Category: Grammar

Word Wednesday – Self Care isn’t Selfish
Word Wednesday – Self Care isn’t Selfish

I’m a worrier by nature. For as long as I can remember I’ve been anxious about things such as fire, and plane crashes (though this one has pretty much disappeared), and a million other things. Over the years I’ve developed ways to assuage my worries, and sometimes my over-prepared nature has come in handy – I’m actually really great in a crisis because I’ve already played out all the outcomes in my head so all I do in the moment is act. So while I may check a campfire a couple of extra times to make sure it’s *really* out, my worrywart nature doesn’t usually affect my daily life. However, in the last few years I have noticed that somehow I’ve become a stress sponge. Unconsciously, I absorb the worries and stresses of others and make them my own. It’s beyond being empathetic, and it’s definitely not good for my health, but I don’t seem to realize that I’m doing it until too late.

The anxiety and stress were compounded by my fear of taking “me-time” worried that it would seem selfish – so I dragged my introvert self to events even when my tank was empty, agreed to babysit even when I desperately needed a night to myself, and tried to never say no to a request for help. Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t sustainable – and I wound up depressed and on the edge of a full on burnout, and then my mother passed away, and the grief nearly consumed me.

While helping others is one of my tried and true coping skills, there are times when you just need to focus on yourself and I’ve been learning how to tell the difference over the past couple years. Music is one of my favourite ways to escape – put on some headphones and drown out the world. Reading also works, though people are much more tempted to interrupt me when I’m reading versus when I’ve got headphones one. Going for walks (with or without the dog) is a great stress reliever. Bike rides – especially now that I have a gel comfort seat – are another great way to de-stress. Of course, board games are always a great way to chill with friends – but they’re also a social situation so that can be tricky as social situations often make me more stressed out.

This past fall, I had the opportunity to go to Blue Mountain Resort for the Blissdom Canada Social Media Conference. I hadn’t been to Blue Mountain in at least 20 years – and the facility was amazing and gorgeous. I don’t downhill ski, though I have plans to learn at some point – now that I’ve been assured there won’t be a repeat of the whole “skied right into the snow fence because I totally hadn’t learned how to stop yet” incident of 1990. The hotels on site are all gorgeous, the conference facilities were amazing, and the outdoor activities were top notch. I had great plans on the Sunday after the conference to do the Ridge Runner Mountain Coaster – but Mother Nature had other plans in mind. (I’m still so appreciative of the wonderful desk staff at the Blue Mountain Inn who lent me a snow brush so I could brush off my car to get home.)

Yeah that’s Snow in Mid-October.

A few days earlier in the conference we had spent an afternoon bonding with some of our fellow attendees at one of the many excursions both on and off site. I was extremely fortunate to get to experience Scandinave Spa at Blue Mountain. I have friends who go annually and who had raved about it but I didn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about. Having been, I now totally get it. Now I’m that person who won’t shut up about what an amazing experience Scandinavian Baths are. I only got a picture of the entrance because the baths themselves are a no photo zone (also a no talking zone – which was hard but worth it) but they were nice enough to give me a little USB card with amazing photos.

The top left is the only one I can take credit for – all the rest are from Scandinave Blue Mountain.

You start in the Finnish Sauna, Eucalyptus Steam Bath (room), or one of the 3 hot baths(I couldn’t do the hottest of the 3 but the other two were wonderful). The heat opens up your pores, heats up the body, and lets you sweat out impurities. After 10 or so minutes in the heat, you do a cold plunge (you probably cold stay longer but I didn’t) to close your pores in one of the cold pools, stand under the Nordic waterfall (brr), or take a cold shower. In the winter you can even roll in the snow (I’m not sure I’d want to try that). You follow the cold plunge up with relaxation – there are Muskoka chairs, fire pits, hammocks, and a gorgeous solarium – where you chill out for 10-15 minutes before doing the cycle again. I did the cycle 4 times during my visit and fell more in love with each rotation. The cold does take a bit of courage but knowing there’s a warm robe waiting for you is a huge help (either bring your own or rent one of their awesome fluffy robes). You’re also given 2 towels to dry off. It was drizzling the day I went but the towel / robe racks are covered so they stayed dry. I didn’t have time for a massage but I have it on good authority they’re amazing. It’s on the list for my next visit for sure.

I left Scandinave completely relaxed – and considering I was presenting the following day at the conference, that’s saying something! I also swear it helped me kick the last vestiges of a cold to the curb. I loved every minute of my experience at the spa and am planning to go again next month near my birthday for the summer experience. Relaxation is a funny thing – you don’t realize just how tense you are until you relax a little. The word is Middle English via (surprise!) Latin in its origin: re (expressing intensive force) combined with laxus ‘lax, loose.’. So to relax is really to loosen up – literally. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours at my computer in the last few months and a day of rest and relaxation up at the spa seems like the perfect antidote.

