• family

    Welcome Wednesday

    Hi all. I am trying something new here on a rainy Wednesday night. The awesome Take It From Me has started a sort of social bloghop. Visit http://www.takeitfrom-me.blogspot.com/to find out the details. Basically every Wednesday you visit and enter your blog url and then follow the directions. It’s a good way to meet some new blogger and attract some new followers too.

  • family

    Curbside Food Drive

    So what does a picture of my darling daughter in a Brownie uniform have to do with London’s Curbside Food Drive? I thought you’d never ask. Recently, I had a chance to volunteer with my daughter’s Brownie troupe at the London area food bank off Adelaide Street and I learned a few things. The first thing I learned was that eight-year-old girls are stunningly competitive. Yes, the Brownie troupes, when split into smaller units, were racing each other to bag the most food hampers. Mommy comically reminded them to slow down and “it’s not a race” a few times. I also learned that…

  • Parenting

    The End of School Blues: Triggers for Grief in Adoption

    Let’s take a minute to talk about triggers. We all have them, triggers that sometimes seize us by the heart and drag us back to a memory – good, bad or otherwise. Triggers can be like strange little portals to the past. Sometimes brought on by a smell, a time of year, a feeling, a picture. Triggers for Grief in Adoption are many and they sometimes arrive out of the blue for parents. But for kids in care and adoptees they can be hard to cope with and even harder to communicate clearly to adults. They are visceral and emotional.…

  • family

    How To Drive Traffic to Your Website

    Need Traffic? Get in the Driver’s Seat to bring Traffic to Your Website or Blog. Website traffic is often key to carving out a niche for your on line business, web site or blog. For business, the more traffic you have, the bigger your bottom line. Whether you’re launching a new product or a new blog sometimes you want traffic or followers. Here are 5 solutions to generating traffic and followers. But Mommybloggers and web site owners beware – there are no overnight solutions here. Social media is about establishing a conversation built on trust. While there are many advertised ways to…

  • family

    Crayola Sidewalk Chalk Maker – review

    I am a huge fan of Crayola products. Their sidewalk chalk is forever being used around here to create great murals on the back patio. Their crayons are the best, the strongest, most colourful. My daughter, diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, often overexerts pressure on things and misjudges the amount of force required to do a task, and as a result, in her hands crayons snap into tiny bits causing frustration. But over the years I have proven Crayola crayons much stronger than other brands and less likely to cause meltdowns around here. So for those reasons I adore Crayola…

  • family

    Social Media: How to Maximize Use of Linked In

    Linked In was my first big foray into the adventure that is social media and that was a trip I took thanks to a PWAC (Periodical Writer’s Association of Canada) workshop. One year ago social media expert and writer Dawn Boschcoff came to London and gave a great presentation about the evolution of media. Me, being an old media gal, well let’s just say I had a lot to learn and the best way to do that, with respect to social media, is generally just to wade into the waters. That’s what I did as soon as Dawn’s words settled. For…

  • family

    A Unique Summer Job Project

    Graduating from high school but not yet sure where you want to go with your life? Or college perhaps? Nobody knows that topic quite like Sean Aiken, author of the One-Week Job Project. Aiken, a British Columbia native, became a media celebrity when his very cool 52 jobs in one year tour of North America caught on with legions of people caught in career limbo. Hot on the heels of the book’s success, Aiken who blogged consistently about his jobs over the year, has launched a one-week job summer job project modelled on the very premise of his book. Over…

  • family

    Mental Health Week: Or Children’s Mental Health Week Makes Me Crazy

    Well my darling followers it is still  children’s mental health week here and there have been multiple workshops and various other offerings in and around town and still it feels like nobody seems to care. No press in the rag about town. Minimal audience at the various events I have attended and sadly this is making me crazy. Can anyone else say inducement? Or irony for that matter? Children’s Mental Health is a topic I am passionate about but it is making me crazy. Breathe with me. In 2 3 4. Out 2 3 4. There, that’s better. One in five children are…

  • family

    King Tut Exhibit

    King TUT Exhibit at the AGO Looking for a fun way to spend a rainy April afternoon? Why not drive to Toronto and head over to the Art Gallery of Ontario to take in the King Tut exhibit. The exhibit originally slated to close this week has been extended through May 2nd, so if you missed this one due to timing you have one more chance. Trust me, it’s worth it. The last time the exhibit of Tut’s treasures came to town was 25 years ago. The ancient Egyptian ruler has captured collective imaginations for many years because he was…

  • parenting - Parenting

    What If You Got Different Kids? #adoption

    So it appears daughter number two is content to follow in daughter number one’s footsteps. At least when it comes to asking the very serious heart-stopping adoption-related questions. Up until now – she recently turned six – she has been relatively passive about her adoption story. She hears it but does not question it, at least not usually. Sometimes I wonder if she is even hearing me. But I repeat the words and rehearse the script, full of phrases common to our family now. Part of telling the story is learning how to get comfortable with it yourself.  My elder daughter…