Tamara and Carolyn

I am grateful

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Hello,

So have you all been keeping up with your journaling?

We have, although we have not posted in a while, it is the very first thing we do when waking up with our morning tea!  We will be running the challenge again starting January 1st, 2018 – Can you believe it? Another year has come and gone!

I hope you have all had a wonderfully marvelous Christmas, we did, I did 🙂

I am going to take a moment to thank everyone who put “ME” products under someone’s tree (or your own :)).  We love it, and appreciate it.  Most of all we are thrilled to be a part of your lifestyle and happy to know you are taking care of yourselves and those you love.

So I will share with you my entries for today.

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my family
  • my life
  • my customers
  • the power to love
  • the power to change

5 I AM’S

  • I am thin
  • I am beautiful
  • I am a survivor
  • I am grateful
  • I am strong

 

 

Tamara and Carolyn

Me challenge Day 14

Hello,

5 things I am grateful for:

(today especially I need to remind myself that life really is a gift)

my life

my family

my friends

my home

my health

 

5 I AM’S

I am beautiful

I am Lucky

I am a survivor

I am strong

I am feeling positive

 

Ever have days where things just don’t go right?  Where it seems as though you can’t fix it?  Today is definitely one of those kinda days.  But I am going to stay positive and hopeful through it all.  Because after all it is a choice.

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge Day 11,12, and 13

Hello everyone!

I haven’t logged my gratitude this past weekend but I assure you I have done it!  But today I am going to do it with you.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, maybe even got a little shopping done.  If you are anything like me you still have shopping to do. There are some things I lack ambition in and procrastination takes over.

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my life
  • my family
  • my home
  • my friends
  • my strength

5 I AM’S

  • I am beautiful
  • I am worthy
  • I am lucky
  • I am a survivor
  • I am rich

This challenge won’t make a difference if you don’t do the work!

Prove to yourself that you are worth the 5 minutes!

Have a great day!

Me

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge – Day 10

Hello,

As I work the rush at our seasonal kiosk and fill the online orders which we are grateful for, I can’t help but feel for those that can’t celebrate Christmas like most of us in the western society do.  One day The Me Store is going to donate 1% of all sales and really make a difference.  We want to be the secret Santa for those in need.  Pay it forward as I know first hand how devastating it is when there is no way to celebrate.  If we could start something today we absolutely would, but we are in our baby stages of building.  1 year in business.  Our goal with your support and patronage we will have this fund in place by year 2019.  For those of you that have been reading can I ask you to send a message from the contact page of our webpages letting us know what you think should be the main focus.  Example: improving resources for abused single women and mothers, by way of an education fund so they can stand on their own without assistance.  providing care and an education/skill to women who work fields in third world countries, having babies in the fields and keep working, our Canadian native reserves, living in such horrendous conditions, or if you have any other suggestions please share.  One thing we here at The Me Store from the owners to its employees believe in empowering women to take care of themselves.  Women are the glue of their families, the nurturers, the educators, the support, and in many cases today the providers.  If the women are not looking after themselves in every way, from the inside to the outside the family suffers in one way or another.  And the cycle continues and continues.

I want to thank you in advance for reading and sharing your thoughts with us and me!

Onto the challenge! 🙂

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my warm home
  • my family and friends
  • my health
  • life’s opportunities
  • my life

5 I AM’S

  • I am generous
  • I am beautiful
  • I am grateful
  • I am worthy
  • I am lucky

Have another fabulous day 🙂

Me

 

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge Day 9

Hello,

Is anyone else as excited as I am to have a white Christmas this year?  It feels like it has been a very long time since we have had one!

What are your family Christmas traditions?  Every family has their own, and I just love hearing about all the different ways to celebrate.  A girl I used to work with spends Christmas day curled up on the couch watching horror movies and does not have your typical turkey, they have fish!

The best part of Christmas for me is the FOOD!  finger foods, baking, chocolate and of course the feast Christmas day!  And yes we have turkey 🙂

For today I am just going to get right to the challenge.

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my life
  • my family
  • my home
  • my health
  • my desire to learn and grow

5 I AM’S

  • I am lucky
  • I am worthy
  • I am happy
  • I am thin
  • I am determined

Have a great day !

Me

Tamara and Carolyn

Mini bio – Me Challenge Day 8

I am not sure who is reading this but I can tell you that last night all I could think about is how I’ve really put myself out there.  I am feeling very exposed and some feelings I can’t even label.  I do not regret sharing, because I want all women to know they really are never alone, and more importantly that they can overcome.

