I got an email this morning regarding a submission/contributor to the magazine.

The comment was a little (more or less) like: "The article I liked the least was... ___________ ... Do intelligent people really think like that?"


Here's the short answer. YUP.

Here's the long drawn out, windbag version, with as little disrespect meant as possible.


When are we going to stop compartmentalizing and judging each other's opinions, stories, experiences and lives?

Is it really human nature that fuels the need to 'bash' each other down in some sort of evolutionary and status quo pecking order? Have we not reached a higher place in our existence than that?

What makes people decide that because they can't relate/don't understand another's experience or journey through life that it is automatically the OTHER person who is NUTS? (or unintelligent, wierd, loony, dumb.... whatever the fill in term is here...)

It is such a shame that in this day and age there are people still think that they are 'more than/better than/smarter than/more valuable than' other people.

It is equally a shame that people, after all the growth and hurt and change human-kind has been through, continue to label and pigeon-hole others based on snap judgement. (Sarcasm: Cause we ALL know that SOME people will always be BETTER/SMARTER/PRETTIER?MORE TALENTED than EVERYONE else.)

Here's the thing:

I will continue to run AAAAAALLLLLL kinds of stories, articles and features from AAAAAALLLLLLL kinds of women. Every demographic, any topic. I've met them personally and gotten to know them a tiny bit. They are all bright, functioning and intelligent women who are making outstanding contributions to the world around them. They are all Real Women on the Run - balancing out family, career, ambition and dreams. They are all inspiring in their own way.

I will agree, some talk in a language I don't totally understand. I try to be selective about what goes in the magazine and what stays out. BUT ULTIMATELY, just becasue I don't like it/don't get it/don't relate to it - doesn't mean that SOME one, SOME where won't.

For example: I would rather pull out my nose hairs one by one than watch ANY sports on TV, let alone read about it in a magazine. However, my lovely friend and colleague, Darlene Wilson is a Jock at heart and lives for competition and the thrill of ANY game. Just because I don't love sports, doesn't mean that I won't run the Jock Talk articles. How many moms/wives/girlfirend and grammas are on the sidelines during game season and want to be able to hold an educated conversation about what the hell is going on?!


We all need support.
Encouragement.
Growth.
Information.
Inspiration.
Friendship.
And love.

We all have thoughts.
Fears.
Assumptions.
Worries.
And opinions.

Just because I don't understand your thougths, doesn't mean you are less intelligent than I am.
Just because I don't agree with you, doesn't mean you're wrong.
Just because I don't see the world through your eyes, doesn't mean your vision of the world isn't JUST as beautiful as mine is.


I will continue to support ALL women in ALL ways through ALL medium with the plan of making SOMEone's life better SOMEwhere.
Open your mind, and put away judgement.

We're all in this life together.

I started my holiday shopping today.

I hadn't purchased a single gift for my family until this morning. It is December the 17. I have four children.

I've been really busy, though. And little by little my Christmas spirit, which was late in arriving this year, is creeping in.

I've had my tree up for weeks, although the time has wizzed past me. We've entertained a little, attended concerts, kept up with work schedules and canoodled with family.

Yet amid the schedule and pace I've been keeping, I've been searching for that little teeny Christmas piece of me that is missing. Every year it gets harder to find. You know, it is the little kid inside of you that feels the anticipation of the holidays. The miracle of goodness and waiting. The joy in preparation and celebration.

I honestly was beginning to think that the entire season would pass and I wouldn't find it. But today, amid the flour mess in the kitchen and three batches of Christmas baking, after a day of shopping and an evening of CBC television children's Christmas programming; to the tune of Mickey Mouse's A Christmas Carol, with Scrooge McDuck and Tiny Tim.... I found it.

It was nestled in with my kids on the couch. It was in the drizzle of the chocolate and the heat of the oven. It was the scent of the candle on the counter and the blue glow from the lights on the snow outside.

The feeling didn't come to me like I expected. Every year, I wait for the giddy, eager anticipation of lost childhood to flow into me and keep me impatient and ecstatic for holiday blessings and celebrations. I remember waiting at the door for family, diving into baking and laughter, lying on my stomach, agonizing over presents (which ones have my name on them and being crushed when there were only one or two.

Each year that passes pulls me further away from the feelings I long to recapture. I find that I am rushed and resentful. I feel pushed through the season by concerts and commitments. And the joy of buying for children that could never be disappointed has become a competition with myself and a longing to 'top the gift we got them last year!'

Each year that passes finds me waiting, almost sadly, wondering if I will ever feel that way again.

Yet today, on this average, frantic shopping, baking, laundry, dinner and sick kid, any normal day... the feeling arrived.

I was lost in thought, stirring with one hand, planning the next batch of baking in my head, listening to the 'Who's down in Who-Ville' when I finally 'came to.'

It had finally arrived. It wasn't the giddy, jump out of my pants excitement that I had as a kid, though. It was a quiet, peaceful, 'Life is good and I am lucky' kind of a moment. A rare one, when my thoughts, worries and obsessive compulsive side let it's guard down, and allowed the peace of the present moment to fill me up.

The peace of the present moment. Who knew that's where it was? I'd been waiting, thinking I would never find my lost Christmas feelings ever again. And there it was.

Hmmm.

Those damn kids have it all figured out.
If only as adults, we could put the 'frantic' aside and get settled in this moment.

This quiet, Grinchy, cookie, candle, cozied on the couch kind of moment.
Christmas.

Hurrah. It's finally here.

Mitch Albom's newest book titled For One More Day was featured yesterday on Oprah. The premise of the book: If you had the chance to spend one more day with anyone, who would it be and how would you spend it?" Oprah's movie company Harpo Films has made it into a TV movie which will air on Sunday Dec 9. Mitch Albom's other books include, Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. (also a TV movie)

I lost my dad when he was forty two and I was twenty one.

