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Staples Canada First Ever Twitter Party #Linkedmoms #GoingBack
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Why is that? We’re having a twitter party for Back to School. LinkedMoms and Staples Canada have partnered to bring you all the 2013 trends, must haves and technological tools to make your child’s year brilliant. Have you got this year’s backpacks yet? What about your notebooks? Laptop computers? This is your official invitation. We have some great Staples Canada gift card prizes to give away. Who: Linked Moms Twitter PartyWhen: August 28th at 8 p.m. EST.Please follow our sponsor @StaplesCanada and our hosts @inkscrblr @linkedmoms and @downshiftingpro You must be Canadian to win. Please follow the above twitter handles as well…
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Why I am Relieved: On Autism, #Special Needs and Hate
Sometimes I wonder how does hate help anyone? It is a horrible vile and debilitating feeling to carry around as a human being. And it doesn’t help anyone in a minority community, not that hateful people consider that. How is hate allowed to fester? Of that, I have no clue, but it is in fact more prevalent in neighbourhoods and institutions than you’d ever believe. This week we saw that with this horrendous letter that circulated on the news and on line. My daughter last year. Sometimes this is what special needs looks like. By now you have all heard of the horrid hateful letter sent from a neighbour to an…
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From the Top of Chantry Island Lighthouse #WordlessWednesday #travel #explorethebruce
We spent last week at the beach in Southampton with my brother and his family. It was a great week and a whole lot of fun. But there were moments that were challenging knowing my Mom was not with us to enjoy each day. Leaving would have been hard even if I hadn’t driven by the old cottage one last time. This day here was the first day at the beach, when we climbed the lighthouse on Chantry Island. A moment just for me and my girls.
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Bruce County Travel – Exploring the Bruce
 All the summers of my childhood were spent with my Mom and brother on the beaches along the Bruce Peninsula. They were leisurely Bruce County summers spent sunning ourselves, swimming, growing.  Exploring Bruce County Travel Attractions From the time my kids were little, we maintained the Bruce County summer tradition. This year, before we headed up to the beach for a week at a rented cottage I checked out a few web sites to see what was new and what we might add to our week. Tweens are fun to travel with and mine have been visiting the cottage for years already, so I wanted to add something…
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iPoll – An App that Makes you Money
An App that makes you money? Tailored to your very shopping haunts? Um, yes please. iPoll is an app that makes sense for you if you like making money. iPoll is free to download and it takes only a few moments to register and set up your profile. Then, every so often log in and check your missions. Missions can be surveys, or shopping-related tasks. Each task that you complete earns you money. Every time you log in, there is something new waiting. I got $5.19 already! Everyone gets $5 when they sign up. Click here to head directly to the screen to get $5. Just confirm your email address.…
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How To Make A Do It Yourself Container Fairy Garden – Ten Easy Steps #DIY
My girls are crafty and their imaginations are always on the go especially in the summer months. One summer we spent our days blowing things up and doing science experiments in the yard. That was a lot of fun, but mostly it was hands on learning, structured to keep my kids out of trouble. (My girls are going to blow stuff up anyways, so we might as well do it right.) At the end of the school year my oldest daughter started digging up the lawn grabbing grassy clumps of clod and flowers. She told me she intended to build a fairy garden, but at that time I put her…
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Old School, Meet Digital #WordlessWednesday #travel
This was an epic moment for me. Chicago and Blogher13. I just had to see The Chicago Tribune. A long way from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, and Ryerson Journalism school and London Free Press. I’ve had bylines a lot of places over the years: from The Kamloops News to the Free Press, the Record, the Toronto Sun, Today’s Parent and Canadian Family, and dozens of small dailies, plus my favourite moment, a few published essays in the Globe and Mail. But standing inside the lobby of this grand lady, I remembered why I got into this business of writing.
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A Word Called Inclusion: #Specialneeds at Camp
Remember this? Two weeks ago, when I was heading off to Chicago, I was still agonizing over whether Ainsley, my busy, sporty girl with special needs, could handle sleep away camp. I wrote a whole post about children with special needs at camp. Parents of special needs children are used to worrying. We worry about finances, and school, and life when we are gone. We worry our kids may never be able to cope fully, and enjoy, and be supported in the world without us. We worry with good reason, because frankly I have seen systems and systemic failures for children with special needs in areas of school, home, child welfare…
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Flatten Me Personalized Products #BTS #Giveaway
I wish you could have seen the smile this Flatten.me water bottle put on my daughter’s face this week. Oh, I know, I know, everyone on the planet has ten water bottles already, right? Maybe so, but do you have one with your face on a superhero body? Or do you have one where your child is posed as a princess? I didn’t think so. Who doesn’t like personalized items? Most of the kids I know adore finding things with their name on them, or seeing it on a T-shirt. Well, Flatten.me has a host of items from books, to water bottles and t-shirts. They are simple to prepare and…
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Weekends and Weddings: Petition Challenge #ABHC4IVF #ABPoli
When you are struggling with infertility, or trying to conceive, time is quite simply not your friend. It is the days between doctor’s appointments, and the calendar you watch every month wondering and hoping with crossed fingers. It is every season ticking by faster, carrying holidays by in a blur of tears. Years can unfold while trying. Treatments also take time. But what if the waiting then becomes complicated by fund raising as you juggle how to pay for in vitro fertilization? Weeks, become months and years pass quickly, then all of a sudden the fertility window, even with such medical help as in vitro fertilization, closes. This summer, a…