To speak or not to speak......

At this time of year, hopefully, we take the time to appreciate all the little things in our lives. Three of those things for me are my children and even though I complain here and there, I am thankful.

I am thankful for the life that I have been given and for all that has been provided for me. I am thankful for my loving friends and family and I am thankful that so far..... my kids have kept the straight and narrow (or so I believe).

Like many of you, I have waited in anticipation for this period in my life, where I would have the "dreaded" teenager, but so far I've been spared the heartache and frustration that seems to plaque these teenage years.

As parents we all try very hard to make sure we raise our children the right way. We give them opportunities we never had. We buy them things we never dreamed of. We encourage them with love and support, helping them when they fall and praising them when they succeed.

But let me ask you this....how well do we really know them? These mini-mes.... these carbon copies of us?

I have always prided myself in thinking that I "know" my daughter and that she would never do anything wrong. I also thought that all my friends enjoyed this same type of security  -- of "knowing" what our kids were up to. However, recent events have shattered this apparent false sense of security and now I find myself in strange waters.

So let me pose a question to you....

If you found out (from your daughter) that a friend's child has not followed the path of the straight and narrow and has engaged in inappropriate behaviors, would you tell her?

Would you say something, knowing that the child has already been deemed by her peers as wanton and licentious?

Would you say something, knowing that by doing so, you are also breaking the trust and confidence that your daughter has placed in you?

Or......

Would you hold your tongue?

I have asked this question to some of my friends and I find people falling into two categories.

One group feels that since the events occurred in the past, I should leave it alone and hope that the child is now in a better place. They feel that by divulging the "secret" at this point in time, there is no upside. I could potentially incur the wrath of my friend (because she may not believe me), cause a rift between my friend and her child, destroy my daughter's friendship and in the end I could also lose the trust and confidence my own daughter has placed in me and cause us to drift apart.

The other group feels that I should say something no matter the cost, while trying to minimize the potential backlash towards my daughter and hope that all will work out.

What are your thoughts?

Have you ever found yourself in this situation? If so, what did you do?

How would you feel if this were your child?

Challenge....Schmallenge....

30 day challenge? Please. What's so hard about doing a repetitive motion on a daily basis with a slight increase in reps. I know I can do it....no problem.

Fast forward 7 days......

OMG!!!! Owwwww......

Yes, just a mere week into my challenge and I'm starting to see stars and tears are beginning to well at the thought of squats, crunches and planks.

Over the past couple of weeks, I kept seeing friends and family members posting how they are starting up 30 day challenges to prepare for the upcoming bikini season. I usually just scrolled right past them on facebook, twitter and instagram, thinking to myself, "What's the challenge in doing that? I'm sure I can do a 30 day challenge". Then, one day as I was looking at the mirror (a very scary activity) I realized that I need to get myself in gear. I need to get in shape and become a healthier person. So, I decided to add the 30 day challenge idea into my routine (which is Zumba classes every so often).

I was determined.....30 day challenges don't scare me, in fact, I'm going to make it a REAL challenge and do a challenge incorporating 3 different exercises.

So off I went to my computer, looked up various poplular challenges and I decided to go with the 30 day Crunch-Squat-Plank Challenge. I copied the formatting from a few different sources and borrowed an image of a fit individual and titled my workout : I'm doing it for ME!

I quickly sent an email to my sister and one of my best friends and encouraged them to join me in this little quest to fitness. My sis.....(the smart one) declined, stating that she is already engaged in the 30 day plank, so it was left to me and Rita.

That evening as I was explaining everything to my family, I was very happy to see that my husband didn't poo-poo the idea....in fact, he agreed to join me on this crusade. We did our crunches, squats and planks with ease and for the first couple of days things were hunky-dory.

As the days progressed, it started to get more and more difficult.

....sad to say my hubby has since dropped out, stating his need to do the taxes, working late and then last night he was sound asleep and wouldn't get up. (YES! he stopped on Day 4 ~ WIMP!!!!)

My friend Rita and I are still at it, trying to encourage each other with daily text saying "Done", "Did it".... and telling each other that we are turning a new leaf, blah blah blah......but now, the text are beginning to show our fatigue and AGE.....such as sad thing - getting older.

Rita's text to me

However, we are determined to finish, although to be honest with you all, I'm not sure I'm going to make. So, to all those people who are doing various fitness challenges....."Hats off to you!! Keep it up and I'm sorry to ever think that these challenges were a piece of cake."

How about you? Have you ever done a fitness challenge? Would you consider doing one? Let me know, I would love to see what everyone is doing to get healthy.

