Category Archives: Everyday Life

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Wasp stings + Runaways

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Wasp stings and runaways. These are just a couple of things that make up a typical morning around here.

We lead wild lives. Wild.

The other morning after a comedy of errors, I got stung by a wasp. For the first time. (There’s a rite of passage to add to my Thirty by 30 List!) Ouch.

I should have called it quits at that point. But I insisted that Khailee and I go for a walk.

Short story long – a German shephard on his porch on Grenadier barked and Khailee ran in the opposite direction. Her harness came undone and she hopped like a bunny wildly toward Roncesvalles.  And what did I do? The one thing you should NEVER do. I ran after her calling out her name.  Thankfully I finally got over my panic and slowed to a stop, bent down at her eye level and called to her less frantically reaching into my pocket as though I had something in there for her.  It worked. (Naturally, had I been completely calm about the whole thing I would have remembered to use the “touch” recall command that she was taught in her puppy class. Oh well.)

The good news is that she didn’t really want to be free. She wasn’t interested in having an adventure. She was just spooked. By a dog. Who barked. (Hmm. Maybe I should remind her that she is also a dog. Who barks. Sometimes.)

Anyway, that wasn’t the only runaway I had to deal with last week. Meet Wally (pictured above). He came-a-meowing at  my front steps as Khailee and I were on our way back from our morning walk.  It was all of 7:30am and within a few moments I realized that Wally was not an outdoor cat. He was lost.

What gave it away you ask? He looked well-fed  (translation: fat and lazy) and he was bejeweled (a rhinestone collar to be exact). Thankfully he had an ID tag. I called Toronto Animal Services but alas, they wouldn’t open until 8am.

So there we sat. Cat. Dog. Human. on the porch for about 30 minutes until I could get him back to his home.

He was thirsty, likely hungry and apparently pissed off. (I never realized that when a cat wags its tail, it actually isn’t happy. Quite the opposite.) He was sweet enough to me and had no bones with Khailee. When I finally got in touch with his owner, she explained that every August for the past few years, Wally has taken a vacation. Wally has wanderlust. Last summer, he was found on Geoffrey Street at our next door neighbours’ house. His owner came by to pick him up almost immediately and so ended our little adventure with Wally the lost cat.

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Anticipation

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It’s August. And that means I inevitably find myself caught between letting go of summer and anticipating fall. Truthfully, I’m all for letting go of summer. There have been many a day when I have dreamed of crisp mornings, bare trees, pure white snow, winter boots and hot beverages. Those days are usually the ones when it reaches 46 degrees Celsius with the humidex and you can fry an egg on my stomach. But my dreams of cooler temperatures and a season change or 2 are still ages away.

This month is filled with anticipation. Change Inc. – an Ontario-based program for aspiring social entrepreneurs that I am leading for TakingITGlobal in conjunction with Public Policy Forum – has launched. August is all about promotion and recruitment to reach our targets.  There is a lot of prep work to do before we can run the Change Inc. e-course and e-mentoring program plus a ton of important work to be done on growing Sprout in time for our next Cycle in October.  That will include a trip to Zurich at the end of August/beginning of September to convene and engage with some of the most extraordinary youth on this planet at One Young World.

I also have a lot of progress to make on my Thirty by 30 list. I’m behind on documenting things I have already completed.  I hope to rectify that today.  However, August, will finally allow me to cross off a few BIG ones including learning to sail, learning to tango, building a brand and launching a series of vlogs. Oh and then there is that little puppy I am raising. I’m sure she’ll need some a ton of my time and energy.

It’s time to grab some mango sorbet and get to work! I have a feeling August won’t linger and that will be a welcome change of pace.

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Little K

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I know. I know. It’s a blurry shot. But it is one of the few that gives you a decent look at Little K’s furry face.  (You try taking a one-handed photo backwards holding a squirming puppy. Ha!) Love that little nose, those big brown puppy dog eyes and teeny tiny white goatee.

We’ve been hanging out for 1 week now and so far, we are getting along famously. It has been an adjustment for us both but our internal alarm clocks are mostly synched and we’re both figuring out our new shared space.

Khailee is a real social butterfly but she also has a very zen energy about her.  From my experience, this is what the shih tzu breed is really all about – tons of personality but not in a whack-a-doodle kind of way.  Calm. Clever. Charismatic.

She has already made more canine and human friends then I have ever had. Creatures just gravitate to her and she relishes the attention. (So do I!)

I will soon launch a vlog series of our Adventures in Puppyhood starring Little K. You will get a sneak-peek into our daily routine, our mutual learning/training and the dos and don’ts of puppy life. Put your paws up!

