The Thousand Picture Project

Welcome to the first official post of the Thousand Picture Project! Since the vast majority of you said you like these posts, and since I like doing them, and since I don’t have anything else for today (and just maybe because I’m thumbing my nose at the few of you who said you didn’t like them!), why not?

And, let’s be honest: one of the reasons I wanted to do this post today is so I could brag about this picture. Remember on Tuesday how it was crazy warm, about 15C above the normal temps for January? That was the day I had my interview on All in a Day, and on the way home the heavy clouds that had been crowding the sky all day parted and we had this beautiful sunset. A perfect end to a lovely day.

369:1000 Drama sky

Then a couple of days later, I got an e-mail from — wait for it! — Ian Black of the CBC, saying “sorry I missed you at the studio the other day, next time say hi.” *blush* And then he went on to say he’d noticed this picture and could he have my permission to use it on the evening weathercast on the CBC news!!!! He used it on last night’s broadcast, and when Simon heard him introduce the photo and give me credit, he yelled at the TV “Hey, that’s my MOM’s name!!!” Talk about positive reinforcement!

It’s funny, but even though I’m still taking a picture every day, I’m feeling a whole lot more relaxed about the whole thing. For instance, I’ve taken three days’ worth of pictures to follow this hyacinth as it blooms. I don’t think I would have dedicated three days in the same week to a single subject before.

367:1000 Hyacinth

368:1000 Hyacinth - day two

370:1000 Hyacinth - day four

And man, does my house ever smell terrific right now!

On the other end of nature’s spectrum, this was the view from my office window yesterday afternoon during one of those snow squalls. I used the bricks to frame the picture, but also to give a little perspective as to exactly how blustery it was.

372:1000 Whiteout

And finally, a picture that is more or less responsible for me deciding to continue on with a daily picture project. I’d had the idea of taking a picture of jacks in my head way back in the beginning of the project, but the boys didn’t actually have any. We got some in a loot bag from a birthday party early in January, but they disappeared before I could include them in my 365. The box reappeared in the days between the end of the 365 and the decision to continue with the daily pictures, and I was happy to finally get the picture I’d (more or less) had in my head all along.

371:1000 Jacks

I really enjoyed taking these pictures. I’m glad I decided to continue!

2010 Canadian Weblog Awards

You know I’m a bit of a blog award junkie. I admit it, in my personal life and even at work, I’m a huge believer in recognition and positive feedback. I’m sure this has everything to do with leftover insecurity issues from my teen years and my infernal and endless need for external validation. Back in the day, I was even involved with the Canadian Blog Awards because I truly believe in recognizing excellence — and there are so many excellent Canadian blogs out there. I must say, though, that I have lost a little faith in the CBAs over the last year or two. They were too mired in political conflict and I just didn’t have the patience or the stomach for it, and the folks who were trying their very best to run a good program were just overwhelmed, despite their best efforts, by the scope of it and the knee-jerk reactionism to what they were trying to do.

Which is why I am so delighted to see someone start from scratch and create exactly what I’d envisioned the Canadian Blog Awards could be. Schmutzie, creator of Five Star Fridays and tonnes of other Web goodness, has launched the Canadian Weblog Awards. From the “about” page:

The Canadian Weblog Awards are intended to promote good weblogs of all genres from across Canada year round through regular interviews, articles, and the nomination, judging, and award process that culminates with the announcement of the top three weblogs in each category on January 1st. […]

Even the best weblogs can get buried under the swathes of information that flood the internet, and the Canadian Weblog Awards are determined to bring good Canadian weblogs to light. This is why we use a panel of judges rather than the popular vote to unearth our best and brightest. The use of a judging panel that follows a specific set of criteria to evaluate the nominees helps to ensure that the winning weblogs are chosen more for their quality rather than by how many people they can mobilize to vote.

We’re a talented lot, we Canadians, and we should show it off. We deserve it.

So smart! The original Weblog awards use a juried panel to choose the finalists, and that always seemed like a better approach than the various rounds of popular vote. Also, rather than just running a short window for nominations, they’re accepting nominations all year. Best of all, though, they’re interspersing regular updates from various categories with interviews with nominees to keep it interesting for the whole year. I’m so very impressed by the whole thing, and that is entirely beside the fact that I’ve been nominated in two categories!

