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If I can offer any advice to a budding journalist it is this: Don’t wait seven years to put your portfolio together. I spent most of Sunday (and almost all of Season 1 of The Cosby Show) sitting in my living room, surrounded by piles of newspapers and magazines, with my laptop and printer, scanning every single page of printed material with my name on it. And the minute I started getting annoyed about how long and tedious it was to scan everything, I reminded myself that the more time it took, the more published material I obviously had, so I should be grateful.

I’d forgotten about a lot of the awesome articles I got to work on- it’s funny how you can almost completely forget about some of the topics or people you’ve covered. So here are a few of my favorite things…

1- The playhouse shoot – WALL to WALL Summer 2006

I had this ingenious idea (or at least it seemed so at the time) to decorate a kid’s playhouse like an actual house, so after borrowing tons of stuff from IKEA (and, of course, assembling it), I spent hours “decorating” this teeny tiny playhouse. Then I got the greatest photographer I knew, Daniel Kudish (who shot my wedding- Daniel + Davina) to make it look pretty, and boy did he ever!

2- The international house in Hudson – WALL to WALL Spring 2006

This house in Hudson was gorgeous, and the owners were just as awesome (they refurbished old armoires). Every room was a different country- they had an English pool room, French kitchen, African home office, a Greek living room, and an Ireland-inspired dining room. It was incredible. Again, amazing pics by Daniel!

3- The Toy Tea for children of battered women

I was first introduced to this charity when I was interning at The Westmount Examiner and they sent me to cover it… I added my name to the guest list and have gone every year since (I even brought my friend Amanda and her son Mayson one year). I’ve collected toys at my various jobs, and co-workers have been so generous. I would book the afternoon off so I could go to the event and then start my Christmas shopping downtown while I sipped on a gingerbread latte from Starbucks. I love my annual Toy Tea- listening to children sing carols in Tudor Hall, noshing on the best rum balls I’ve ever had and sipping tea from china cups- it’s always my official “start” to the holidays.

4- Sports profiles

Despite the fact I’m not very athletic or sporty, the sports articles I’ve covered have been really fun and inspiring. I met Terry Fox’s brother at a Westmount elementary school for an Examiner article, profiled Olympian Mark Tewksbury’s eclectic home for WALL to WALL (and secretly put on his gold medal while doing the running man to get a laugh from our art director and Daniel, the photographer of the shoot- shhh don’t tell Mark!), and met Georges St-Pierre at a training demo at his downtown gym (as well as sat octagon-side for UFC 83).