Relax (re·lax) Verb
1. To become or to cause (something) to become less tense, tight, or stiff.
2. To stop feeling nervous, anxious, or worried.
3. To spend time resting or doing something enjoyable especially after you have been doing work
On that note, I’ve been working hard on this post and it’s time to relax!

~~~~Note: this post was not sponsored by Scandinave in any way – I really do love it there! ~~~~
June 15, 2016
Word Wednesday – Rocks and Hard Places

Word Wednesday – Rocks and Hard Places

Most of you already know that I have a ~~slight~~ healthy obsession with board games. I love to play them with friends and I use them to teach social skills such as patience and turn taking when I work with kids and teens on the Autism spectrum. I remember spending a lot of rainy afternoons at the cottage as a kid playing games like the Hardy Boys Treasure Game, Scrabble, Don’t Lose Your Head, and even Sorry! (which caused far more tears than smiles). I’ve since graduated to more strategic games that don’t rely purely on luck to win. I was taught to play chess when I was in grade three – mostly because I couldn’t keep my hands off the gorgeous chess set my parents had bought on vacation, and dad figured it was a good way to teach me to think a few steps ahead.

Some of my favourite childhood games

I was by no means the next Bobby Fischer, but I got pretty good at the game throughout my childhood and teen years. Sure I had games where I got too cocky and underestimated my opponent and promptly had my rear end handed to me on a platter, but overall I was always learning and getting better. My grade six teacher introduced my class to the strategy game of Go – and for a few years I abandoned chess and played Go every chance I could, but by high school I was back to chess.

There was a brief period of time where I didn’t play board games in early university – though my best friend is one heck of a cribbage player and we did play a lot of online cribbage. The crowd I hung out with didn’t really play board games and I was busy with school, football, and the newly discovered world of online gaming. Then I found friends who loved board games as much as I did, or even more and they introduced me to games I’d never heard of and some I’d heard of and never played. Sometimes there was a good reason for having not played them as I discovered when I lost an entire weekend to a mega game of Risk and another weekend to Axis and Allies. Those games take an amount of patience I just don’t possess most of the time.

So I was launched into the world of strategy board games with offerings like Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Thurn and Taxis, and Ticket to Ride. My friends would often host board game afternoons or evenings and we’d start with a warm up game and move to the more pure strategy games afterwards. Every so often Jenga would come up and I’d be reminded of a word I first learned in the context of playing chess, but that is applicable to a lot of other games when you have to make a move even if it’s not in your best interest to do so: Zugzwang.

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The term zugzwang was first used in chess literature in Germany in the 1850s and was used in English referring to chess by the turn of the century. The concept, however, is far older than that having appeared in chess literature in the early 1600s. Zugzwang is a compound word, comprised of zug – meaning “move” and zwang – meaning “compulsion”. Zugzwang, then, is the compulsion to make a move even if it is to your detriment. Often the condition of zugzwang is such that the player will lose by making any of the possible moves. The word has escaped the chess world though, and can also be applied to those rock and a hard place scenarios where you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

What got me thinking of zugzwang this week wasn’t board gaming, but the situation at the Cincinnati Zoo where the Gorilla was killed by zookeepers after a young child got into the enclosure and the 400 lb gorilla was standing over him. The zookeepers were very much in a condition of zugzwang – no matter what they did they would have been wrong in the eyes of the public. Had the gorilla killed the boy, while zookeepers were waiting for tranquilizers to take effect they would have been criticized for taking too long. Had they attempted to rescue the boy and something gone wrong, they’d be criticized. If you’ve seen any of the coverage, you will know they are being criticized for shooting to kill. Total zugzwang.

Zugzwang (zug·zwang) noun

A situation in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.

June 1, 2016
Word Wednesday – Courage – My Word
Word Wednesday – Courage – My Word

This isn’t the post I intended to write this week, or the post I imagined I would write on this word. Things change, however, and though I may be completely freaked out by change, it still happens. So I adapted, and am writing a slightly different Word Wednesday post.

