Confessions of a social media junkie - Archive

Wordless Wednesday: Summer Vacation

July 27th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in musings | the kitchen sink - (3 Comments)

These two photos were taken this afternoon by our neighbour
in her beautiful garden.

Bliss!

family photo, summer vacation, Wordless Wednesday

As luck would have it

June 8th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in musings | the kitchen sink - (12 Comments)

Last Saturday did not go according to plan. It was supposed to go like this:

Saturday morning: walk with DD to the park then playdate with playgroup friends
Saturday afternoon: run errands, respond to #SixWordFriday posts
Saturday night: dinner out with moms from aforementioned playgroup

Instead, Saturday involved a random call from our neighbour as DD and I head to the park. The neighbour informing me DH has had a terrible disagreement with the trailer while trying to hitch it to the car. He is on his way to the hospital because his hand is badly injured. Okay. What?!?

Turns out, DH severed the tendons in his left middle finger. That’s as detailed as I’ll get. He had surgery, is in a cast, and has about 4-6 months of recovery ahead of him.

The good news

DH still has all of his digits, and after his surgery Sunday night, they seem to all be in working order. Hooray!

Our neighbours are awesome. During this emergency, one neighbour family called me while another neighbour family took DH to the hospital.

These same neighbours watched over DD while I rushed to the hospital and my Dad made his way over to look after her.

On Sunday, one of the neighbour families looked after DD while I took DH to his surgery and waited to take him home. The other neighbour family offered to help DH take care of DD while I’m on a business trip next week. (So nice, right?)

Both sets of neighbours have offered to help in any way we need as DH recovers. So have our friends and family. We are really lucky to have such great people in our life.

Not only that, my Twitter peeps offered words of encouragement and distracted me with funny anecdotes while I waited in Emergency for DH to get stitched up.

Grateful

What’s awesome is that with my parents in town they can help DH out because, yes, I have another business trip at the end of the month. (We already tested DH changing DD’s diaper one-handed…ya…not too effective).

So as luck would have it, we have some pretty great neighbours who provided support when we needed it. That support has been further extended by friends and family (near and far) who also jumped in to help.

All we can say is wow. And thank you.

The trailer hitch won

family, neighbours, support

My downfall

April 27th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in the kitchen sink - (5 Comments)

You wouldn’t think that something so small would cause such havoc. But here before you lies my downfall.

The terrible-for-you-but-somehow-oh-so-tempting…rosebud.

I used to turn my nose up at them. Wouldn’t dare to let something so truly bad for me touch my lips.

And then I got pregnant.

Suddenly, rosebuds became extremely appealing. And addictive.

Now I’m having a hard time letting go of the addiction. I ~~gobble down~~ eat rosebuds every day. Not a whole box! But still, enough to make a habit a bad one.

I need to go back to dark chocolate.

chocoholic, chocolate

We like to disco

April 25th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in the kitchen sink - (1 Comments)

A snippet of a dance party held at Chez Gallant this weekend.

Aside from the music playing, all you hear in the audio is me laughing.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/22870198 w=400&h=300]

Disco Toddler from Mel Gallant on Vimeo.

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This entry is part of Monday Moments, a weekly series started by Brie at Capital Mom, where participants are invited to share life’s moments. This week’s topic: laughing.

Where’s the table? I want a seat

January 25th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in punch drunk parenting | the kitchen sink - (6 Comments)

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s recent Ted Talk – Why we have too few female leaders – has been circulating the web a lot recently, and for good reason.

I came across the video two weeks ago and Sheryl’s points really struck a chord with me, and I find it to be especially timely since tomorrow night’s Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa event features three women who will share their career journey to executive positions in their respective organizations.

I urge you to take the time to watch the video. Sheryl is an engaging speaker and her points resonate.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4]

Sheryl’s advice to women:

Sit at the table
Don’t discount your worth, your opinion, your abilities.

Here’s the rub – success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively so for women, which means being assertive and going after your dream promotion doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be liked. Awesome. (more…)

female leaders, GGDOttawa, leadership, self-esteem, TED talk

Getting my Pilates on

January 4th, 2011 | Posted by Melany Gallant in the kitchen sink - (7 Comments)

Holy holiday hiatus! It’s been over two weeks since my last post. My only excuse is I was really sick over Christmas. I basically was buried with a head cold that knocked me flat. I wasn’t much of a festive sprite to be around and I was barely online. Not how I imagined my Christmas vacation at all.

But I’m back!

And what I’ve been itching to write about is my experience taking Pilates. Have you tried it? In case you don’t already know, Pilates is hard. But it’s a good kind of hard – I feel energized and refreshed after every session.

Like many other forms of exercise, Pilates requires concentration and good breathing. But it also requires a level of body awareness that doesn’t necessarily come naturally.

The goal is to increase the strength, flexibility and control of the body. Somewhat easier said than done. Oh but it’s fun! (more…)

Pilates

a ‘naturally’ sweet holiday tradition

November 24th, 2010 | Posted by Melany Gallant in punch drunk parenting | the kitchen sink - (16 Comments)

I tweeted today that my favourite food of the holiday season is Clementines. They are the perfect fruit. Easy to peel, bite-size wedges of sweet, juicy goodness that are almost always seedless. Delicious and nutritious indeed.

Now I don’t fool around. I buy my Clementines by the crate because I eat a lot of them. I can easily go through a crate a week. By myself.

oh my darling...

DH doesn’t eat them. Actually, he doesn’t eat any fruit but that’s a discussion for a whole other blog post. DD likes them one day and doesn’t the next. No matter, it means more Clementines for me!

When I was growing up, a Clementine was always placed at the toe of each family member’s stocking.

Every year we’d work our way through the chocolate and trinkets until that last plunge of the arm into the stocking made contact with this beautiful fruit. My brother, sister and I would forego our collected sweets and eat our Clementines then and there. Yum. (more…)

family, holiday traditions

new shoes

October 14th, 2010 | Posted by Melany Gallant in punch drunk parenting | the kitchen sink - (1 Comments)

On the weekend I downloaded several photos stored on our camera. While sorting through them, I came across this photo taken two Sundays ago in the late afternoon.