(You may or may not have noticed that my Sunday series is no longer called Celebration but Cheers! There was something about Celebration that was a bit cheesy. Sorry about that. I still want to celebrate things… things that make me want to raise my proverbial glass. Cheers!)
Sophie is the cutest, cuddliest house guest a girl could ever ask for.
She has striking greenish gold eyes, loves to play, gets a little crazy every morning and evening, and leaves tiny soft hairs everywhere she goes.
Curious kitty
Yes, Sophie is a cat.
For the second year in a row, I got to cat-sit Miss Sophie while Johnathan’s parents went away over March Break. Last year, since Johnathan was away for three months, they let me keep Soph for several weeks! They kinda like me.
Who, me?
She was only with me for two weeks this year, but it was fun. There’s really nothing like having a creature follow you around, looking for opportunities for some lovin’. Her favourite spot was the bathroom. Every time I’d sit on the toilet, she’d pad her way to the toilet to nuzzle my leg until I’d pet her. If I didn’t, she’d lift her front two paws to my thigh and come close to digging in her claws. Until I gave her the look.
I spotted movement!
She has spent enough time with me to know the look. It’s the signal for “You’re digging into my leg!” and “Stop scratching up that good piece of furniture!” and “What are you doing on my dresser?” Usually, it’s accompanied with a “HEY!” and a clap. If she’s done something sufficiently naughty, the water spritzer comes out. That’s when she knows she’s in BIG trouble.
Multi-tasking: cat-cuddling and studying
My feline house guest went home yesterday. No doubt “mommy” and “daddy” missed her. I know I will. She caught flies. She broke the silence of long hours of studying. She cozied up behind my knees when I slept, or right up beside my pillow.
If only...
Someday, I’ll get my own cat… a grey tabby just like Sophie.
That is, this website is now on Facebook. Personally, I’ve been on that people-from-far-away-connecting, privacy-selling, time-sucking site since…2007? Not since the beginning, but long enough. Long enough to know I’m not sure how I would connect to my network-at-large without it. Long enough to know it’s kind of on its way out. Shh, don’t tell Mark Zuckerberg: he recently submitted Facebook for an IPO.
But I am proud to announce that, as of yesterday, this blog site has a corresponding Facebook page. Did it really need one? No, probably not. It does, however, increase the likelihood that people on Facebook can see A Transparent Life, and interact with me and my posts there. I’m pretty picky about who I accept friend requests from (I actually have to know you – imagine that!), which would limit anyone outside of my immediate network from being able to see my posts on Facebook.
(At this point, it appears as if you have to be signed into your Facebook profile for this link to work. I’m not sure why. Another option would be to click “Like” in the Facebook box on the sidebar of my site.)
Yeah, I went there. (Thanks to my darling husband for suggesting such a mind-blowingly smart title.)
Weekends are for two things: sleeping and big breakfasts. Well, maybe only for big breakfasts if you have kids. I don’t, so I sleep in and then eat a big breakfast.
This past weekend I decided to try a little experiment. Yes, with eggs. One egg was free range, pasture fed, hormone and antibiotic free. The other was the grocery store brand. Here are the eggs in question:
I took these eggs and fried them:
Notice the first egg. It looks like a nice enough egg and is frying up splendidly. But notice the second egg. Look at that yolk! It is such a lovely shade of gold-ish orange!
Guess what I discovered after my very serious eggsperiment? The grocery store egg didn’t taste like much, but the free range egg tasted like the…
Melissa Wormington has a way with words that is honest and heartfelt. You feel like you know her, like you are walking through life with her.
I haven’t officially met Melissa, but her daughter Makenna is friends with Johnathan’s niece. I came face-to-face with Melissa for the first time shortly after her home was destroyed in the Goderich tornado on August 21, 2011, and heard part of her story first-hand that day, as she told it to John’s brother-in-law’s parents, her neighbours.
Melissa was at home making cookies that sunny summer afternoon, as her kids played nearby. Her husband, Jeff, a volunteer fireman, was at the fire hall, washing his pick-up truck. Suddenly, the power went out, and a few minutes later, her family safely in the storage room in the basement, Melissa heard rain and wind “pounding on the outside walls.” Above them, the noise of things breaking and crashing was deafening.
Thinking it was merely a quick and severe thunderstorm, Melissa didn’t stay put in the basement after Jeff decided to see what had happened outside.
I peeked around the top of the basement stairs into our front hall and came face to face with the front door to our house, the storm door, laying right there on the floor in front of me, as well as leaves, dirt, stones and just…debris. I could see the screen door outside on the porch. It was still pouring rain. I saw that our living room window was smashed.
Out on the street, they were astounded with the destruction from what they assumed was a “thunderstorm”.
