Getting ready for Smudgefest

After more than two months of anticipation, today is new home closing day. To say that I'm excited is an understatement.

I'm planning to pick up the keys after work and do a little detoxification ritual with the Smudge stick that my BFF and I picked up at the Taos Pueblo when we were in New Mexico half a dozen years ago. I'm hoping that lighting the Smudge stick with the electric lighter from Kitchen Stuff Plus won't negate any of the positive effects.

Send positive thoughts.

Packing it in

You'd be ill advised to visit me any time in the next week. Chances are I'd grab you, stuff you in a box, and secure you with packing tape.

Such is the frenzied single-mindedness of the over-achieving packer.

I've got the whole prison aesthetic thing down pat. I'll be surviving on one plate, one bowl, one cup, and a single place setting of cutlery for the next week now.

Soon, I'll be setting my sights on the holy trinity of fast food for my sustenance. In my neighbourhood that means alternating between Pizza Pizza, Subway and Tim Hortons.

I can't tell you how excited I am about all of this. The best part of packing is knowing that I'll be unpacking in my new place. My place. All mine.

It sure would be great to order up one of those brilliantly sunny winter days for a moving day.

Team Awesome

I had a presentation at Subaru in Mississauga yesterday afternoon, on easily one of the worst driving days all winter.

Happily we took the company Forrester to the appointment. Not my style, really, but it sure felt safe, and handled well on the icy highways.

My art director and I have taken to referring to ourselves, only half facetiously, as Team Awesome.

After we left the meeting, I looked at him and said, rather stunned, "Dude, we might actually get to do this idea."

We were presenting a new campaign for the 2008 Impreza WRX STI. It's the boy rally car. The idea we presented was, well, you know....AWESOME! It'll not only sell a lot of cars, it will provide Team Awesome with a few months of absolute bliss in this industry.

Fingers crossed. The client looked just scared and excited enough to actually do it.

Anyway,it's hard not to be demoralized by all this snow, though.

This morning, in an attempt to turn it into a positive, I took my camera to capture some of the spectacular imagery. Snow nesting on branches and piled high, like meringue, on cars. Great in theory, but the reality was that it just made me cold and wet, as I climbed like a mountain goat over innumerable embankments.

More sun, please.

This is all I've got for you today

The real Dr. McDreamy

This afternoon I'm attending an awards ceremony at SickKids for two doctors who are being recognized by the National Cancer Institute of Canada's Excellence in Cancer Research foundation.

One of them is Dr. Peter Dirks.

Dr. Dirks is a neurosurgeon at SickKids, and a principal investigator in the Brain Tumour Research Centre and Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology wihtin the SickKids Research institute. One of his clinical interests focuses on the surgical treatment of childhood brain tumours.

By all accounts he has a steady hand and a steady heart. He's also an undeniable hottie.

Brain tumours are the second most common type of childhood cancer and the leading cause of cancerous death. SickKids has the only paediatric brain tumour centre in Canada.

One of the best things about having SickKids as a client is in knowing that, in some small way, you're associated with something that is so much bigger than you.

Dr. Dirks has said that he does what he does because he longs for a world where no child should have to suffer and no parent should have to hear this terrible news.

Here's to making a difference.

Flipping Out

Yesterday, while everyone else in the western hemisphere was eating chili and watching the Super Bowl, I was planted in front of the Flipping Out Marathon on Bravo.

The reality series follows realtor Jeff Lewis and his rag tag dysfunctional family of employees.

It's riveting, primarily because Lewis is admittedly neurotic and obsessive compulsive -- two traits he's parlayed into a highly lucrative career. His assistant reminds me of Karen from Will and Grace.

Definitely beats watching Tom Petty in the Half Time Show. What's with that?

Thanks for the Mammaries

I had my first mammogram this morning. I wore my Dollywood T-Shirt to the appointment.