Off to do my daily workout.....wish me luck (I think I will have a piece of cake when I'm done..... mmmmmm).

Chillin in Arizona.....seriously I'm cold

So I arrived in beautiful Scotsdale Arizona yesterday, leaving behind the frigid temperatures of New Jersey. 

I've been looking forward to this little break from winter for months and had high expectations. I packed my cutest summer dresses, shorts, a bunch of t-shirts, tanks and bikinis. 

We arrived at 11am and headed to the hotel. The sun was beaming, the sky a beautiful blue with puffy white clouds and flowers greeted us at every turn.

Ahhh.....how wonderful ...peaceful....and sunny.

Once we arrived at the hotel, I headed straight to our room, tossed my winter garb aside and put on a pair of shorts and a tee. I bounded to the lobby patio that overlooks the pool, plopped myself on a comfy orange couch and waited for the suns rays to envelope me. Instead......I was greeted with a strong "breeze"....ohhh not so warm. It's ok, perhaps it was just a passing breeze....

Boy was I wrong. After standing my ground for 5 mins, hoping the weather would change, I left the sunny patio defeated.

I dragged my teeth chattering, goosebumpy self back to the room and began to change back into my winter attire. I scolded my husband later on in the evening for persuading me not to bring a jacket or sweatshirt.

"We're going to Arizona....you're not going to need it."

Hello!!!! Where is the nearest mall? 

I am however hopeful that the rest of the week will prove  better....so far today has been warmer. I got to relax by the pool (yes, bathing suit and all) and had a yummy drink.

Either way, I'm here on vacation, sans kids (thanks to my mom and dad---love you guys!!!). I finished The Fault In Our Stars by John Green ~ fantastic, but have a box of tissues nearby....and I'm currently reading Insurgent by Veronica Roth, the second book of the Divergent series ~ another wonderful dystopian world series. Check them out if you have time.

Oh, i just got a text from my girlfriend.... apparently they enjoyed a lovely day with temperatures reaching a high of 21 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yea, on second thought, I'll take the balmy 70 degree breeze, goosebumps and all.

...no more complaining.

Where are you right now and are ya cold?

What books are you reading? What do you recommend?

Happy International Women's Day 2014

"Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world"

Hillary Clinton

I took this on my trip to China for a medical/humanitarian mission.

If we take the time to invest in the girls around the world, we can truly make the world a better place. Join me in supporting Girl Rising.

How are you helping the world?

Drowning In a Sea of Parenthesis and Curly Brackets

function....span....append....element....$(this).....var... )}; .......?!

help.

Now, as some of you know, I have embarked on a new path. I'm taking lessons to become a web developer and it's been a struggle. In fact, this past week I feel like a fish out of water.

What possessed me to start this?! Why am I learning how to code?

Well, to be honest, I love this stuff....... I must if I'm up till 2am trying to debug my project.....yes, 2am....and guess what? After hours and hours of looking for the problem, I found the culprit. The reason my "code" wasn't working was due to a misplaced quotation mark! UGH!!!! Really???!

Anyway, no matter my level of interest and passion for learning all of this, it has been dwarfed by my feeling of total stupidity.

Apparently, not only did my vision go once I hit forty, but my brain as well. I cannot for the life of me retain the information that I've been reading. What once would have taken me minutes to comprehend in my youth, now takes me an hour.

It's so sad.

However, I'm not giving up. I've got a wonderful mentor and a supportive discussion group from taking my course at Thinkful......I will finish the course, ugly web pages and all......well, hopefully not really ugly.

So, bring it on O'mighty tech world.....I will learn to embrace you curly brackets and all.


Have you ever felt lost at what you are attempting to learn? Has your brain turned to mush too?

Winter Wonderland Vacation

This winter our school calendar has been plagued with snow day after snow day.....I can't recall when we have had a full week of school.

Now, for those of you who don't know me, I don't like the cold weather....in fact, I HATE it. The only reason I like to live in the northeast is because I do enjoy the change of seasons.....which makes me appreciate the warmer weather - Ha!

Anyhow, this year we decided to spend our winter break with my husbands family....and where, you might ask, did we go????

Well, why not the snowy mountain tops of West Virginia at a ski resort called Snowshoe Mountain.

What?! No way am I going somewhere cold...

....... fine, so that my children can play with their beloved cousins, I will take one for the team....*sniff sniff.

We were all pretty much set to go on Thursday Februrary 13th when the emails and text messgages starting buzzing.....WINTER STORM WARNING - the worst we have seen this yea, starting on none other than Wednesday, February 12th.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

I immediately called up my dearest hubby, who was in NC on a business trip, and told him to forget his flight home and rent a car and meet me in West VA.

