Good morning! If you don’t normally buy an Ottawa Citizen newspaper, pick one up today to support not only your local paper but this caffeine-needy writer! In today’s Travel Section, I have two articles for your morning coffee: #1: What a woman wants: how hotels can cater better to women business travellers and a list of hotels going all out [...]
Archive for the ‘Observations’ Category
March 5th, 2010
Destructive cycles (+ ticket giveaway to blood.claat, a play @ Ottawa’s GCTC)
She’s a 15 year-old kid in a school uniform. And she’s just given birth to a baby conceived through violence. That is her story. But it’s also the story of her mother. And her grandmother before that. This is a cycle that’s fairly common in Jamaica, according to a 2006 Unicef report: Approximately 20% of births are given by adolescents. [...]
March 3rd, 2010
Excuse me, but you’re stepping on my Canadian pride
An open letter to Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney: I don’t ever remember a time when I did not feel proud to be a Canadian. It’s similar in fierceness to the pride I’ve always felt for my family. It runs right to the core. I drink my Double-double’s at Timmys, I buy my backpack from MEC and I [...]
March 3rd, 2010
Maybe a puppy wasn’t such a bad idea, after all?
Last year, we lost Riley. Riley was our family dog. The puppy my husband and I adopted the summer we moved into our first home together. We had Riley for five years before any children came along. And in total, we had Riley in our lives for a decade. For anyone who’s had a pet, you know what kind of [...]
February 17th, 2010
Olympic dreaming? Not a chance.
In a world where parents are increasingly beginning to question the benefits of overscheduling their children in organized activities, the Olympics reaches right into a parent’s heart and makes you want to fire up that mini-van and start signing cheques. Almost. {read more}
February 13th, 2010
That was kinda sucky, wasn’t it?
I hate to say it, for fear of sounding unpatriotic, but Canada’s opening ceremonies for the Olympics was kinda, well, sucky. Starting with the snowboarder entry that was cheesy and far too long. In fact, most of it just seemed like it went on too long for its own good. So much so that when K.D. Lang launched into crooning her melancholy lyrics: Your [...]
February 5th, 2010
Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids
Did you catch this CBC documentary yesterday? I got a heads-up from Ann Douglas’ blog at parentcentral.ca that it was coming and I was intrigued. In her review, Douglas concludes that this “hyper-parenting” phenomenon is largely a thing of the past: The documentary is worth watching, if only as a reminder of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come in [...]
February 1st, 2010
Life As A Human has launched!
So, today is the big day! Life As A Human, the Canadian-based e-zine I was telling you about in my last post has now launched. I really had no idea how it was all going to come together or who the other writers were — it was a bit of a leap of faith to sign-on as a contributor. As [...]
January 29th, 2010
My head is really big
My head is so big, it’s practically toppling off my neck at the moment. Here’s why: An unexpected shout-out! I like to poke around Girl about O-town’s blog because she always seems to know what new funky things are going on around Ottawa. Not the same ol’ stuff — fresh, interesting stuff! I love admiring great design — paper, home, web — and [...]
January 24th, 2010
I buzzed over to Montreal this weekend
To push myself up into the higher ranks of the Mother-of-the-Year contest, I took Stella to Montreal this weekend. Yes, we went shopping and got Mommy & Me pedi’s & mani’s! Did I have you convinced — even momentarily — on that one? Okay, okay. We know my Stella would never entertain such notions. But I did go to Montreal. [...]
January 21st, 2010
Julie visits the ER
It’s not too often that one gets to do something for the first time after 38 years on this earth. But through a combination of good luck and conscientious avoidance, I have never had a visit to the ER. Yesterday, however, I was initiated to life in the ER. I spent from 7 am to 3 pm there — 8 [...]
January 9th, 2010
Your homework is interrupting my day
If you hang around with parents of young children long enough, you’re bound to hear complaints about homework. I’ve been hearing this kind of chatter well before I had a child who was in school and I think I’ve finally hit my threshold on it. (And so I shall inflict my rant upon my unsuspecting blog readers. Evil laugh.) ******** [...]
December 29th, 2009
When going to work feels like a holiday
As I was scrolling through facebook updates last night, I noticed one of my friends admit that she was looking forward to her kids going back to school and then added “is that really wrong?” I reached out immediately and made my own admission that I suspected that going back to work today is going to feel like a holiday. This friend [...]
December 24th, 2009
Christmas stories to warm your heart
Although the whole house seems to be sick (again), and hubby and I are exhausted from rotating night visits to children, I’ve been warming up my heart to Christmas by reading the memories of other bloggers. These are stories that touched my heart and resonated with me in a strong way. I hope that they may have the same lovely effect [...]