This week, one of the bands I have grown up with announced that their lead singer, Gord Downie, has terminal brain cancer and that the studio album and supporting tour will be their last. Judging by my Facebook feed, I am not the only one saddened by the news. Part of the nostalgia is due to the fact that I literally grew up with The Hip on the radio. Their first big album, Up to Here, came out in 1987 – I was an impressionable grade-schooler at the time and anything that got airtime on stations my parents listened to had a big impact on my musical preferences. There’s a reason that a lot of the music I love was made before I was born – I blame dad and his affinity towards classic rock for my love of The Beatles, Jethro Tull, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Guess Who, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Band. My adoration of The Monkees is entirely the fault of Much Music for re-running their television show in the after school slot when I was a kid and Davey Jones’ adorable grin capturing my young heart. I was also in love with New Kids on the Block around the same time so take from that what you will. As I’ve grown older, my musical tastes have turned towards the East and West Coasts – with Great Big Sea and Spirit of the West respectively taking a place in my heart. I also love Blue Rodeo, Rush, The Tea Party, Barenaked Ladies, and The Trews – proving that the Canadian Content rules for radio play have definitely worked on me – it’s hard to become a fan of bands you don’t hear on the radio, or at least it is for someone my age who grew up before streaming content was a thing. (I’m sure I’ve missed some bands here but you get the idea.)

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The Tragically Hip became the soundtrack to my formative years – songs like New Orleans is Sinking, 38 years old, Fifty Mission Cap, Wheat Kings, Ahead by a Century, and Bobcaygeon were played at parties, at the cottage, and just hanging out with my friends. I learned to drive listening to these songs on the radio, I got into a huge argument with my first boyfriend over the significance of Bill Barilko, and I’ve been known to time trips to Bobcaygeon so that I leave at 9:15. I’ve seen The Tragically Hip live a few times (nowhere near as many as Great Big Sea but it’s widely acknowledged that I *may* have a slight obsession with them) and they have never disappointed me. I’m going to be trying for tickets for this last tour because I want the chance to say goodbye, to thank them for all the memories, and because I think that music as a shared experience is one of the most primal ways we can connect with others. I deliberately left out one of my favourite songs by the Tragically Hip when I listed them at the beginning of the paragraph – the one that has been quoted a lot since the news of Downie’s cancer became public – Courage (For Hugh Maclennan). Indeed, I think it does take courage to announce a goodbye tour that is actually a goodbye tour and not just because the band is going their separate ways.

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The word courage is one I’ve been planning to feature for a while and though I hadn’t planned on using the song as part the explanation, it works well. I’ve long been fascinated by the root of the word courage and the connection to the French word for heart – coeur. Etymologically speaking, this is because it was believed that the heart was the centre of all emotions and thus courage came from the heart. Indeed, there is a longstanding belief that music and the heart are interconnected – Beethoven believed that music should “strike fire in the heart”. The word courage comes to us from Middle English (denoting the heart as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ’heart’.

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Courage ( cour·age) noun
1. The ability to do something that frightens one.
2. Strength in the face of pain or grief.
Today, it is the second definition that strikes me – to be strong in the face of pain or grief. Yes, music fans are losing an icon, but the members of the Tragically Hip have been together for over 30 years and are losing their front man, their friend, and their most recognizable member. To be facing this loss and still announcing a cross-Canada tour takes courage indeed.

Update: Last night – October 17th, 2017, we lost Gord Downie. I say we because over the course of the day it became apparent that this was a national loss. The flag on the Peace Tower in Ottawa is at half mast until the funeral or memorial service, RIP Gord was trending on Twitter all day, and I spent most of the day listening to the Hip on repeat. I did get tickets to that final tour, and on August 10th 2016, I headed down to the Air Canada Centre with my friend Crys. We had dinner and whisky at the Irish Embassy, toasted Gord, and enjoyed a night full of glorious music. Memories were made and more than a few tears were shed. One of the coolest moments was the on the ball spotlight work during Fifty Mission Cap – when the lines “They didn’t win another until 1962 / The year he was discovered” came up, the banner for the 1962 Stanley Cup win was illuminated. It was a little thing but as a Leafs fan, it was pretty cool. The whole night was magical, and I will forever have it in my head. CBC aired the final concert of the tour live on August 20th, Dad’s birthday. We took the big tv up to the cottage, and hosted a group of friends for a viewing party on the lake- another uniquely Canadian moment courtesy of the Hip. So although I mourn Gord’s passing, my sadness is mixed with gratitude for everything he gave Canadian music fans. He who walks with the stars is now forever a part of the constellations that reveal themselves one star at a time.
May 25, 2016
Word Wednesday – Fire
Word Wednesday – Fire

I have a love – hate relationship with fire. On one hand, I’m a Girl Guide, so I love nothing more than to sit around a campfire telling stories, singing songs, and roasting marshmallows, spider dogs, and the occasional sour key (don’t ask – it was a dare). On the other hand, fire terrifies me. Like wake up at night sweating with my heart racing terrified. It’s always been like that. There is no specific event that triggered it, but I’ve always been very aware that while we like to think fire is an element that can be controlled, it can’t be – not all the time. As a result, I’m meticulous about fire safety and making sure a campfire or a cooking fire is well and truly out before I go on and do anything else. Even then I’ve been known to sneak out of my tent to double and triple check that it’s out and nothing is smoldering. My family teases me all the time about this habit, but it’s either that or not sleep all night because I’m obsessing over whether or not the fire is out. I take solace in the fact that almost all of my family is terrified of heights (both parents included) but I’m fine – the only thing I don’t like is someone else rocking the gondola or the suspension bridge but being up there? No issues other than the occasional bit of ear pain caused by the wonky tubes and not liking pressure changes. I also have a fear of dock spiders but that comes from a specific incident and I’ve become much better over the years with that fear.

