I love learning about new things. I have this insatiable thirst to know about things I don’t know about, which is the reason I became a journalist. I loved university because it exposed me to new people and thoughts and ideas that I’d never even imagined in my own little Jenn-bubble. And my career has thankfully furthered that.

Being a journalist is one of the greatest professions in the world because the topic matter is infinite. One day I could be writing about the latest trends in home draperies and the next minute I’m interviewing a Playboy model, or I’m dining at one of Canada’s most renowned restaurants, sipping on wine that costs around $100 a sip, and then I’m spending the night in a homeless shelter and chronicling the evening’s events.

My latest venture is writing a travel column for CraveOnline, an awesome online magazine where I have been contributing for over a year. I’m so excited about this new project – through the course of my career I’ve been lucky enough to dabble in a wide range of subject matter and found that travel writing is one of my favourites. I love learning about new hotels and forward-thinking restaurants that are popping up across the globe, exploring culinary flavours and trends, talking to travelers and hearing their stories. And having my own column in which I can intimately converse with readers is such a privilege.

So look out for it… link to follow shortly!

1- I hate being sticky. I think I’m a little OCD about it. If I pick something up at the grocery store and my fingers get sticky, it’s makes me BONKERS (which is why I carry wet-naps in my wallet… please don’t think I’m insane and stop reading my blog…)

2- Why are there people on TV and the radio who have lisps?? Jamie Oliver comes to mind – I adore him, but wouldn’t he go to speech therapy if he’s going to be talking to millions of people every day? I had a lisp when I was little – I couldn’t pronounce my S’s. I went to speech classes, endlessly reciting, “I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit, upon the slitted sheet I sit” (sometimes I slipped and said “shit”- tee hee).

3- Black lights in bathrooms scare me. My pee has an alarming radioactive-hue to it, and my reflection in a mirror, with my pasty-white skin, is literally ghastly. I’ve heard that places install black lights in their bathrooms to detract intravenous drug users because apparently you can’t see you veins under a black light, but this sounds like an urban myth to me…

4- Dear deaf neighbor next door, Please turn your TV down. When we watch the same thing it’s like I’m sitting in a stadium with the incessant echo. K’thanks.

5- The best smells in the whole wide world are: fresh bread baking and wafting out the open doors of the Portuguese bakery on St. Laurent Street, A.L. Van Houtte vanilla biscotti coffee perking, the sticky sweet tang of the Atlantic Ocean washing up on Deerfield Beach, hoards of blooming lilacs on Grandad’s tree, warm soft laundry fresh out of the dryer, and my mom’s homemade spaghetti sauce bubbling away on the stove.

When I was a teenager someone gave me the book “Life’s Little Instruction Book,” with pages upon pages of quick tips on ways you can bring a little bit of happiness into your day. I loved it. I highlighted lots of the suggestions and even tried to do some of them too.

Two more books followed, and I did the same thing with those. I still have the trilogy tucked away in my keepsake trunk, but I thought it would be fun to share a few of the suggestions I enjoyed from the books:

1- Fill a stranger’s expired parking meter. I’ve done this before because, really, what’s worse than getting a silly ticket for an expired meter? It’s one of those icky little life nuances that can really put a damper on your day.

2- Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly jar.

3- Tape a few of your favourite photos on the inside of your bathroom medicine cabinet door. They’re out of sight but will bring a smile to your face each time you go to brush your teeth.

4- Throw a spare, inexpensive umbrella into your car for a stranger on a rainy day. Yep, I really did that- I bought an umbrella at a dollar store and wouldn’t you know it- a few weeks later we had torrential rain and I saw a woman with a little kid trying to duck out of the downpour. She seemed quite shocked that I just somehow magically appeared with an umbrella!

5- Carry stamps in your wallet. You never know when you’ll discover the perfect card for a friend or loved one. (And if you’ve been reading my blogs you know I already do this).

6- Never tell anyone they look tired or depressed (I hate when people do this!).

7- Wear audacious underwear under the most solemn business attire.

8- At meetings, resist turning around to see who had just arrived late.

9- Hold puppies, kittens, and babies any time you get the chance.

10- Remember the three universal healers: calamine lotion, warm oatmeal and hugs.

I’ve always been a pack-rat. I have umpteen boxes in my parent’s basement filled with yearbooks, photo albums, and other keepsakes that range from old faded receipts and cookie fortunes to lucky pennies I found on cracked sidewalks and streets. In high school I was known for my ridiculously crowded keychain- I had a mini etch-a-sketch, photos, games, noisemakers, and more.

