In it, I questioned all the pink ribbons being slapped on everything from cell phones to chocolate bars; and wondered out loud about corporate profit-teering from an illness that is hurting so many of us. I didn’t have any easy answers, and instead decided that rather than promote one of the many pink campaigns landing in my email box from PR firms to share some tips for early prevention.

With the Susan G. Komen Foundation in hot water, the issue of pink-washing is top of mind with many bloggers. For me, with a good friend preparing for chemo, cancer has been on my mind daily. So when I came across Annie’s most excellent post at PhD in Parenting titled “Cancer Sucks, Pink is Profitable, and Cures are Magically Blameless,” I had to share it with you.

She starts her post by admitting “that I haven’t always questioned pink washing as carefully as I should in the past.” This, I’m sure, we can all admit to. It feels good to buy pink … to feel like we’re contributing to a worthy and important cause.

However, she concludes, with the help of a documentary titled Pink Ribbons Inc., that pink is only profitable if it focuses on finding a cure–not prevention. Her words:

The bulk of breast cancer research money in past years has gone into researching a cure. In the movie, they note that only 3 to 5 percent of funds go towards prevention of breast cancer.  In Canada, around 6.5 percent of money raised goes towards research into risk factors and risk reduction. Why is the number so low?

• Is it because the prospect of a cure generates hope and therefore attracts more research dollars?
• Is it because the focus on the cure doesn’t upset any corporate sponsors that may be contributing to the cause?
• Is it because preventing cancer may dry up the enormous cash cow that pink ribbon campaigns have become?

And yet, more than anything, we need to find out why cancer rates are high and what we can do as a society in terms of prevention.

This image is not from a real campaign but illustrates an all-too-familiar corporate dichotomy. Image source.

Let’s demand accountability in exchange for our donation dollars.

To read more on this issue, please check out Annie’s post in full here, as well as by visiting Breast Cancer Action.

Edited to add: No, I’m not being a spoil-sport when I don’t play along with your “what colour” bra are you wearing meme on Facebook. It’s a f*cking terrible idea, people! (And you know I rarely swear on this blog, so I’m pretty serious here.) Please read this post at Toddler Planet to understand why. 

And another thing I’d like to add as well: As one reader as been so good as to share, the Komen story has evolved since I wrote this post. There’s a lot I didn’t know about this organization. You can learn more by reading this post by Jessica Gottlieb. I warn you though, it might make you feel like vomiting.

I had gathered a few special things:

In the background is a print that Hubby gave me after Stella was born, titled Mother and Child. The boxed book box collection is Griffin and Sabine trilogy. The wooden box is a “treasure box” that my parents gave me as a child when they returned from a trip to Egypt. And the carved wooden owl was a gift from my mother-in-law.

I tried a variety of combinations and none of them were entirely pleasing to me. There just seemed to be something missing. See what I mean?

Hubby came to my rescue though. He said he knew exactly what my vignette needed.

So he added his wallet and a lighter.

Magical, isn’t it? :p

I don’t know about you, but I just love poking around people’s bookshelves and knowing what people have cracked open and set their minds to. So I thought I’d return the favour, so to speak.

This month, I will update my widget to show the following books that are currently sitting bedside — some waiting patiently, some already started.

The Meaning of Children by Beverly Akerman

I wasn’t sure what to make of this book when I first heard the title and saw the cover. I thought perhaps it was a non-fiction piece when Annie from PhD in Parenting suggested a few of us head out to the author’s reading when Akerman, a Canadian writer, was in town. But it is actually a collection of 14 short stories — each unique in its own tale and perspective. Katherine Hewitt of the Globe and Mail sums it up nicely: “Each story is an independent experiment, with varying results. But the sum of its parts is positive.” I really enjoyed this book. If you like short story collections a la Alice Munro style, I think you will too.

Enchantment, by Guy Kawasaki

I picked up Enchantment to participate in the Business Book Club that Karen at The Media Mesh started up. I haven’t started the book yet, but I’m really interested to participate as soon as I can get it read. Mostly, I’ve been wanting to read it because I admire everything that Kawasaki has achieved — he founded Alltop.com, held a key role at Apple, and is the author of 10 books. Not too shabby, eh? The book has become a sort of touch point in marketing circles, and I’d like to understand all the buzz.