Almost sixteen whole years after his sudden death, and the possibilities in that single question practically paralyze me.

What would I do if I could have one more day?

My thoughts swirl.

I envision the complete shock.
I can see him now.
If I close my eyes, I can see his shoulders.
His strength.
The way his hair curled.
The shape of his jaw.
His wide smile.

I picture the celebration.
The years of hoping that we were wrong realized in truth.
The joy in stories and the sorrow for time lost.
I picture him consoling us.

I imagine his disbelief; that anything he'd ever done here on earth would end up so beautiful; his family.
Grown up and mothers of good kids.
Wouldn't he be so amazed at these beautiful children?

What would I do if I could have one more day?
What would we talk about?
What would I say?
How would I use my time with him?

Deep remorse and embarrassment surfaces. I was such a mixed up girl when he died.
How is it possible after all this time and all this growth and all this acheivement, the first thing I want to do is apologize?

Don't I think he knows how the story ends?

But I am so deeply sorry.

I'm sorry for all the times I let you down.
I'm sorry for embarrassing you.
I'm sorry if you ever felt used.
Or deceived.
I'm sorry for all the times I made you worry about me.
I am sorry for the shitty decisions I made.
I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren't doing a good job as a parent.
I'm sorry that I didn't shine bigger and brighter while you were here so that I could see you really be proud of who I am.
I'm sorry that I put you through the pain, frustration and anger of watching a child struggle with destructive patterns and habits.

This posed question and the feelings it stirs, makes me want to bargain. "I'll be a good girl if you just come back." But I am closer to fourty that twenty, and bargaining never worked then and it won't work now.

And in the flood of raw emotions, I am mad as hell.
Because he got ripped off.
He appreciated every second. Every new leaf in the spring and every breath of icy winter. He treated each person with fairness and kindness and each animal with dignity. He was respected and respectful. And I am so proud he was my dad.

I'm mad because WE got ripped off.

No matter how old you are - or get - losing a parent makes you an orphan. And although sixteen years have passed, some days it feels like a fresh wound.

Truth be told, if I was offered one more day, I'd have to think hard about it.

I don't think I could spend just one day and then say good bye all over again. One more day with him now wouldn't offer me anything new or satisfying that would tie me over to the end of my life.

It would just be too hard to lose him all over again.
I'll settle for dreams and memories.


Good thing God knows what he is doing... even though I can never hope to understand it.

I don't get it. What is behind the public's incessant need to bear witness to and publicly criticize celebrities.

If you follow supermarket news, tabloids, magazines, entertainment television and at times regular television, you are most likely on the leading edge of celebrity chaos stories.

You can't help but know about Marie Osmond's family woes or her Dancing With The Stars fainting episode.

You probably heard about a 'fan' grabbing Tim McGraw's crtoch in concert and Faith Hill losing her cool.

We've all watched the sinking of the 'Titanic' (metaphorically speaking - one of pop culture's biggest stars) as well as numerous public incarcerations, drug busts, arrests for drunk or impaired driving and physical/domestic violence. Not to mention the scads of headlines devoted to 'outing' celebrities physical flaws - cellulite, stringy hair, bad breasts and plastic surgery flops - too many wrinkles or too much botox.

What, do you think, exactly is 'our' problem?

Why is it that an overweight, hyprocritical public passes judgement on someone in the public eye?

Is it that it makes us 'feel' better? What is the obsession with celebrities period?

Please understand, I am a self-professed magazine junkie. I've done my share of fashion watch, celebrity admiration and emulation in my day. I love the clothes, I love ideas, I love new products. But somehow we've taken a turn from media gossip to media murder, every story is brutally mean or highly embellished to sell, sell, sell. And it works.

So maybe less blame on the media industry and more self examination. Why is it interesting? Why do we care? What fixates us on celebrity flaws and demise? If I was totally honest I'd say, 'I think it makes me feel better knowing that famous actresses/models/people aren't as perfect as I thought they were.'

There is a little part of me that takes small pleasure in seeing how normal Pamela Anderson (with the exception of her gi-normous silicone breasts) looks without make up. Remove the breast implants, the make up and cut the hair and where is the playboy model? (See Celebrities without makeup here: http://seehere.blogspot.com/2006/08/celebrities-without-makeup.html - they're JUST NORMAL WOMEN) But picking on celebrities is like witnessing a bad accident... you don't want to see it, but you're compelled to move in closer in case it's graphic!

It's addictive in it's own right. As long as I am looking at them and pointing fingers at someone else... ANYone else... then I don't have to look at me.

Jennifer Love Hewitt (click here to see the pictures: http://flickr.com/search/?q=jennifer+love+hewitt+bikini&m=text ) was photographed on a beach not long ago and the photos were displayed on the internet. Comments posted by the websites viewers (881 people commented on her photos) ranged from "That's a nasty butt." and "I'll have nightmares for life!" to "Leave her alone, she looks fine." She, my friends... is a size 2.

One more YOU MUST SEE site: http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/index.html

Be sure to click on the photos at right (the blonde model)

It becomes clear that we are brainwashed (our daughters included) into viewing these flawless, perfectly shaped women as authentic, real women. In comparing ourselves over days, months and years to photoshopped images of 'perfection' it is no wonder that we long to be validated - "No, you're not ulgy/fat/less than."

We feel the need to have our suspicions confirmed.
"AHA! I was RIGHT! They AREN'T perfect afterall!"
See! They're nothing special.
I am prettier than I thought I was.

It's all about 'ME' really.