Fire is a force of nature that is just so unpredictable. Water is too when you think about it but I took years and years of swimming lessons, wear a life jacket, and control my exposure to it when it’s very cold to limit my risk. There are some ways to mitigate the risk of fire – like having working smoke detectors (yes, lots), a fire extinguisher in the kitchen (yep), and a fire escape plan (always), but when it comes down to it, fire feels less controlled than water. It could also be an exposure thing – I grew up around water – we had a backyard, fenced in pool in the house I grew up in and we’ve had a family cottage on a lake – so learning water safety and how to swim was a non negotiable in the house. I’m happiest in or on the water and always have been. As a kid my parents joked that I was part fish because they would have to drag me out of the water for meals or bedtime. Fire was present, and I was taught fire safety in Girl Guides from a young age but it never felt like a safe thing. This is all despite my godfather being a firefighter and teaching me lots of cool things about fire. Hence the love-hate relationship – I’m fascinated by it, am great at building them, and enjoy small campfires, while at the same time worrying that it will become out of control and burn down all that I hold dear.

So when I heard from a friend who lives in Fort McMurray about the wildfires burning near there on the weekend I was worried. I told her to be safe and to keep an eye on it since wildfires are by their very nature, unpredictable. A sudden shift in the wind (especially in northern Alberta where the landscape is flatter and winds can appear out of nowhere) and things could go from “I’ve got this” to “UH-OH” in a hurry. Which is exactly what happened on Tuesday. A shift and increase in wind activity drove the fire from the outskirts of town into town and threatened all of the homes, businesses, and people in the city. Fort McMurray is an oil-town – most of the people there work in the oil industry directly or indirectly. The town has grown a lot in the past 20 years since I first visited, and now it seems destined to shrink due to the fire. When I heard that the whole town had been evacuated, I started creeping the social media feeds of my friends who are in the area, making sure they were safe. They all left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, whatever they could grab in 2 minutes, and each other. All of the people I know managed to get their pets out, but not everyone did – and that breaks my heart. I have learned that the SPCA has set up a way for pet owners forced to leave their furry friends behind to let them know and that they’d do whatever possible to keep the animals safe, which makes me feel a bit better. I have worried about this kind of scenario so many times that I have a bag packed under my bed of stuff to grab if this sort of thing happened. I have been debating taking it apart but I think I’ll keep it awhile longer. The evacuees drove or sat in gridlock for hours upon hours last night before reaching either an Oil Sands employee camp to the north or the city of Edmonton to the south. The hospital had been evacuated earlier in the day and the patients moved to other facilities within the province. As of right now, the people are safe even if their homes aren’t. As I’ve heard over and over today, houses can be rebuilt, people can’t. 1600 structures have been affected at last count and since the fire has resisted all efforts at control, that number will grow.

It’s a horrible situation and I feel so helpless sitting here in Ontario watching from afar. So I did what I could – I donated to the Red Cross Alberta Fires Appeal – it’s super easy, you get a tax receipt for a charitable donation, and works well on mobile too. You can also donated $5 by texting the word REDCROSS to 30333 (Canada only I think) and following the prompts. In a situation like this, money is the best option because nobody knows what is going to be needed and the logistics of shipping donations can take a lot of time and effort which would be better served helping people directly. If you are in a financial position to donate any amount, please do.

Image: Red Cross Fire Appeal

Word Wednesday word – Fire. I’ve been thinking of using this word for a while because it is an interesting word from an etymology standpoint, and if I’m already going to have nightmares about fires because of the news, looking up information about the word isn’t going to do any more harm. Fire comes from the Old English word fȳr – which is the noun form of fȳrian meaning to supply with material for a fire. Fyrian is related to the Dutch word vuur, the Norse word fūrr, and the German word Feuer all of which have been around since before 900AD which is as far back as most etymologists trace modern languages. Indeed the world fire is one of the oldest in the English language.

As I write this, the fire is still burning, nobody knows when or how it will be put out. All we can do is hope, pray, and trust that the Fire fighters from across Alberta, Canada, and from other countries are doing everything they can to save as much of the town as possible. Then the long, slow process of healing and rebuilding can begin.

