The circle is now complete. These journals began on January 22, 2017 and the first one was about darkness. I found a quote by JRR Tolkien about fear and darkness and couldn’t help myself in reflecting on it. It’s a riddle and here it is… It cannot be seen, cannot be...

Today and tomorrow and that is it. The end of the road. Ok, so that probably sounds way too dramatic than it needs to be but I just can’t help myself counting down to the end of these short little journal entries and the beginning of m fictional career. After this...

Woohoo: number 900! Don’t forget to have fun.  Yes. Don’t forget to have fun because it’s important. Neigh, neigh, its vital that we never forget to have a little fun. Always. Each and every day because otherwise life is a long hard road that isn’t much fun for...

I am beginning to feel the tension. The tension that comes in planning the next phase of your life. Today is journal entry 899 and I am beginning to look ahead to what will be.  I am so very grateful that I have someone in my life who wants to go on this journey with...

Something interesting dawned on me this weekend and just for the record, not because I have something to hide. This is just a thought about the internet age we find ourselves in. It became clear to me this weekend that as human beings we have given up our right to be...

Today is Friday the 13th and we’re not supposed to have a good day. I don’t know who says we’re not supposed to have a good day, but that’s the word on the street, so we better obey, or roll our eyes and ignore the madness. I guess there is a level of comfort in...

7 more journal entries to go. That’s over 900 entries. 25 or so days until operation short fiction is fully in place. One day in the future I hope to do more will all those words that I wrote with purpose and meaning. I remember well how it all started. I was...

There is so much good in the world and so much to learn every day if only we would listen. It is rarer than we would probably like to admit. We do a lot of talking at each other, but with our one mouth flapping, we don’t utilize the two ears we were given often...

I am noticing more and more that people like to disagree. I am not sure why that is and when I look back on my life I certainly loved disagreements too. Not consciously of course. No one is consciously looking to get into a fight, but I have always enjoyed a good...

Here I am. Two weeks before Christmas break and three weeks before a new literary life of 2020 and beyond. I am beginning to look back at the last three years in particular and wonder how and who wrote what will soon be nine hundred journal entries. It just goes to...

My mind is slowly shifting from writing self reflective motivational pieces to writing short fiction. Each day I listen to people and see if they have a story I can fictionalize and tell the world. I have even asked people I know for some funny or not so funny things...

Know what you want. Make a plan. Follow the plan. Make adjustments. Keep going no matter what. It’s really that simple. The secret to a happy and successful life. See it. Plan for it. Follow it and adjust along the way. It’s not easy. Nothing worth doing ever is,...

I was asked yesterday how I feel about children believing in Santa. One side of the argument goes that it is setting up children to have unrealistic views and ideas about the reality of our world. On the other side, the side I lend my voice too, lies the believe that...

Sunday brought a lot of snow in these parts. Luckily it was the weekend and people could just stay home, not that this helped anyone that was on the roads that day. Snow kept falling and falling. Makes one very grateful that they don’t have a sidewalk to shovel. It...

This may not be a very popular sentiment but I don’t understand nor do I get swept up in the excitement of Black Friday. I just don’t get it. Probably because I am not a business who needs to turn a luck luster year into real profits. I don’t get it because I try to...

It’s amazing what happens when you shift your mind in a different direction. I am now looking for stories and story ideas because pretty darn tooting soon I am going to be smack in the middle of writing them. I’m super excited. Excited that this three year journey of...

I won’t lie to you. Raising kids is a lot of work. Great meaningful work but also never ending. Sometimes I feel like I’m very negative because I keep correcting and correcting, encouraging and encouraging, just do a little more correcting. But I am coming to peace...

The reality of oncoming change has set in this weekend and even little tiny seeds of doubt but I welcome them because before I do anything worthwhile, there are always seeds of doubt.  And so the countdown is on to the end of the year and new beginnings. Thanks to a...

Sometimes I get tired and things don’t go my way. I am sure the whole world can relate to this but I have made a major change in my life over the last few years. It is a change that is very easy to implement and follow.  No matter what. No matter how you feel. How...

For some reason Freddy Mercury is on my mind and that incredible song by Queen Who wants to live forever. I might have to listen to it on my way home today because I am not really sure why mind would bring it up at this exact moment. But I do have something to write...

This morning we welcome another morning and the opportunity to do things we’ve never done. We can’t waste this opportunity but that doesn’t mean we have to do something grand or visible even. Our days should not be judged by how productive we are, even though that has...

If I had limited time and could teach only one thing, the lesson would be to never quit. It’s the only unforgivable sin, a dark place from which we can’t return. And I’m not talking about those times we tell ourselves that this is it, we are done with this, only to...

It was a full week last week, not that when you have children they are not all full weeks, but there was a little more to deal with this time. My daughter has started riding horses and she absolutely loves it. She loves everything about it and is really good at it....

It pains me to say that my desire to write fiction is not working out as much as I hoped it would and that I have not written anything  but that has to change in the near future. I’m not sure why I haven’t written any fiction but it might have something to do with my...

This morning I am very grateful for the life I have, the life I live, and the life I continuously discover. I’m not sure why I am so grateful this early in the morning, as the snow keeps falling, and my poor little car has a tough time to maneuver all of that snow....

I can’t believe how cold it is and that winter has snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking. The seasonal temperatures for this time of year are around eight degrees Celsius, but this morning my car dash read fourteen below zero and I’m not one to agree with cars, but my...

I had the pleasure of doing some headshots for the cast of Chicago yesterday morning and early afternoon. Typically I like to have an hour or two with a client and ask for multiple wardrobe options. It’s a bit strange because it is a portrait of a face, but the...

I asked one of my students how she was today and she responded that she was ok. I pressed a little and we bantered for a while. At the end she jokingly or half jokingly said, I could not tell, that her happiness was buried several feet beneath the ground. She said...

Well holy spitballs. My quiet oasis in Ajax has been overrun with people buying reusable red cups for Christmas. Usually it is me and one other gentleman, doing our thing on our laptops, but day, I count about twenty people along with me, all buying red cups so they...

1+1 is 2.  This obvious, certain and undeniable. 1 + 1 is always going to be 2, but what of it? I am conscious of this formula because I have heard it all my life. Anytime someone is trying to justify something or tell you that something is obvious they give you this...