I can tell you within 10 seconds of meeting you whether you’re someone I want to spend more time with. Don’t be too impressed. You can do it too, and according to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, you do it all the time. We all do – make instant judgments – based on how people smell, what…

I tend to approach Christmas with squinty-eyed suspicion. I’ve resisted sharing Krista Tippett’s blog post Why I Don’t Do Christmas, or re-posting last year’s Christmas column about wanting a compliment instead of a pile of planet-destroying stuff, or even this thoughtful post from the Huffington Post on what not to say to people grieving at…

My town was flooding, the rain had finally relented, and we were all core-shaken and gut-checked by the US election results. The boy and I went outside to patrol our creek, and snuggled on my back, his body went suspiciously slack. I bent over like a Sherpa, piggybacking him home to nap. Awesome, I thought, I can write….

There were a lot of years at the Canada Day parade that Shannon Paul marched up front, holding the sign, as the rest of the Growing Great Children tribe walked behind her, wrangling their kids. She was the only one without any, so her hands were free – for the organizing. And supporting. And upholding….

I’ve been trying to cook more. You know, evolve beyond frozen pizza and cereal for dinner. A kid pushes you to better yourself, right? I hear it’s called “adulting.” And I’m digging it right now. It’s wet outside, grey – the kidlet and I are baking up a storm, making a huge mess of the…

It’s not that we don’t love winter. Or look forward to it. It’s just that I’d rather skip the foreplay of fall. Gear porn never really did it for me. I’ll take a little less of the saturating, spirit-slaying, sogginess of the shoulder season and cut to the frosty chase. So, when October arrived, we…

“Being a perfectionist in retail, school or business is an asset, but man, try to apply it to parenting? It’s hard.” Bree Thorlakson has the take-no-prisoners energy of someone invincible and a little bit ball-busting. “I’ve always known what I wanted,” she admits. Being taken down by an infant was not part of her game…

My brother-in-law has an album’s worth of songs, ready to record, although he’s not quite sure how to take that next step. He’s written them all himself – complex, poetic pieces that awe me, make me think that songwriting is really the ultimate craft, fusing lyric and song together. He’s spent years working on them…

Downward dog is supposed to be a resting pose. Hands on the ground. Feet on the ground. Hips in the air. Head hanging down. Stretching like a dog does after a nap. I fight tightness everywhere – calves, shoulder-blades, hamstrings, jaw. Resting pose, my ass. Lying on the couch is a resting pose. Head dangling…