Her first-hand experience is raw and moving. She has since posted about the tornado’s effects on her family, her neighbours, and the rest of the town several times. If you want to gain an understanding about what it was like for tornado victims, Melissa’s blog is a fantastic place to start.
At my office we have lots of paperwork and reading material on trauma, surviving it and the effect it has on families. Some of it was centred around the events of September 11 2001. I had read it when I came across it, and have attended workshops in the past about the effects of trauma on families…most of those relating to the effects of witnessing or experiencing domestic or child abuse. But none of it really stuck with me over the years.
Until now.
Now I get it.
Melissa has been an inspiration for her fellow citizens, and has told her story several different times to journalists and filmmakers and others. Her story is also available in the locally-published compilation of stories, Not Like Any Other Sunday.
Thank you, Melissa, for your humility and honesty, for your transparency.
~~~
You can read all of Melissa’s posts about the Goderich tornado here.
If you know of a local person, business, event, etc. that you think deserves some publicity, I would love to feature them in my Locality series. Please comment, tweet me @sarahnadian, or email me at sarahnadian@gmail.com.
Johnathan and I have been actively looking for a place to live in London for two weeks now. Honestly, house/apartment-hunting could be a part-time job!
Each day, we spend a couple of hours, together and apart, searching Kijiji for new or updated ads offering places for rent. We have made many phone calls and sent many emails and spent a lot of time driving around looking for “For Rent” signs.
Being the people of discriminating taste that we are, we have a pretty well-defined idea of what we’re looking for:
Preferably an apartment in a house or duplex, not an “apartment building”, pretty definitely not a high-rise. They’re not “homey” enough.
Parking for at least two cars, if not three. We each have old cars that we’d like to have on the road in the summer. One set of vintage wheels apiece, plus one car for longer distances equals three cars. We know that’s a lot for renters to ask, but there it is.
A dishwasher. I have lived without one for most of my life, and as much as I hate doing dishes, I can live with it more easily than John can. To save our sanity, a dishwasher is pretty high up on our list.
It has to be located so that John can easily get out of the city to work (his work is about 20 minutes past the outskirts of the far southeast corner of the city). That means we’re not looking at anything that’s not in the southeast, regardless of whether it would be awesome. Driving more than 30 minutes to work and to school is about as much as we’re willing to do. Ideally, I would be able to catch a bus to school, which adds another location dimension to our search.
We have a limit to how much we are willing to pay, even if a place is freaking amazing. We both have school debt, after all, and we don’t want to be renters forever. AKA we want to save money. But we want to live in a nice place. These desires don’t always mesh.
At least two bedrooms. Some people can live in studio lofts or one-bedroom places and not lose their sanity or their patience with each other, but we are not those people. Plus, I want an office that I can hide all of my schoolwork and creative junk in.
Character preferred. This goes back to our issue with the apartment buildings: they tend to be pretty “cookie-cutter”, without imagination or individuality. This is not a requirement, but it is a preference for sure. You know you would love to live in a place that didn’t look like every other place you’ve ever lived!
Laundry. For more than four years now, I have had to take my laundry to a different town to wash! For whatever dumb reason, my apartment doesn’t have laundry facilities, and the crossroads I live in is so tiny it doesn’t even have a gas station or convenience store, let alone a laundrymat (WordPress is telling me that spelling is wrong, but “laundromat” doesn’t seem quite right, either). I would love to be able to wash my clothes from the inside of my own house! But again, it’s not a deal breaker for me.
Access to outside space. (This list is getting long, right?) We would really love to be able to sit outside on summer evenings, to barbecue, perhaps to plant a thing or two. Things that are not always possible in apartment buildings.
Landlords that aren’t idiots. Very simple.
If you got through that list, you’re a true fan. Either that or very curious.
It is one thing to have a well-formed idea of what you’re looking for, and another thing entirely to actually find it.
So far, we have been through six places, and tonight we add another. Three of them were absolute crap: stale smoke filling the hallways, stained carpets, holes in the walls, sketchy neighbourhoods, the reek of cat pee, shoddy renovations, or a lack of renovations… You get the picture. Blech. These ones were places that we looked at on Kijiji and looked nice enough to view in person. Be warned: don’t believe everything you see on Kijiji! Sometimes pictures lie.
We can identify...
Three have been nice. One was really cool, but much smaller than we thought. So small that a queen-size bed would not make it up the stairs to the bedroom. So small that the lovely spiral staircase was barely wide enough for our hips. Eek.
Another was a house in the perfect area, with the perfect amount of space and storage, a yard, parking, a dishwasher, renovated kitchen and bathroom, nice landlord… perfect! After making a decidedly intense effort to see the place and fill out the application in record time, and make sure the landlord knew of our interest, he gave it to someone else. Major letdown (and all you HIMYM fans saluted the worthy officer Letdown).
