This is fall.

Games night with close friends and too much wine. Football game day barbeque at our place -- Roughrider green and pilsner. Going home to butternut squash soup to ease the chill from your bones. Lazy Sunday, playing Beatles Rock Band and MarioKart.


Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." Joseph Addison

[via postsecret]

Hands down, the best secret of the week.

Summer in Edmonton

Found this time-lapse video on the Edmonton Journal website and couldn't wait to share it. It doesn't cover everything, but it does give you folks a quick look into what we go through here. Sure, it doesn't show how perfect it is to sit out on a patio with a cold beer (or frosty margarita) when it's light outside at 11 p.m., but you get to see the northern lights.

Enjoy!

Video: Summer Time Lapse

Shared via AddThis

Read: Love in the Time of Cholera

I'm a sucker for a love story. A love story that spans fifty-three years, seven months and eleven days and nights? Be still my beating heart.

Love in the Time of Cholera is beautiful. In the beginning, I had a hard time keeping track of the characters (mainly because a) I suck at keeping names straight anyway and b) I was only reading bits at a time on the train in the morning). Soon though, it became hard to put down. I wouldn't mind the Boy being a bit late to pick me up from the train station at the end of the day on his way home, just because I could get in a few more pages of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza.

Gabriel García Márquez is a beautiful writer and provides visuals that make you feel like you're there with the characters. Márquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude is on my booklist still, and I'll be picking it up sooner rather than later.

Integrity

I don't often discuss work, my profession, or anything really inside my professional sphere. However, I've increasingly been disturbed with today's journalists and their (lack of) integrity.

As a blogger, I get to share my personal views. If I was getting paid to write for someone else (as I am in my day job, for example) those views go out the window. Your job is then one of two things (depending on your gig). You are either neutral and report the facts (like journalists are supposed to do) or you write what people tell you to write.

We spent a lot of time discussing ethics when I was studying public relations (as hard as this is for some people to believe... PR professionals do have ethics). I must say, I'm a bit of an idealist when it comes to things like this. I expect fairly unbiased news, even though I realize every paper, news programme, magazine or blog has a slant. I expect news. I also expect journalists not to prey on victims of heinous crime and tragedy.

This is why I have no idea why Mark Whicker's editor even allowed him to write a sports column focusing on what Jaycee Dugard missed when she was kidnapped, raped, and held captive in a shed for 18 years of her life. He began his article as follows.

It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page.

Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year.

She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while.

She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey.

Now, that's deprivation.

Let's play that again. "Now, that's deprivation." It's deprivation that a girl of 11, who was kidnapped, raped, impregnated, and held captive in a backyard shed until the age of 29 never got to read sports scores or spike a volleyball.

Making light of the terrible things people have been through, or using them to sell papers really bothers me. Mark Whicker's article makes me want to throw up, and it also irks me that the media hounds the families of victims of 9/11 to dredge up stories to sell anniversary issues. Yes, it was a terrible, terrible event and I will never forget where I was when I heard the news, or the images of the planes crashing into the towers. But as a society we need to support each other, we need to pick up those who need us, and we need to rebuild. I know I'll probably get some flack over this view, but I think news should be news. If there are new developments, report on them. If not, let people grieve on their own. If people have stories they need to get out, be that vehicle. Otherwise, let them remember their loved ones in peace.

Read Tommy Cragg's call-out of Mark Whicker here.

fall(ing)

[via postsecret]

Finally, the summer is over. Fall, with cool mornings, clothing in layers, smells and colour-changing leaves, is upon us. It's sneaking up and bringing with it pumpkin lattes and a desire to make slow-cooker soups and stews. No more jetting off to Saskatchewan, or rushing around worrying about weddings and birthdays and fitting it all in. We're back to a slower pace. Relaxed. Sweaters worn to football matches. Scarves in the morning. Seeing your breath. I love this time of year so much.

The weekend in the Okanagan brought two rounds of golf, ten visits to wineries, fifteen bottles to bring back with us, and many, many hours spent together in a car. It was camping in the rain (B spilling his beer in the tent) and our first bed and breakfast. It was fresh fruit and coffee which ranged from very, very bad (McDonalds in Revelstoke, I'm thinking of you) and very, very good (oh B&B with your locally-roasted, grinded in house deliciousness). It was my first darts victory. Poker and beer. B being forced to put up with my dance party tunes while the radio was out of commission in the mountains. It was fall romance, despite the rain.

B likes my blog because so often I'm probably annoying people by talking about him. Ego stroking at its finest.

I've had some rough times lately. Summer drama. The things one goes through when one decided that maybe a friend is no longer a friend. Wanting to keep that person around for the good times, but realizing that you have to take the bad with the good. When she started telling people I love (and who I can only assume love me) that she thinks I'm depressed and that the Boy and I are not good for one another -- he's changed me -- I started questioning what she's telling those who don't have such close ties to me. To us.

"I don't think you've changed, and I've known you my whole life," says the Little.

I joke about it with B. I've ended more than a few sentences with, "Oh, it's just because I'm depressed." And we giggle.

"She doesn't read your blog, does she?"

If she did, there'd be no question.

Ode to Kitty

It's been a busy summer, this summer of Kitty and Elle. It's been full of ups and downs. Tears and squabbles, but in the end, we try to forget about those. We remember good times at the City Centre Farmer's Market, the West Edmonton Mall, girly dates, margaritas, crochet. We remember soccer games and meeting up for "screamers" (ice cream and slushies... mixed together). Sleepovers in the old house. Moving. Bubble tea.

The first time we've lived together in 7 years, and the four months just flew by. Part of me wishes it wasn't over, and the other part is just so happy for her to go back for her final year of university with her fabulous roomate and other Ontario friends. Plus, it will be nice to see the floor again in the spare room.

She flies out on Saturday morning, when the Boy and I are on our miniature vacay in the Okanagan. Tonight is our last soccer game together, our last post-soccer round of drinks (Boston Pizza Kitty, you can get your soup!). It's the last night we'll spend together before she's gone.

It's been pretty amazing to have the baby sister around. To truly learn more about this person she's become over the past several years, and see her perspective on things that have happened in the past. To see just how perfectly her future career suits her, and hear about all the great stories she has of patients who love her and co-workers who never want her to leave. To have her be a part of my life-changing summer of happiness, and have her support for my "only if it makes me happy" attitude. Hopefully she still likes me, because I think she's pretty incredible.

Dear Kitty: When you leave on Saturday, make sure you leave my clothes at my place. xo