There are a number of things I suck at. Doing anything crafty tops the list, followed by shopping and anything requiring opposable thumbs. Fourth is telling jokes. I recognize this is ironic-to-the-power-of-infinity given that I’m writing a humor book. I was reminded of this last night, when my husband and I were watching an episode […]
Leanne Shirtliffe
Stephen King on Parenting
If you have children, you’ve lived a horror story or two. You know that bad things happen at night and that fear (of disease, of cheese curd vomit on your shoulder) drives anxiety. No one exemplifies the horror genre more than Stephen King. Below are 10 of his titles applied to parenting. It: What you […]
Whiteboard Wednesday: Pardon Me?
Sometimes it’s the simple stuff. I’m not talking about foot rubs or walks on the beach or other centerfold “likes” (though I could if you want me to). I’m talking about simple words. Specifically, what comes spewing of my mouth. The other day, William remarked to his father: “Dad! We love mommy. We don’t like […]
Would you rather have dinner table conversation with your kids or __?
Last night over dinner, we played a game of Would-You-Rather. It’s less stressful than watching all stages of the digestive process in action. The premise of Would-You-Rather is simple: you give one person a choice of two equally tempting options. Kind of like would you rather snog George Clooney or Colin Firth? Only this is […]
The 3 Types of Halloween Families
It’s the weekend before my children’s teeth fall out. Yes, Halloween. And I’ve compiled some heavy-duty anthropological research. To earn a mail-order PhD, I was originally going to research potato chip flavours of the world. Instead, I have crunched data, classifying people into 3 types of Halloween families. This was the topic of my humor […]
Announcing a New Chapter in My Writing Career
Four years ago in August 2007, I filled out a Teacher’s Professional Growth Plan at work. My goal was to write. So I joined a writers’ group and read books on writing. And I did something even more radical for me: I wrote. Fast forward two years to October 2009. My friends Trish and Elena […]
My Weekend in Tweets
Subtitle 1: Too Lazy-a$$ed To Write a Real Post Subtitle 2: Has Anyone Seen My Sense of Humour? It’s not much of a secret that I was at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference (#SiWC2011) this past weekend. I’ll blog more about the wow factor when I become coherent. With any luck, that will occur before […]
Daughters, Bad Breath, and Losing It
I’m pleased to bring you my first ever Whiteboard Wednesday Guest Post. Chad Jones is a hilarious dad of two who I suspect sticks his foot in his mouth nearly as often as I do. He blogs about the bizarre (and slightly-less-bizarre) aspects of faith as well as being both a dad and husband. The […]
Thing 1 & Thing 2's Excellent Adventure: Stop 5=Georgia
Stop 5: Georgia Host: Lara Moletierre Distance Logged Since Calgary: 5570 kms/3461 miles Next Stop: California After their stop in Joplin, Missouri, where Thing 1 and Thing 2 saw the devastation and reconstruction after the Joplin tornado in May, these two Seuss icons made their way to Georgia. They were hosted by the fabulous Lara […]
Top Eight Reasons Not To Eat a Dog
I’ve been sick this week, not from eating dog, though that would be a nice example of cause-and-effect. Suffice it to say that my brain has been one gig short of a gigabyte. Still, I decided to do some grading. My Grade 8 students are near the end of a humour unit. Their penultimate assignment […]