I am going to be honest with you here I am not even sure what a blog is entirely or its real purpose ( Don’t judge me!) but I am using this blog as a platform to share personal stories, connect, and I guess, work through my own “stuff”.

Christmas is a time for me that is so magical and special, even as a child, it felt like it was the one time in the year where we all were close and like “a real family”, Mom always made it so special and Dad wanted to give us ( I have a younger brother) everything.  We were spoiled at Christmas, and I loved seeing everyone happy, it made me happy.  The traditions of my childhood I of course wanted to carry on with my family.  My girls were about 2 and 3 years old and it was the 23rd of December, not a present was bought, no baking done, no turkey, nothing that resembled the Christmas I knew and loved.  We were broke but we had one paycheck that we were going to go shopping with!  My husband will be home soon and we are going to get our Christmas on!!  About an hour before I expect him home he calls and says he stopped at the casino and won $1000!  I was ecstatic, finally some luck.  Then 2 hours later he is still not home and I called him to ask what is the delay, we need to go shopping.  He decided to go back in to the casino and not only did he lose the winnings but he lost the pay too.  I was devastated.  I can’t even describe how much of a failure I felt I was, no Christmas, not even a dinner.  What to do now?  Your probably thinking family, well his family lives 5 hours away as we were living in Northern Ontario at this time, and my family lives in Europe.   It was just us.  So I decided to delay Christmas, we had Christmas about a week late, the kids were small and didn’t have daycare so they didn’t know that it really wasn’t Christmas, but I did and I hated it and him for it.  This wasn’t the last Christmas without money either, there was another year when the kids were in school and daycare and were very aware of Christmas.  But this story has a happy ending, there really is magic at Christmas time and there really are good people in the world.  Our daycare providers mother, a women I will never forget, showed up on the last day of daycare for the holiday season and had a garbage bag FULL of toys and gifts, brand new, and gave me the whole bag for Christmas.  I had never felt such gratitude in my life and the tears were pouring out of me.  My girls will have a Christmas and Santa will come!  Only because a “Santa” actually did!

But I loathed my husband, and myself for ever even being in this situation again.

Today I am a single mother, and our Christmases are beautiful, my mother is home now and with us, which is totally awesome as she is my magic at Christmas and I think my girls too.  My life’s journey has some very bumpy paths but it also has some very smooth and beautiful paths.

Onto the challenge!

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my life
  • my girls
  • my mother
  • my health
  • my lessons

5 I AM’S

  • I am lucky
  • I am beautiful
  • I am thin
  • I am motivated
  • I am worthy

Have a Great Day and keep up with the Challenge!

Me

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge – Day 7 and….

So I am just going to pick up where I left off yesterday…and then do my challenge.

I was a victim!  I was the innocent one, I was the normal one, even though I was told many times I was not normal and that something was wrong with me.  I remember a time so clearly, It was days after my second child was born, (my girls are 13 months apart) my husband wasn’t even there when she was born.  He decided to go into business with his brother, run thousands of dollars on his brother’s credit because at this point we didn’t have any, hell we didn’t have money for the rent.  Anyway, I had decided to get a tubal as soon as I became pregnant with my second, there was no way I was going to have more children when we couldn’t afford the now two we have and our lives were so unstable that it just wasn’t going to happen.  Not to mention the fact that he NEVER once fed, changed, got up with them, nothing that was all on me.  Well my decision to do this was a disastrous blow to our marriage as he wanted a boy.  I was on the operating table when the doctor came in and said my husband just called and asked me not to perform the tubal, he is threatening your marriage if you go through with this.  I then asked the doctor if my husband had any rights or if he could stop this, the doctor said no, I said then lets do it, I obviously don’t have much of a marriage anyway.  It was the first time I ever took any stand for myself and did something he did not approve of or was his idea.  ( I was on the operating table because I had C-sections for both as my body doesn’t progress into labor, after two inductions with my first we figured this out!)  So now I am at home, he is not home, I have two babies, no money, no friends or family around to help and I am talking on the phone to my husband, I don’t even remember what we ended up fighting about but I remember him yelling through the phone, and me hysterically balling, falling to the floor lifeless, the phone not even in my hand anymore, my babies crying and I was paralyzed with pain, hurt, and now guilt and shame.  How long I laid on the floor I couldn’t tell you, but when I finally picked myself up my babies weren’t crying anymore, they had cried themselves to sleep.  I didn’t sleep at all that night and swore to myself I will never let this happen again where I can’t function enough to tend to my girls.  Nothing was worth that kind of guilt.  A couple days after this he returned home, told me how I was not even a real women now that I had done this, made an appointment with the doctor to see if this could be reversed and demanded I go.  I said ok we can go and see what he says, (knowing full well this was not an option) if this is possible I said to him, things need to change between us.  Oh he promised the moon.  This is the hardest part for me to actually say and share, he wanted to have sex with me, I was less than one week out of surgery, with stitches, tired and sore and really didn’t want to but I did, crying inside, it hurt not just physically but emotionally.  As he is performing for lack of a better word he is saying I feel different and that I am not whole anymore.  Finally it was over and I loathed myself, and hated him, but I was stuck, no money, no job, no family, no friends, and two kids.  This is just one memory of many not so pleasant. The point of this memory is to show you clearly where being a victim gets you.  Google proved to me that I was a victim and so with that victim mentality I continually, progressively was a victim, more than ever. Are you starting to see a pattern?  Don’t worry if you don’t yet, keep reading and you will!  I will continue to share with you my life stories and journeys for one main reason, to inspire you, to show you how no matter what you are a survivor and can overcome anything.  Women truly are the toughest we just don’t always believe it.