2010 Canadian Weblog Awards Nominee

2010 Canadian Weblog Awards Nominee

(I’m delighted to be nominated in the Family and Parenting category, but truly honoured that someone put me up in the Best Writing category, too. Thank you, anonymous nominator(s). You made my day!)

I only wish I’d had the brains to think of it myself, or — even moreso! — the time to follow through with it all. It’s a great effort that really should be recognized. Is there a weblog awards for best weblog awards? 😉

Seriously, though, go check it out and don’t be shy about nominating your faves. Who doesn’t love a little recognition every now and then? Isn’t that why we’re all out here on the Internet blathering away in the first place?

Edited to add: Oh, I can’t tell you how tickled I am to be nominated in the humour category, too! You might never shut me up now! You think I’m funny? *squee of delight*

2010 Canadian Weblog Awards Nominee

*smooch*

A bloggy question of ethics

The other day, I received an e-mail pitch about a recent kids’ movie that I had thought about taking the boys to over Christmas. Now it’s coming out on DVD, and a PR firm working for the studio contacted me with what was very obviously a mass mailing.

Usually, I just delete these, but I’d been interested in the movie initially so I e-mailed back and asked if I could have one or more copies to give away on the blog. I got a prompt response saying that there were no promo copies for giveaways, but did I want a review copy?

I waffled, and in the end said no. I feel kind of odd taking products for review now when I can’t share them with at least some of you through a giveaway. I’m curious, though — what would you have done? Why I am differentiating between this and the dozens of other freebies I’ve received and blogged about through the years is beyond me — it just seemed somehow greedy of me to accept. Weird, eh?

Maybe it’s because I had read this blog post not too long before. It’s a rather tawdry story of some really indiscrete bloggers who were accepting products, reviewing them glowingly and talking about how much they or their family loved using the products, and then selling the items on a Facebook page, proclaiming that the items were “brand new” and “never used” often with tags still attached. I’d have no problem with a blogger donating or giving away or even selling a review product they’d received and not used, but to be duplicitous enough to lie about using the product and then turn around and sell it? No wonder mom bloggers get a bad name!!

On the other side of the spectrum, I didn’t have to waffle at all when I recently deleted a glowing offer to become a “brand ambassador” for a popular daytime soap and another daytime talk show. According to the pitch:

Brand Ambassadors will:

* Get the inside scoop on show developments and segments
* Have direct access to the Daytime Team to share feedback on XXX
* Be asked to use their influential platforms to help spread a buzz
* Receive special perks and goodies. We just have to keep these specifics under wraps until the Brand Ambassador Team is selected!

Excuse me while I roll my eyeballs around in my head for a while. Maybe it’s because I’m not a soap opera kind of girl that I’m cynical about this. Heck, if Jeff Probst asked me to be a Survivor Brand Ambassador, I’d fall all over myself saying yes. Then again, if Jeff Probst asked me to play naked in traffic during the rush hour in January, I’d do that too. We seem to be off on a bit of a tangent here… where were we?

Ah yes, I was about to ask you your thoughts on all of this. I try hard to strike a balance between great freebies for you guys and not spamming you with consumer stuff. While I’d happily accept a free Nikon D90 for the pleasure of sharing the pix with you (hello Nikon, are you listening?) the idea of taking little things like DVDs or free breakfast cereal just seems kind of cheap to me — and yet, the line in the sand is entirely arbitrary.

If I had a few extra minutes today, I’d go back and parse this meandering ramble into a much more concise post, but this is as good as it’s going to get. What say ye on the subject of bloggy freebies? Would you or do you accept any and all offers? Do you ‘get’ my distinction or do you think I’m splitting hairs? I’m always interested in your opinions!

