2014 Year in Review

It’s been a while since I published anything so figured what better way to start off 2015 than to recap our year in 2014.  For the most part, 2014 was a great year for us.  I did have some health scares in March, November & December that have tested me in many ways.  I am physically much better now and I know the mental part will follow in time.  But for now I am SO ready to see what 2015 has in store for us.

January:

-      We closed on our new house.  I call it our forever house because not only do I love it, but I am NEVER moving again.

-      The Hudson Valley (and most of the country) had record breaking freezing temperatures.  Per weather.com, the core of the cold came Monday, Jan. 6 (the day we closed) and Tuesday, Jan. 7 (the day the movers came with our things).

February:

-      “Snowpocalypse 2014” was in full effect this month.  We received over 30 inches of snow here in the Hudson Valley that month. The 2013-2014 winter was the 7^th snowiest season in 120 years.

-      Our son and I attended the Valentine’s Day dance held at his school (on one of the few days it didn’t snow).

 

March:

-      I had surgery to remove the left half of my thyroid.  Thankfully all tests came back normal and I am doing just fine now :)

-      Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays!

-      The snow and cold continued…..

April:

-      The start of a new t-ball season

-      Our son turned 6!!!

 

 

May:

-      Our son attended his first Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work day at my job

-      Our son had his kindergarten artwork displayed in a district-wide art show at the town library.

-      Completed my second Spartan Sprint and beat my previous year’s time!

 

 

June:

-      Myself, our son, my sister and my nephew participated as extras in a movie being shot by my friend locally (check out Mother of the Week here)

-      Our son graduated from Kindergaren (yay!) and started summer camp

-      We welcomed the birth of our friends twin boys

-      The end of t-ball season

-      We held a housewarming party to welcome our family & friends to our new house 

 

July:

-      Spent 4^th of July at home watching fireworks in our neighborhood

-      Spent a week with my family on our annual family vacation.  This year’s destination was a resort in West Virginia

-      Attended BBQ’s and birthday parties for family/friends

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August:

-      Weekend trip to Virginia to celebrate our nephew’s birthday

-      Spent the day in NYC with just our son and I having a “Mommy & Son” day complete with a trip to the Avengers Station & Museum of Natural History

-      Held our annual clam bake BBQ party with our friends

-      Attended 1^st grade orientation at our son’s new elementary school

 

September:

-      Our son started 1^st grade in a new school       

-      Apple & pumpkin picking at Barton Orchards

-      Attended my very first US OPEN (loved it!)

-      Took our son to the Shriner Circus in Orangeburg, NY

-      My company was announced to Working Mother Magazine’s Top 100 Companies to Work for and I was named as Ogilvy & Mather’s Working Mother of the Year

 

October:

-      Received my Working Mother of the Year award from Working Mother Magazine at their annual Gala Dinner in NYC

-      Spent Halloween trick or treating with our best friends

  

November:

-      We took our son on the North Pole Express train ride in CT

-      Spent Thanksgiving with my husband’s family here in NY

-      Took our traditional black Friday trip down to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to buy seafood for Christmas Eve

 

December:

-      Our son participated in his very first Holiday Concert at school

-      Hosted our very first Christmas Eve dinner in our new house with both of our families

-      Took our son to see Aladdin on Broadway with my family and were privileged to get a backstage tour.

 

Food for Thought

A friend of mine had mentioned a while back that she had gone gluten and dairy free to help manage her migraines.  I had heard of other friends doing the paleo diet but never gave it much thought.  One day hubby said to me that he wanted to start a diet and was thinking of doing Atkins again.  I suggested maybe we try paleo instead since it might help with my migraines too and kill two birds with one stone.  He agreed.

If you've never heard of paleo it’s also commonly referred to as the “caveman diet”.   Think of anything that a caveman would have access to eat during the Paleolithic era and that’s what you can eat.  That means lots of fruits, veggies, meat and nuts.  The big no-no’s are gluten, dairy, refined sugar, legumes and alcohol. 

We started Paleo on July 28^th and so far we’ve each lost 10 lbs and I feel much more energetic.  More importantly I have been migraine free!  At first I thought it would be extremely difficult to cut out gulten, dairy and refined sugars but I discovered that I didn’t miss it all that much.  It’s especially easier to stick with it knowing that it’s helping keep my migraines at bay.  After maybe another month or so I will start to incorporate dairy and then gluten into my diet and see if I can pinpoint one or the other that is causing my migraines.  I have a feeling it’s dairy causing them as I cheated a little on Saturday (had dairy) and I ended up with a slight migraine.  Needless to say, I won’t be cheating again anytime soon.

