Just like any other artistic endeavour, creative writing can be a relaxing tool and a powerful outlet for personal expression. No matter what we spend most of our time doing, it’s beneficial to flex our creative muscles.

Sadly, my beloved Merriam-Webster dictionary (affectionately called MW) split in half this morning after I dropped it on the floor. I knew it was just a matter of time. I bought it in 1985 in the college bookstore, and it’s been with me ever since. I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little weepy.

I was about eight years old when my father invited an overbearing work colleague, along with his wife and son, to visit our summer cottage on New Brunswick’s Richibucto River. Cottagers are usually happy to share their little-piece-of-heaven with friends and family. But for my mother, even a relaxed cottage welcome had its limits.

I find stories about the Good Ugly Girl immensely entertaining.
It’s a buttery-popcorn night at my house when I can watch the angst arising from shallow relationships and wicked step-sister plots transform into joyful self-awareness and dream-fulfillment.
This includes Good Ugly Girl landing the object of her affection, Handsome Boy. He usually has the happy task of [...]

I’ve always hated The Giant Monster. And in some inanimate way, I know The Giant Monster hated me too. I’m no animist, but I’m convinced it kicked me in the back on the way out the door for spite.

The Giant Monster (TGM) is a set of bunk beds we purchased eight years ago for our [...]

I confess, I’ve been lax. My bedroom organization plans came to a screeching halt just before Christmas, along with my industrious blog posts, but I have a good excuse: Santa left me with no budget.

Picture this: a business networking event where plenty of entrepreneurs are wandering around with wine, cheese, business cards and a nametag. It’s a small city…lots of people already know each other, and lots of people wish to be known.

For those of you who’ve been following my foray into the world of bedroom organization, I thought you may appreciate this short video produced by “Lava Lamp Productions,” (a video production company consisting of my husband, a hand-held Panasonic video camera, our kids, editing software, and an amazing sense of humour).

We did it…we purged our closets. We separated clothing into a blue plastic bag–what someone might want–and a green plastic bag–what nobody would ever want. Technically, we’re performing Steps 3 and 4 simultaneously: The Sort and The Purge.

I had no idea he was doing it. After completing my kitchen chores this evening, I came upstairs to find my husband unloading the contents of his closet. “If you’re going to blog about it,” he said, “at least say I was awesome enough to start by myself.”

A few months after we were married, I threw out my husband’s blue baseball cap. He’s never quite forgiven me for that faux pas. But folks, trust me when I say it was a really ugly, dirty, floppy, smelly hat.
I stuffed it into the center of a blue garbage bag filled with items bound for [...]

I suppose the clutter wouldn’t be such a problem if I crawled out of bed in the morning and didn’t see it again until I crawled into bed the next evening, but I work in my bedroom. (No, no—don’t be silly, I’m a writer.)
I know I’ve broken the cardinal rule of organizers and Oprah’s advice-givers: [...]

I just celebrated my 18th wedding anniversary. I was 23 and my husband was 21 when we got married on a sunny day in October, 1991.A recent article in Chatelaine suggests if we were married today at that young age, our marriage would likely not last 18 years.
Author Kate Fillion reports in “The case for [...]

Last Friday I took my middle-aged van to be serviced in preparation for our family vacation…you know, change the oil, adjust the fluids, tighten up this and that. I decided to kill time at the drug store across the street and got lost in the girly skin-care and cosmetics department where I was secretly hoping [...]

Because my Maritime childhood was filled with whole summers spent at our family cottage, I have an emotional connection to coastlines and crashing waves.
Dad built our summer residence 40 years ago on the banks of the Richibucto River, in Upper Rexton, New Brunswick. The isolated beach, with its brown sand and seagulls, became a familiar [...]

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died yesterday, and I’m sitting here pondering why the media is spending as much time broadcasting news of Jackson’s demise as they did on 9/11, which in my opinion, was a much bigger story.
Poor Farrah…Jackson’s death has completely overshadowed hers, much like John F. Kennedy and my literary hero, [...]

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Grandma Louise, but she turned up at our summer cottage at the worst possible time. My best friend Gail turns seventeen this week and I’m going to miss the party because Gram brought someone “my age” to “spend time with”—aka entertain.

I recently painted a 30 by 60 inch canvas from a photograph of one of my daughters at ‘The Dunes’ in Bouctouche, New Brunswick last summer. She is standing just inside the water’s edge, looking at her feet submerged along the shoreline. What a nice August day it was, sunny but [...]

I want to tell you about my kids. Everything they do and say teaches me something. Parenting is the stage of life where there’s barely time to stand still and fart, let alone contemplate the meaning of life, but somehow I manage to glean wisdom from daily experiences, and I wanted to tell you. Maybe [...]