The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes

I was inspired by a recent post by Andrea on her blog A Peek Inside the Fishbowl to start up a Mother-Daughter Book Club. I reached out to a few girlfriends who had daughters the same age as Stella and shared the idea and they immediately jumped on board. For our first book, one of my friends suggested The Hundred Dresses because, although it was originally written in 1944, it touches on the timely topic of bullying.

One Day, by David Nicolls

I had started to read the book Sarah’s Key but was really finding the material too emotionally disturbing, so I reached out to my Twitter folks for a “light reading” suggestion. I can’t quite remember who suggested this One Day, but I picked it up and couldn’t put it back down. It seems I was not the only one who read it compulsively, as this NY Times review attests, and now it is being made into a movie with Anne Hathaway. It is an interesting take on the classic Ross-Rachel long suffering, unrequited love story.

The Wealthy Barber Returns, by David Chilton

If you’re of my vintage, you’ll recall the original Wealthy Barber book, which was released in 1989 and was a hit with its story-telling format for finance lessons. I recall this book, handed to me by my parents I think, as a welcoming way of learning about managing your own personal finances. I’m about 3/4 through this book of Chilton’s and I’m finding it just “okay.” I suppose if I was a young person who was just starting out and needed to learn the basics, I’d appreciate it far more. But as it is, I am not gleaning much in the way of new insight and his jokey humour is starting to wear on me. However, Chilton’s approachable style to finance remains a breath of fresh air, and I’m definitely getting some good reminder notes.

Okay, so let’s be real … I have way more books than this stacked up high, teetering away on my bedside table (it’s a bit of a “problem,” says Hubby), but I am going to take a rest here. So tell me, what’s on your shelf?

July 2011: By this time, our family had moved into a new home while simultaneously welcoming overseas family to Canada for the first time. It was busy, but we had fun! We shared as much of our area with them as possible, including Canada Day in downtown Ottawa and a visit to Toronto. A sense of relief was also felt by Hubby and I as we settled into our new neighbourhood and adjusted to the change. In total, I published 6 posts in July.

August 2011: Making hay while the sun is shining, I spent some time in the Land O’ Lakes with girlfriends and our family took a camping trip to Algonquin Park. August is also Stella’s birthday month and we celebrated her 9th birthday with friends and family. Last year before she hits double digits! In total, I wrote 10 posts.

September 2011: We managed to decorate Stella’s bedroom in the new house — as per the promise we made her before moving. (The rest of the house remains fairly untouched to this day! *sigh*) I did some mild ranting about the Back-to-School push to buy-buy-buy as well as what I saw as the declining state of Canadian Business magazine. And last but least, I hatched a crazy idea for my 40th birthday called “Month of Me.” In total, I published 9 posts.

October 2011: This month was a wild ride! My 40th birthday was going to take place in October and I decided that the entire month should be a fun, guilt-free time where my priorities and desires would always come first. I didn’t have the time to write about everything that happened in October, but it included a ton of lunches with girlfriends, two blogging conferences, a trip to New York City, time with my Hubby, a massive Thanksgiving dinner outside with all of my family, and a messy celebration at 4 Cats Art Studio! Phew! In total, I wrote 11 posts.

November 2011: This was a busy month catching up on all the things I neglected in October! But I did manage to write a few snippets from the New York City trip and share my new-found love for home decor. In total, I wrote 10 posts in November.

December 2011: No surprise that of the 11 posts I wrote in December, 6 of them were related to Christmas. Surprisingly, the most popular of these was the first Christmas gift guide that I’d created for Coffee with Julie. (A lot of people do gift guides, so I wasn’t sure how it would be received.) But mostly I think I just succeeded in annoying a lot of faithful Ikea folks. Oops.

And now we’re here — 2012! — a whole year has passed. The easiest, but sometimes tear-inducing, way for me to see the passage of time is to look at my children. They have grown so much in the past year. My son Max went from a quiet toddler who was slow to speak to a great big boy who is now happily chatting away to us, while my daughter Stella never ceases to amaze (and amuse) us with the depth of her kindness and intelligence. Both occupy our days (and sometimes our nights) endlessly, and yet they are the source of a type of joy that makes life worth living.