For those that want to get started on paleo there are lots of resources out there to help you.  I’ve found quite a few good paleo blogs via Pinterest.  Some of my favorite blogs/websites for recipe inspiration are:

• Against All Grain 
• Stupid Easy Paleo 
• Mark’s Daily Apple – Primal Blueprint 
• Nom Nom Paleo 

Additionally, here’s a week’s worth of meal plans from things I’ve done:

DAY 1:
Breakfast:  2 hardboiled eggs

Lunch:  Mixed greens with sliced avocado and olive oil

Dinner:  Beef with Bok Choy Stir Fry with Cauliflower Rice 

Snack:  Apple with cashew butter

DAY 2:
Breakfast:  1 egg (over easy) on top of 1 piece of leftover pork.

Lunch:  Salad with grilled chicken & sunflower seed.  (just a drizzle of olive oil for dressing)

Dinner:  Turkey stuffed peppers  

Snack:  mixed fruit and a few almonds

DAY 3:
Breakfast:  2 hard boiled eggs & a banana

Lunch:  Leftover stuffed pepper from night before

Dinner:  Garlic ginger chicken with garlic roasted asparagus 

Snack:  Fresh Cherries

DAY 4:
Breakfast:  2 egg frittata muffins 

Lunch:  Baby lettuce topped with 1 cup avocado basil chicken salad 

Dinner:  Honey Garlic Chicken Wings with side salad 

Snack: Coconut milk ice cream

DAY 5:

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs and 3 pieces of turkey bacon

Lunch:  Leftover wings from night before

Dinner:  Sausage & Veggie Bake (I added some chopped sweet potato into this as well)  

Snack:   Carrot, celery sticks and a few cashews

DAY 6:

Breakfast:  2 egg frittata muffins 

Lunch:  Leftover sausage & veggie bake from night before

Dinner:  Italian style meatloaf with Carrot "Rice" Leek Risotto with Bacon 

Snack:  Spiced mixed nuts

DAY 7:

Breakfast: Blueberry & Lemon muffin 

Lunch:  Leftover meatloaf and carrot rice from night before

Dinner:   Shiritake noodles with paleo meatballs in marinara sauce 

Snack:  “popcorn” cauliflower 

My New Venture

A little over three months ago I ran out of eye cream.  Instead of running out and buying another bottle of what I had been using (which didn’t seem to be making a difference anyway), I decided to take it as an opportunity to seek out other options.   My dark circles had started to become embarrassing and I was determined to find a solution.

The following week during casual conversation at work, a co-worker (and friend) of mine told me about this amazing new product that she had been using and recently became a consultant for.  It only took me one look at her results pictures and I just had to try it.  After 2 weeks of use I was already seeing (and feeling) a difference.  After 25 days I did a comparison to my before pictures and was stunned at just how much my dark circles had been reduced.  I was floored.  It was also at that time that I decided I wanted to share this product with everyone I know and become a consultant for Nerium.

If you’re worried about getting older (and let’s face it, we ALL are) and are sick of having to use multiple products to get results, then I strongly suggest you try Nerium.  NeriumAD is the only product to contain the patented NAE-8 antioxidant extract and was formulated to improve the appearance of:

·         fine lines

·         uneven skin texture

·         enlarged pores

·         wrinkles

·         sun damaged skin

·         hyperpigmentation

·         aging

If you've heard of Nerium but didn’t know where to get it, you can order directly from my site which can be found at the top right hand corner of my blog.  If you’re not quite ready to buy yet, Nerium offers a 30 day money back guarantee.  So you can have a 30 day trial for FREE!  But if you don’t want to commit to 30 days, I can provide you with a free 5 day trial.  Just email me for more details.

Becoming an independent brand parter with Nerium is a bit of new territory for me. While I have worked retail in the past, this is completely different.  I’m not a pushy person by nature so I was hesitant to sign up.  I've come to realize, however, that I don’t need to be pushy and “sell” Nerium.  As corny as it sounds, it can sell itself.  I am just here to provide samples and information to anyone who is interested in trying it.   I would love to one day be earning a big enough paycheck from Nerium that I can start working less at my full time job and spend more time with my family  (and a free Lexus wouldn’t be too shappy either).  But for now I’m happy enough with my dark circle free eyes and glowing skin :)

A Long and Overdue Update

This update is WAY overdue.  I’ve had only one post since the New Year (bad blogger) and to say a lot has happened since Jan 1 would be an understatement.

Besides our normal work schedule and holidays, over the past six months we’ve celebrated our birthdays (mine and hubs); Anthony turned six!! (omg); I trained for and finished another Spartan race – beating my previous time;  Anthony came to my job for his first Take our Daughters & Sons to Work Day; Anthony was chosen to have his artwork displayed in a district wide art show;  Mother’s Day;  Father’s Day;  and on June 13th Anthony graduated from Kindergarten (omg again!)  We’ve been quite the busy family that it’s left me barely any time to catch my breath, let alone time to blog about it all.

