After All These Years.....

Thursday, May 26, 2011

For our anniversary my hubby took me to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a romantic dinner. For desert he had them come out with a sampling of yummy treats with the words Happy Anniversary drizzled in chocolate on the plate.

As we sat there eating, talking and laughing I couldn't help but think about how after all these years he still looks at me like it is the first time he has ever met me. After all these years he still know how to make me blush. After all this years I still feel like one of the luckiest women on earth to be called his wife!





Educating, Inspiring and Empowering Our Girls!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

As a mother of two daughters I know the importance of teaching girls how to love themselves unconditionally. Did you know that 7 out of 10 girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, their performance in school or their relationships with their families and friends? When I read this statistic it made me wonder just when do our girls lose their self-confidence? When do they go from little girls who do not have a care in the world filled with confidence and self-esteem to girls who are filled with self-doubt who do not love what they see when they look in the mirror? According to The National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, the self-esteem tipping point happens during the transition to teenage years. These years are the most crucial for girls; this is when they stop communication with us - the adults in their lives.

I saw this first hand when my oldest daughter was making this transition...she went from a little girl who would come home everyday and tell me everything that happened in school from first to last period, to a teenager who trusted and confided more in her friends then in me. Now that she is a young adult we are back to the relationship we had when she was younger, but we missed out on some important communication during those teenage years. What is very interesting is that most girls wish to have open and frequent conversations with their parents - but sometimes they don't know how or are not sure what our reactions will be to what is going on in their lives.

Educating, inspiring and empowering young girls to love themselves unconditionally has become one of my biggest passions. I believe in the importance of empowering our girls and helping them build the strength needed to deal with the many challenges they will face in life. It is because of this passion that I started I Love Me Unconditionally, a mentoring program to help girls build healthy, positive self images.

I recently posted about stepping out on faith and following what I believe to be God's purpose for my life. So using my role as a mother and my background as an educator I started the I Love Me Unconditionally mentoring program for girls and I am proud to say that this summer we will be having our very first I Love Me! Summer Camp where girls will participate in fun activities while building a strong sense of self esteem and of course celebrating all that is fabulous about being a girl!

I am so excited about this new endeavor and I believe that if I can help just one girl learn to love themselves unconditionally then I know that I am fulfilling God's purpose for my life!




Before and After

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Recently I was looking at old pictures and I couldn't believe how different I looked. It's crazy to think that just 16 months ago I weighed 50 pounds more that I do now. Although I had a certain level of confidence then...my confidence now is at an all-time high! I really believe that no matter how much you weigh or what size you wear it's all about how you feel about yourself. Before I felt good about myself but as the numbers on the scale kept growing along with my pants size I knew I had to do get serious about losing weight.

Before


Now 50 pounds later I feel amazing and have a sense of confidence that I haven't had in years! I still have five more stubborn pounds that I would like to lose but the most important part is that I am healthy and that I did it all by just watching my diet and exercising...who would have thought that really works! At my last physical my doctor told me that my blood pressure and cholesterol level was the lowest it's been since I was in my 20's! Now if that isn't a reason to keep up with this new healthy lifestyle I don't know is!

After

Celebrating all that is fabulous about being a mom and a woman!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

We are amazing aren't we? Mothers have a certain kind of resilience that allows us to cope with the small inconveniences of life as well as the major catastrophes. I love being a mom and although there have been times during my 21 years of motherhood that I believed I wasn't so good at it....I know now that I rock as a mother to my girls! That's right, I am tooting my own horn! Why shouldn't I? My girls are healthy, happy and loved! I didn't say I am a perfect mother but to my girls I am and that is all that counts! Have I made mistakes at this job along the way...sure! Was it always easy....nope! Was it all worth it...as I watch them grow into strong, confident and beautiful young women I say....ABSOLUTELY!

It took me a while, but I learned to find a healthy balance between being a mother and being a woman. I learned to make time for my girls but to also make time just for me. Sometimes we put so much time into making sure that our children are taken care of that we forget to take care of ourselves. I learned that being a mother means that at times I have to temporarily put aside my needs in order to provide for my girls but my needs MUST be meet eventually. From the first day that I became a mother I loved my girls unconditionally! But when I learned to love myself unconditionally I became a better mother!

So ladies if you know that you are doing your best at this beautiful thing called motherhood while still finding time to take care of you then lift your glass and celebrate all that is fabulous about being a mom and a woman!

Happy Mother's Day!



Thank you, Mrs. Meiselas!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and I have been thinking about all the teachers that instilled in me a lifelong love of learning and inspired me to become a teacher. In the 4th grade Mrs. Rose Meiselas was my typing teacher. Although that was over 30 years ago I can still remember almost everything about her. How she always wore matching polyester pantsuits and how her hair was really big with lots of hairspray. I can still see the many age spots on her hands as she showed us the correct way to position our fingers on the asdf and jkl; keys of the typewriter. However, what I remember the most about her was how she stood up for me after an incident that happened one day after school.

I was walking home and decided to cut through the schoolyard. Three older boys cornered me and threatened to……well let’s just say they didn’t have good things in mind. Not sure if they were joking or not I ran away hysterically to the principal’s office and Mrs. Meiselas was there. When I told the principal what happened the first thing he asked me was why did I walk through the schoolyard. It was then that Mrs. Meiselas interrupted his insensitive questioning and said, “What difference does that make?” She then insisted that he called my parents to come and get me and she also called the parents of the boys who were involved. She was my advocate!

From that day on she always took a special interest in me. I think she knew that I needed something to boost my self-confidence so she made me her special monitor and I helped her during my lunch and recess times. Even after I graduated and went on to middle school I kept in contact with her and visited her often. She was a compassionate and dedicated teacher who not only cared about her student’s academic success but also how they succeeded socially. I knew I wanted to become that kind of teacher!

A few years ago I was talking to a colleague that is about 17 years older than me and we found out that we were both originally from the same state and went to the same elementary school. What was even more amazing was that Mrs. Meiselas had also inspired her to become a teacher! Wow! All I can say is I hope that I can make a difference in my students lives the way she made a difference in hers!