and so it begins

This guy makes it look so easy. The tiles just fall away like feathers, don’t they? He barely makes any mess at all. Break a sweat? Not this guy. Cool as a cucumber. In retrospect, I probably should have watched this video before attacking my own bathroom remodel Monday. Then I would have been in a position…

happy birthday canada!

Yesterday this beautiful country I call [my primary] home celebrated its 147th birthday. My day off looked like it might end up a washout when torrential rains swept in around 10:30 am. Not so, declared good Karma, Canada is too nice a country! The clouds broke up, the sky cleared, and the sun made her appearance…

should I stay or should I go?

Life is all about choices. We face countless decisions every day. Some of them are trivial. At a wedding reception: will it be chicken or fish; red or white? At the gym: will you take a group class or do your own thing? Others may have a bit more consequence. In a rush hour traffic jam: do you stay…

bottle caps, alien cows and a holiday road

Remember last August when I had to make the massive road trip from Toronto to Las Vegas because Mr. Enthusiasm had decided, on impulse, to purchase a 23 year old convertible? We delivered said convertible to Vegas because it seemed we would get more use of it there than in Toronto. Reasonable logic. Unfortunately we couldn’t keep two…

happy to be a mom

Nobody’s life is perfect; certainly not mine. But it’s never lost on me just how fortunate I am. My 47 years have brought a wealth of experiences: travel, learning, relationships, culinary, cultural. You name it. And I’ve held a variety of roles in my lifetime: daughter, friend, wife, mother; along with a host of professional positions,…

the beauty and fury of mother nature

The Saturday before Christmas started out beautifully. The air was crisp, with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark. Just cold enough to bring that rosy glow to your cheeks, the kind that makeup just can’t reproduce. Local weather teams had been forecasting ‘the ice storm to end all ice storms’. Best estimates had it hitting the Toronto…

way better than soap-on-a-rope

I just got around to downloading the pics I snapped during Mr. Enthusiasm’s birthday hike at Cold Creek Trail. And, I’m every bit as blown away re-living this hike through the photos as I was while traipsing through this magical place. Experiences 1, Stuff 0. Suck it, stuff. The weather was unseasonably warm that day, but the evergreens…