I’ve spent the last 3 months going through a process of grieving and then adjusting to being a 1-dog household. I was pretty sure I wanted to keep it that way. So much quieter! So much easier!

But, the conviction faded as my heart healed more and more. Then I began to feel maybe I was being selfish to keep the possibility of a new companion away from Jack. Or as I began to say: I’m pretty sure Jack was using his super powerful brain waves to tell me it’s time for a puppy.

So I opened my heart more and more to the possibility, and then I began surfing the listings at the SPCA. That’s how you know you’re done-for.

My two desires were: not another shepherd cross, and not too big. Those were nice ideals while they lasted.

We met Lucy when she’d only been at the shelter 2 days. She was being held until she could be spayed so we had a few days to visit and think about it. But really, we were sold from the first belly rub. She is a very warm, eager, and bright puppy.

This is how I pictured today: We’d pick up a dopey, convalescing pup from the clinic. Bring her home, and she’d sniff around some, and curl up to sleep. I would get to work for the afternoon and be brilliantly productive. Bwahaha!

How it actually played out: Rambunctious puppy bounded around the clinic waiting room, bulldozing everything in site with her cone of shame. We drove home with her half on my lap, marveling at how FREAKING HUGE she is already. We took the cone off before she even got into the house so she and Jack could socialize better.

The next several hours were spent telling her “No” and giving her alternatives as she tried to chew, tug, jump up on just about everything in sight.

It’s been so long, we totally forgot about the need to puppy-proof the house.

So much for my brilliantly productive afternoon.

The 2010 Fresh Water Summit resulted in a petition proposing a Canadian Charter of Water Rights and Responsibilities. From the opening letter:

“We the undersigned recognize that water is fundamental to life. Without it all living things perish, some within a few minutes, most within a few days. We understand the essential role of water to life, to the ecosystem around us, and ultimately to our own well-being. We have a reverence for life, and a reverence for water.”

View/sign the Petition

I understood from the program that the communique from the summit is being delivered to leaders at the G20 but I couldn’t find any info online about that.

Little bits from the panel are swimming around in my brain right now. Things like:

• Pollution and other issues with bottled water. Barlow said something like if you take all the small bottles from water we drink, globally, annually, and lined them up, they would go to the moon and back 65 times. The vast majority are not recycled.
• The environment cannot be separated from health. When a child has to go to emergency with asthma, or people need treatment for cancers that can be caused by pollutants, people will talk about health care being a priority for them because that’s the urgent need at that time for that person. But at the root of it is an unhealthy ecosystem causing such health concerns.
• Incredibly wise words from so many of the speakers there. Henry Lickers in particular said some things that really resonated for me. And of course Maude Barlow was brilliant and inspiring as usual.

It doesn’t seem like the CBC makes this program very accessible online (from what I could find anyway) but if you do find it it’s well worth a listen.

It’s been a month since you died. I haven’t written until now because losing you has been such a powerful and profound experience for me. Maybe people who haven’t been as lucky as I have, who’ve experienced more losses in their lives, maybe they would be better at this than I am. Maybe they could write this without the tears. And yet, even though I feel like I’ve done a tremendous amount of healing in this month of mourning, I have been also feeling like there’s more stuck inside me that I need to get out. So I don’t know if I’ll even publish this or if anyone will care enough to read it, but I gotta do it. So I write and I cry.

At first it was the shock. How could our strong, beautiful, young dog be gone so quickly? Sick for a few short days, and then dead. Fucking dead. What?

We brought your body home from the vet, wrapped up in a blanket in the back of the car. God, you were still warm. I let Jack sniff you so he’d understand. He didn’t. Wouldn’t follow me away from the car. So I let him see you again, and then he did.

The next morning we picked a spot on the mountain for you and I carried you to it. You were so heavy but I needed to do that for some reason. We laid you there with your favourite red ball. Sometimes that ball seemed to be the only thing in the world that mattered more to you than I did.

And so you were buried.

I kept thinking: how do parents survive a loss of their child? If this is what it feels like to lose your dog, I could never survive that.

