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Rating retirement year one: not quite as planned
I still can’t believe I’ve been retired a whole year. The last day of July, last year, was my last day in the office. And while I really enjoyed my job and usually felt I was making a difference, I haven’t missed it for a single second. I knew it was time to make a change and if I hadn’t been in a position to retire, it would have meant looking for something new. On a trip to the UK that included Canterbury Cathedral. So this blog post should be about all the things I’ve accomplished in these past twelve… Read more…
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Timber! Woodpecker condos condemned and demolished
When my husband and I bought our lake house in the fall, we knew we had some unwanted building going on. We hadn’t seen the beaver yet, but from the sizes of the holes that were in a stand of evergreens on the side of the property, we knew we had (alongside our numerous songbirds) a pileated woodpecker in the neighbourhood. If you don’ t know what that is, imagine Woody Woodpecker. That huge cartoon bird was clearly based on the enormous woodpecker pictured here. Unlike the cute hairy and downy woodpeckers, this guy can measure up to 20 inches long. And… Read more…
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My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad book weekend
With apologies to Judith Viorst for the headline, even though I put on a happy face, being an indie author isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong – some days it is amazing. I am continually gobsmacked that people want to read the stories I make up in my head and when they invite me to speak at book clubs or want to take photos together with one of my books, I’m on cloud nine and couldn’t be more grateful. But it’s also a tough slog sometimes. I haven’t cracked the Amazon code yet, so… Read more…
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Remembering my father’s hands
My Dad died recently. Not yesterday, but earlier this year, after a long battle with cancer. When we had the Celebration of Life last month, when the weather was warm enough to, my mother put out books of photos of some of the things Dad had created in his life. Dad had always been an avid gardener and general woodworker, but beyond that, so the story goes, he didn’t have much creativity. And he certainly couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler. But around about the time I was an early teenager, he started taking duck carving classes. This… Read more…
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Busy as a beaver
If you subscribe to my newsletter (hint hint!), you’ll already have heard a snippet of our beaver tales. For the rest of you, let me catch you up to date. My family has a cottage on a lovely lake in the Kawartha region of Ontario. It’s part of the Trent-Severn Waterway, and sits just to the west of Lock 32, the first lock in the system, a scenic 386 km long canal system connecting Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. Fun fact, if you’re of a certain age, you’ll know this spot, made famous by the Tragically Hip. Some folks think Bobcaygeon is the… Read more…
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How much change can one person take?!
They say when you retire that you shouldn’t make big life decisions. You know, ride it out a while and see where things settle. Yeah, that wasn’t what I did. In January 2025, I announced at work that I would retire at the end of July. It was not a secret that I was planning to go soon and my boss asked for lots of time so there’d be a good period of overlap with my successor (that’s another story!). So that started the countdown clock. In May, I got engaged to the handsome ginger-haired man I’d been seeing. His… Read more…
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Adventues in dentistry – ouch!
My teeth are crap. Always have been, always will be. It’s led to continued issues as an adult, despite twice a day brushing, flossing, mouthwash, the works. I’ve had crowns, root canals, extractions and for a long time my dentist, who I actually quite like, and who would probably have preferred to replace all my silver fillings at once, made a deal with me that we’d take it one tooth at a time as the amalgam needed replacing. This helped me spread out the expense and probably prevented a me from having a permanently sore jaw. I never understood, as… Read more…
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When the words get stuck
Someone asked me once if I had a routine of writing, or if the words just came when they came. I’ve done both – and neither, over the years. When I started writing my first novel, Another Glass of Tea, I had a full time job and it kept waking me up at 2 a.m. I tried to ignore it, but it kept happening. Eventually, I realized that when it happened, I had to get up and write. It could be 10 minutes, half an hour, or a marathon stretch that saw the circles under my eyes grow darker and the amount… Read more…