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Fire (fī(-ə)r) Noun
1. A state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame.
2. A burning mass of material, as on a hearth or in a furnace.
3. The destructive burning of a building, town, forest, etc.; conflagration.
4. Heat used for cooking, especially the lighted burner of a stove.
5. Flashing light; luminous appearance.
6. Brilliance, as of a gem.
May 4, 2016
Word Wednesday – A Royal Occasion
Word Wednesday – A Royal Occasion

Birthdays are always special, and milestone birthdays even more so. I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to work with a lot of senior citizens and I’ve found that contrary to popular belief, they almost unilaterally want to celebrate their birthdays. One would think that at 75, 80, or even 90, that birthdays would be just another day but some of the biggest birthday parties I’ve been to have been for those who have celebrated the most birthdays. On April 21, Queen Elizabeth II turns 90 years old and the celebrations are already underway. Being the reigning British Monarch, the Queen gets a second birthday every year and this year it’s a three day event on June 10th through 12th where pubs will be open 2 hours later than usual Friday and Saturday evenings and culminating in a big street party hosted by the Queen on the 12th.

Why do Kings and Queens of England get two birthdays you ask? (Go on, ask…I’ll wait) It’s exactly why you might expect – because someone wanted to and they make the rules. The someone in this case was King George II, and the year was 1748. King George II was born in November and while November in England isn’t quite as snowy as here in Canada, it’s still damp and chilly and the King didn’t want his subjects (or himself) to catch a cold while celebrating him so he combined his birthday with his annual spring military review and voila, a tradition was born. In 1901, King Edward VII standardized the Trooping of the Colour as a June event when the weather was the most likely to be cooperative and ever since the “Official” birthday of the reigning Monarch (if the actual birthday was in a colder month) has been celebrated in June. According to historian Carolyn Harris, Trooping the Colour (where all the regiments gathered and displayed their flags to aid the soldiers in recognizing their colours in battle) dates back to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

Technically the Queen has more than just the two birthdays – and for that you can thank (or blame) Canada. In 1845, the (relatively) new province of Canada declared Queen Victoria’s birthday a public holiday. May 24 became a statuatory holiday when Canada became a sovereign nation in 1867, and stayed as a holiday as long as Queen Victoria reigned. When she died at the age of 81 in 1901, Canada decided to honour the role Queen Victoria had played in confederation by making the Monday before May 24 (or May 24th when it is a Monday) “Victoria Day” – a holiday that Canadians look forward to as the unofficial start of summer. When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1952, Canada declared that Victoria Day would be used to celebrate the reigning monarch’s official birthday in Canada. So this year, the Queen has a birthday in April, May, and June.

Postage Stamps released by the Royal Mail in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th Birthday.

All of this talk about birthdays and royalty got me wondering about the word royal. I know that Regina and Rex are Latin words for King and Queen respectively, but I wasn’t sure about the etymology of royal. It turns out, that royal has the same latin stem. Royal comes to us from late Middle English, which was derived from Old French roial, coming from Latin regalis ‘regal.’ Regalis came from the stem reg- the same as Rex (king) – from the Latin word regere which means to rule. So the royal family is definitely meant to rule, symply by their name. Wishing Her Majesty a very happy 90th birthday and many more to come. She has served 12 prime ministers and counting and is the longest reigning monarch in British History.

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Royal ( roy·al )

Adjective
Of or relating to a king, queen, or other sovereign: royal power; a royal palace.
2. Descended from or related to a king or line of kings: a royal prince.

3. Noting or having the rank of a king or queen.

4. Established or chartered by or existing under the patronage of a sovereign: a royal society.

5.(initial capital letter) serving or subject to a king, queen, or other sovereign.

6. Proceeding from or performed by a sovereign: a royal warrant.

7. Appropriate to or befitting a sovereign; magnificent; stately: royal splendor.

Noun

1. Nautical. A sail set on a royal mast

2. Informal. A royal person; member of the royalty of any country.

3. Usually, Royals. Chiefly British. a member of England’s royal family.

4. A size of printing paper, 20 × 25 inches (51 × 64 cm).

5. A size of writing paper, 19 × 24 inches (48 × 61 cm).

6. Numismatics. Any of various former coins, as the real or ryal.
April 20, 2016
Word Wednesday – Not Just Anything

Word Wednesday – Not “Just” Anything

This isn’t my usual etymological Word Wednesday post, but is a post about a word and it is Wednesday, and I created Word Wednesday and am free to switch it up as I choose. 🙂 I am an introvert, though I can play the part of an extrovert when needed. At my core, I am happiest when alone. I tend to think up witty retorts far better on paper (or on screen) than in conversation. Which is really why I’m writing this post. Last week, I had a conversation with an acquaintance who asked what I did for a living. I told her I worked with kids who have autism but that my primary source of income is my writing and editing business. “Oh, you’re just a writer” she replied “that’s the usual fallback for people who don’t know what they’re good at right? Because everybody can write”. I smiled politely, because by the time I’d processed the fact that she’d just completely dismissed my craft, she was already prattling on about some other subject. Having had a few days to stew on the matter, here’s my response.

