Back when the kids were in elementary school, my favourite fundraiser – even considering my eight solid years running the Scholastic Book Fair twice annually – was the magazine fundraiser. I loved choosing magazine subscriptions and I loved the getting the happy little surprise in the mail a couple times a month. The mail! Sob. […]
Don’t You Get Me Wrong
September 23, 2024 by 46 Comments
I was just finishing preparing dinner the other night when I heard a very familiar guitar riff. I left what I was doing to run to the living room, which sounds dramatic, but it’s literally five steps away. Rewinding twenty-seven years or so, I was modestly famous among my friends in grad school for my […]
Six Wildly Random, Semi-Related Things
July 24, 2024 by 65 Comments
Gnot Cool. I enjoy the podcast Decoder Ring, and this past week they had an episode about The History of Lawn Ornaments, and the first half of it was about garden gnomes. I am here for this content! Earlier, CCR (HI CCR) sent me this article about a group IN KELOWNA called the Gnome Restoration […]
Five For Friday: The 1988 Version
June 14, 2024 by 47 Comments
My writing partner Laura (HI LAURA) has been using her old journals and diaries for writing prompts, which in theory would be a great idea for me to do as well, had I not shredded and thrown out all of mine from my childhood and teen years. It’s probably for the best, honestly. No one […]
Sassy, Sea Breeze, Stationary, Smoking
April 8, 2024 by 59 Comments
This week I read, and was completely absorbed by, a book that was set in 1998, and I think that is the reason I have been awash in nostalgia. I don’t know what you were doing in 1998, but I was in grad school, taking step aerobics classes, and crushing it during Name That Tune […]
That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be
February 26, 2024 by 51 Comments
Many years ago I was in the playground with a friend and our children; she had an older daughter who at the time was in first grade, and so was not at the playground but instead in school. My friend said something to me that has stayed with me for years. Her daughter, she said, […]
Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition
December 21, 2023 by 57 Comments
Happy Winter Solstice, everyone! How are we all doing, on the darkest day of the year? I will celebrate by walking in the dark this morning as Rex has a grooming appointment at 8. A clean and fluffy Rex will be a highlight of this dark day; will I be able to keep him that […]
