - I learned that I can do it. The thought of going somewhere by myself with baby L was oh so scary but I did it and now I know I can do it again...

I learned that a healthy meal plan can be very simple - pick some veggies for the week, pick 2-3 recipes that include those veggies, prep and eat! You just need to take the time to sit down and think of it!

I learned that I can leave the baby with my husband and take a little time for myself (given that I provide enough milk for the time I'll be away...) and he was so supportive of me doing it - thank you so much S!

I learned that acting can be fun and that I would like to look into it some more.

I learned that, when I'm around my sister, I am giddy and feel like I'm a kid again :) (and I sound like one too, ha!)

I learned that I love to exercise - and that I miss it SO much! I am having cravings for a good run - I can't wait to do it again!!!! I didn't know if I was really into running and exercising so much until I went to that yoga class and got a taste of what it was like to work out again - man! I just love it! :)

I learned that taking care of a baby is much more involved than I though it would be - countless days were spent holding baby L in my arms and walking around so he wouldn't yell, or holding him so he would sleep... oh how naive I was to think this would be a piece of cake LOL I wrote many of my posts with one arm holding and rocking the baby and one hand on the keyboard :)

I learned that spending an hour straightening my hair for a mission/video is not smart use of my time... I was so concerned about my appearance and now? I can just tighten up my 'ponytail' and I'm ready to go :) who cares really? :)

I learned that I speak funny when I'm intimidated - hee hee I find that I sound weird in my first video, I was so stressed! ha ha ha I need to relax - I sound much better when I don't stress about 'sounding good' does that make sense? :)

I learned that I can 'vlog'! (Well, so long as I spend a bit of time editing it... :) I was so stressed about appearing in a video - oh my! But by the end of the project, I didn't mind so much anymore - I was much more comfortable with it! Practice makes ...um... practice made me feel like I don't need to be 'perfect' ;)

I learned that I am a new me and that it's ok. I'm a mom now and all my priorities have been re-ordered. I watched Rachelle Anne's video on the subject and I couldn't say it better than she does there. Among a lot of things that she says that are matching exactly how I feel about my new life as a mom and how I spend my days, one thing stood out: ''... I find that I get more fulfillment in my life through him...'' I too have realized that this is what I'm about now - enjoying the time I get to spend with my son, 'making memories' of his babyhood, enjoying the 'now' - time that I will never be able to live again!


I learned that I can do much more than I think I can. I made it to the end of this project - I MADE IT! :)

I hope you enjoyed following me in my journey - you can check out the four other lovely Women of Wonder here:


Katrina
Angela
Rachelle Anne
and
Roseanne



THANK YOU SO MUCH TO WONDERBRA FOR THIS WONDERFUL ADVENTURE!!! :)

Rediscover Your Community - WonderBra Women of Wonder

This is mission #5 for the Women of Wonder Campaign by WonderBra.

Your Roots

Get back to your roots. Reconnect with a childhood friend from your old neighborhood.

Because I spent my childhood moving from city to city, I don't really have an 'old neighborhood' but several old neighborhoods, none of which where I feel like I belong or have 'roots'. Instead, I have stronger connections with my immediate family. Who better to reconnect with than a person from my family, especially since I live at least a 6hr drive away from any of them?

I realized recently that I have not talked about anything BUT baby L with my sister in quite some time - it has been a while since we talked about her, so it would be nice to do that for a change! My sister is my best resource for all things baby health (she works for a famous children's hospital in Montréal) and right now my life revolves around the baby so much... She has so much valuable information that she nicely shares with me - she makes my life easier - so I can't help but ask her more and more questions - and then we run out of time for regular chit chat... I'm sorry sister! ;)

I discovered Skype with mission #4 and realized that I could easily 'reconnect' with her that way. She liked the idea and installed the program on her computer... and we were ready for the mission! :)


I love my sister - it's so nice to talk to her, she is such a no-nonsense person. I love that, even if sometimes we don't talk for months at a time, it's never awkward between us and it's always comfortable (well, unless there are cameras filming the conversation;) - it's like we can't fool each other because we know and 'get' each other so well. It's priceless for me to have someone like that in my life.