I dropped off the dog, pulled my kids out of school, packed up the car and started out for what turned into an eleven hour road trip to West Virginia....and yes, we were driving into the oncoming storm system.

hmmmmm....maybe that wasn't too smart ~ but if we stayed we would have never gotten out.

Now, I'm not afraid to drive long distance and I'm not bad driving in the snow....BUT after driving for nine hours straight with three kids in the car along a winding mountain road, flanked with bottomless cliffs, one starts to get a bit jittery.....then when you add the lack of cell service, 8 degree inclines and heavy snow fall paired with darkness.....you get the comment "wow, you look like you've aged five years.".....SMACK!

Well, the good thing is that we made it in one piece - maybe not mentally, but physically. Three families drove in on the night the snow began while the other two groups drove in later.....one taking 2 hours to drive 30 miles from Winston-Salem and the other getting stuck in the snow due to the lack of 4-wheel drives at the rental place.

Needless to say, the children had a blast with their cousins. The slopes were fantastic and my children who have never skied before really enjoyed themselves. We stayed at a Ski-In Ski-Out unit with a hot tub that apparently can fit a whole lotta cousins.

I, for one, will never ever drive up the mountain during a snowstorm again.....my vote for the next reunion ..... let's go to the beach!

What did you do this winter?

One of the dads remembered that it was Valentine's Day.
He brought flowers for all the Moms.....So Sweet!

Did you do anything for Valentine's Day?

Taking the Plunge!

Well, I finally did it.

After learning that I'm considered a butterfly when it comes to resume reviews, I decided to sit down and think hard about what it is I want to do.

".....gee, what am I gonna be when I grow up?"

HELLO?!?!? Wake up! You're a mother of three and your well into your fo--orrr---ties.

While all this true...... what does it matter?

Honestly, it's really now or never. I have never been a big fan of my actual career path as a pharmacist and having taken years off to raise my children, I really don't want to head back to the healthcare arena in that capacity.

It's time to follow my dreams. Learn something new and start on a new path before I'm really too old! So, last week, I signed up for the Front-End-Web-Developement course offered by Thinkful.

How do I like it? Well, so far it's not too bad....I've only fallen asleep once while reading some text (reading always puts me to sleep) and I've had a couple of assignments that have lead to a little frustration on my part as I tried to do things not yet in my wheelhouse, but......I'm super excited.

I'm finally understanding how and why things are coded the way they are and I find it absolutely fascinating! Ok, you can say it.....NERD!!!!! GEEK!!!! But I don't care! I love it!!

I can now take a blank web page and make it look like something....of course at this time it's rather ugly, but hey it's my first week.....it can only get better. (if you want to see the real thing you can click here : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49988315/html-resume/resume.html )

This is a screenshot of the webpage I made for class.....it's ugly, I know.

It's still early to give an educated opinion on the course I'm taking, but the Thinkful FEWD program  seemed more comprehensive than some of the other courses out there - at least for me. I need a little more nudging....and knowing that I have to meet with my mentor every week and seeing what my "classmates" are doing, motivates me to get off the couch and get moving, or in my case throw my PTA and child rearing responsibilities to the side.

Have you ever thought about changing careers? If so, let me know..... I would love to hear your stories.

Listen, if I can do it after all these years, you can too.....follow your dreams and reach for the stars.

I'm Still Breathing!!!!

Yes, believe it or not, I'm still alive and kicking.

This has been one crazy year and I must really try to make an effort to continue my blog....why? Because I love writing.

So what in the world could have kept me from blogging? Well......hmmmm....what a loaded question.

First off, I was an idiot and agreed to be the PTA president of my daughters elementary school....yes, they saw the "Sucker" sign on my forehead and said "Ask her!!!" So, now my house is in shambles, laundry piled up to the sky and kids are barely eating what I would deam a "healthy" meal. I have emails from parents regarding anything and everything, fundraiser baskets and decorations spewed throughout my house and a monstrous size bottle of Pepcid next to my bed ....and, if that wasn't enough, I agreed to help head the Ad journal/playbill for my daughter's highschool, I'm on the Picnic committee that welcomes over 300+ children to our school, I will be helping a local Investment company with idea generation, I was asked to help play/sing in a cover band and I finally decided to take the plunge and start my journey to a new career as a web developer, while maintaining my pharmacy degree!

Phew!

Yes.....stupid is as stupid does....or as my husband said the other day....Mid-Life Crisis!

Is there anyone out there who is in the same boat? What have you been up to?