Five ideas for Family Literacy Day

Did you know that Wednesday January 27 is Family Literacy Day in Canada? From the Web site:

Family Literacy Day takes place every year on January 27. ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation and Honda Canada created the day in 1999 to encourage families to read and learn together. […] Literacy is more than books. There are many ways to strengthen your literacy skills – all it takes is practicing for 15 minutes every day. Reading, writing, playing a game, following a recipe or even singing a song all help prepare children for challenges ahead and sharpen skills for adults.

Now, I’m guessing that I’m preaching to the choir when I tell you that literacy is one of the most important tools you can give your children, but I’m always looking for new tips and ideas for turning learning into a fun family activity.

Here’s five ideas for inspiring literacy in your family every day:

  1. Encourage your kids to tell stories. When you’re waiting in line, or in the car, or otherwise find yourself with time on your hands, create a story together based on something around you. See that man with the bright yellow t-shirt? What do you think he had for breakfast this morning? Why is he wearing that yellow shirt? Is his favourite colour yellow? Do you think he wears yellow every single day, one day wearing yellow pants and one day wearing yellow underwear? Why? You can get really silly with this, but it’s great fun and my kids love it.
  2. Did you know there’s a Sesame Street podcast? You know I love Sesame Street, and you know I’m fixated on my iPod. What could be better than the Word on the Street podcast from the creators of Sesame Street?!
  3. Sing it! I mentioned the other day how astonished I am that Lucas, not yet two, knows the melody if not all the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and he’s been calling out the last word of each line to You are my Sunshine for months now. This year’s official theme for Family Literacy Day is “Sing for Literacy” and ABC Canada has provided access to free karaoke videos online.
  4. Wear your words. This is a neat idea for older kids from ABC Canada’s family literacy tips pdf: write a story or a poem on an old pair of jeans. Love this idea!
  5. Make yer own books. Tristan was about three when I helped him make his first book, made of pictures cut out of a Thomas the Tank Engine catalogue. He made his own first comic book around age five. All you need is a single letter-sized page cut into quarters and stapled along one edge and voilà: instant 8-page mini-book ready for words or scribbles or stickers or whatever your child can think of. If you like, get fancy and use a hole-punch and ribbon or yard to bind the side. The only problem with these is that the kids make them by the pile and I never have the heart to throw them out!

Care to share? Add your thoughts for making literacy fun in the comment section!

All in a Day Redux

Whee, that was so much fun!

Thanks to Alan Neal and my friends at CBC Radio Ottawa for giving me a chance to talk about my 365 project on All in a Day today! I was having quite the little moment while I was sitting in the anteroom waiting for my turn to go on, when Laurence Wall AND Alan Neal AND Ian Black were all in the studio together. CBC Ottawa trifecta!!! And dork that I am, I was too shy to say hello to either Laurence or Ian as they hustled out of the studio.

In my vast radio interview experience (comprising all of three appearances, media whore that I am) this was by far the most fun. Want to listen in? Here it is!

Project 365 Conclusion on All in a Day

(It might take a second for the MP3 to finish downloading. Be patient! Interview courtesy of and copyright Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.)

For those of you who are visiting for the first time, welcome! If you’re interested in Project 365, you can read more about it by perusing 52 weeks’ worth of blog posts, or you can see the all 365 pictures on Flickr. (If you open two tabs, you can watch the slideshow while the mp3 of the show is playing in the other tab — I only wish I was clever enough to figure out how to combine the two!!)

I also write a lot about parenting issues and fun things to do with kids in Ottawa… among a few thousand other things, should you like to pull up a chair and stay awhile.

(And Julie, to answer your question from yesterday’s comments? Alan Neal is even nicer than he seems on the radio. Hard to believe, but true!)

Beyond 365, erm, 366

So are you getting tired of the 365 posts yet? I’m pretty sure this will be the last one. Well, kind of.

First, I wanted to share with you the very exciting (for me!) news that I’ll be on All in a Day on CBC Radio One tomorrow afternoon, talking to Alan Neal about the end of the 365 project. You might remember I was on the show back in July with former host Adrian Harewood, when I hit the half way point. On Wednesday, the last day of the project, I was driving around town listening to CBC (as always!) and thinking, “Hmmm, I wonder if it would seem needy of me if I pinged my friends at CBC and said, “So, just by the way, I’m done that 365 project…” but promptly forgot all about it. Until, that is, I opened my e-mail the next morning and there they were, wondering if I wanted to come back and chat about the big finale. So of course I said yes!

