Archive - 2015

1
Avery’s Moment In The Spotlight
2
Protect Your Shoes And Make Them Last
3
Tears Of A Ukulele
4
The Kindest Thing A Friend Ever Said To Me
5
The Best Online Tools For The Financially Clueless

Avery’s Moment In The Spotlight

Last summer my brother and his family hosted a breast cancer fundraiser in their yard—”FraserFest” was an outdoor concert with bands and food and fun under the stars. But before the stars actually shone, there was rain—crazy heavy rain, strong winds, and even a tornado sighting. To wait out the weather, the adults huddled under the porch while the kids hung out in the basement. When I came downstairs to see what they were doing, I found my daughter encircled by a group of the kindest kids you’ve ever met. Only an hour earlier Avery had been in tears—she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t perform on the stage with the band. “Puh-lease!” she begged. “I want to sing on the stage.” Now, thanks to these big hearted kids, it was her moment and she basked in the glow of the spotlight. Thanks kids. You made this kid’s heart swell. 🙂

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Protect Your Shoes And Make Them Last

  My cat may not be excited about shoe care, but what does he know? He doesn’t wear shoes. Though, I know he’d look adorbs in a pair of kitten heels. Did you know I once brought a pair of battered boots back to life? True story. I wrote about it and in the post mentioned how I was saving up for a sweet pair of brown boots I had been coveting for years. I’m thrilled to say, I have finally been united with these booties. It’s a rather touching love story really… At an outlet mall with my mom last month, we popped into the The Bay outlet. I don’t usually find anything in there, but something drew me in. Shoe serendipity maybe? As I glanced towards the size 8 shoe rack, I spotted the logo. I froze. Could it be? Were these THE boots? And 40 percent off?? I lunged and grabbed the box from the shelf. Like a post–ball Cinderella, I slipped one on my foot and prayed it would fit. It did. With the second one on, I paraded back and forth in front of the mirror. Then I marched across the store in the boots…MY[…]

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Tears Of A Ukulele

Family is everything. I could easily end this post with that. Because when you boil it down, your family loves and supports you. And they go out of their way to make your life better. Mostly. Without my family, I honestly don’t know what I’d do. They make life easier, happier, safer, greater. I love you my family. This weekend my sister-in-law kindly lent us her family. While my handy bro renovated all three of my bathrooms (SO gorgeous… just wait until you see the after photos!) my niece and nephew hung out with us. It was a glorious cousin palooza. Avery is obsessed with her older cousins—not at all surprising considering they teach her so much and make her feel like the most important, most loved kid. When Sunday came and the big kids were packing up to leave, she just couldn’t bear it. So without a word, she slipped upstairs to the music room to express her emotions. With giant tears and her pink ukulele, she composed this song. I snuck upstairs to record her—not to mock her very real pain, but because it was so ridiculously cute, creative, and heartfelt. I simultaneously snort laughed and choked back[…]

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The Kindest Thing A Friend Ever Said To Me

  The time she baked me a cake. My best friend is a great listener. To be friends with me this past thirty-seven years, she’d have to be. I can be a bit of a windbag. I’m owning it.   Unlike me who sometimes spits out words without tasting them first, she chooses her words carefully.   She gets why I worry about my special girl. And she knows I’ve struggled to come to terms with the realities of having a child with special needs. She understands how the life I imagined for myself is both exactly and not at all what I had expected.   As we sat in her garden, sipping wine, I told her about a family I met several years ago whose daughter then, reminds me so much of my daughter now.   My Avery was just a toddler when I met this family at an activity group for kids with a variety of special needs. The girl was about nine—the age Avery is now.   She, like Avery, didn’t have any dysmorphic features. At first glance, she appeared pretty typical. It was when she spoke that the disparity between her chronological and developmental age was[…]

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The Best Online Tools For The Financially Clueless

The other night over the phone I had to answer a series of security questions related to my banking history in order to access my online banking account. I panicked when I realized I didn’t know any of the answers. I tried to silently mouth the questions to my husband so he could Cyrano de Bergerac me the answers. I know it’s cheating, but I’m clueless when it comes to our household finances. But this hasn’t always been the case. I used to be financially savvy. I got my first credit card when I was in high school and never missed a payment. I saved up the cash for my first car and paid my own way through university without the assistance of a student loan. So what happened?! Short answer: life I got married and started a family and things got complicated. One of our children has special needs which require a vast portion of my time, energy and brain power to keep on top of everything. Ask me the date of my daughter’s next physio appointment or the dosage of a certain medication or how to read a recent cardiac scan and I’m all over it. But ask[…]

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