5 things to be grateful for

  • my family
  • my life
  • my lessons
  • my health
  • my strength

5 I AM’S

  • I am a survivor
  • I am beautiful
  • I am thin
  • I am strong
  • I am worthy

Until tomorrow ya’ll have a great day 🙂

Me

 

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge – Day 6

Hello!

Before I make my entries I would like to share a link with you about the importance of self care https://plusguidance.com/blog/importance-of-self-care/  Please read this ladies blog on self care, you will only benefit!

When I was married, Everything I did was “for my family” I went without, I made all the sacrifices, I worked for my husband even though I didn’t want to and knew it was a mistake, I did, I did, I did.  Through all of the I did’s and I do’s I lost myself and created a world of no hope and a world where I was destined to be a “loser” a “failure” and what do you know… the world just kept handing me more reinforcements of this terrible life and feeling.  Your life truly is a reflection of what you feel about yourself, a 10 year lesson for me and still learning.  We kept fighting about money, kids, life choices, begging for some recognition and appreciation for all that I do and for just being me, you know having a partner in life.  It’s like a faint light was still inside, I knew there was something about me that was worthy of something!  But the reality is I had nothing for myself, I only felt lonely, unworthy, stuck and stupid, oh and can’t forget fat, yes I felt fat!  Crazy the amount of weight we give our body image.  So then you could say my marriage became a score card, yes I kept score, I wanted ammo when we fought, I wanted to prove how much I do, so he could start to love and appreciate me, you know like even up the score!  Do you know what this did?  It put us on opposite sides, created more hurt and once again reinforced my feeling of how pathetic my life and I am.  I became a professional victim, I was the abused one, just Google living with a narcissist and that was me, Google how to tell when your in an emotionally abusive relationship, I hit every sign.  So what did this mean?

I will fill you in tomorrow!

I am at work and we just hired a new member!  She’s just arrived so I must go back to work!

but I can’t forget about the challenge so here it is.

5 things to be grateful for:

  • My amazing life
  • my 2 girls
  • my mom
  • my friends
  • my healthy genes

5 I AM’S

  • I am beautiful
  • I am thin
  • I am full of energy
  • I am Lucky
  • I am mysterious (I like this one)
Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge – Day 5

5 things to be grateful for:

  • my life
  • my family and friends
  • my health
  • my mind
  • the fact that I live in Canada

5 I AM’S

  • I am beautiful
  • I am thin
  • I am lucky
  • I am kind
  • I am generous

Well I am staying loyal to this challenge thus far, do any of you suffer from procrastination?  I definitely do!  So I was at a show today in Cambridge and did not have time to do this this morning but I am making the time now as I know how important this is!

Hope you all are keeping up with this!

Me

Tamara and Carolyn

Me Challenge – Day 4

5 things to be grateful for

  • my life
  • my family and friends
  • my home
  • my health
  • endless opportunities

5 I Am’s

  • I am beautiful
  • I am lucky
  • I am thin (I am fakin’ it til’ I make it)
  • I am a survivor
  • I am happy

Today’s entry will be short and sweet, I am quite busy with party planning!!  Love this time of year for all the get togethers and sharing.  Have a great weekend and keep up the great work on staying with the challenge.  Next one is going to be even harder!  At least for me!

Me