Here's the video - now I have to warn you, some of it is in french. I will spend a bit of time to try and figure out how to add translation 'annotations' on Youtube, but it could take me a while... I couldn't finish that because the campaign is coming to an end and I am running out of time... Good news is, if you come back and watch it again after a few days, there will be more 'subtitles' for you to read :)


***UPDATE! Click on ''CC'' below the video to see the translation! I made subtitles woo hoo!! :)
*****You have to go to the Youtube page in order to see it... (click on the video once to play it, and once more to go to the Youtube page...) - phew! :)



a HUGE thank you to WonderBra!!! :)

Rediscover Your Hapiness - WonderBra Women of Wonder

This is my fourth mission for WonderBra's Women of Wonder and this week my mission was:

Rediscover Your Hapiness

Lights. Camera. Action.

Doing something you've always wanted to do can be truly rewarding. Take an acting class to prepare for a real life audition.

I contacted Lori Pearlstein for this mission. Browsing through her website, I found that she had a great variety of classes to choose from - from serious coaching for the professional actor, to acting technique programs to more recreational classes for the person who wants to learn acting for fun - which was perfect for my mission. She even teaches kids! She is also a member of the Toronto Association of Acting Studios.

Lori usually teaches in a studio, but since I had limited time to accomplish the mission and not much options to travel with the baby, she offered the option to do a class via Skype - which I thought was brilliant! I got to stay home and set up my cameras easily and in advance - it just saved me so much trouble while still being just as good and as complete as an in person class. I had not 'Skyped' before - wow - it's so convenient!!! :)

I was so intimidated by this mission - I was going to 'act' and talk one on one with an acting specialist. Even if this was just for fun, Lori is a real professional actor, a person who is essentially an expert in the field and an expert at communicating - whereas I am a terribly shy person who is so scared to talk to people that most of the time, I avoid putting myself in a situation where I have to do it! I prefer to write - I get more time to think of what I am going to say, I don't risk finding myself mid-sentence awkwardly pausing because I realize I don't know how to say this or that in english... :)

But Lori made me feel really comfortable from the beginning, as soon as I contacted her she replied and she seemed so nice and really interested in the project. She made time in her busy schedule (and that particular week was an impossibly busy week for her!) to help me out and teach me for the mission.

She basically prepared the class to fit my mission - let me know all that I would have to know if I was going to a real life audition. She taught me about the business of acting, the process of an audition, how to stand out during an audition, etc. A lot of which could apply to a regular interview. It's a good idea to prepare good answers for questions like ''tell me about yourself'' for instance, which makes a lot of sense, but I realized when she mentioned it that I just would not have an answer for that if I was asked!! So it's good to think of it and prepare that now that I'm not 'put on the spot' :)

Then we read a script together, something simple that would be used for a short commercial. We acted it out. Wheeeee that was FUN! :) She gave me cues to how to know how to interpret the lines, and we read them again to perfect them... It was just so much fun - I think I just might have to try and audition for something one day, just for fun! :)

She also gave me the opportunity to ask her any question that I had. It was great to learn more about acting, something I always wanted to try but never did. I am so thankful to have had the chance to cross that off my bucket list :)




Check out Lori's website here: www.lorip.ca


Thank you SO much to Lori and to WonderBra for another AMAZING mission :)

Rediscover Your Balance - WonderBra Women of Wonder

This week I'm skipping ahead to my Women of Wonder mission #6, but don't worry, missions #4 and 5 are in the works and coming very soon...

Rediscover Your Balance:

Relax and Restore

Take a yoga class and be inspired to incorporate balance into your everyday life,

I went to a 'Mommy and Baby' yoga class at Breathe Yoga Studio and it was WONDERFUL :)

I realized that I like exercising SOOOO much and that I miss it a lot. I need to make time for it...
Baby L had several challenges in the last few weeks that left his whole internal clock upside down for days. (Cold, growth spurts, first long trip to visit family, vaccinations, etc - OH MY! vaccinations...) He has been fussy and uncomfortable and I have pretty much had to hold him all day...
But I have hope that once he resumes having 'normal' days where things are more consistant for him, he'll be a happy baby again and nap without problem. I can't wait for the day where I know he's comfortable and having a nap for X amount of time and I can commit to doing something for myself for that time... At the top of my priority list: exercising again. Training to run again... litle by little...

Here's the video:



Thank you so much to WonderBra for this week's mission!!!!