I’m not “just” anything. The word just when used as a modifier is awful. It diminishes and belittles the subject. Nobody is only one thing, nor can anyone be defined by one attribute. It seems that the word seems to be applied to those of us in the creative class more than those who have chosen more traditional or prestigious careers. I have heard friends referred to as “just graphic designers” as if being a graphic designer required no talent – a fact which I know not to be true. I’ve never heard a surgeon referred to as “just a surgeon” so why is it okay to call someone “just a housewife” or “just a writer”? It’s not. Yes, I realize surgeons do intensive years of schooling and work experience but that doesn’t necessarily equate to their job being better or more valuable to society. Without writers, who would have written the textbooks that the surgeon studied from? That’s not to say that writing is more important than any other career; in my mind, whatever job a person does, is important. What I don’t like is when people diminish themselves or others by saying another person’s work is “just x” or that they are “just a y”. We are all more than we appear, and we are all valuable.

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Which brings me to the part of the statement from my acquaintance that really gets my proverbial goat. “Because everybody can write”. My years of being a graduate teaching assistant tells me that no, not everyone can write. Despite the literacy test implemented for grade 10 students over fifteen years ago, many people cannot craft a strong sentence or write a post that is coherent and clear. Which is where my talents come in to play. Whether it is writing things from scratch or making someone else’s words shine, I have a way with words and the knowledge of how they work best together. I am a lot of things but “just” anything isn’t one of them.

So, the next time you are tempted to use the word “just” to describe someone else’s career / life choices / belief system stop, and choose a word that affirms their choice, not one that makes them feel inferior. It’s not up to you to put a value on their career choice, and this may come as a shock to you but the other person most likely doesn’t really care what you think anyway. I know I don’t.

April 5, 2016
Word Wednesday: Nothing if Not Persistent

Word Wednesday: Nothing if Not Persistent

For those who know me off-line, it comes as no surprise that I characterize myself as persistent and mildly stubborn. It’s not that I don’t like change, it’s that I need time to get used to the idea and adequately prepare myself. I will never be the type of person who heads off on a vacation with nothing more than an airline ticket and a dream. There are times when I really want to be that kind of person, but even the idea of doing that stresses me out to no end. My best friend is moving soon, and will be without a place to call home for two weeks. She has 2 kids, works for herself, and has a husband who commutes and can work long hours. The idea of not having a firm place to call home for just me fills me with anxiety, yet she is unflappable. I know this wasn’t the plan, but it’s just how things worked out with the closing date on their house and the one they’re moving into. She took it all in stride – I envy that quality – I’d be freaking out. I wish I could be so trusting that everything will work out but I’m an obsessive planner.

Which means when things I’ve been planning and counting on fall through, I can be a bit of a mess. This week has been bad for that. I’ve had plans cancelled at the last minute, I’ve had a big freelance job put on hold indefinitely because of circumstances beyond my control, and I’ve had a few things pop up that need to be dealt with “right away”, which forces me to alter other plans to get things done. Yet, as stress filled as I am right now, I persevere. I do it mostly out of stubbornness and because I don’t know what else to do. I continue to work freelance because it gives me a quality of life I enjoy and because I really like having the ability to work from home or the cottage or wherever I have an internet connection. Sometimes it means working until midnight and on weekends to get stuff done, but it means I can do things like spend a couple of days with my best friend’s kids over March Break, so it’s a fair trade in my opinion. This month marks the end of my first official year of doing freelance work, and I’ve had a lot of success but also my share of failures.

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I was talking with friends over the weekend about perseverance, and how both perseverance and resilience are skills that need to be taught at a young age in order for kids to internalize them. Kids need to know that it’s okay to fail, it’s okay to not be good at everything, and that sometimes if you really want something you have to work hard for it and try different approaches along the way. I think that we need to force kids out of their comfort zone and teach them that failure IS an option. It WILL happen to everyone at some point in life, and it’s how we act in the moments following failure that shows our true character. I’m not saying that I’m comfortable with failing, in fact I hate it when I fail at something, but I don’t let the failures stop me. I keep going. I persevere. I use the failure as motivation to do better next time. So today’s Word Wednesday word is persevere.

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The origins of persevere are late Middle English: from Old French perseverer, from Latin perseverare ‘abide by strictly,’ from perseverus ‘very strict,’ from per- ‘thoroughly’ + severus ‘severe.’

