Sunday is Mother’s Day- a day to celebrate and honor mothers everywhere. Today is not your typical WomenOnTheFence.com Mother’s Day blog post. No, today, I decided to spotlight Portage, a substance abuse rehabilitation facility with a special Mother-Child program, helping mothers and children with addiction. I wanted desperately to give some of these nameless women who have fallen through the cracks, a voice for Mother’s Day.

I have to give credit my father, for it was his idea to do a mother’s day segment on these women. My dad is on the board Portage, one of Canada’s leading substance abuse rehabilitation facilities with locations across the country, and he told me about all the trailblazing work they are doing in the arena of addiction. Unique to Portage, they have en entirely separate Mother-Child facility where substance addicted mothers can live with their babies, and where newborns who are born drug-addicted can safely undergo drug withdrawal and not have to be separated from their mother. I walked the halls and saw these mothers and their children, and heard their stories. I was nervous going in, but so eager to hear the stories and showcase Portage’s work in this arena. I was only hoping I would do a good enough job to do their organization justice. I sat down with the facilitators who run Portage and asked them about what makes them so successful at what they do.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about my health lately as I approach 40 and notice huge changes in my body. I was the girl you didn’t like– the girl who ate whatever she wanted and the food just didn’t stick. Well, those days are over and I have officially landed on planet earth to join the rest of the world. It’s sobering, to say the least. Now, all of a sudden, no matter WHAT I eat, healthy food included, it ALL sticks. But I’m going down with a fight, yo.

Yesterday, I decided to spring for the $35 bucks that I was too cheap to do before. I’ve been dying to get Miss “Conscious Uncoupling” herself, Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest cookbook, It’s All Good. I’ve heard wonderful things about it, and I am really trying to be even more mindful when it comes to health than ever before. All jokes aside, I have always been a mindful, healthy eater. My mom raised me on organic food and whole grains decades ago, before people even talked about it. But now, I’m really tuning in.

These days it’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t use Facebook. In ten years flat (Facebook was only born in 2004) it has become a normal part of most people’s lives. 665 million daily, to be exact, which translates into more than one in every thirteen people on our planet.