Then, it was guilt and blame. Did we miss the signs? Could we have prevented this? What if, what if, what if. Still.

I was thankful that we had Jack to cuddle but more importantly to force us  back to the forest and the beach.  We each had a good howl with him 2 days after you died. Cathartic acts for all of us.

Next came the existential thoughts. Life is so short. What is the purpose of my life?

How much you tried to teach me. You whole-heartedly threw your self, body and soul into everything you did. There is only now. Time to run? Run like hell. Time to relax? Find the  warmest spot and get yourself in the most comfortable position and let your jowls hang out. There is only now, and we should be doing something important like chasing balls or cuddling or enjoying whatever’s in the oven making those really good smells.

It was almost like you knew there was no time to waste. Life is so damn short! So I wondered: what am I doing that matters? What matters to me? Why do I procrastinate on this or that? How can I appreciate NOW and THIS more?

So I guess in writing this, I am trying to be more present to all the thoughts that have been milling around in my head. To acknowledge that even if I’m done crying every damn day, I still have some more tears to shed. I still miss you.

Thanks for the lessons and the memories.

“Dog Days” video by Joanne Probyn June 2009

I am so thankful to Christine, the queen of code monkeys, who helped me take the leap and has taught me immeasurable things.

I have learned so much in these 3 years. About web development, about myself, about handling clients, the joys and challenges of running my business, of working for myself at home. About starting new ventures.

It hasn’t been all sun & roses. It can be frustrating, scary, and lonely at times. I tend to work a lot more than I did at my corporate job. When you (mostly) love the work you do, that happens easily because it doesn’t all feel like work. On the flip side if I need to get out for a hike in the middle of the day, I often can.

Yet I can’t imagine giving it up for any traditional job. (Offer me one of those “best job in the world” gigs somewhere tropical for a year and I might change my tune ) I love being able to shape my direction, the freedom of my schedule, the variety of my clients and their projects.

Thank you to everyone who’s been so supportive of this journey!

To my husband who quietly brings me coffee or lunch (or makes me go take a nap) just when I need it…

To the clients who have such faith in me…

To the communities of the Sunshine Coast who’ve been so welcoming…

And my Twitter friends who give me a virtual water cooler and library and a good laugh…

A toast! Thank you!

So, 5 hippie kids running around half naked all summer long need a lot of entertaining, right? What better than to send them all to the blackberry bushes surrounding the back yard!

Legend has it that one entire summer was filled with us little ones picking blackberries (and no doubt eating many before they hit the bowl) while Barbara put her food sciences training to use and perfected…

Barbara’s Blackberry Cobbler

In a bowl, cream together well:

• 3 tbsp soft butter
• ¾ cup white sugar

In another bowl, mix together:

• 1½ cups flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt

Add the dry mix to the creamed butter/sugar, alternately with 1 cup fresh or sour milk

Basically you end up with a kind of white cake batter. Spread that batter in a greased 9×12 pan (Mom says glass works best, I’ve never tried metal but I could see it being harder to clean).

• Spread 4 cups of berries on top
• Sprinkle ¾ cup sugar on top
• Pour approx 2 cups water over the berries (enough to cover them)

Finally, bake at 350 degrees about 45 minutes until brown on top.

Some of the cake will rise up between the berries, and the blackberry-water-sugar will make a kind of jelly-saucy stuff. Dee-lish.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Game to try it? Send me a picture of yours and I’ll post it here with a link to you, if you like. Otherwise I’ll post a photo next time I make one.

And as for that other recipe? That’s the one thing we’ll violently defend from poaching siblings around the dining table: Heather’s Cheesecake with Sour Cream Topping. You might have to talk me into sharing that one

Photo by Kimberlyfaye on Flickr

An open letter to clothing designers & retailers

Dear fashion folk,

I want to give you money. If only you would let me.

(Did that get your attention?)