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Half full

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I learned a valuable lesson in the art of half-fullness this weekend. And because of that, today (as I intend for all days) is a half-full day. Right now, I have 5 days worth of work to complete and 3.5 days of actual work time within which to accomplish it. I have 30% of my front yard unearthed and weeded and 70% left to do.  I have an ambitious list of personal goals that is my 30 by Thirty and just shy of 6 months to claim victory.

Like everyday, I must work twice as fast and deliberately as most people would like to.  I accept that. But I’m tired of the half empty philosophy that most people walk around spouting. This past weekend as I spent hours undertaking back-breaking work in my front yard, I had no less than a dozen people comment on the status of my gardening work.  Interestingly, over the 3 hour period during which I was weeding a yard with only weeds (with likely 15 years worth of roots), 85% of the comments were of the half-empty variety. “You have your work cut out for you.” “Oh that’s a big job.” They all shared some variation on that theme because they could only see the 70% of the yard left to complete. As the same comment continued to be made, I got a little less friendly and certainly a little less motivated. By the end of the day, I was nearly ready to tell them to go fly a freakin’ kite!

But there were 2 gentlemen, who had seen me start my work early in the afternoon and passed by again just before I was cleaning up. And what did they say? “Great work!” They could see that although it hadn’t been easy to do it, I had accomplished quite a bit over the course of 3 hours. It might have only been a fraction of the yard but their comments helped me realize that this task was not impossible and that I could continue to work at it and eventually weed everything.  Half full. It was 2 out of 12 comments but those 2 comments helped remind me of an important reality. Furthermore, those 2 comments had the power to undo not only the 10 thoughtless and negative comments that came before but also help renew my commitment to finishing this front yard.  Half full.

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Pastel

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Easter long weekend was pretty chill. I loved sleeping in. Technically I did work on both Friday and Monday afternoon but I squeezed in a little time to paint my nails. Pastel. What can I say? I was inspired by Easter.

This colour is called “Fair Play”. Well said.

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Done.

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I am done.  Like dinner.

It was a long week of serious productivity in Atlanta at the National Service Learning Conference.  I got a lot of airtime. (Yep that is me on the screen in the background of the above photo).

I’m a little short on downtime this week so I’m heading straight for the yoga studio to chill out or heat up as the case may be.

More posts this week. And some wonderful goodness. For Spring. :-)

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Fort Valentine

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Mike is an excellent pie maker. I think it could be a calling. And if not, it is at least a (not-so) secret talent. The first time he baked a pie for me was in Winnipeg. We had been dating for a matter of days. It was his first introduction to my family. I guess he wanted to impress. So he grabbed an apple pie recipe from my Voluptuous Vegan cookbook and set out to wow us.  Boy did he ever!

Ever since then I have begged him to bake another pie. And so last night he did! Complete with our K + M monogram.

I really dig homemade and handmade stuff. As I have mentioned before, Mike is a minimalist and he generally appreciates experiential gifts more than “stuff”. Inspired by this dreamy V-day fort, I was determined to finagle my own. Not as easy given our office ceiling doesn’t have accessible beams on which to hang fabric but I figured it out….eventually.

Note: I really do not have an engineer’s mind. My spatial skills are nil. Physics be damned – I imagined fabric suspended in the air. No surprise that it didn’t work that way. That said, I am extremely determined and I basically tried about 10 different options until I got one that worked well enough for me to be satisfied.

 

We had a blast in our little fort. We read tarot cards and listened to music. I ate pie. He drank wine. And we laughed…a lot.

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The Buffs

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Saturday night. Mike and I dined with all regiments/units in 32 Canadian Brigade group at the Toronto Garrison Officers’ Ball.

I sat next to Padre Niles of Queen’s Own Rifles – a recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal – for his care of 1200 parentless/foster children over the last 25 years. We chatted throughout dinner about the many lessons the Padre has learned about fostering and adopting children. He and his wife have 9 children of their own – 4 biological and 5 adopted. And he imparted well-received wisdom. Both Mike and I now have new insights into what our adoption journey can look like.

At our table were also two (very) young men both wearing the ISAF (Afghanistan) Campaign Star. And then my Mike donned his Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal – nominated by Gerard Kennedy – he received this honour for his amazing contribution to public service at such a young age (he was 22).

As a traditional component of the gala, all regiments take to the dance floor and demonstrate their regimental marches. The Buffs is the accompaniment for the Queen’s Own Rifles march. Easily the most amusing of them all. But then again, as an infantry regiment, the speed at which they move makes a lot of sense. I captured the march on video for your viewing pleasure.