Hubby and I know that the universe has been kind to us, and we are very grateful for the happiness and health of our family. We do not take this for granted, but rather we often look at each other before we go to sleep and say, “We are so lucky.” (Happiness doesn’t come easy to me, but I practice gratitude every day.) I sincerely hope that you can also share in this kind of “luck” in the year ahead, in whatever form that might take … an ignited career passion, adventures in forests, or a hobby that lights your heart.

From our family to yours — Happy New Year! — and may the days of 2012 treat you well. xox

Sadly, I think this might have been a case of living in suspended disbelief. My first hint should have been the fact that Hubby does not let me do the grocery shopping. His chief complaint is that I come home with nicely designed cleaning products, expensive granola, and black licorice but not enough ingredients to make a meal with. He is so picky.

Anyhow, I digress. I went to New York City and I have yet to tell you about the shopping. The Shopping! In New York City!

One of the first places where I made a purchase was in a store called Bird. Kerry had these groovy pocket-sized cards for different neighbourhoods all around New York and on this day, her card told us to check out Bird. So we did. We’re obedient that way.

Bird is one of Brooklyn’s first fashion destinations and also the very first LEED-certified retail store in New York City. It was recently voted Best Women’s Boutique in New York City by New York Magazine and Top Visionary Boutique in the United States by Lucky Magazine.

As soon as I stepped in, I couldn’t believe my eyes! Just that morning I had whined to Kerry about how I had always wanted a pair of glasses but the frames were always too expensive to justify for clear lenses. (You see, I don’t actually need glasses, I just covet them. I never needed braces as a kid either, and I wanted those too.) And yet here were a whole slew of frames to choose from — all priced at $99! Okay, I hear you … a hundred bucks is still a lot of money to spend on an accessory, but for glasses, these were a good price.

I was ridiculously excited and started jumping up and down. Kerry did her quiet shaking-of-the-head-thing-while- being-secretly-amused-but-not-enough-to-warrant-being-associated-with-me and immediately wandered to the other end of the store.

I was in heaven. Here’s me in the store, sporting the glasses that I chose:

Trying to do my best sexy librarian look.

After the thrill of this find, I immediately set off to see what other wares the store had. I picked up a great looking pair of boots. $720? Ouch, no thanks. So I went smaller and looked at the scarves. I found a beauty, which looked to be of standard material but with a bit if flair. I took a gander at the price tag: $185. I think I may have laughed out loud. Kerry insisted she’d seen the same scarf on her trip to Vietnam for $1.50. Maybe less. The store didn’t hold much appeal for us so we didn’t stay long. But I was still just as pleased as punch with finding the glasses.

Then, just this week, long after the NYC trip was over, I learned that Kerry is actually going in to have laser surgery on her eyes so she won’t have to wear glasses ever again. For her, they’ve been a necessity since age 5. For me, a frivolous joy at age 40.

Don't tell anyone that I don't actually need glasses, k?

… Help we’ve got grubs!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was once the pristine lawn that welcomed us to our new home in July is now quite a big mess. We wondered why bits of our lawn were all of a sudden being upturned, and a neighbour explained that the raccoons come out at night and pull up the top layer of the grass to get to their treats — grubs! Yuck!

We’ve never had grubs before. If I pretend I never saw them, will they freeze off and die over the winter and we can start fresh in spring? Or is this something that we need to take care of right away? Advice people!

p.s. Happy Halloween!

But I heard him. And I thought he was wrong. That he was transposing his own experience as a young gay man in the 1980s to that of today’s teenagers. That today’s youth have it so much better. That the world is so much more aware, more accepting, and less closeted.

After all, when I grew up in the 1980s, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there was not a single gay person in the entire high school. (Which, of course there were. These young people were not just in the closet, they were forced there and kept behind doors with lock and key.) Whereas when my younger siblings were in high school a decade later, there were openly gay students and an LGBT group that regularly met at school.

And the theatre piece we’d just seen, the Tony-award winning play The Normal Heart, was about a time even before mine. It told of a tight-knit group of friends working to refuse to let doctors, politicians and the press bury the truth of the then unspoken AIDS epidemic, more than a quarter of a century ago.

This man was speaking to his friend, an older woman, and he was seething. He said, “Things haven’t changed. After all this, after everything we’ve been through, things still haven’t changed.”

