A Transparent Life

Welcome to A Transparent Life!

I’m Sarah, and I am a writer at heart. For me, the written word can be powerful, motivational, entertaining, confounding, world-changing. I want to dabble a little bit in all of those things, at some point.

Ruralist Editor and Social Media Consultant

The Ruralist is one of the coolest, most exciting projects I’ve been privileged with being a part of. Friends Erin Roy (numbers whiz) and Erin Samuell (photographer extraordinaire) began a journey of sharing their love of all things rural with the wide world of the web on a website that has come to be called the Ruralist.

I like to say that the Ruralist will be the Etsy of rural Ontario and beyond. It has only been up and running for eight weeks, but they have been a powerful and promising eight weeks. There is so much more to come, and I am thrilled to be a part of it, both as the summer intern (yay, school credit for doing something I love and filling a need on a fantastic project!) and beyond as Editor and Social Media Consultant.

What are you waiting for? Head on over to check out the Ruralist!

Oh, and make sure to Like the page on Facebook and follow on Twitter!

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History and all That

This site was born in a time when I was fed up with the lack of transparency I saw in some of the people that I was supposed to respect. I thought that I needed to “be the change [I] want[ed] to see in the world” (Ghandi). So, I started to talk about my life: its highs, its valleys, its joys and its sorrows.

I want my posts on this site to encourage you, to challenge you, to get you thinking, to make you smile, and to benefit my community.

A financial advisor that I work with has a sign in her office that reads something along the lines of: “The highest compliment you can pay me is to refer me to others.” It recently occurred to me that this is true for me and this website, too. I love knowing that my friends and family come by regularly, but if you’d like to pay me a compliment, please share my work with your own family and friends. I’d love to welcome them into our conversation!

More about me:

I was raised in rural communities in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, and I have lived in a few international cities. The juxtaposition of the two cultures gives me some interesting perspective.

I am the oldest of six siblings, the youngest of which passed away in 2009, 18 months after our single mother died. You could say our family has had a tough go of it, but it’s all part of our journey.

I am two and a half years into a relationship with an amazing man named Johnathan, who is a hometown guy that I didn’t meet until after I had left town for several years and then returned for a few years. Our paths had come close to crossing, but never did… until the right moment on Labour Day weekend 2009.

I am going into my fourth year as an Honors Specialization Media, Information, and Technoculture (MIT) student at the University of Western Ontario (UWO). Strike that. Western University Canada, as it has recently been renamed. I am also working on a Certificate in Writing.

For the 2012-2013 year, I am the Web Editor of the twelfth volume of my faculty’s student publication, the mitZine.

Here, I write about the things that I find most interesting and about the issues that are challenging me most.

Even though I’ve had this blog for several years, this past January I renewed my dedication to posting regularly. For a few months, I posted daily or almost daily, but recently, I have been spending too much time either gardening, doing housework, doing schoolwork, or doing work on other blogs, specifically Ruralist.ca and Profficer.ca.

Check out some series that I did earlier this year:

• Playing Favourites. Posted on Mondays, this series is about my favourite things. Obviously.
• Wordless Wednesday. The title is fairly self-explanatory, but the idea is to post a photo that needs few words. It’s a current trend among bloggers, so I’m giving it a go.
• Locality. On Fridays, I post about something local, whether that’s a product, restaurant, service, event, or something else. I think it’s important to value the great stuff around you instead of always passing it over for the more recognizable big names.
• Cheers! Each Sunday, I post about someone or something that is worth celebrating. I figure it balances out my occasional rants. (I changed the name from Celebrations to Cheers! on March 17, 2012)

{Locality} is a series that has garnered me a lot of interest, and one that will continue, if more sporadically than before.

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If I were to have a mini-manifesto, this would be it:

I’m a coffee snob, and proud of it.

I hate injustice. I get that from my parents.

I’m a procrastinator, and it works for me.

Hablo español… e um poco di português… mais je ne parle pas français.

I think writing is one of the most noble ways of communicating.

I sometimes get emotional, depending on what time of the month it is.

I like pretty things, and my taste is a little too expensive for my budget.

I rarely get new music ideas from the radio. I get them from friends, usually via social media. Please share your favourites!

I have learned to love house pets, but I would likely never join an animal rights society, because there are hundreds of millions of people that need food and clothing and shelter and love and clean water, and I just can’t find it in me to care more about the animals than the people.

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I love hearing from my readers. If you come by, leave a note and let me know you were here!

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All content on this website was created by and belongs to me, unless otherwise cited or linked. Please share and pin posts and ideas that you find here, but I would request that you link back to me somehow anytime that you do. Thanks so much!