• family

    But I Am Not Done with You Yet

    May 5, 2013 - By 

    In the end, you think about the many times she danced through the living room holding the cat, with those tiny cat antlers it used to hate. The times she dressed at the vanity in her room draping jewelry on and your eight-year-old eyes thought it was magic. You dreamed she was beautiful and then wished years away so you could grow fast forward. You asked her to twirl. She did and spun you around. She held your hand and said I love you and then she gave you a kiss before heading off to the dance with a friend.…

  • Health - parenting - special needs

    Camp Memories #MuskokaWoods2013

    May 4, 2013 - By 

    Summer Camp is Awesome from Muskoka Woods on Vimeo. When I was a child I was shy to the point of being extremely socially awkward. I loved school, but was your classic tightly wound overachiever. My mom was a teacher and had summers off so there was never really a great need for us to be signed up for activities all summer long. We were beach babies, my brother and I, and we went to cottages every summer of our lives. We still do. But, one year, my Mom, a single parent and grade two teacher on a very limited…

  • family

    Five Social Media Lessons Learned From My Clients

    May 2, 2013 - By 

    Some of you know my job has evolved rapidly over a period of several months, from blogger for hire, to social media consultant and community manager. I love that social media strategy challenges me every day. I love many of my clients and am extremely passionate about what I do here. I started out on this path with a love of social media, pure enjoyment from tweeting, and a keen love of writing. I have moved on to understand marketing and public relations, and government relations too. Many of my clients have taught me a lot about best practices for…

  • Giveaways

    Learning Toys Kettler Tricycle #giveaway and Sick Kids

    May 1, 2013 - By 

    Some of my regular readers know I spent time at the Hospital For Sick Children as a tween and teenager. My Mom ran me back and forth from Guelph many times over the years to see world renowned experts in paediatric gastroenterology. I hated being sick and I hated how it intruded in my life. The procedures were always incredibly invasive and travel was a difficulty. None of it was fun, but everyone at Sick Kids was always kind, caring and compassionate. I could never ever imagine a more caring place than Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. It is a…

  • Food

    Fast and Fun Chili In The Oven #LMDConnector

    April 28, 2013 - By 

    Spring has, at long last, finally sprung. And we are back from holidays just in time to see our gorgeous daffodils smiling their pretty faces off at us. That is the kind of thing that makes me happy after a long and dragging winter. I mean snow drifted along hammering us steadily through much of April, wearing everyone down. Soups and stews and crockpot meals got us through those wintery days. But the crockpot is put away now – for a little while at least.  Today, was a near perfect day here. Temperatures rose. The grass looked greener. I got…

  • family - Travel

    My Week Away from Twitter – Mostly #travel

    April 27, 2013 - By 

    I’m baaaack. Yes, Twitter you magnificent little vehicle for messaging, connecting, advertising, marketing, promoting and building friends I am back. I took a week off twitter, well mostly off twitter, Facebook, blogging and other social media, because of these guys. We haven’t had a vacation in over one year and let’s just say it won’t be that long next year. Kids grow too fast and Mom and Dad well, with work, school, extra-curriculars and so forth we were just a wee bit overextended there at the end of March. So I jumped at a holiday booked for us. I prepared…

  • Giveaways - Travel

    Parker IM Gift of Writing and #MothersDay #giveaway

    April 21, 2013 - By 

    This Mother’s Day has me thinking hard about what to give, or share with my Mom, and the many Moms I know. Flowers? Well, that’s a given. Dinner out? That’s a standard date every Mother’s Day especially since my Mom moved to London. But beyond that, what says: “I love you and thanks.” When I was a teenager and my Mom was hunting for something unique to give me, she would often buy a fancy keepsake pen, the kind that lasts and is built to be treasured for years. When I graduated my Mom gave me a small gift cheque…

  • Health - parenting

    Five Ways to Get the Kids Outside and Active

    April 19, 2013 - By 

    Once the gorgeous temperatures replace the nasty overcast snowy days it seems logical that children will naturally seek time outside away from screens, exploring. But, what if they don’t? We all want to encourage our children to be active. We all want them to be healthy. And most of us also want our children to engage with the environment, disconnect and just play outside. If your kids are at all like mine, they can all too easily fall into this pattern of forgetting to seize the moment. Too often they reach for the TV remote, or the computer, or the…