Today, in my adult life, I seem to have an overwhelming amount of things in my wallet. I have current cards (bank, credit, license, Medicare, etc.) but I also seem to hold on to old cards (I especially love my university student ID card, which still gets me rebates at the bus station lol, and I also have Mike’s CEJEP card because he just looks so darn adorable in the pic). I have an obit of some random person because it included an amazing poem (see below) and she died of cancer too young and I think she would have been an incredible person to know. I have my bucket list on me at all times. I also have Band-aids, wet wipes, and stamps (so I’m prepared for basically anything).

Are you a pack rat? What’s your keepsake-obsession of choice?

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive, well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, Black Russian in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!”

1- I can’t figure out chopsticks for the life of me. Numerous people have tried to show me and my fingers just don’t work properly.

2- The dirtiest things in the world are: a public bathroom floor (when there’s no hook for my purse it proves quite difficult to squat, hold my handbag, balance myself so I don’t touch anything, and relieve myself at the same time), library books (nothing irks me more than turning the page and finding that strange, brown, mysterious stain smeared across that second paragraph- what is that?!), and elevator buttons (just imagine how many people are touching them on a daily basis- ick!).

3- I find it amusing to think about life before there was internet… like my kids will think I’m completely archaic because I can remember a time when I didn’t have email, Facebook, or a cell phone (or a pager- I was so tech-deprived!). And I can actually remember the very first time my best friend Danielle and I went on the internet and into an AOL chat room because it was so COOL to talk to random people across the country.

4- Somewhere there’s a secret sock fairy who has alllllll those missing socks from over the years. I don’t get it- I will walk downstairs to the machines, do one load, come back upstairs to fold my clothes, and one sock will be missing- WT?!

I also think this sneaky sock fairy hoards lighters and my husband’s keys (which also often go missing!)

I’m not the greatest of cooks, but I’m not too shabby at the baking thing. My husband’s a terrific cook – Mike can taste a soup, stew, or sauce and immediately knows what’s missing, what’s overpowering, and how to balance everything out.

But there are still a few yummy treats I can prepare, so I present to you my top three.

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

1 c. oats

1 c. sugar

3 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix above ingredients. Add 1/2 c. melted butter, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 slightly-beaten egg.

Refrigerate one hour.

Drop small amounts (very small, like marble-sized) AT LEAST 3 inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake 10 minutes.

Hot Nacho Dip

Layer in a large square casserole dish:

1 can refried beans

1 1/2 pounds cooked and crumbled Italian sausage

Grated medium cheddar cheese

Salsa

Preheat oven to 400. Bake for about 45 minutes until the beans are bubbling up in gooey goodness (I like to put globs of sour cream on top just before serving).

Mango Smoothie

1 c. guava juice

1/2 c. orange juice

1/2 c. frozen mango

1/2 c. crushed ice

Blend well. Serve with a bendy straw.

Yep, Mike and I have been together for 13 years and had never been away on vacation just the two of us… till this weekend.

Sure, we’d traveled together on business (when we both worked for the same company), but that’s more of a blur of long car rides and working on laptops and visiting hotel conference rooms instead of local sites and attractions. We’ve also been to Florida, Boston, New York, Mont-Tremblant, St. Saveur, but with friends, never just us two.

We weren’t able to go on a honeymoon after our wedding last October so my parents did loads of research and got us a gift certificate to a beautiful B&B in St. Saveur, which we finally used this weekend. The area is so pretty, the B&B was beautiful, but the best part of the entire weekend away was doing all the things we used to do when we were dating. We were corny and walked hand-in-hand, we went on drives with our coffees, and we were on our very best behaviour – no bickering and no nagging (ahem, Jenn). We were adventurous and let our GPS guide us to different parks and points of interest, and we ate wild raspberries. We relaxed with soaks in the hot tub and long afternoon naps while the rain fell outside our open windows. I ordered the veal for dinner and ignored the exorbitant price. We spent time perusing the local magazine boutique and kitchenware stores.

In a word, it was fantastic!

Bye bye city!

1- I love a good pen, you know when it just feels right in your hand, and it moves across the page smoothly, and it makes your handwriting look nice and neat.

