Moving to Ottawa’s Centretown this summer was an easy transition: cycling paths bursting with floral colour, arts festivals galore, outdoor yoga on Parliament Hill. But I worried about developing cabin fever over the long winter months. My fears were unwarranted. Heated cocktails, “glowing” attractions, and…
I love our new house in Ottawa. Almost everything about it is perfect. The neighbourhood has everything that matters—the beautiful canal and bike paths are around the corner in one direction; interesting retail and restaurants in the other. Grand embassy homes and spectacularly renovated ones…
Ottawa has been called many things. The Canadian capital of dull. The city that fun forgot. I grew up in Ottawa. I couldn’t wait to hightail it out of here. But now, I’m back. And, you know what? Ottawa is way better the second time…
Well, this year has been the mother of all reinvention. A move to Ottawa. And starting grad school. I almost missed the application deadline. I was having lunch with a friend back in February. As we were heading out the door, she asked: “Isn’t your…
My sons just got back from Europe a couple days ago. They travelled to Brussels, The Netherlands, and Germany together. They are doing what many other newly minted university grads are doing—exploring the world. Other 20-somethings don’t have the good fortune to just get-up-and-go. They…
If you’re a last-minute kind of person, you may want to saunter over to Shoppers or another pharmacy type place today to get a free blood pressure reading before May turns into June. After all, May is Hypertension Month. Who knew? I didn’t until…
Good help is hard to find. And for many entrepreneurs, even when they find it, they often can’t afford it. Not when they are in the early stages of labour trying to birth their business babies. I often thought of entrepreneurs and corporations who outsourced…
Last year, an old friend re-surfaced in my life. In the almost two decades we had not seen each other, Dr. Catherine O’Brien has made an international name for herself in the field of education, introducing Sustainable Happiness inside (and outside) the classroom. In this…
“Want to visit Guelph?” I ask my 20-something–year-old son. We feel a mid-winter itch to escape the big city. Only an hour train ride from Toronto, Guelph seemed like a first-rate destination for day-tripping since neither of us had ever gone. I’ve been on a…
I like Valentine’s Day as a whimsical celebration that brightens up a cold mid-February day. It provides the perfect excuse to temporarily break any New Year’s resolutions to swear off sugar, and instead happily indulge in a decadent square of salted caramel chocolate. Yet, for…