The other night, we saw a place that came close: lots of storage, 2 bedrooms, renovated bathroom and bedrooms, gas fireplace, new floors, parking for 2 cars, friendly landlords… but not a renovated kitchen. No dishwasher. No good outdoor space.
And still, we continue the search. We’re practically Kijiji experts now. We know how to refine our searches. We know what Kijiji needs to do to improve its service (the ability to search by location!!). We can skim the list of ads and know which ones to click on and which ones to avoid (anything with “students!” in it).
I can’t wait until we are done the hunt: it’s exhausting, and gets fairly discouraging at times!
I have to believe that the perfect place is out there, and we only have to find it. I hope that happens soon.
(Update July 4, 2013. I removed “a la Whole30” from the title of this post because I keep finding it on Pinterest, with comments from Whole30-ers cautioning against consuming smoothies during a Whole30. Is this still a good recipe? I think so, yes. Is it “Whole30”? Not quite. If you’re doing a Whole30, consider this as an occasional treat rather than as a key nutritional go-to.)
(Update March 27, 2012. In a recent conversation with Melissa Hartwig, co-founder of the Whole30, I learned that smoothies are less than ideal for the Whole30 program for a few reasons: 1) the spotlight tends to be on the fruit rather than the veggies or protein; 2) almond butter is classified as a fat that should be consumed occasionally, not a protein that should be consumed daily; 3) flax seeds are on the “limit” list for fats; and 4) liquid foods are easier to overeat than solid foods. That being said, make the adjustments you need to for your Whole30 and enjoy!)
In the 21 days since I started my (first) Whole30, I’ve become increasingly competent in the art of the breakfast smoothie.
The smoothie that I blogged about week before last has evolved past the alpha stage into a more complex, flavorful, and healthy version. Each morning, I look forward to my smoothie with greater anticipation.
I start with coconut milkThen I add some almond butterA cut-up banana is next…followed by a handful of spinach…some ground flax seedAnd, to make it pretty and round out the flavour, frozen blueberries
I know I have not reached the level of Smoothie Expert yet, but I am sufficiently satisfied with this stage to submit it to you for beta testing.
Please give it a go and let me know what you think my next step should be.
Sarah’s Whole30 Paleo Smoothie, Beta Version
1/3 cup high-fat coconut milk (read the labels and choose one that uses only guar gum as a “stabilizer”, and has about a 30% fat content. Good fat, remember!)
1-2 Tablespoons almond butter
1 banana, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup (or as much as you think you would enjoy) organic spinach or kale (you might want to blend the kale first before adding the other ingredients: I chewed each mouthful of this morning’s smoothie!)
1 Tablespoon flax seeds (I use a version that is already pre-ground) (flax is a great source of Omega fatty acids)
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
A couple splashes of orange juice (sweetener and consistency regulator: my coconut milk tends to be thick, and adding OJ makes it pourable)
Maybe it’s because I grew up listening to the CBC news at 6:00 every day. Maybe it’s because I have an insatiable curiosity to know what I might be missing in the world. Maybe it’s because I secretly wish to be a national radio news announcer.
Whatever the reason, CBC Radio 1 (2 and 3 are mostly music stations) is my radio station of choice. You can guarantee that, if I’m alone in my car and not listening to an audiobook on my iPhone (through my Bluetooth device) or some new music playlist, CBC is on.
I can get through a day or days without listening, so I know I’m not addicted, but you will rarely catch me listening to any other station. Perhaps I would if I could find a music station that wasn’t annoying or insidious or formulaic. (Yes, I know there are local stations that employ people I know… but really? Do you enjoy them?!)
In my opinion, the best programs are Q, As It Happens, and The Age of Persuasion. But there are lots of other interesting and informative programs that will fill the air waves in your car or home with (in my opinion) higher quality stuff than you can get at the local level or on your average rock station.
If music is what you love, CBC’s Radio 2 and Radio 3 have got you covered. You won’t be stuck listening to “easy listening” or “light rock” tunes ever again!
I know the CBC is not a perfect company (does such a thing even exist?), and they have their issues, but as a public broadcaster, they’re not sponsored by advertisers, so they don’t have to sell their soul to corporations. And your listening experience doesn’t get interrupted by commercials.
Plus, I always feel smarter after listening to a CBC Radio program. I get more interested in relevant issues. I understand more of what it means to be a Canadian.
When something that you enjoy keeps you connected and teaches you things, it’s worthy of “favourite” status. Just sayin’.
Since starting the Whole30 diet 18 days ago, I have been concerned with eating well. This doesn’t mean I have been worried about how many tablespoons of fat I consume, or how many calories, or how many grams of protein, etcetera. It means that my goal is to eat “real” food, and to wean my […]
A Transparent Life 