Recently I went shopping for new clothes: I’d heard about some great jeans available on Main Street in Vancouver. Unfortunately, like so many other occasions, the store was out of stock in anything resembling a size large enough to fit me. In itself this is not so tragic of course. But, we’re talking fashion here, so please bear with me.

Main St., if you’re unfamiliar, has a stretch of stores selling wonderful indie designers’ fashions and vintage stuff. Stuff I really, really like in many cases.

Unfortunately, that store with the skinny-only jeans was not unique among it’s competitors. None of these stores had much in a size Large. Most had no designs in Extra Large. Don’t even get me started on how many of the designs were styled for twiggy bodies to begin with, as if flat-chested women with narrow hips are the only ones who want interesting clothes.

Did I mention that I want to give you money? I’m not alone.

According to a report on the plus-size apparel industry in Canada:

• roughly 30% of women in Canada wear size 14 and over, and
• we are one of the most under-served markets in the fashion industry.

My experience that day was, sadly, not unusual. At size 14 I am continually frustrated while seeking clothes that fit. Many “normal” lines do not go large enough, or are not cut to flatter a curvy figure. (Like, if I can get a shirt or jacket zipped up at all, it’s “Hello, monoboob!”)

Yet if I do find a section of “plus” sized clothes, these are typically too big or cut to hide figures more than I’d like.

So, I keep heading back to Reitmans who are in the minority of Canadian retailers who understand there’s both an underserved and (with the aging of the boomers) a growing market in plus-sized fashions. They have it so figured out, in fact, that their regular line has sizes large enough to accommodate me with room to spare. Their website is even useful (gasp!) with a sizing chart that goes so far as to include bicep measurements. (Since I’ve been lifting weights, biceps are another problem area for jackets. *sigh*)

There is a point, and that is this:

Get away from the runways. Leave your studios. SQUISH whatever it is that’s making you design as if women will look like teenagers throughout adulthood until they suddenly fit the grandmother niche (oh, excepting of course the profitable maternity phase of course). Have a look around. Notice all the beautiful, curvy women who want to give you money. Design cool, flattering clothes for us. Get ‘em out there. Then tell me about them. I’ll not only buy some, I will sing your praises from the rooftops and help you spread the word.

And I promise you, I’m not alone in that.

Thanks for reading.

- Tzaddi

In my case, to some degree, “Why should I blog?” is a rhetorical question. As someone who pretty much lives and breathes WordPress development & design these days, I shouldn’t even be uttering this question aloud.

“It’s good promotion.” “It’s good for SEO.” “It allows potential clients to become more comfortable with you.” All of these things are true. But.

I admit it, I’ve been stuck. I’ve been self-editing before I speak, to the point of not speaking (both here and on twitter). I’ve been having conversations in my head about where to take this blog, “finding my voice”, beating myself up about how sadly neglected my websites are in content, design, structure, the whole shebang. (What does shebang mean anyway?)

This blog was started in 2003, before blogging was cool, before there were 10 million sites telling you to “define your niche” and “create a publishing schedule” and “have a commenting strategy”. Before most people knew what a blog even was. I started it because I could, and because it was a way to learn (Movable Type at the time), and because I was inspired by the blog of a brilliant programmer I worked with. At that point I could talk about whatever randomness inspired me in whatever way I felt because pretty much nobody read blogs. Essentially blogging was just for me.

Fast forward some years and I’m fumbling my way through a new life of being a full-time freelance designer, and becoming more self conscious about what I publish in the blogosphere. Not that I was ever raunchy or overly personal, despite the porn-worthy words of my first post, but I began to feel like I have to present myself as An Expert. That I have to be writing for My Audience (which one?).  That I should be writing more and more for my clients. Trouble is, that’s not what this site is about.

In the beginning of my freelance adventures I threw together a quick portfolio site. It does the job, barely, but enough that I’ve hobbled along for far too long. I don’t much like it so I rarely update it and cringe when I hear new clients say they’ve been reading my site. Of course they have. And to them, it’s probably fine – they contact me, after all. But to me, it’s a sorely dissatisfying representation of what I can do. It runs on WordPress too, but I blog over here. The silliness of this does not escape me.