Persevere – per·se·vere verb

1. To persist in anything undertaken; maintain a purpose in spite ofdifficulty, obstacles, or discouragement; continue steadfastly.

2. To persist in speech, interrogation, argument, etc.; insist.

March 30, 2016
Word Wednesday: It’s Fashionable!
Word Wednesday: It’s Fashionable!

I’m not the kind of girl who can spend a whole day at the mall. I don’t mind window shopping with a friend, but it’s not a solo activity I actively pursue (unless it’s at a board game store – then kiss the afternoon goodbye). While 95% of the time I’m a jeans and a faded concert t-shirt kind of girl, I do clean up nicely and like to get dressed up for an event. So when an invitation came through my inbox to attend the VIP preview night at Saks Off Fifth in Vaughan, I was all in. The invite promised refreshments and a one night only discount and I knew some of my other blogging friends were going so if nothing else, it would be a nice night out. I’ve never been overly concerned with being fashionable – I don’t need a new wardrobe every season, and I don’t have a closet full of shoes, though I appreciate a well-made pair of shoes as much as the next woman.

They had an actual red carpet!

So I made the trek out to Vaughan Mills in some seriously weird weather conditions – in the span of the 35 or so kilometers from my house to the mall, I encountered rain, hail, sleet, high winds, and blazing sunshine. I was really thankful I hadn’t been lulled into a false sense of security and switched out my snow tires – I needed all the help I could get! I got there a bit early and hit some of my favourite stores at Vaughan Mills (and said hi to the fish in the big tank at Bass Pro). I went to Saks and saw a red carpet and a line, so like any good Canadian, I got in line and made small talk with the people around me (mostly about the weather). I gave my name to the nice lady with the clipboard, said my plus one was delayed, and went on in. I quickly found the coat check (since it had been so miserable out, I’d worn a full length, lined trench coat) and set off to explore. I got the lay of the land and met up with my friends and we had a blast looking at all of the clothes, shoes, purses, and jewelry. We all tried on hats and took the obligatory group selfie (or groupie – I’ve been researching and it’s not a selfie if there are multiple people in it, and the term ‘usie’ which I’m not a fan of anyway, is predominantly used for couples pics).

Photo courtesy of Jenn Powell

After the hat picture, we went to the shoe section. As I said earlier, I’m not the type to collect shoes, but the selection at Saks was fabulous. There were so many! It’s not like they were all the same either – there weren’t more than a couple of pairs of any shoe in a given style and size so there were literally dozens of shoes to try on. I fell in love with a pair of Frye Boots, but one of my partners in crime had fallen in love with the same pair and was the same size as me and the rational part of my brain said “you don’t need these boots, even if they are fabulous and fit perfectly” so I gave them to my friend and apart from some pangs of non-buyer’s remorse as I scope out the boots that were not to be on the Frye site, I don’t regret it. I will own a pair of Frye boots one day (Looking at the website, there are at least 4 more pairs that I’m currently coveting). Besides they looked better on my friend with the rockin’ new jeans she got.

Shoes, as far as the eye could see.

Most of the clothes were reasonably priced, but there was the couture section – runway and off runway designs with the corresponding price tag. I’d love to be in a place where I wouldn’t bat an eye at a $2,000 dress but that’s not in the near future for me. All of this got me thinking about couture and what, exactly, the word means. I knew it had something to do with fashion but wasn’t sure exactly what it meant so I decided to look it up. I was surprised to learn that the word is just over 100 years old – the first recorded use being in 1908. Unsurprisingly, it has its origins in Latin via French. The Old French word cousture came from the past participle of the Latin word consuere – meaning to sew together. Which fits right in with couture having to do with runway fashion. While I may not be ready to spend the kind of money needed to own couture pieces myself, it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a fun night out looking at them with a great group of women. I can’t wait to go back and explore more and possibly get a pair of gorgeous boots for myself.

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Couture cou·ture noun
1. The business of designing, making, and selling fashionable custom-made women’s clothing
2. The designers and establishments engaged in couture
3. The clothes and related articles designed by such designers.
March 23, 2016
Word Wednesday: Circular Logic

Word Wednesday: Circular Logic

It should come as no surprise that I subscribe to two different “word of the day” emails – I love language and jump at any chance I get to expand my vocabulary. Sometimes I already know the “word of the day”, and other times they’re so obscure I can’t find a use for it in my everyday life, but file it away in my brain for later use. Once in awhile a word comes into my inbox that is new to me and fits perfectly into my life – and today’s word is one of those.