I’ll be on tomorrow afternoon, right after the 3:30 news. That also happens to be, I know from my CBC Radio addiction, just after Alan checks in with Ian Black on the weather. Dare I hope to meet both Alan, to whom I’ve been listening since back in the Ottawa Noon days, AND Ian Black? Squeeee!

Ahem, anyway, beyond my schoolgirl crushes on a good number of CBC Radio and TV personalities, I have more news. Well, sort of news.

It took about three days for me to really start missing the daily picture routine. It wasn’t so bad the first day, although Beloved did raise his eyebrows at me when I grabbed the camera on the way out the door on Thursday morning. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It’s habit, I’d feel naked if I didn’t have it with me.” But in the evenings, between the end of dinner and the beginning of the bedtime routine, I’ve truly felt lost. That was my picture time, where I sorted and processed and posted the picture of the day most days, and that’s when I most keenly missed the project. Go figure.

Not only that, but everything I look at lately seems to be begging to be photographed. The light is coming back, and it’s making the most mundane things seem enticing. I can’t help myself.

So I’m not exactly embarking upon another 365. I figure I’ll call it (because a project needs a name, if for no other reason than I need a place to keep it on the blog!) The Thousand Picture Project. There’s 365 days in a year, so there’s 1095 days in three years. It should take me about three years of daily pix to get to the thousand mark, give or take — and I’m already a third of the way there! If I don’t take a picture every day, that’s okay, and if I take 17 pictures in one day, that gives me more than two weeks of fodder. I think it will work out. I need the project part for inspiration and a reason to haul around my camera, but I’m free of the need to stress over finding a picture — a good picture — on days when there simply is not one to be found.

Best of both worlds, I think. Now, what about you? The 365 blog posts get very few comments, but so many of you have said you’re interested in the process behind the pictures and my commentary on them. Shall I continue with the weekly picture blog posts?

Thanks, always, for your input! (I remember back when I started blogging, the prevalent idealistic advice was to blog as if nobody was listening, and that blogging in a manner which was cognizant of what the readers wanted was seen to be pandering. I think those days are long gone! The Thousand Picture Project, like it’s big brother the 365 Project, are entirely for my own satisfaction — but it’s a pleasure and a delight to be able to share them with you!)

Don’t forget to tune in to CBC Radio tomorrow after the 3:30 news — cuz hey, nothing strokes your ego more than knowing your photography is ideal for radio!! 😉

Project 365: Post Script (alternate title: In which she demonstrates her inability to count to 365)

Hmmm, seems a little anti-climactic to be posting about Project 365 again after my big finish on Wednesday, but there’s a couple of last little afterthoughts, as well as the pictures I took since my last update and before the big finale that never got their day in the sun.

But first, you know what the most challenging part of the whole damn 365 was? It wasn’t coming up with things to photograph, or actually processing and posting the pictures. It wasn’t the hassle of carrying my camera *everywhere* or the inconvenience to my family. The hardest part of the whole damn project?

Counting to 365.

I can’t tell you how many times I had to go back and renumber my pictures because I had miscounted somewhere. And ever since I started counting ahead to figure out exactly which calendar day would mark day 365, I’ve been vaguely puzzling over the date in my mind. If there’s 365 days in the year, and I started my project on January 20, 2009, then logic dictates that I’d finish on January 19, 2010? Right? So when I counted ahead in late December and realized the final day would fall on January 20 instead of January 19, I flipped back through a couple of weeks’ worth of pictures and checked the dates, and when everything seemed in order I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and said “Oh well.” But it bugged me, and bugged me, and bugged me, until finally last night I went back through the whole damn project and there it was.

I counted day 204 twice, once on August 11 and again on August 12. Dammit, now I’m going to have to go back and re-label the whole damn thing Project 366!!! Or maybe Project 365+1? Just doesn’t have the same snap, does it?

Sigh.