And here is where I often find myself when I write: wondering how I can get to the end of the post with a nice ribbon tied up around it. *sigh*

Before I wrap up I will say that there’s some clarity at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be relaunching with a new webdesign portfolio soon. Then I will be able to blog with my different hats in different places and feel so much more comfortable in them. Maybe I’ll wear a silly hat here more often. Maybe I’ll get over my self-editing a bit more. We’ll see.

Wondering why YOU should blog, and how not to make an ass of yourself in the process?

…she says, putting her Expert Hat on.

You’re not alone. Here are some links I recommend on the subject.

• Blogging Therapy series by Havi Brooks (see bottom of the post for links to topics like mean comments, what if nobody reads my blog, etc.)
• Why you blogging? and Why you hiding? by Karen J Lloyd
• Sonia Simone’s Remarkable Communication – perhaps Slow Blogging or The Sweeney Todd Guide to Blogging.
• Skellie. Especially this recent a-niche-isn’t-required post… there’s hope for me yet.

If you have any thoughts or related links to share on this, I’d love to hear them in the comments. Fire away!

photo credit: ODHD

Once upon a time I bought a shiny new MacBook Pro. I bought it because although I’ve been a PC user for over 20 years, I needed a laptop and also to be able to test how my websites look on a Mac.  I didn’t believe all the Mac-lover hype – in fact I find the whole love-in kind of obnoxious – but I do agree Macs are well-designed things of beauty, so I figured, why not.

That was almost 2 years ago, and I’m still not comfortable using the darn thing. I didn’t take a full plunge into adapting to it and so it only gets used quite occasionally for testing sites and travel. But even then – when I travel I don’t do the kind of work (neither type nor volume) I do at home. Kind of a chicken-or-egg thing, really. I never took the time to settle into the machine so it’s unproductive for me, hence I expect to be unproductive with it. I don’t go to internet cafes and do the modern mobile worker thing as much as I could if I slogged through the set up and studied the envious, mysterious ways of a Laptop Bedouin.

Now on top of all that, my PC really needs an upgrade and TLC. And I’m planning to move my home office, but don’t want to make my sweetheart pull any wiring, so that got me looking at wireless gadgets for the desktop… and well, I figure I really should have a proper go at adapting to this machine.

I spent time today arranging file structures, looking for software options, etc. I’m slowly getting better with the shortcuts and interface differences. I find “Finder” confusing sometimes; like how to move folders around to very disconnected spots (like the cut and paste in Windows). I seem to have lost one folder that displayed a “poof” and I’m not sure where it ended up. Probably something that’s uber-obvious to a Mac user… But this is the kind of thing I point out when people rave about how eeeaaasy Macs are vs. PCs. Macs take learning too, and if someone who’s very comfortable learning new software on-the-fly like myself can have trouble, that claim is too simplistic.

So if there’s any Mac-savvy readers among you, I’d love your input on software and tips.

Here’s what I have installed

• NeoOffice – just today, we’ll see how it goes
• CyberDuck
• TextWrangler – not sure how I like the integration with Cyberduck, maybe need to configure better or something
• Photoshop of course
• Parallels to run Windows

I also need some time tracking software. I’m used to TimeSlice for Windows. I’d like a desktop app so I can track time when I’m offline too. I downloaded TimePost and discovered it’s really ONLY meant for integration with online services like FreshBooks. I might go there, but until I do it’s kinda useless.  I installed Time Trek and it seemed confusing. Now I’m looking at Fanurio and OfficeTime. Any suggestions?

Hardware-wise, I need to attach the MacBook to a keyboard and monitor for when I’m at home. Or maybe just put it on some kind of riser that keeps it at a better angle for typing. I hate typing on this thing with the edge of the laptop pushing into my arms. Any tips on external monitors or docking stations or really, anything that might make a person love their Mac are most welcome

Actually, it’s about a club. Hmm, that could also be taken wrong.

Allow me to introduce the KITA Club.

