a peek inside the fishbowl

This photoshoot took place about a month ago and I’m just getting around to posting about it now.

It’s been awhile since I looked at these, but as I flicked through them today all I found myself with a big smile on my face once again.

 It was a gorgeous Ottawa morning.

The air was brisk and the sun was bright.

The P’s were great.

I should mention that the P’s are private people and expressed some concern about having their faces splashed all over the internet. So these photos are strategically cropped (and posted with their permission of course).

Their family is a small family: a man, a woman, and their basset hound… who, by the way, was hilarious. A very smart girl who’d do just about anything for a treat. Or a stick.

Her eyes have the ability to turn a stone cold heart into a big mushy puddle of goo.

Her ears were equally irresistible:

And because of her short legs she sometimes required help from the human members of the family:

The P family was lovely; fun, easy-going and easy to photograph. 

How is it that I have the good fortune of meeting these wonderful people and getting the opportunity to peek into their lives this way? I am so lucky, that’s what.

I guess Calypso waterpark (located just outside Ottawa) did so well the first year that it’s already getting bigger. It recently announced a $5m dollar expansion, or maybe they were planning it all along? (Click here to read the article about it in OBJ.) The expansion will include a new 90-foot waterslide tower which Calypso claims will be North America’s tallest. (In which case I envision many bathing suit bottoms winding up around people’s ears.)

Did you have a chance to visit Calypso or have you been holding off? Or perhaps you did what we did this past summer and took advantage of the slashed admission prices at Mont Cascades?

Does this signal the war of the waterparks, or is it too cold to even think about it right now? ;)

Customer service is a big deal in my books, and when I get great customer service I tend to remember it (and tell all of my friends too).

One of those places is Lilac Lingerie, a new lingerie boutique that recently opened here in Westboro.

Lilac Lingerie, is, in a word, beautiful, and makes me feel beautiful too (but I’ll get to that part in a moment).

I have to ask… when is the last time you bought yourself some pretty underthings? Seriously. When?

And more importantly, when’s the last time you had a proper bra fitting?

Not everyone is comfortable being fitted for a bra. I mean, there you are, your tan is LONG GONE, you’re feeling jiggly and hating the fact that you’ve been snarfing down SO MUCH Halloween candy (or perhaps that’s just me), but Emilia and Danielle make it easy. They are, after all, professionals. And their job is to make you feel good about yourself.

The reality is that our bodies change, and, um, shift as we get older. This is especially true for those of us who’ve had a child or two. It’s important to get yourself professionally fitted every couple of years … and that’s my opinion, not a professional one. A proper fitting bra will shave 10lbs off your frame and will make you feel slimmer and taller and more confident. And you can’t put a dollar sign on that feeling. No siree.

Nice underthings are not just for supermodels. They’re for real people too.

I dropped by for a fitting at Lilac Lingerie earlier this week and was really impressed by the level of service and attention I received. The staff know their stock and they know how a bra should fit. The store is charming and the bras are arranged on pretty hangers arranged by size in drawers, as it should be. The fitting rooms are lovely, a comfortable size with pretty lighting that is the very opposite of That Which Is Florescent And Makes Us Look Sick and Pasty.  Here’s a peek:

It was a great experience and I will go back again. You should too! But if you can’t pay them a visit right away, do visit them virtually on their Facebook page or their official website.

Thank you Lilac Lingerie, for stepping forward and becoming a Fishbowl patron, and for making many of us feel gorgeous again.