I hadn’t really thought about this man since I saw that performance, many months ago. But today, I have. And I’ve been thinking that he’s right.

How else can we explain the death of Jamie Hubley, a 15-year-old Canadian boy who lived in my city, and who committed suicide after public taunting at school for being gay and unsuccessful treatment for depression? It seems that “difference” is still not considered “normal.”

Of course, even in my school days, difference was taunted. Whether it was the colour of your skin, the way you talked, the freckles on your face, or the clothes you wore, if you were different, you could get eaten alive at school. Conformity was everywhere. It protected you, kept you under the radar. I blended in. I got along okay. But I remember the others who didn’t. It wasn’t pretty. Like Rick Mercer says in this video, school was a prison for these kids.

But why are children in groups so vicious? And what makes us this way? It seems that bullying has existed in school since the beginning of time. Literature from all time periods notes this kind of behaviour among children.

How can we consider ourselves evolved as a species when our young people are tearing each other apart like animals? Think I’m exaggerating? Jamie Hubley had batteries stuffed down his throat by a gang of fellow students who didn’t like his choice to figure skate rather than play hockey. How does this make any sense? What does it matter to them what type of skating he wants to do.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m raising more questions than answers. When am I going to wrap this up with a nice closing and some calls for action that will make a difference?

But I can’t. I’m now that man outside the theatre, seething with frustration, with tears in my eyes. How can we make sure that there are no more families like the Hubleys, left only with questions rather than their much-loved child.

There’s no such things as normal hearts. Just hearts. And they all hurt just the same when they’re clawed at.

On this day 40 years ago, a young woman was seven days overdue to give birth to her first child. Due on September 15^th, there was no doubt in her mind that this baby was conceived during her husband’s short break during army boot camp training. They had only been wed for just over a year, but they’d been high school sweethearts and were ready to start a family. If only this baby would make its entrance ….

I often wish I’d known this petite, feisty young woman. For she is certainly not the same woman that I know now as my mother. There is no way that this young woman, raised in a small town in Ontario, could now be the same person after having travelled the world; tucked undergraduate, master and doctoral degrees under her belt; and learned how to navigate not only a hospital but a boardroom. But I’d venture that giving birth had been the most transformative of her life experiences. This young woman couldn’t have known forty years ago that she would go on to birth four more children after her first, and that she would know not only the joyful relief of a baby being put into her arms but also the excruciating pain of grief.

The woman my mother is now, in many ways, is still as much of a mystery as the woman she was back then, with me comfortably curled in her womb. And she might say the same for me. We’ve never been similar, we’ve always had our own ways of doing things … ways that likely make no sense to each other.

And yet, as time goes on, our physical appearances become more and more similar. I look in the mirror, and I see her. It is a strange sensation. As I age, the woman in the reflection sometimes feels like a stranger to me; she bears so little resemblance to the young woman who used to look back at me. But the eyes – they are my mother’s eyes, and they comfort me. They tell me that it will all be okay; that aging, while it may have stripped me of former physical joys, will bring its own rewards.

I love and admire that young woman who birthed me, just as much as the one who now acts as my counsel and friend.

And I am growing to love this newly emerging woman in my mirror. The one with wrinkles and sunspots. With hair that’s gone thin, and a face that is starting to fall. Forty years is a long time to know someone, but life is long and I plan for this face to keep looking back at me for many years to come.

If I’m lucky, I’ll still be looking at this face when my own daughter turns 40. And Stella, who is now aged nine, will ping me off a note asking me to come with her to New York City to celebrate my birthday. That, I think, will be a very sweet moment.

And that is precisely the kind of sweet moment I hope my mother felt when I did the same to her. That’s right, my mother is going to fly into New York (which is might cool of her, don’t you think?) to join me on her birthday, which is so close to mine. Because a “Month of Me” just wouldn’t be the same without her.

Not to be outdone by Valentine’s Day or other commercially created and flogged-to-death occasions to spend money, the back-to-school ads have been incessant. Not only do you *need* a new wardrobe, but also brand-new stationery, and the latest and greatest technology gadgets.

Now, don’t get me wrong …. when I was a kid, I loved — loved! — back to school. I loved the fall weather, the classroom, reconnecting with friends and the back-to-shopping trip my mother would always treat me too. Looking back, I have no idea how my parents managed to afford it with four children, but somehow I was always kitted out with new clothes and goodies for the pencil case.