Anyway, here’s the last couple of pix from last week, including the penultimate pic that was apparently actually the big finale.

On Friday, we spent most of the day and well into the night putting up content on our site at work to show the relief efforts in Haiti. After a long and wrenching week of heartbreaking stories, this was the only way I could think of to explain my feelings. “Light a candle for Haiti.”

360:365 Light a candle for Haiti

Katie for one is thrilled to no longer have to deal with me and my camera any longer.

362:365 Peekaboo Katie

One last shot of busy hands at work. (I called the Magna-Doodle a classic toy in the caption for this one on Flickr, and people said the Magna-Doodle is far from a classic toy. To me, if it doesn’t have batteries, downloadable parts or a corresponding online life, it’s classic. Whaddya think?)

363:365 Artist at work

Now trains? Definitely a classic toy. And although I’ve done the “baby playing with trains” shot before, you can really never have enough baby bokeh in your life.

361:365 Baby bokeh

And finally, the penultimate shot, which was apparently the ultimate shot, could I only count to 365. This is all the gear I didn’t have 365 — erm, 366 — days ago when I started this project: a Duaflex II, a Baby Brownie Special, a Brownie Reflex, an SB-600 flash, an off-camera cable extension for the SB-600, a gorillapod (excellent for securing your Nikon to the chandelier, should the need arise!), an Aurora mini-softbox, a set of four close-up filters, not one but TWO 50 mm f1.8 lenses, a polarizing filter, a remote trigger (also very useful when your camera is suspended from the chandelier) and several bits of lens and camera cleaning stuff — all taken through the viewfinder of my darling vintage Duaflex IV.

364:365 The penultimate shot!

So there you have it. Project 365 (plus one!).

Project 365: A year in pictures!

The end. 🙂

Project 365: Fini!

Holy crap, I did it!

I’m not sure that I was convinced, back when I launched this project a year ago, that I really expected to actually finish it. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve learned.

A year ago, I was using my Nikon dSLR mostly in the program modes. I didn’t know what bokeh was, and I’d never heard of TtV photography. I had a passing understanding of the basics of photography — shutter speed vs aperture vs ISO, depth of field, rule of thirds, exposure compensation, etc etc etc — but I rarely consciously employed them and even more rarely pushed their boundaries or deliberately ignored them in wondering what the result would be. I never mucked about with my camera settings. I thought using Photoshop made images less “true” and never post-processed any of my images save to correct egregious errors. I was shy about pointing my camera at anything but the most obvious photographic subjects in public, and would never dreamed of approaching a stranger and asking them if I could photograph them. I’d never shot in RAW and posted all my images in straight-out-of-the-camera colour. I didn’t know what EXIF data, rear-curtain shutter, tilt-shifting, hot shoes, photoshop actions or vignetting were. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d posted a photo to a group on Flicrk, or made a comment, or received a comment.

I’ve come a long way, baby! I’ve had more than a dozen photos “Explored” by Flickr, I’ve had a photo featured as the “Photo of the Day” by a large group, and I’ve been asked for permission to use my images on a few websites. My 365 project was featured on CBC Radio at the half-way point last July, and I’ve even sold some of my images. Who woulda guessed it?! Mostly, though? I learned to love taking pictures. And, damn, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it!

When I started the 365 project, I had only the vaguest idea of what I wanted from it. I imagined I’d take a snapshot every day of the boys, or things around the house, or the places I went during the day, and every couple of days I’d throw them up on Flickr and that would be it. I had no idea that within a month or two, I’d have raised my own personal bar so high that I would drive myself crazy for the rest of the year trying to live up to it. A snapshot would simply not suffice. Not content to take just any picture, suddenly I had to take a good picture — and the definition of “good” was a sliding scale. I blame and thank the members of the 365 Community almost exclusively for this. More than just a place to dump pictures, the 365 Community is an amazing collection of really first-rate photographers and super-nice people, and had I not been welcomed into the group early in the project, I imagine things would have turned out much differently. Not only did they support and encourage me with comments and feedback, but they inspired me to do better each time I perused their photostreams.