But probably our biggest news of all is that we moved!!  You may have caught it at the end of my 2013 recap post (if you read the whole thing LOL) where I mentioned that we were packing up the old house and were closing on the new house.  We sold our townhouse on December 27^th and on January 6^th closed on a gorgeous 4 bedroom home a couple towns over.  We are beyond excited and are in love with our new space.  We truly lucked out finding our dream home. 

taken the day our offer was accepted (November 2013)

Moving was one of the most stressful experiences of my life and to do it in the middle of snowpocalypse 2013/14 made it all the more challenging.   We were scheduled to move out of our townhouse on the day a blizzard decided to descend upon New York.  Luckily I was able to get the movers to come a day early and they kept our things stored on the truck for the weekend until we closed on the new house.   It was a good thing we were able to do that because the day after the blizzard all of the moving company’s trucks were frozen solid because the diesel fuel in the trucks had frozen!!  You seriously couldn’t have made this stuff up.  It was just insanity.  Certainly not the time to be moving, but we had no choice.  We had to go.  The day we moved into the new house it was minus 5 degrees outside.  I felt so awful for the moving guys.  I bought a few boxes of coffee and some doughnuts and that helped make for happy workers (and a faster move).  Although I’m sure the cold certainly helped them work a little faster.

So as you can imagine, a lot of whatever free time I’ve had over the past 6 months has been spent focusing on the house and doing projects.  We were lucky that the house didn’t need any renovations, but of course there were cosmetic changes we wanted to do to make it our own.  Slowly each room is coming together and it’s starting to feel like home vs a rental vacation home.  More to come on the house as we finish off rooms (and more pics too!)

For now, I’ll leave you with some picture highlights from the last 6 months and the promise that I really will come back to blogging, even if only for short quick updates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

What’s New at LEGOLAND

Tuesday night I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by LEGOLAND on behalf of my sister blog Apple Tots in the Hudson Valley.   Representatives from LEGOLAND California, LEGOLAND Florida and LEGOLAND Discovery Center Westchester were present to talk about how LEGOLAND Parks have transformed into the ultimate family destination and about the rapid expansions taking place at LEGOLAND Discovery Centers throughout North America this year.  Master Model Builder, Gary McIntire, was also on-hand to build with those who attended and present the opportunity to view exclusive LEGO Legends of CHIMA models.

You might remember that last year around this time I took a trip to Florida with my son to visit my mom.  During that trip I took my son to LEGOLAND Florida.  We had a blast and I vowed that we would one day return for a full family trip (check out that post with pictures HERE).  What I didn't know at the time is that I was only a few months early of them opening up a brand new attraction titled “The World of Chima” that my son would have gone crazy for.  Last night at the event I got a chance to view this new attraction that opened in July 2013 both in video format and as a LEGO model (how cool!).  The World of Chima offers attractions for both old and younger kids but the centerpiece is “The Quest for Chi”, an interactive water ride that offers riders a chance to fire water cannons at targets that include LEGO characters (and others on and near the ride) ensuring no one leaves the area dry.

Also happening in LEGOLAND Florida later this year is the grand opening of the LEGOLAND Hotel!!  The LEGOLAND hotel in California has been such a great success in the short time that it’s been open (it opened April 2013) that the Florida hotel is going to be opening ahead of schedule!  It will be located at the front of the park and a perk of being a guest of the hotel is that you get access to the park a half hour early before regular guests (sweet!)

My sister and her husband took my nephew just a month ago to LEGOLAND California and from the pictures & video they sent back to us my son is now begging for us to take him to California.  Last night I got a glimpse into the new 3 acre water park that is going to be opening up Memorial Day weekend 2014 entitled “Legends of Chima”.  This water park will be in addition to the current water park that is already at LEGOLAND California.  With interactive water play, water cannons, a huge wave pool and more water slides than you can count, it looks like an incredible place for a family vacation!

For those that live in the NY Hudson Valley area, you don’t have to go very far for your own LEGO adventure.  The LEGOLAND Discovery Center Westchester is conveniently located in Ridge Hill (across from Stew Leonard’s).   At the Discovery Center you can experience the 4D Cinema, take a LEGO factory tour, view New York's top landmarks made out of LEGO bricks, build and race your own LEGO racecar, ride Merlin’s Apprentice Ride plus much more.  For younger kids there is a duplo soft play area, plus kids under 2 are admitted FREE!  They also hold birthday parties for the LEGO lover in your house ;)

Thank you again LEGOLAND for the fun night of food, drinks and fun and most importantly for information on all the new and exciting attractions that are coming soon to the LEGOLAND parks!

Just like Emmet says….”Everything is awesome!!”