Recently I resurrected a concept that I and  some friends started after we graduated from art school. At the time we kinda missed all the deadlines and accountability which came from the structure of school, so we formed a small group to collectively kick each others’ asses. In the nicest possible way, of course.

What I get out of it (and how it works):

• Increased motivation and focus – Each time we meet I have to share some goals with the group. This forces me to take some of the ideas swimming around in my head and condense them into workable goals for myself.
• Increased results through support and accountability – by sharing goals with the group, I’m more likely to achieve them. Their job is both to support me (ideas, feedback, referrals to resources, etc.) and to kick me in the ass. I sometimes refer to this as “calling bullshit”. If I’ve been saying I want to get to something for ages but I haven’t, they can call me out on it. Either I have an issue that needs resolving around it, or it’s not important and I should drop it.
• Fun. It’s really a lot more fun to be working on your “stuff” together than alone.

It is what you make of it.

When I suggested starting this with new friends on the Sunshine Coast, Charlene (event planner and big ideas gal) drilled me for details. “How often did you meet?” “What was the format?” “How did it work?”

I don’t really remember how it worked the first time round (maybe it was the beer/wine drinking we enjoyed in our downtown-eastside Vancouver studio). But it doesn’t matter – the point is you make it whatever works for you.

This time round, we’re meeting monthly. Yesterday was our 3rd meeting and each one so far has been different. (Note to self: don’t start new groups in November. Waaay too much going on for consistent attendance.)

Yesterday at KITA I shared my Goal Words for 2009:

• Balance (life-work, working IN vs. ON my business, etc.)
• Zen (be in the moment)
• Growth (personal, professional, relationships)
• Joy (all in the name of Joy)

I also shared some specific goals that I’ve made along those themes. Charlene and Wendy (the biggest loose leaf tea lover I know) really liked this idea and we agreed to email each other weekly with our goals.

And lest I forget, the new planning tools I’m trying out from Charlie at Productive Flourishing also intrigued the group. Way to go, Charlie!

There’s my KITA club in a not-so-small nutshell. Have you done anything similar? How do you work on your goals and stuff? I’d love to hear about it.

This morning I sat staring at the blank pages of my sketchbook. The very, very blank pages. And I thought “Where are all the ideas?” “Why don’t I have any?” All the while, an ear worm circling in my head: “Where the fuck do ideas come from?” (That one courtesy of Ze Frank’s brilliant riff on ideas as brain crack. Thanks for that one, Darren.)

So without further delay, here are two answers I came up with this morning. They’re not definitive, mind you. And I hope you will share your answers to these important questions in the comments.

The first answer is so obvious I’m probably not the first to think of it.

It must be the Greedy Squirrels.

You see, an idea manifests in your brain. When it’s ripe for the picking, before you even know what’s happening, it falls out of your brain and a greedy idea squirrel comes along and takes it. He then squirrels it away underground somewhere. So, odds are, when you see a truly fabulous tree, it’s thriving on the pile of ideas buried within it’s roots. So I say next time you’re short on ideas, go squirrel hunting! What the heck, it can’t hurt and it’s better than banging your head against the keyboard.

So that explains why you might lose an idea. Where do they come from in the first place?

Idea Factories

My theory is that orbiting the earth are giant indetectable idea factories. Day in, day out, minute after minute, they pump out ideas like so many widgets. So many in fact that they have an entire department devoted to randomization. This department ensures that every idea is just a little bit different from every other idea.

When ideas reach the end of the production line, they are shot out of thousands of giant Suessian tubes pointed at Earth. They travel the long, dangerous journey, and if they’re lucky enough to miss the satellites, airplanes, birds, and skyscrapers and such, they’ll land safely in one of our minds.

And if you are really lucky, the ideas you receive have lots of randomness and survived the journey without getting bruised or shat upon by a brid.

I think this theory explains why I get so many ideas outside or in the shower. Some of those ideas must land in the streams and end up coming through the shower head.

Now it’s your turn. Where do you think ideas come from? What/who’s to blame when you have none?