a peek inside the fishbowl

Yesterday I put my Twitter stream through Wordle. (Wordle is a way of generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently.)

This is what it came up with:

I’m still not sure how to interpret the results. Either I’m a very happy person or I don’t have anything substantial to say. Or both. Ha.

A lot of people pooh pooh Twitter. “I don’t want to know what someone had for lunch,” they argue. Well, I do. That lunch might be taking place at a great local restaurant, or it might be a fantastic recipe I hadn’t thought of before. And both things are important parts of my work, so yes, I want to know what you had for lunch!

Twitter – as a tool – has definitely been worth bringing into my arsenal. In fact, it’s been especially valuable lately. It’s helped us find a place to live during the renovation and helped me with my work. In fact, it’s been an integral part making connections with people, both on a personal and professional level. The trick is knowing how to use it effectively and not get sucked into the vortex. :)

Are you on Twitter? How is it working for you?

My most recent piece for SavvyMom is about the wee town of Almonte. You must go there. You must. Because if you’re anything like me you will love it.

For starters, it is awfully pretty, with a healthy dollop of history:

Street parking is free and shopping opportunities abound, whether you’re looking for new goods:

… or old goods.

Not to be forgotten from our list of fave shops in Almonte is Gilligalou Bird Store (sadly I didn’t have a good photo to show here) but if you love birds like we do you must pay Bob and Louise a visit. Ask about their new spotting scopes!

There are plenty of places to grab a bite too. This one happens to be Cafe Postino, which is located in the historical post office:

Here’s the big question? Do you go as a family? Or solo? Or what?

I had to venture into Almonte alone for research purposes and although I was a little sad I wasn’t there with my family it turned out to be an AMAZING day. Imagine walking la-di-dah, coffee in hand, restfully, tranquilly, like a ship sailing calm waters… wherever your heart leads you. That was me, lingering contentedly and stopping to smell the roses and relishing every moment.

IMAGINE doing that without someone tugging at your pant leg (I mean that both literally and figuratively) begging you to hurry up.

But then again, you could also make this road trip into a little getaway with your girlfriend or spouse. See above re: peaceful lingering but add a quiet dinner for two, without someone dropping napkins on the floor, asking you to cut their meat, and begging you to hurry up.

But then AGAIN, you could really make this road trip into a little family getaway (which was, admittedly my original intent). Just alter your expectation and take a deep breath and accept pant tugging and hurry upping and enjoy this spot for what it is.

What say you? :)

Have I mentioned the reno is a go? Yes, it’s a go. A builder fellow has been officially hired and we are BUSY. Well, we are busy when we are not feeling completely and utterly paralyzed by the enormity of the situation.

Here’s the scoop. Our first big problem has been solved. After much web-surfing and phone calling we finally found a nice two-bedroom apartment that is walking distance from where we live.

Important sidebar: I need to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to District Realty. I was so impressed by their service. They went above and beyond the call of duty and found this place for us. If you are looking for a place to rent in Westboro for any length of time do yourselves a favour and call them first! Thank you as well to Peggy Blair (@peggy_blair on Twitter), an Ottawa realtor and mystery writer who held my hand and helped us look for a place too. :)

Anyway, the new place is great and I’m very happy with it. It’s a low-rise apartment that’s being renovated before we move in, which is great… although I don’t know what “renovation” entails exactly. The superintendent, who is very nice, told us that he needed 15-20 days to complete the job, so that could be anytime between May 15 and Friday June 1. The not knowing is going to make hiring movers and getting our internet/phone (we’re ditching cable!) a little tricky.

Gah.

In the meantime I’m trying very hard to ignore the immense amount of work that is required on our end. In fact, the process of sorting and packing up all of our crap is my idea of hell on earth. What I wouldn’t give to wave a magic wand and have it all be done already.

Here’s my dilemma: we need to sort through every single one of our belongings and place them in one of several piles:

• the long-term storage pile (subdivided into things we can bring to Mark’s parents place and larger things we can store elsewhere)
• the destined for the apartment pile – kitchen stuff, clothing, furniture
• the garage sale pile (or charity donation pile, i’m not sure what to call this one yet)
• the garbage pile

I’m seriously beginning to wonder if we really need to buy into any secure storage. Mark’s parents have offered up their basement for this purpose and I think we can leave a few things in the house during the reno (like the steel storage shelving in the basement). But there are a couple other things that I wonder if we can farm out somewhere. Anyone want to adopt a sofa bed for 8-months? And maybe a coffee table and a dresser? What about a houseplant or two? (I am not kidding.)

In order to ease my packing and sorting burden for the next few weeks I am launching a strategy that I’m calling USE IT UP. The USE IT UP rule applies to half-empty bottles of salad dressing, bags of brown rice in the back of the cupboard, shampoo bottles, body and skin lotions etc etc. because there’s no way I’m packing and storing or hauling half-empty bottles of anything, anywhere.

Funny thing is, as I was smothering myself with Body Shop stuff this morning, I wondered why I haven’t been using it. What on earth have I been saving this stuff for anyway?

p.s. do you think I should send our builder the link to my “Reno” board on Pinterest yet? Or will I just scare him away? ;)