JustMOMsensations

The abundance of Angels decorating my home for Christmas reminds me of this story.    Do you believe?   An Angel Saved my Life    by Sheri Gammon Dewling   A nagging feeling of doom woke me on that Sunday morning.   I could not shake it and there was no obvious cause.   I was visiting friends for the weekend and had borrowed a van to move some furniture for them.   I tried to shake off the feeling and the voice in my head telling me something bad was about to happen, but they would not go away.   Over breakfast, I told my friends how I was feeling.   One friend said to me, “Someone is watching over you.   Don’t ignore it”.   I called my close family members and was assured that they were fine.   It was time for me to head home to the city but I was anxious with the feeling of doom looming over me. It felt like pressure on my chest, making it hard for me to take a deep breath.     After several minutes, I pushed myself to get in the van and begin my journey home.  

When I was 12 a strange man tried to take me .   I’ll never know why he failed, what caused me to run and hide but it probably saved my life.    I was two blocks from home on my way to school one day when a large navy blue sedan pulled up beside me on the right side of the avenue.   The passenger window was down and he spoke to me from the driver’s seat. “Where is James Street?” he asked.   “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” I replied and began to walk away.   His voice stopped me, “You MUST!” he demanded.   “I really don’t know.” I meekly asserted and glanced down at him before I walked on.   I was too innocent to know what his hand was doing in his lap, but something must have triggered inside of me to make the fear build. I began to walk away, turned the first corner and quickened my pace.   I kept looking around for another child or adult I knew but there was no one on the street. After a block I thought I was in the clear when I saw his car approaching again.   He slowed as he near

One of my favourite quotes “we teach that which we most need to learn”, by Richard Bach, explains why I am driven to write posts like this.    There are many books written about parenting but no “ideal parent” software that we can download and execute perfectly 100% of the time.   For me, continuous reminders improve the odds. 1.        Do not limit your child by labelling them.   In my head I said “stop being a brat”, what I actually said was “stop that bratty behavior” – but my daughter still heard the former.   An instance of behaviour does not define them.   Better to describe the behavior, not the child but there must have been a better word than ‘bratty’.    As Dr. Phil says, “It takes 100 ‘atta boys’ to erase one hurtful word”. 2.        Avoid showing frustration negatively.   Apparently I growl.   When a jar won’t open or the computer errors, I growl.   Children are mirrors, pushing our own behaviours in in front of us as they practice what we have modelled.   I now

After 26 years in the travel business, hundreds of airplane trips, hotel/cruise stays AND 8 years of being a Mom; I have learned a few things about making a family holiday more enjoyable.   These tips make sense for my family:    Snorkling in Cozumel 1.    Book with a Travel Agent – I can’t stress     this enough.   Even I, with decades of know-how on planning trips, book through a travel agent that I trust.   Nothing replaces the ability to contact an actual person to solve a problem if you need help along the journey.   I certainly don’t want to spend my own precious holiday time working out a problem – I gladly pay a small service fee to transfer that responsibility to my trusty agent.   Beach day in Belize 2.        Pack Less – Take the time before the trip to list all holiday events and preplan an outfit for each event, including footwear and accessories.      Take neutral shoes that can be re-worn, since footwear is one of the heaviest and bulky i

A poem for my sweet boy on this, his 5th birthday: I Held You By:   Sheri Gammon Dewling I held you in my dreams When life was like a game   I held you in my belly When I learned to use your name   I held you in my arms As you nestled close and tight   I held you on my hip When the world was such a fright   I held you in my hand When you needed to stay close   I held you in my worries When you needed me the most   I held you in my soul When your lessons made you cry   Where I will hold you forever Long past the day I die

This is the first leg in my journey of fascination, travelling through the healing properties of spices .   Let’s start with the common spices most of us already have in our kitchen and use regularly, without really understanding what they offer in flavour to our foods or, more importantly, in health benefit.   I am NOT suggesting spices are a replacement for following official medical advice.   Prescription medication from a medical doctor or a Naturopath remedy is often very effective with ailments, but not always.   As someone who experiences daily pain from injuries and joint problems, I shy away from making pain killers a daily habit and strive to learn about the natural pain relieving spices and those that offer an anti-inflammatory effect.   Perhaps the following chart will benefit you as much as I hope it eases my own physical ailments.   If you have great recipe ideas using any of these spices, please comment and share!

Have you ever been struck with a concept the first time, then that same concept seems to appear everywhere, validating it for you?   As someone with over 20 years’ experience providing adult training, it suddenly hit me that the internet and social media have forever changed how training professionals operate.   The world our kids are preparing for is vastly different than the one their parents were introduced to as adults. Marketing professionals say that businesses must have a social media presence and be savvy in order to succeed, however, it is also true that information moves so quickly that it is impossible to know everything.    At a technology conference two years ago, an expert on Smart Phones stated that apps are being invented at a faster rate than any one human could possibly learn each and every one of them. It has been suggested that no one can be an expert on using Twitter.    Since it moves so quickly and is ever changing, the knowledge of using Twitter is a jou

I participated in a Mompreneur Twitter chat this evening that inspired me to 'recycle' this article I wrote for a website a few years back - truly timeless tricks ...     Mom’s Timeless Tricks In honor of my Mom, I’m sharing a wealth of inexpensive organizing and recycling tricks that my Mom used while raising four children in south-central Scarborough.   In the 60’s, our parents were ahead of the times with “reduce, reuse and recycle”.      We were a middle class family of six.   Dad worked long hours as a Coppersmith and my Mom used her imagination to raise four children on a tight budget.   Here are some of Mom’s inventive ideas, and new ones we’ve added along the way: ‘Waxed Paper’ from your empty cereal or cracker box .   This paper tends to be thicker and stronger than the waxed paper you buy in the store and is able to overcome some of the shortcomings of traditional waxed paper.   It does a great job separating hamburger patties in the fre