Being a word nerd from a very young age (I was reading chapter books in kindergarten and read the Hobbit for a grade 2 book report when the rest of my class chose Clifford or Franklin books) means that I have a pretty decent vocabulary, and the fact that I took Latin and French in high school helps me figure out words I haven’t come across before. I have a predilection for words that roll off the tongue nicely. Some words just feel right as you say them, and others just always feel awkward and no matter how much you try to make yourself like them, you find yourself using them less and less. I have tons of words that fall into this category – I still try to use them but they never feel right.

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Words have a tendency of being tied up in their grammatical rules and losing favour because of that. I’ve often wished there was a way to look at words on their own, separated from all the grammatical constraints that can render them useless. It turns out there is a word for that. The fact that there’s a word specifically for the study of words and vocabulary of a language separate from grammatical aspects, means that I’m not the only one who wants this kind of information. We should start a club or something. There would have to be a ban on word games though, us word nerds can get super serious and uber competitive about Scrabble, Bananagrams, or Upwords, and that wouldn’t be much fun. Hrm. A word nerd club. I’m going to put that on my “great ideas” list that I never seem to manage to get to. How does one start a club anyway? Can anyone start a club? Related idea: a club for people who like to go off on tangents… or have ADHD… or both. I could totally be president of that club.

Squirrel! Wait… what was I saying?

Back to my word though. It’s a fairly recent word. though significantly older than grok was when I talked about it last month. Lexical dates from the mid 19th century, when I suppose people had time and the literacy skills to start thinking about words more. It comes from the Greek root lexikos which means “of or relating to words”. Not to be confused with the Latin root word Lex which relates to laws or ruling.

Lexical (lex·i·cal) adjective

Of or relating to the words or vocabulary of a language

March 17, 2016
Word Wednesday – I detest that!
Word Wednesday – I detest that!

Last year, I wrote about the Canadian General Election and how it seemed to go on forever. What I didn’t mention at the time is that our elections seem to go by in the blink of an eye when compared with our neighbours to the south. 12 weeks of election run up isn’t even close to the 60 or so weeks that the U.S. Presidential Election seems to last. I know it’s not the actual election until November, but the Primaries and all of the other things that go along with a Presidential election just never end. Even a dedicated political junkie like me is getting election fatigue.

It’s not just the fact that the election seems to be never ending and the jokes on late night television started sounding the same about two months ago, it’s that I cannot stand one of the candidates. Naturally it’s the one who gets the lion’s share of the media coverage because the world is a cruel place sometimes. At first, sitting here in Canada, I thought that Donald Trump running for the Republican nomination was funny, a lark if you will. Now, it’s March and it’s not funny anymore. Not even close. To hear the hatred spewing forth from both the man and his supporters makes me queasy. When he was just a blowhard with a lame reality show (The Apprentice), I could (and did) choose not to watch. Now that he is running for the highest office in the United States, I can’t turn it off.

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To those who say “You’re Canadian, the Presidential election doesn’t affect you” (though most of them say it far less eloquently than that), I reply that as our largest trading partner, the political state in the U.S. does affect us. In that vein, I’d like to offer the words of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – when speaking to the Press Club in Washington DC in 1969. “Living next to you [America] is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Our media is heavily influence by the United States, our economy is intertwined, and our position relative to them is unchangeable. We cannot move further away, and Trump is not a friendly or even-tempered elephant.

It’s not just that he’s a racist and has refused to distance himself or decline the endorsement he received from a former Grand Wizard in the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) (and by the way, thanks KKK for making the word wizard a bad thing by using it in your hate-filled organization), but that’s definitely part of it. It’s not just that he is a misogynist and that I disagree completely with his views on women. It’s not even that he regularly makes up ‘facts’ and that his supporters blindly believe him until somebody dares to question him and he claims that he was “misheard” or “misquoted” or “taken out of context”. It’s that he’s a bully and I absolutely abhor bullies.

I was going to use abhor as my word for today but it’s a little too popular for my liking. Then I went to detest, but it didn’t feel strong enough to express how much I loathe Trump and what he stands for. So I racked my brain and came up with Execrate – it’s a synonym of abhor, loathe, and detest but it’s a little less common and a little more fun to say. Plus execrate has a fun etymology – it comes from Latin (of course) exsecrat, which means cursed. Ex is a Latin prefix meaning not and the Latin word sacer unsurprisingly translates to sacred – so the literal translation of execrate was “to put someone under a curse” – which I find very soothing in relation to Mr. Trump (I really like the idea of putting him under a curse – maybe the Imperius curse.. hrm this has possibilities). Nowadays, execrate simply means “to utterly detest” which fits well with my feelings on the subject.

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Execrate ( ex·e·crate ) Transitive Verb
1. To declare to be evil or detestable : denounce
2. To detest utterly
March 2, 2016