Just in time for the back-to-school sales, summer, at long and excruciating last, appears to have arrived. And I have, too—at the cottage, where I’ve fallen recklessly into categorical no man’s land: sunbaked, sand-spattered, slipshod.

Something there is about a summer getaway that makes a girl lose her way. Discipline, under the white blast of beach-bound sun, gives over surprisingly easily to inattentiveness and defeat. How much less troublesome it is to satisfy appetites with a ba..  Read more

It was exactly five years ago this August that the lights went on for me.

I was at the beach, a place I’ve yet to lay eyes on this “summer” (the quotation marks are included, bitterly, for despondent Ontarians everywhere), in the company of my kids and parents. No doubt I was lounging on an oversized towel reading something trashy, a glorious beachside activity in which I’ve joyfully engaged since my teens.

And I was eating.

Hauling a bag of snacks down to the..  Read more

It’s all my mother’s fault.

Like everything that is less than perfect in my life, the poor choices I’ve made with regards to crappy eating practices, unhealthy fitness routines and any number of reckless engagements in a multitude of bad-for-you habits can all be chalked up to my mother.

It was she, after all, who was hovering over me when I tasted the miracle of my first McChicken; when I understood that a telephone could deliver me these fantastic flat Italian pies, rig..  Read more

The summer has arrived at last, and the time for reinvention is upon us. So, too, alas, is the time for those little puckers of fat deposits to collect at the intersection of one’s tank top and one’s underarms. But I digress.

With the onset of this, the kindest season, routine falls away, rhythms change, the world strips off its mittens and opens up its clammy hands. The jaggety imperative to get to bed and rise in an orderly fashion, at least so far as those activities involving the..  Read more

Last night was my daughter’s seventh birthday. In addition to the morning greeting of a birthday balloon, cupcakes for the class and a parade of precious presents, this meant the ritualistic trip to a certain gluttony-inspiring Chinese-food buffet.

O brutal challenge to health-minded convictions, thy name is chicken balls.

It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up yesterday, this looming trial to my will. And as I made my way through the various twists and turns o..  Read more

A hundred or so years ago, I bought a pair of pants that didn’t fit. They were the coolest things: red and black plaid, pipe legs, pleated pockets. When I saw them—in their utter isolation (read: this one pair had the shelf to itself and there weren’t any more sizes to be had)—I wanted them so badly my teeth ached. But they were size 7/8. Me? Let’s just call it “size 18 with elastic waist.”

Needless to say, I bought the pants. I slapped my credit card down and busied myself with the s..  Read more

I think there’s a transformation that people go through that marks the launch of their official entry—however pitifully delayed—into adulthood. It’s a profound moment, this, and not necessarily a cheerful one.

Here, folks acknowledge—however privately to their own secret souls—their own mortality.

Here, they grudgingly admit that the fried mozzarella and parmesan-crusted Sicilian quesadillas that sustained them through their youth are due for a bit of a retrofit.
Read more

It’s been a lousy week.

Output has been down; input has been up. If stasis was maintained, it would be a miracle. I fear the worst.

Staying healthy is a chore that gets easier, no doubt. Establish some patterns, fill up the pantry smartly, enjoy some results and you’re on your way. A sense of obligation kicks in, as does the fierce desire to avoid the guilt that floors you when you ignore said sense of obligation. It’s a fairly straightforward formula.

But human..  Read more

Last night, the kids and I went to the grocery store for one of our “big” shops. When you have four children, as you can imagine, there is no shortage of “shops.” We dash into stores all the time, day and night, for such on-the-run essentials as milk, bread and gum.

But then there are the “big” shops, these massive expeditions that present themselves every month or two and demand an abundance of muscle—actual and financial—to see through. All hands are required on deck for these unde..  Read more

The trick to having kids is understanding how to best exploit them.

Take, for example, my recent push to get healthy. In theory, a working mom with a dog and a house and a passel of demanding dependents has no business taking time for herself and her heart. There are only so many hours in the day, after all, and the laundry ain’t doing itself.

But the secret to success, we all know, lies in multitasking, and children and exercise are both likely candidates for such an app..  Read more