Category: Living
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Is this us?
I’ve finally started watching the TV series This Is Us. I’m extremely late to the game, I know. I am enamoured, engaged, and busy evenings for the rest of the winter. It’s easy to see why it has been at the top of pop culture consciousness for half a decade. I love this family, I…
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It’s not always the what and when and where
It’s Christmas break, and I’m doing that thing I always seem to do when I have time away from work: making unrealistic lists of stuff to do with the kids, stuff to enjoy, stuff to catch up on, stuff to start, stuff to finish. And then jumping into my to-be-read pile with my stocking candy…
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Flight to Victoria
If you’ve ever flown in an airplane, you might remember the sensations that come with takeoff: the acceleration pushing your back deep into the seat, the little stomach drop when you tip up off the ground. Then there’s this moment when gravity seems to catch on to what you’re attempting, and tugs you down despite…
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Peer pressure
I’ve been hearing phrases lately that I last recall hearing as a teenager. “Everyone is doing it.” “No one will find out.” “It won’t hurt anything.” These kinds of arguments were usually reserved for PSAs with stilted acting warning thirteen -year-old me not to do drugs. But now I’m hearing them from family, coworkers, neighbours,…
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#icreatedtoday
I turn 38 today. I’m not one to hide my age, or get terribly overwrought about it, but it does inspire some reflection. What exactly have I accomplished with those nearly 14,000 days on the planet? Quite a bit; lots of it good, some of it hard, most of it worth it. The trouble is,…
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How do I explain this; how do I put it into words?
I woke up this morning to the radio news telling me Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer. We’ve had many significant losses in the music department these last few months, many of which have touched my heart and my history, but this one cuts me to the quick. I am not a fan girl type,…
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No break this spring–and I love it
Many friends and co-workers have disappeared to tropical locales this week. The kids have been sleeping in and complaining about ‘everyone else’ getting to go to Hawaii (not to mention the work I’ve had them catch up on). Our week off probably does seem a little boring on the surface, and my husband and I agree that…
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The parable of the mistaken oak
Last fall I sat on a lawn under an oak tree, surrounded by music and children. I brought home some acorns, researched, prepared, and planted one. It lived in the back of my fridge, in simulated winter, annoying family members just trying to put away the yogurt. Last month, I decided it was time to…
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Maybe I just can’t take a compliment
Recently, an acquaintance of mine gave me a knock-you-over, stop-breathing kind of compliment. As a single woman with marriage likely in her near future, she said, and I quote, “I love what you guys have. I want a family just like yours.” More specifically, she explained, she wanted the relaxed, convivial atmosphere she felt in our…