Are we ready for what’s next?

Woman looks outside wondering "What's next?"

After two years, it seems that our days of dealing with lockdowns, masks, and vaccination passports are finally reaching an end. As celebration-worthy as this is, it’s hard not to feel apprehensive. After all, we’ve seen restrictions lifted and reinstituted more times that we can count! It’s also hard not to be cynical and think…

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Shifting from 2021 to 2022

2022 new year calendar

Wasn’t it exciting to have the world open up for a while, allowing many gatherings that weren’t possible for most of 2020? I especially enjoyed overnight sister visits, attending my niece’s wedding, which had been rescheduled twice due to COVID, and celebrating Christmas with my kids and grandkids. It was far from ideal, but 1000%…

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Now and Then

Selfie with camera

My sister recently wrote a blog post with the title “25 Random Things About Me.” It began: A friend recently sent me a “Memory” of hers that popped up on Facebook. It was something I’d tagged her with ten years ago. What’s still the same? she asked me. What has changed? Here’s my answer. In…

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The Year I Became a Grown-up

Morning walk

For a long time I’ve been puzzled about why I don’t feel different than I did when I was younger. In a blog post (When do you feel grown up?) from a few years ago, I wrote that “… age really is just a number. We are who we are, and even we mature physically,…

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Shades of Summer

Unlike many people, summer isn’t my favourite time of year. I don’t do well in the heat and humidity, I don’t have a garden, and I miss my sister, who is usually away for most of the summer. This summer, however, has been great, and I’m amazed that we’re already nearly halfway through August. So what’s…

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The Big Six Oh

30-years

Earlier this year, I celebrated my 60th birthday. I use the word “celebrated” loosely, because I really didn’t feel much like celebrating. After all, once you hit 60, you’re getting up there! You’re not even “middle aged” anymore. It was certainly different than my last milestone birthday! Having realized when I turned 40 that age is just a number…

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How I’m spending my dash

beach sunset

Just over a year ago, I blogged about the passage of time and our perception of it. The older I get, the more I fear a day when I’ll look back and wish I’d done things differently. I don’t want to be like the character in one of the novels I read this summer: “He found himself infused…

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Summer Vacation

geese

When I was growing up, we spent two weeks at Orr Lake every summer. I have lots of great memories, but one of my earliest is of evening walks to the store for the daily newspaper for my Dad and treats for us kids. Here’s a photo of my mother and me from around that…

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The Person I’ve Become

personal brand

About a year and a half ago, I read Lisa Montanaro’s blog post, Looking at the Woman You Are Through the Eyes of Your Younger Self. It sparked my interest and I bookmarked it with the intention of leaving a comment after I’d had more time to think about it. Then, not surprisingly, I forgot…

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The Passage of Time

time

The older I get, the faster time seems to go by. I don’t remember when I first noticed it, but I’ve definitely been aware of it since I was 40. Over the last few years I’ve heard people in their 20s and 30s express the same thing. I thought I’d figured out the reason for…

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Away from my desk : the extended version

Lake Huron sunset

Scott and I don’t get away every summer, but this year we decided to rent a cottage, and it was fabulous to be truly away from my desk for an entire week. The cottage was equipped with wi-fi, so I I wasn’t totally unplugged, but doing a little networking on social media is as close…

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Six words

mother and daughter

In my early days of blogging, I was challenged to take part in a meme where you summarized your memoirs in only six words. Here’s what I came up with: Her mother’s daughter; her own woman. I was very excited when someone from SMITH Magazine, who have since published a series of Six Word Memoir books, asked…

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