Filed under: Activism, City of Ottawa, Drama, General, Holidays | Tags: donations, fire, ottawa, shelters, women's services
As all of you know, Christmas is only a little over a month away. Thoughts this time of year turn to gifting friends and loved ones with special presents to show we care, and many of us make extra donations to the Food Bank or other charities in order to give back to our community.
This year our community needs an extra showing of generosity. Due to two recent fires in a downtown women-only rooming house and a women’s shelter, resources for women in crisis in Ottawa are stretched far too thin.
There are a number of organizations accepting donations of money, food and clothing — many thanks to Ian Capstick for assembling and circulating the following list:
(more…)
Filed under: Get All Mushy, Holidays, In The Kitchen, My Kids, Things I Do, Things I Make | Tags: burn-out, Christmas, gifts, holiday, shopping, strategies, thrifting
When I was a kid I loved Christmas — I adored the cheesy music, the month-long anticipation of The Big Day had me unable to sit still, I couldn’t get enough of the various preparations for family meals, church services, concerts, and school break. This love of the Holiday was still so strong with me that when I met DH we had to strike a compromise in which I could only start listening to Christmas music on December 1st or as soon as the first snow fell — whichever came first. Given we lived in Nova Scotia, I never got to start early (though the arrangement had to be modified once we moved to Ottawa!).
As an adult, though, I started losing the excitement and joy — there wasn’t any fun in picking out gifts for people, the malls were a torture to be avoided if at all possible, and I even stopped loving the music as much. Christmas had become a chore. I was done. Once the kids were here, we kept it pretty simple but a big part of me craved to recapture the excitement I remembered from my own childhood.
Filed under: Awkward Conversations, General, Make Lists of Things, People I Know, Review Things, Things I Do, Things I Read | Tags: Books, reading, recommendations
I love to read.
When I say I love to read, what I really mean is that I love to read. This year has been light on content, but high in quantity. Years past have been the reverse. I don’t discriminate between genres. Very little is too fluffy or too heavy for me to devour. I’ll read just about anything.
This is what makes it particularly hard for me to decide not to finish reading something. (more…)
After a hellish last week, I think Andrea’s (from a peek inside the fishbowl) challenge is just what I needed to see today.
Two weeks ago I ordered an exercise video. Now, I’m not an “Exercise Video” kinda gal — I hate them, really — but I’d heard great things from quite a few folks I know about this particular one and was promised it would kick my ass. By the time it arrived last week, something else was kicking my ass and I’m only now feeling up to cracking the cellophane and tossing it in the DVD player.
15 minutes a day isn’t a lot, but it’s sadly more than I put into a concentrated effort in a 24hr period.
As I haven’t a scale that works right now, I’ll measure my progress for a week with a tape measure and see if I see a quantifiable change by the end of a week. I will also continue to add to this post my thoughts and observations on this challenge for at least one week. I won’t use the video everyday, but will absolutely be getting that 15min in somewhere!
Can *you* do 15 minutes a day?
