Mischevious Mom At The Art Gallery

I sat down with my 3 year old daughter last night to read Mischevious Mom At The Art Gallery, written by Erica Ehm and Rebecca Eckler.  My daughter was loved the story and found it funny that the Mom was getting into trouble but was having fun.  She really loved the room with all the paints and wanted to get her easel out and start painting.

This is a great read for a bedtime story and to show that it is always good to have a bit of  “mischevious” in you as long as it is for fun.

Make sure you pick up this book for your son or daughter and inspire them to create.

Click above to order from Amazon.ca

| Cheers |

What? There is a newborn in our house.

Why am I up at 3:00 AM………oh yeah we have a newborn in the house.

It’s only been 3 years but I have seem to have forgotten some things about raising a newborn baby.  It must be human nature to not remember the bad stuff but only remember the good stuff so that we will have more kids because if I remembered how drained you feel a week after who knows what I would have done.

Of course it is not all doom and gloom as having a baby in the house is definitely an amazing feeling and how much peace there is when she is sleeping or eating or……well you know.  Ok so not much peace in that more like pieces but hey it’s not that bad when it is your kid.

I think my brain only allowed me to remember the cuddling up in my arms cause I don’t recall my 3 year old crying so much but maybe new one can see my face better.

…………………………………… now what was I saying?  Sorry dozed off there for a moment.

Oh yeah – the good certainly outweighs the bad and I get to once again enjoy being a new father.

Cheers

The Journey to a New Body

Knowing that  having a newborn around the house I need to get myself back into shape and shed off the pounds that I have put on with my marriage and my 3 year old.  The only thing is that I know what to do but the question is how to find the motivation to do it between raising two girls, work, hobbies, and spending time with my wife.

That is where a Life Fitness Coach comes into play.  I was on Twitter the other day and a message caught my attention in regards to how fitness can positively impact your life and my reply was “I agree but how do you start with so much going on?”, and thus a conversation was started with Lisa Johnson.  In that conversation I remarked that it would be great if I could use her as a Life Coach as I needed the help and coincidentally she was starting that up as part of her website so I became her guinea pig in this new challenge.

A week in and I have done more then I have done in the past 3 years.  It really goes to show that you don’t need to be in the same physical room to find someone that inspires you to change your lifestyle.  You can use the tools of the Internet and your trainer can be anywhere in the world.

We sat down one morning and talked via Skype and within 20 minutes a plan of action was laid out including what exercises to do and what calorie intake I will need to lose the weight that I want to lose.  I use Google Docs to keep a journal of the excercises and calorie intake in which I share with Lisa so that at anytime she can look and see if I am keeping track and staying on course.  We keep in touch via Twitter if I have any questions or if she needs to change things in my nutrition or excercise.  I also use her website – Lisa Johnson Fitness to view all of her tips and any blog posts she does.

I never really understood the value of a trainer until now and even it doesn’t have to be full-time.  Just someone around that every once in a while makes sure that you are staying on target and give you a bit of inspiration.  Lisa is great in detailing a program suited to your lifestyle and what tools you have available.  Defintely worth something to check out and find out if it is right for you.

Oh yeah guess I need to give you some idea of where I am and where I want to be.

Currently I am weighing in at 227 pounds and by October I want to be 170 pounds.   I guess by posting this is my inspiration of saying goodbye to the Daddy baby weight and finally fit back into my clothes.

Cheers

Jay

Lisa Johnson Contact Info -

Twitter – http://twitter.com/LisaJohnson

Website – http://www.lisajohnsonfitness.com/

Why? But Why? Why? But Why?

I am sure a lot of parents are in the stage I am.  The why? stage.  Where no matter what you say it will be followed by your rugrat responding with why?

Oh and don’t try using why yourself because you either get why back in your face or a laugh followed by, but why?

I know it is great that they are inquisitive and want to learn about everything but there has to be a cutoff point.  Maybe a rule where you are only allowed to ask why 10 times a day or come up with a different word then why.  Also where did it come from and how do all kids know about it.

The one part about it that sends my head banging against the wall is when why pops up on things she knows like cooking dinner as this conversation went:

• What are you doing? (daughter)
• Cooking dinner. (Me)
• Why?
• So we can eat.
• Why?
• Because we are all hungry and it is supper.
• Why?
• Because it is dinner time.
• Why?
• Aren’t you hungry?
• Yeah, but why?
• So we can be full and then go to bed.
• Why?
• Because it is almost your bedtime.
• Why?
• (BANG. BANG.BANG goes my head against the cupboard.  Because, because that is just how life goes.
• Why?
• I don’t know.
• OK (followed by a big smile on her face……)
• (Under my breath) Little bugger.

Thus was my conversation with my daughter last night but hey I guess it’s better then trying to explain the birds and the bees.

| Enjoy your day|

How Social Media has Made the World Smaller

Being a kid of the 80′s our version of social media was watching tv and then talking to our friends about it the next day at recess.

I don’t ever remember knowing beforehand if a show was canceled or if it was a rerun the next week.  Let alone knowing what the actors were doing outside of the show.  Now we can actually follow the daily activities of our favourite celebrities and feel like we are a part of their lives.  Obviously to what they want to share with us.

Before you call me on stalking it’s just more of seeing that they do lead regular lives and it shows that they have fun with this new media as well.

Here is a perfect example of how the world is a much smaller place.  Growing up in Canada there were 3 crushes a boy would have – Punky Brewster, Samantha Micelli and Erica Ehm.  The crushes came from more of seeing them as be individual and not afraid to do their own thing.  The only interaction we had was laughing at what they said on TV.  Now with the Web tools such as Twitter and Facebook we get to become virtual acquaintances and follow their adventures and even get the ability to contribute to the discussion which is something you could never think of back then.

Why there is this need for this type of interaction I am not sure but it is fun to be able to follow the life adventures of people you grew up admiring.

| Enjoy the day |

Alyssa Milano

Soliel Moon Frye

Erica Ehm

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year to put out a list of resolutions of things you want to change or acheive over the course of the new year. Many that are put down ate always never acheived so it’s always important to make they are things you want to acheive and not just think you do.

Here is my list of what I want to achieve:

• design something everyday to increase my skillset
• maintain my blog so that it becomes a vital part of the community
• decide on my career direction and network, network, network
• drink more water
• become a vital part of This Week In Media
• get my company off the ground and decide what it wants to be

All achievable and let’s see what will happen in the new year.

Redefining the Home Entertainment Center

I am one of those techy people who always want to be ahead of curve with my friends when it comes to home entertainment.  I was the first of my friends to have a DVD player with a surround sound system.

Being ahead of the curve does bring up some issues when I venture to other people’s houses as it always leaves me wondering why they still had a VCR and listening through little tiny tube tv speakers.

Now the home entertainment center is redifined again with the XBox 360 being the component to bring it all together.  And you can have everything you need at your fingertips.

My current system includes:

• a 32″ HDTV
• Satellite TV with 120 GB DVR
• XBox 360 hooked up to the internet through home network
• Nintendo Wii

While this doesn’t sounds like much but with the Xbox 360 hooked up through the home network I am able to access my home computer so that I can watch movies, listening to music and scan through photos all from my couch.

I never imagined a few years ago when I had a seperate system for music and movies that we would be where we are now where everything is all in one place.

| Enjoy your day |