Boosworld

The Bowling Tour – Sparky & Boo’s Badass Nordic Adventure

Recently a friend shared a post on LinkedIn about her first “career” job after she graduated from university. At the end of her enlightening and thoughtful post she posed these questions to her readers: “Where did you get your start? Any learnings that you carry forward from that experience?” These questions sparked some reminiscing about the start of my career after I finished university with…

I sleep like a baby. A newborn. On a good night, I get four hours sleep. On a not-so-good night it could be three, sometimes even two measly hours. I’m like one of those infants who make their parents regret not using birth control. It’s been this way since I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. She’s now twenty-nine. Add nine months and you’ve got roughly thirty years of interrupted lousy…

I started getting migraines when I was eleven years old. The first one was a horror show, which morphed into a terrifying recurring nightmare. Over and over. Year over year. Decade by decade. Ma used to say, it was my cross to bear. We all have them. As a kid, I remember asking if I could pick another cross. This one sucked. Big time. According to Cat Stevens, the first cut is the deepest. He…

My Old Man was obsessed with lottery tickets. Every week he bought one (or more accurately, more than one, more like a fistful). He would rub his hands together and gleefully declare, “when my ship comes in, I’m gonna.” Do this thing or that, buy this thing or that, travel to this place or that.” Fill in the blank and he was gonna. Problem was, his ship never came in. When I was a young kid, I…

It’s no secret that I’m a dog lover. Always have been, always will be. I was born into a house of dog lovers. And other animals too – cats, birds, fish, gerbils. You name, we loved it. Domestic and wild. I’ve written about the day my dog Andy died and how painful it was, especially for my daughter and me. But also, for our next-door neighbour, who unwittingly became the hero of the night. For…

Complicated Love. Complicated Grief.

It’s been twenty-one years since Ma and The Old Man checked out of Hotel Earth. They died five weeks apart in the dead of winter. Like many things in their life together, Ma took the lead. Ma died in the middle of the night in an antiseptic hospital room in Victoria. Although it was wonderful to have her close during her final year, it was also heartbreaking knowing that she wanted to go home to…

One of the hardest things for a pet owner to do is to say goodbye. This is something I know intimately. I’ve had to say the final farewell a few times over the years. It’s heartbreaking. Gut wrenching. Agonizing. But also, it is inevitable. And it’s the inevitability that’s the hardest part. It’s the looming specter that haunts our relationship. From adorable new arrival to grey-muzzled…

Embrace Your Inner Weirdo.

Go beyond your IQ Girl Warrior and embrace your IW. Your Inner Weirdo is the most glorious and incomparable thing about you. The best. The thing that makes you uniquely you. Beautifully unorthodox. Boldly unconventional. Brilliantly rare. And yes, sometimes even odd.

Oddly extraordinary. Oddly surprising. Oddly awe-inspiring. And most importantly, oddly original. There’s no one else like you in…