2- Spiderwebs freak me out. I hate the feeling of something mostly-invisible on me and then I keep feeling spiders crawling on me afterward. I hate that they’re so thin and flimsy and yet so freakishly strong. I hate that sometimes they look so pretty, but I don’t want to think they’re pretty because they’re made by icky spiders.

3- Animals + talking = wrong

4- Who is Abdul Mohammed Jabar, prince of Saudi Arabia, and why does he still want me to transfer millions of dollars for him? And who are the morons that are still falling for this?

And while we’re on the topic people, Microsoft will not pay you for forwarding any emails, nothing cool will happen to your computer if you forward this to eight and a half people, wait 6.5 minutes while balancing a ball on your nose, and making a wish while sending an email to your 43 closest friends is as fruitless as trying to lick your elbow. Just STOP IT already!

5- When did stamps get so expensive? I mean, it almost costs me a whole dollar to send a letter to my friends in the States. Isn’t it supposed to be a cheap, old-fashioned method of communication?

Can’t we go back to high school, just for one week? Oh please?!?!

There are so many things that I would do differently knowing what I know now. I wasted so much time on so many silly teenage things but, then again, I guess we all do. I wasted time holding grudges, I shoulda studied my hiney off, I shouldn’t have let my own inhibitions and hang-ups keep me from joining things like competitive sports and the debate team.

I lost friendships in high school over gawd-knows-what (that I have since rekindled), I excluded amazing people in my life because they “weren’t my type,” I didn’t date certain boys because they didn’t meet the “standards” of me and my circle of friends… so much pettiness!

Our generation has a certain edge over the previous one because we have social networking tools like Facebook – we can reconnect with people as adults because now, in the big scary world, we’re all on the same level (for the most part). There aren’t cliques that keep us from opening our circles, there aren’t rumors and the same kind of stresses that prevent us from making amends and being fair.

I went to high school with sooooo many incredible people, who today are mommies, daddies, spouses, doctors, lawyers, filmmakers, actors, writers, engineers, and much more. Our “friends in common” finally transcend the rigid categories of “athlete,” “arty,” “brainiac,” and so on. The honors students have “friended” the cheerleaders, the jocks write on the walls of the geeks, and today, rather than baseball player to thespian, we find ourselves meeting on the grounds of parent to parent, real-world grown-up to hardworking adult.

High school was the best four years of my life, filled with so many memorable firsts like driving, boys, and being independent. But if we could all go back knowing what we know now, with the he-said-she-said just a distant memory, we would have so much more fun. Instead of having 20 friends we could have an entire senior class of 420 friends.

Hindsight really is 20/20.

I don’t consider myself to be an especially religious person – I was raised Catholic and went to church every Sunday when I was younger, but since moving out on my own, I’ve definitely gotten a tad lazy about going to church regularly. In many ways I find Catholicism to be outdated and even a little hypercritical – the church’s ideas about sex, homosexuality, and more are somewhat archaic, and while the Catholic Church is very charity-oriented, I think we spend too much money on ornate churches and gold chalices and more, money that could go to better use. We also talk about having an all-forgiving God and yet there’s an element of fear in His teachings, and if he truly is all-forgiving, then why would those who take their own lives or murder and take someone else’s, people who are clearly not in the right state of mind, be condemned to eternal life in hell? Wouldn’t they need the most forgiveness?

But I do have faith in the main ideas surrounding the Catholic religion – I believe in Jesus Christ being the son of God, I believe in heaven, I believe in doing unto others… I take a lot of solace in surrendering my worry and hardships to God and having faith that He will never give me more than I can handle in a day’s time.

And mostly, I like going to church (when I get out of my PJs in time to make it to mass!). There is something very reassuring about being surrounded by fellow Christians, praying together, and even singing together. I find it calming to sit in those wooden pews and take some quiet time to reflect on things. I really enjoy the “peace be with you” portion of mass when everyone shakes hands (even if some people have become such germophobes that they give you a two-fingered “peace” sign rather than actually dare to touch your filthy hands). There’s something humbling about getting onto your knees and praying quietly with others.

My mother is Lutheran and my father a Roman-Catholic, so my dad was the one who took me and my brother to church every week and made sure we completed our sacraments. And even though, as a kid, church was the most boring thing ever, I am so grateful for the lessons and faith I have gained from being brought up Catholic. And I have no doubt in my mind that I’ll raise my children to be Catholic and give them the same gift.

Having religion in my life gives me guidance and a sense of direction. It gives me hope and serenity. It gives me reason. It gives me comfort.

Just something I was thinking about yesterday at church…