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April 2026 Recap
April gets a bad rap, but it’s one of the best months of the year. After spending months in the pit of despair (also known as “winter”), the crocuses and the birds team up to bring back colour and joy to the world. They’re doing a lot of heavy lifting, people.
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March 2026 Recap
I’m making good on my promise (mostly to myself) not to post my “good” photos to social media anymore. March was a really long month, full of kitchen renovations made longer by having a cold that caused me to cough so much I damaged my vocal cords temporarily. Starting last October, I made a rule that I would go for a walk for at least 20 minutes a day, no matter the weather. Even when it was -30ºC out? Yes. During a snowstorm? That’s happened a couple of times! When I was really tired and the thought of going outside was daunting? Especially on those days. No days off! This…
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The Old Ways
Are we going analog in 2026 or maybe just returning to the heyday of the Old Internet? Maybe both? Like a lot of Millennials, I was deeply invested in blogging back in the day. It was part creative expression, part ritual. I’d sit down with a story to tell, some photos to illustrate it, and I’d hit publish for all the world to see (typos included).
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Gluten-Free Lemon Sugar Cookies
You know what I love? Citrus. You know what I also love? Sugar cookies. These cookies are very much a homemade version of those Wow Baking Lemon cookies, which means they're soft, lightly coated in sugar, and full of fresh lemon flavour. Read More.
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Starting a Garden Journal
Pandemic life has me concentrating on my hobbies right now. With the businesses on hold, I have time to work on my hobbies more. It no longer feels like I have to get them done and out of the way so I can tackle the mountain of emails or the unending task list related to running events & photoshoots. It's not that I don't love those things - I definitely do! - it's just that if there had to be a positive outcome in all this, reconnecting with my hobbies is something I'm grateful for. It makes me think long and hard about work/life balance and what I want to…
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Za’atar
Like many of you, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. Pandemic life has me playing with my hobbies again and that’s not a bad thing. Hobbies are saving lives right now, which is great. My friend Stephanie suggested I start a recipe blog, but I promised that if I did it, I’d make sure my recipes weren’t prefaced with pages upon pages of nonsense before you get the instructions. So, here’s my most-requested recipe: za’atar.
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Seeing the Wolfdogs
If you are coming to Calgary and are looking for something a little different to do, consider visiting the wolfdogs at Yamnuska Wolf Dog Sanctuary. This beautiful natural space just past Cochrane, AB is a lovely spot to be quiet and observe some truly content animals. I can’t stress enough how much this place embodies the “sanctuary” portion of its name, not just for the animals who live there, but for the people who visit. The Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary houses many adorable wolf / dog mixes. These are animals who were bred as pets, but their owners quickly realized that they couldn’t handle the innate needs of their wolfdogs and…
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Visiting with Myself
There are times I come back here and re-read the various posts and things I wrote back when I was a completely different person. There are things that make me cringe, opinions I would never have now, and experiences now-me would definitely label as mistakes. But life is funny that way. It has a habit of propelling us forward, no matter what plans we may have for ourselves. There are things in my life now I never saw coming, both good and bad. But would I change it?
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Cycling Through the Fear and the Summer
Every year, I set goals for my summers. This year’s goal was to ride my bike to and from work & meetings as much as possible. Depending on who you ask, this isn’t a huge goal, but for someone who gets really anxious about certain things, this was an undertaking for me. I’m not sure when it started, but I do know my anxiety about physical things came about slowly. Second-guessing my abilities to get through unscathed happened more and more, and the more it happened, the more I hurt myself and gave myself a reason to be tentative. To me, being perched on top of a few metal tubes…
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Homemade Herbal Simple Syrups
Sometimes you just want to liven up your morning coffee with something different! In Jordan, coffee is often flavoured with cardamom pods, usually ground right along with the beans. There’s a really satisfying balance between the two flavours, with the cardamom adding just a hint of an herbal caramel flavour. Not too long ago, Starbucks offered a drink called the Vanilla Spice Latte. I tried it on a whim and there it was, that beautiful cardamom flavour. They quickly discontinued it, so I figured FINE, I’ll just make my own!
to see the world in a grain of sand.
