Seth Godin does Creative Mornings

I was incredibly fortunate to attend Seth Godin‘s lecture at last Friday’s Creative Mornings. The free tickets sold out in 45 seconds! And for good reason. Seth is an awesome speaker who has amazing ideas and great conversation starters about all kinds of professional topics.

Although this talk sounds like its aimed at designers, the lessons can really be applied to almost any profession (especially the music industry, industry friends!). Watch the 20 minute talk above. I promise it is well worth your time.

[via swissmiss]

Paul

This morning, one of my former co-workers and old friends at my formative company, passed away. Paul Gourlie was one of the oldest living people in Canada with Cystic Fibrosis and it was from complications with a months-long infection that ended his life.

Paul was one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. From the time I started working with him, as a shy and quiet 22 year-old receptionist, he would always go out of his way to make conversation with me (even that time I was still learning everyone’s names and called him Colin by mistake). Paul was the kind of guy who would make time to stop by the desks and offices of everyone to check in and say hello. It didn’t matter if you were an intern or the CEO, he was genuinely interested in what you had going on.

In an office full of extreme personalities, Paul wasn’t one of the loudest, but he was definitely one of the kindest.

We’ll all miss you, Paul.

A little something we’ve been working on…

Those of you who know Nick and I well know that we have never had a boring relationship. We dated long distance for over two years, before I finally decided to take the chance and move to New York almost 4 years ago. That led to us getting engaged, but then I got stuck in Canada for 8 months while I applied for an engagement visa. After much frustration, tears, phone calls, waiting, and a visa interview, I arrived back in the States legally and we got married!

It’s been a pretty great 3 years. I’ve been able to

Canada in March

On Wednesday, I flew to Toronto to visit my family and friends!

My first stop was my parents’ cottage on Burnt River in Fenelon Falls.

It’s always nice to start my visit here, with just my parents. We eat and talk and go about our usual business and I pretend I live there for a few days.

It was pretty cold and snowed every day, but Mom and I still went out for ice cream. Kawartha Lakes is known for its dairy, you know.

On Friday, everyone met at my sister’s house in Oshawa, including Nick who flew in that morning, my grandparents, and my brother & his wife. Ben and Jillian were excited to show off their new pet guinea pigs…

…and Ben was in love with his new bamboo plant (for some reason).

Ben, who once had a speech delay, has become unbelievably chatty and keeps his poor sister awake all night. She actually left everyone to have a nap by herself in the middle of the afternoon.

He could pass for my child, no?

Nick and I spent the night at the Martin’s. Have I mentioned that the kids love Uncle Nick?

They really do.

That afternoon, to make the final stop in my Canadian tour, we took the train into Toronto. I was so happy to spend that evening with 8 of my favourite Torontonians! We had a quintuple date at The Emerson. Great call for a place to have dinner, Julia! We sat at a giant table in the front of the restaurant like it was made just for us and ate some delicious food.

I love these guys so much; it’s always such a tease to see them for just one night. I love that they’re always there when I’m in town though, even though I’d like to just steal them all to live in New York with me. Another cottage weekend this summer, ladies? Gowns!!!

An All-Brooklyn Visit

Last weekend, our friends Julia and Jay came to visit! And you know what? We didn’t go into Manhattan ONCE!

Instead, we hung out in three different Brooklyn neighbourhoods, beginning of course, with Greenpoint for each of our brunches. We also took the East River Ferry to DUMBO, where Julia was very excited to get some treats from Jacques Torres.

Those cookies were SO GOOD!

We also spoiled ourselves with soaps and toiletries from West Elm Market before heading back North for dinner at Lokal. That night, all of us being very happily married thirty-somethings, we decided to stay in to watch a movie.

On Sunday, despite the chilly wind and freezing temperatures, we bundled up and went to Fort Greene to check out the indoor Brooklyn Flea.

It was a complete madhouse, but Nick and I found a few prints for our living room! We also enjoyed some treats in the basement food court, and you can’t help but appreciate the architecture of this old building.

Later that afternoon, I took Julia to my favourite store, Dalaga, where we both wanted the same bracelet. Obviously we had to have them and declare them “friendship bracelets”.

Before long it was time for them to leave again, but not without promises of another visit soon. Thanks for coming and enjoying a relaxing, yet productive, Brooklyn weekend with us, guys! xoxo

Animating Your Friends

You know those middle-of-the-winter blues? The ones where you spend your weekends eating too much, drinking too much, or just deciding to tattoo the inside of your lip on a whim? Well despite keeping pretty busy this month, I still managed to find time to get bored, and how did I combat the boredom? By taking this weekend’s most popular app “imadeface” and turning it into a game.

Sarah was my opponent. After creating pretty accurate cartoon versions of ourselves and our friend Karen, we decided to pick a friend to animate, then share our interpretation of said friend at the same time. The results were pretty funny. I hope the friends we cartooned appreciate this and know that we chose them because of their pretty faces.

Round 1: Julia Deakin (photo)

Round 2: Angela Holmes (photo)

Round 3: Jana Neumann (photo)

Round 4: Sarah Townson

It’s funny how to a stranger, these could look like completely different people, but to someone who knows the subject, there’s different features in each interpretation that ring true. I think Sarah won the game, unless anyone can argue otherwise! The imadeface app is available for free in the iPhone app store.

One year ago

It was a year ago today that my sister Jennifer gave birth to my nephew Everett. Sadly, he didn’t make it into this world alive.

Though the emotional toll it’s taken on my family and most of all, Jenn, has been rough, it’s inspiring to see how she’s handled the speed bump that plopped down into the middle of her life’s path. Jenn and I have always gotten along well, despite being very different people, I’ve always admired her, but I never knew how tough she could be. The way she and her husband, Ryan, have handled sharing their loss with friends and family is admirable. The way they’ve communicated to their son and daughter is just incredible. Jenn has never shied away from talking about what happened to her and as a result, Ben and Jillian, who are just five and three years old, talk about their brother often and fondly. Today, they celebrated Everett’s first “Angel Day” with cupcakes and by writing letters to him in heaven. What better way to celebrate a special life that’s impacted so many people, even though we’ve never met him?

I’ll be thinking about the Martins all day today and hope you will too.

Jay and Julia

The Deakin-Gordon wedding may have happened four months ago, but their fantastic wedding photographer (and I mean seriously talented) Rick O’Brien just posted a summary of the events on his blog with photos yesterday. When Julia showed me his previous work, I knew the photos would be great, but seeing them finished yesterday blew me away. It’s great to see that Rick managed to show the absolute beauty that radiated through this entire wedding with his photos.

Tina vs Twitter

I don’t hate Twitter, but I do agree with Tina Fey that having to get a license to have a Twitter account ain’t a bad idea. And yes, please hire her to be the one to grade the tests when she’s finished with 30 Rock (sad face).

Also for you Twitter n00bs:

• A Crash Course In Twitter
• Mom, This Is How Twitter Works

Memory Lane

When I moved to New York, I gave my parents about five boxes to store. Those boxes included irreplaceable things that I didn’t feel comfortable shipping to myself, including my collection of photo albums from the pre-digital camera days. I wouldn’t look at those old photos too often when I had them, but thinking about something happening to the only physical copies of these memories gave me so much anxiety! So this Christmas, while I was visiting my parents, I managed to scan about 300 old photos.

It’s so funny to see how I’ve changed throughout the years…