And then, of course, there’s you, my bloggy peeps. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to know that a few of you started your own version of a 365 project because of me, and the comments and e-mails I received from people who said they were inspired to pick up a camera because of my pictures — dozens of them, over the year — is truly an honour.

If you’re considering starting your own 365 project, here’s my advice for you: go for it! You’ve got nothing to lose (except maybe a few hundred hours) and everything to gain. I had no idea how hard it would be, but I also had no idea how rewarding it would be. I knew I would get a few pictures I loved and would capture in pictures the minutiae that I love to capture in words on the blog, but I had no idea I’d learn so much, meet such amazing people, and have such an amazing body of work to look back upon.

The best and worst part about a 365 project is that no matter how awful your picture of the day might be, in your own estimation, there’s always tomorrow. And no matter how worth of a National Geographic cover you may think your latest image, you’ve got to start over again the next day.

Out of more than 16,000 shutter clicks (!!) since January 20, 2009, here are my top ten favourites:

I think this is my fave of the year. I love everything about this picture — the hand, the way the pear seems to be reaching for Lucas, the reflection in the table, the depth of field, the back lighting.

270:365 The Creation of Adam

Fun and silly, but eye-catching. I like the story I was telling as much as the image: “Deep in the Orion Nebula, baby stars grow in translucent eggs until they are ready to hatch and float away…”

274:365 Star incubators

The beginning of my obsession with fingers and toes.

132:365 Baby toes

Multi-Mom, my cloning experiment. Turns out photoshop is a lot of fun!

104b:365 Multi-mom

Not even an official 365 picture, but representative of all the images of the boys I’ve learned to take this year. This picture makes me smile every time I look at it, and isn’t that the whole point?

Merry Christmas 2009

Because I developed a love of vintage cameras — and typewriters! — during my 365 project. Besides, you had to know a TtV shot would make the top 10.

265:365 100 days to go!

A perfect example of the things I might never have noticed, let alone photographed, before my 365 project.

106:365 Primary Entrance

What on earth would make me take my camera into the stairwell at the office to take a picture of the people walking in the rain seven stories below? Only Project 365, I assure you.

115:365 Umbrellas, way down there

And I never would have thought to pull off the road and creep around a park in the pre-dawn gloaming (at minus 2C, no less) poking around for worthwhile images if I weren’t looking for something worthy of the photo challenge I was in — and eventually won!

268:365 The path to the bridge

Okay, so maybe I had some photographic knowledge and instincts before I started the 365 project. This one of Lucas and I reflected in the collandar was taken on Day 5 of the project, and remains one of my favourites.

5:365 Lucas and me in the colander

There’s a lot (really? a lot!) of mediocre shots in the project, too, and a very few that I outright dislike. On the whole, though, I love how they capture the world as I saw it this past year, and how evocative each of them is of the time and place I took them.

So, you might ask, what’s next? I agonized over toyed with a few ideas over the last couple of months, including a TtV 365, a 52×7 (seven pictures a week but not one each day), and a couple of other variants on the theme. Much as I like the challenge of finding new ways to see the world each day, I have to admit it’s become a little tedious recently. You know how much I love my new job, but the industrial park where it’s located is far from the rich milieu of photographic opportunities I had when I was working smack dab in the middle of the Market, the Canal and Parliament Hill, which you’ve seen was a massive source of fodder and inspiration this year. I might yet set my sights on something like a thousand picture project, but one with no time constraints. We’ll see!

Mostly, though, I’ve set out what I wanted to do. I’m sure I’ll continue to take way too many pictures, and if you want me to, I’ll continue to talk about them here. In fact, I kind of hope to keep taking at least one picture every day. But on those days when it’s somehow gotten to 8 pm and I still have lunches to make and the swiffer to be run and a load of laundry to fold and no photo? It will be one less thing to worry about.

And so, here it is — the last picture. Almost from the start of the project, I thought about what this image might be. At various points in the last little while, I’d imagined it would be the old Underwood manual typewriter, with the words “365:365 THE END” typed on the piece of paper, or maybe a close-up of the boys with the numbers 3 6 5 written on each of their cheeks. This one came to me yesterday, though, and evolved from the idea of a high shot looking down at me looking through my pictures to this:

Fini!

