We live in a semi-detached house and often chat with our immediate neighbors, Dan and Jen. Their kids sometimes come over to play with J
-. When we make jams or jelly, we share it with them, and they share other interesting things with us.

Dan recently bought a smoker because he was pining for the briskets of his Texan youth. He made pulled pork recently, and he brought over some for us. We sprinkled it on pizzas, sandwiches, and other yummy treats. When we finished it, I washed the container and filled it with freshly-picked jalapeno peppers from our garden. (We have too many to eat, and not enough to make jelly.)

It's nice getting along with your neighbors, particularly when there's food involved. =)

2010-08-21 Sat 10:13

2010-07-31 Sat 08:00

Fall doesn't officially start until late September, but these mornings and evenings are pajama-cool, duvet-cool, un-summer-like. For the first time I am not troubled by the thought of wearing turtlenecks and sweaters in August. Time to unpack the clothes I stored a few months ago: layers of warmth and wicking, cashmere sweaters, coats of varying weight.

I have found other things to call fall and winter, to take the edge off the chill. It will be baking season, cooking season, sewing season. I've found a balance between the seasons for outdoor pursuits like bicycling and woodworking, and the seasons for indoor ones. Unusually cool or warm days give me a chance to enjoy activities from the other half of the year.

The garden will continue to grow for a bit. I may have time to sneak a crop or two in. Radishes grow quickly. The cooler weather is kind to lettuce and peas.

I'm learning not to fight nature. Little changes have made life smoother. So what if it doesn't feel like the tropical summers of my childhood? It is its own self.

2010-07-31 Sat 07:36

The winter chill is tough.

But it does mean that pork and vegetable wontons, buns, and other frozen food are sold on the sidewalk in Chinatown. It’s like having a big outdoor freezer, and not having to worry that your groceries will spoil.

Always look on the bright side of life! =)

We had circled the ice twice. Hadn’t fallen yet, just wobbled about in the way beginners do.

Mel stopped. She flopped down. “Might as well get it over with,” she said.

Sounded like a great idea, so I did.

Skating got a lot easier after that.

Fall down intentionally. Get your fear out, then go.

W- and I bought another set of microfleece sheets. They’re much cheaper than an electric blanket or heated mattress pad, and they’re significantly toastier than cotton sheets. We’re planning to keep the house at around 16C – or even cooler, if we can manage it, so the extra warmth will help. It’ll be hard to get out of bed in the morning, but the bathrobe I leave on my night-table may help. Wool socks, scarves, and thermal underwear will take the edge off the cold. I’m even looking forward to trying out the handwarmer that W- got for me.

Living in Toronto gives me three big challenges: being halfway around the world from family and old friends, making sure my paperwork is in order, and dealing with winter. Video calls, new friendships, and trips home take care of the first challenge. I’m about to finish my permanent residency process, so that’ll take care of the second challenge. As for the third challenge, it’s been said that there’s no such thing as terrible weather, only wrong clothes.

Why not just move back to the Philippines? W- shares custody of J- with his ex-wife, so he needs to be in Toronto. Having gone through the hassle of uprooting myself, I’d rather not make others go through the ordeal, either.

Now that I’ve accepted winter as inevitable, I can face it on my own terms and look for ways to stay happy (or be even happier!).

It’s hard to believe that I’m getting ready for my fifth winter in Canada. My fifth! And yet each year makes winter better and better. In 2005, I filled my wardrobe with winter coats from Goodwill. In 2006, a family friend gave me some great coats, and I spent winter time with Toronto friends. 2007 was my first winter with W- and J-, filled with tobogganing and hot chocolate. Last year, I discovered the joys of winter hiking, warm cats, and home-made clothes. This year, I’m looking forward to toasty blankets, lots of baking, and splashes of color in the clothes I’ll make.

The seasons change with or without me, so it’s up to me to adapt.

Our neighbors are really, really into Halloween. This is their front yard. They just loved scaring the heck out of the trick-or-treaters, and they did it quite effectively by jumping at them when the kids least expected it. Young kids they generally left alone (or apologized to after the kids started crying from fright), but any teenagers trick-or-treating were fair game. <laugh>

We gave them permission to decorate our front yard as well. Here’s one of the props they added:

In Canada, even the zombie babies need to keep their ears warm.

I’ve been nominated as one of Canada’s Most Influential Women in Social Media in a poll run by Dave Forde, whom I know from the Toronto technology scene. It’s a little odd thinking about that, because I’m nowhere near the likes of Amber MacArthur (popular geek television / videocasting personality), Leesa Barnes (who made it onto a worldwide list of female social media luminaries), and Sandy Kemsley (prolific Enterprise 2.0 blogger well-known for her comprehensive live-blogged conference notes). Me? I’m a recent hire figuring things out and posting notes along the way. =)

I’ve stumbled across influence by being in the right place at the right time, maybe. My story is now woven into IBM’s story about social media, and we’re helping other large companies figure things out as well. I’ve given numerous presentations helping people figure out what Web 2.0 means for them and for their company, facilitated workshops for generating, developing and prioritizing initiatives, and done a fair bit of hand-holding to get people over their concerns. All of that is pretty cool, come to think of it, but what I’d like to do is make it possible for other people to do even cooler things.

Thinking about this poll on Canada’s most influential women in social media, I realized that I didn’t consider myself any way equal to all these role models I have here and around the world. =) I also realized that I had a pretty good idea of a future me that would feel perhaps at home in that list. So here’s what I think “influential” looks like for me:

• I would organize regular events that brought together interesting people and helped people connect. These events would include workshops on social networking, storytelling and presentations, quarter-life crises, lifehacking and productivity, happiness, geek growth, personal finance, and other topics I’m interested in or passionate about.
• I would also build a bit of infrastructure that would help transform the networking aspects of these events: sign-up pages with more details, aggregators to bring together people’s blog posts, business card prints and other in-person networking aids, active matchmaking both online and offline, and so on.
• I would be one of those people that people mention their projects and ideas to in the off chance that I could recommend people to talk to, books to read, and sites to check out–because I would. =) In order to do this, I’d find ways to more effectively capture information to support a somewhat fuzzy associative memory. (It’s _so_ frustrating to know that you’ve seen something before that people will like, but not be able to find it again!)
• I would help lots of people to figure out what their passion is, deepen their skills, and share the results with lots of people through presentations, new and existing businesses, and other good things. I’d do that by asking people, helping them connect and make things happen, and helping them find a forum or opportunity where they can talk to other people.
• I would have a big archive of things I’ve thought about and shared with others so that I can pull useful resources out and give them to people.
• I would build systems to make it possible for other people to do this kind of awesomeness as well. =)

So that’s what “influential” looks like to me. I’m not there yet, but I think I can get there. =) I can learn how to hold external events, and gradually get into the swing of it. I can keep blogging and summarizing interesting resources, gradually refining my collection of resources. I can keep tweaking my addressbook, and someday I’ll build systems to help other people try this out. =)

Stay tuned.