Marketers often spend a lot of time analyzing and strategizing about online social media - the power of social networking, the trend of online communities. I, of course, support this fully and completely. However, put aside the often present self-important navel gazing for a moment and at the core of all of this you will find good old fashioned community. "Social Networking" is also known simply as "socializing". "Social Media" can be more commonly referred to as "chatting". Yesterday was a great opportunity for my offline community (aka my neighbours) to get together and "network" (aka socialize) at our first... More »

As those of you who read my blog know, my daughter is not a girlie-girl. She likes sports and skateboarding and spends most of her time trying to keep up with her nearly 9 year old brother and his friends. The truth is, I'm not an expert on girlie stuff either. I am a fool with make-up, I can't accessorize to save my life, and I would fail a quiz on the latest designers. But, I do like to dress up every now and then and I recently discovered, to everyone's surprise, that my rough-and-tumble daughter does too. We... More »

Well folks, I did it. Yup. I slept 2 whole nights in a tent! A real tent in a real campground. And the second night it even rained. The strangest part is, I actually had a good time. As you can probably tell I was none too keen on the camping component of this visit to see my sister. Our trip to Calgary was going to have a 3 day detour to Dinosaur Provincial Park. The kids, as you can imagine, were deliriously excited. I, in case you didn't know, am a hotel kinda gal. I don't do camping.... More »

I know that as a mom I have a hard time balancing my desire to "treat" my kids to a meal at McDonald's with the bit of guilt I have about what exactly they are consuming. There are so many mixed messages! Wouldn't you like to have the opportunity to get the inside scoop or have the chance to see it for yourself? Well, McDonald's is launching a really cool new initiative. Not only do I think this is totally necessary but it is also a really smart move on their part. They have developed a program called the... More »