• active family travel - family - parenting - special needs - Travel

    Five Tips for Train Travel with Special Needs Children

    August 12, 2014 - By 

    I love to travel by train – usually. I can work all the way and my wasted time is minimized. Plus, typically train travel is very economical. This summer my kids and I travelled to Montreal and Ottawa by train. That’s a substantial amount of time spent riding, and also a lot of transferring to different connecting trains. We travel every year by train together at least once. As some of my readers know special needs kids require a bit more planning when travelling anywhere, in any mode of transport. I have one anxious child, and another with a brain…

  • family - Health - parenting - Travel

    Cottage Road Trip Memories #travel

    August 11, 2014 - By 

    Cottage Road Trip From the time I was a baby I spent my summers at the cottage. I have seen the pictures of me sleeping in the portable crib, and I remember the many years we took this week for family time, indulging in the opportunity to grow together. The routine of road trip and cottage travel is well mapped on my memory, etched on my skin in every single freckle and carved deep in the veins that lead to my heart. A school teacher relishes summer like no other professional I have ever known. They seize it and wring…

  • Health

    Falling off the Fitness Bandwagon – An Update

    August 10, 2014 - By 

    shutterstock images Right now I am beating myself up. Why? Because I’ve had a lazy summer in terms of fitness routines. I am, in fact, pretty mad at the blogger butt I have developed over the summer. Or should I say pissed at self for allowing blogger butt to creep in, or out, if I want to be accurate about it. So what happened? Work has been plentiful. The summer has been filled with great travel opportunities and I have a few brand new clients that have the adrenaline flowing here already. I started the summer strong. Remember this?  I Ran…

  • butterscotch_pudding
    Back To School - Food - Giveaways

    Back to School Butterscotch Pudding #giveaway

    August 9, 2014 - By 

    Bring on the butterscotch pudding. By the end of September every parent around will be searching for new lunch ideas and snacks to pack in children’s lunches. It doesn’t take long to run out of ideas each school year. But this year I have a great butterscotch pudding snack I am happy to have found for the kid’s lunches. Puddin’ SqueeZ pudding on the go snacks that will clearly kick things up a notch. Let’s be honest. Back to School is not my favourite time of year. Reason number one: the fall signifies the start of the miserable weather slide that ends…

  • Food

    French Onion Soup Recipe #100FootJourney

    August 8, 2014 - By 

    I don’t know about you, but one of my favourite soup recipes is French onion. I frequently order French onion soup for lunch when I go out. Sometimes it is very good and sometimes it is disappointing when big chain restaurants attempt the recipe using small scraps of cheese and croutons. If I see French onion soup on the menu I have to try it at least once. It makes me think of home and childhood. French onion soup was my mother’s all time favourite soup. Funny how food can conjure up a feeling, emotion or memory. That’s precisely the…

  • Food

    The #100FootJourney Omelette aux Fines Herbes

    August 7, 2014 - By 

    This gorgeous movie The Hundred-Foot Journey opens tomorrow. My movie review is live on Thrifty Momma’s Tips. I was fortunate to see this incredible movie in San Jose at the Blogher 14 conference recently. As part of the movie centres on the culinary skills of Hassan Kadam, DreamWorks has also released several of the recipes mentioned in The Hundred-Foot Journey. This is one of the sumptuous treats from the lovely movie. Enjoy! Or perhaps I should say Bon Apetit.

  • Food

    The Hundred-Foot Journey Review – A Sumptuous Must See Summer Movie

    August 7, 2014 - By 

    The Hundred-Foot Journey is a real delight. This movie will steal your hearts and make you want to take your own parents to see the lovely story. Charlotte Le Bon, Helen Mirren and Manish Dayal in The Hundred-Foot Journey also starring Om Puri Last month I had the chance to preview the sweet, sensuous, film The Hundred-Foot Journey when I was in San Jose, California. It’s always a treat to see a film at the Blogher conference, but this one was unique and especially well told. The Hundred-Foot Journey is a story of culture and food, passion and love set…

  • homes

    Home Office Decorating #InkscrblrATWork

    August 4, 2014 - By 

    Months ago we moved to a new home. If you read this blog at all, then you know that we moved to a lovely new neighbourhood and we have a pool and super neighbours. We had some of that in our old neighbourhood, but our house was a bit too small for my family, and it was most definitely way too tiny to contain a work space for me. My social media consulting and blogging business grew fast and had taken over my old house. I needed a dedicated office space. I also needed to do some Home Office Decorating. The…

  • Health

    Five Reasons I Love Vionic Shoes

    August 2, 2014 - By 

    I hurt my foot two days ago. It was a sad, silly home office injury. Someone was at the door and I raced to answer it and in doing so, I wiped out right at the door to my office where the carpet meets the ceramic floor tile. Somehow my toes, the side of my foot and my knee took the brunt of the trauma. Naturally I still managed to answer the door. But my foot hurt like mad and even now it is still very bruised. The thing is you never realize how important feet are until you hurt…

  • Travel

    Lost Luggage and My Trip to #Blogher14 #travel

    August 1, 2014 - By 

    Is there anything worse than lost luggage? Yes, actually. Lost luggage when attending a conference. That can be truly frightening. This happened to me recently and this is the story of how I fixed it. This is the story of lost luggage. Just last week actually on my way to a conference called Blogher, I arrived without my luggage. That was a first for me as a traveler. I have heard many stories over the years of people losing their luggage but this was apparently my turn. I was on my way to a business conference for bloggers called Blogher…