But for us, the back-to-school shopping event is turning out to be more of a non-event. Stella has no interest in fashion and hey, who says you actually need a brand-new outfit for the first day of school? The advertisements do, that’s who. So, we are taking Stella’s lead and adopting a far more simpler and less stress-inducing approach.

Here is the outfit she would like to wear for tomorrow’s first day:

I’m not sure if it will be shorts weather or jeans weather, so both are out and ready. The shorts and jeans are regular features in her closet — both from The Children’s Place, which has a line of jeans that is perfect for Stella’s slim body type, as well as shorts that I consider “nice” and not “short-shorts.” We have the shorts in pretty much every colour and about five pairs of the jeans since Stella, like her father, prefers jeans over any other kind of pant. The shoes are a New Balance pair that we picked up late last school season when she outgrew her other pair of “indoor” shoes. I’m a big believer that the indoor shoes the school requests should be shoes designed for exercise with good cushioning and support, since the kids wear these shoes for gym class. Out of all the clothing elements a child has, I think shoes are the best investment for a growing body. These ones still fit perfectly and are in good condition, so it would be wasteful to toss them simply because they’re not pure white any more.

So, did you add all that up? Yep, a total of $0.00.

But wait, there is one brand new item. A never-worn-before item kept aside specifically for the new school season. And it’s this t-shirt:

Ontario Parks has created a number of nice lines of clothing for toddlers, kids, and adults. This one is from the Species at Risk line, and features the Eastern Wolf. We picked it up on our recent camping trip to Achray, but you can also buy them online (cost is $16.95).

In addition to this Eastern Wolf shirt, we picked up one with a butterfly on it. And during the summer, Stella and I happened upon some great Chinese dragon (a fave creature) shirts that were on sale for $3 each somewhere. So, in total, there are about 4 new shirts for the season.

All up, then, the back-to-school wardrobe this season totalled less than $40.00.

How did you make it through the season? Is your bank account still suffering? What were your top picks or most favourite finds?

Then a friend told me she was moving to New York City for the whole month of October. It was going to be a cool experience – to live as a bonafide New Yorker. I offered to grace her with my company for few days. Why not, eh, it’s my birthday month after all?

And from there, I’m afraid I have let it turn into all kinds of crazy. I decided that this October, the month of my 40th birthday, will be the “Month of Me.” I had a glass of red and then told my Twitter friends about it too. They happily spurred me on, as Twitter friends are apt to do. And a hashtag was created: #monthofme

Now that a hashtag has been created, it’s official. Right? Right.

So, my friends, you’ve been warned! I am going to beg, borrow and steal (okay, well not really any of those, but you get my drift) to make the month of October a mighty grand experience. While some might simply refer to themselves as 39 forever, I am going to CELEBRATE my 40th! I am really looking forward to my 40s; I have a feeling it’s going to be a fantastic decade.

First on the list? I am going to spend at least part of my Month of Me driving around in this beauty, courtesy of Ford of Canada:

It’s a luxury family car called the Ford Lincoln MKS. It looks might pur-dee to me!

Some of the cool features I’m looking forward to trying out are: the rear-view camera at the dash, that works with a reverse sensing system as well as a technology that scans blind spots for you when you’re changing lanes.

The interior also looks mighty fine. You know how nice seat warmers are in the winter? Well, this car comes with standard seat warmers in the front and the back. I really like that because the back-seat passenger often gets overlooked in a car’s design, so I thought that was smart.

Anyhow, part of the deal with driving this car will be to review it on the Coffee with Julie blog. I have been asked to review it for both what I liked AND what I didn’t like.

A sweet ride, some Broadway shows, and hanging with bloggy buddies … the Month of Me is really starting to take shape!

Edited to add: I didn’t win the Go Girlfriend’s Follow Your Bliss contest for a ticket to the Blissdom Canada conference, but happily, I received an invite to be a Tribe Leader for the topic of Travel. You can see some of the fun pics from Blissdom here. Also, through no fault of Ford, the car-testing thing got logistically too challenging for this month. However, I’m looking forward to test-driving one of their new Hybrid cars in the new year.