(Whatever you do, don’t tell Beloved I suspended the Nikon from the chandelier with a gorillapod and some duct tape during the baby’s nap, or this may well be the last picture you ever see me take!)

You know what we need? We need a “Yay Day”!

You know what we haven’t done around here for a long time? We haven’t done a “yay day“, where we celebrate the big and little things that are making us happy.

Today’s Yay Day is really just a thinly-veiled excuse to brag about my kids. I know, I know, I bragged about Tristan just the other day. But I have to treat all three boys equally, don’t I? Lord knows I try. No wonder the baby thinks he’s a seven year old! Besides, it’s not really bragging, it’s just a very effusive update for the friends and family who live far away. Yeah, that’s it!

Simon can READ! I’m so proud of him. During the Christmas break, we broke out the old Bob Book series, the ones I reviewed way back in the day when Tristan was five years old. Simon started with the first book and was able to read it straight through without help. Although it was a little thin on narrative arc and character development (“Mat sat. Mat’s hat. Mat sat on a hat.”) you simply can’t beat the look of proud astonishment on your five year old’s face when he realizes he just read an entire book. And so he went on to read another and another and another, until he had read six of the twelve books in the series back to back to back. And he was absolutely delighted with himself. You can’t buy that kind of joy!

Not to be left out of the “oh my goodness, my children are freakishly brilliant” brag, Lucas has surprised and delighted on many occasions recently. At not-even-two, he can count to ten and sing a completely recognizable “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He’s got better pitch than me, that’s for sure.

And heck, since I’m bragging, I’ll squeeze in the fact that I’m going to be speaking at an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) event on Wednesday as an “industry-leading communications professional” in the realm of blogging and social media. It’s being billed as an informal event with several featured communicators stationed around the room available to answer questions. Fun, eh? Any IABC members who will be there? Let me know!

Now it’s your turn, bloggy peeps. What’s making the sun shine in your corner of the universe these days?

Five free family things to do in Ottawa on a cold winter day

It’s January in Ottawa, and if you don’t get the kids out of the house soon, it’s going to get ugly. Here’s a quick list of five free (I love free!) things you can do to enjoy winter in Ottawa without breaking the bank.

1. Feed the birds. This is a perennial favourite suggestion of mine. Get yourself out to the Bulk Barn and buy 35 cents worth of wild birdseed. Load the family into the car and drive to Hogsback Falls. It’s a short and easy walk down the pathway toward Vincent Massey Park, and about half a kilometer from the Falls is an excellent place to feed the chickadees and nuthatches. Hold out some seed in your hand and stand still — it won’t take long for the birds to perch in your hand and filch the seeds!

Tristan & nuthatch, 2006

2. Go to the library. Another freebie! Did you know you can borrow DVDs, CDs, and even video games from the library? And most of Ottawa’s libraries have nice play areas and excellent programs for the preschool and younger set. The library is one of our favourite Saturday morning family activities.

3. Go tobogganing at the Arboretum. Once you graduate beyond the little hill in your neighbourhood, thrill the bigger kids with a fun slide at the Arboretum. Not much of a hike from the roadside parking, but you’ll get a good workout hauling your sled back up the hill each time! We’ve also had the hill at Mooney’s Bay recommended to us, but haven’t got out there yet. Best part? Completely free.

Whee! January 2009

4. Go for a skate! Okay, so it might be a while before the Rideau Canal skateway opens with all this mild weather, but did you know the city of Ottawa has 236 (!) outdoor rinks? Check out this page on the city website for details on the one nearest you. Edited to add: whoops, thanks to Melanie of the Citizen’s Adventures of a Working Mom blog for pointing out that the Canal is open after all!

5. Visit the Farm. Admission to the animal barns and the grounds of the Agriculture Museum at the Central Experimental Farm is free until February 28.

Tristan circa 2004

Winter can be long and dreary — might as well get out and enjoy it!

Got any other ideas to share for fun family winter freebies in the National Capital?