family – The Writing Life of a Tadpole

New featured images – The rest of the categories

April 21 2020

When I started blogging about my featured images (Astronomy), I was culminating a series of other steps that I had taken to even getting to this point. Since then, I have added other images (headers and websites, governance, writing, and anything goal-related). What remains to be covered are miscellaneous items (quotes, humour, etc.) and reviews.

Miscellaneous

I have a category called “family” and for a long time, I’ve used a simple symbol of a house. It’s a cute clipart image, kind of almost gingerbread-ish in its feel. But it doesn’t really say family to me. I have another one, a logo of two pandas together that my wife and I used for our wedding theme which I quite like. But it’s only two pandas — no image for our son. We called our son cub for quite some time, but a few years ago, he decided he’s a penguin. » Read the rest

Trip to Newfoundland

March 24 2018

I’ve been to Newfoundland three times in my life…once for an APEC meeting (1997), once for some HR recruitment meetings, and once for a larger vacation with my family. Back in ’07, it was the HR recruitment meetings, my second trip to the province. I was participating in some broader recruitment, and I volunteered to be the one to go to St. John’s in November. Andrea joined me for the short trip (free hotel room for her!), and we added a couple of days of vacation to the end. With only two days, we didn’t go too far from St. John’s.

We were staying at a nice hotel near the one end of the downtown, with a view of the harbour and Signal Hill in the distance.

The reverse view from Signal Hill is kind of cool too.

Of course, like all good little tourists, we had to go Cape Spear. » Read the rest

Planning a wedding in six months – Part 9 – Photography

March 18 2018

As I wrapped up the previous post, I said the next one was optional for some people, hence why I kept it for last. In reality, photography in general is probably not optional, everyone wants some mementos. But there are FIVE big questions you will have to decide when it comes to photography.

A. Professional or not?

Picture this scenario. You’ve just spent six months planning what is likely the biggest event of your life. It probably comes third behind buying a house or buying a car in terms of the total cost, but maybe even second if you’ve never bought a NEW car. And the amount of work you put into it is way above the research you likely did on houses or cars. It’s BIG. And it all takes place in a single day. No rewind. No take-backs. No do-overs. We’re live, baby.

In 5.

4.

3.

2.

1. » Read the rest

Planning a wedding in six months – Part 8 – After the wedding

March 17 2018

Whew. The WEDDING is over. Many times you thought, “What about eloping?”. Not because you didn’t want to do the wedding, but simply because you were TIRED of discussing EVERYTHING. I almost feel like planning a wedding is a great test for marriage. Because once you are married, you’re going to have to do a whole bunch of “joint” decision-making, and what better way to do it than to make you spend six months doing it UNDER PRESSURE? 🙂

Okay, I exaggerate of course. Partly as there were very few times in the six months where we were exasperated with each other, because we were doing it “together”. In fact, I almost feel like the planners and trackers helped ensure it WAS being done together. At this point, you basically have six things left to do, and the first two are often related.

1. Relax

After six months of having just about every free moment tied up with this big project, it’s time to relax. » Read the rest

Planning a wedding in six months – Part 7 – Parties, parties, and more parties

March 16 2018

Even though you are planning the biggest party of your life in six months, even though you have lots of other things to do to, it isn’t like life just stops because you’re getting married, you still have to go to work, walk the dog, maybe take the kids to daycare, whatever, no matter that you have all this going on, people are going to throw MORE parties for you.

Engagement parties.

Wedding showers.

Bachelor parties.

Bachelorette parties.

Rehearsal dinners (although you might do that yourself).

Post-wedding brunch (again, you might organize that yourself).

Parties upon parties upon parties. And the important thing is that the parties are not about you. They’re not. Someone else wants to throw you a party, and your role is to say, “Thank you” and get out of the way. Usually.

Which isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy them, or appreciate them, you will. Yet often it is hard not to think, “But what about the 17 things I was planning to do this week and haven’t gotten to yet? » Read the rest

The Writing Life of a Tadpole

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