When I came home from Florence, Italy, in June, for a solid week afterwards, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, eventually realize I was home and would feel incredibly sad that I was no longer in Florence — something I’d never experienced after my other trips. I’d eaten incredible food (perhaps the best soup and the best pizza I’ve ever had), met some very nice peeps (mostly Americans; as I don’t speak Italian, I didn’t meet many locals) and was just happy to soak in the culture once I got weary of visiting churches and museums. Above is a photo of one of my favourite spots, the gorgeous Boboli Gardens, and below, the Ponte Vecchio. Sigh…
Planning a trip to Florence? Discover more must-sees over at ElleCanada.com (psst, there’s excellent outlet shopping!).
October 16, 2012
In August, I had the opportunity to participate on a trip of a lifetime to Rwanda with some amazing women: some team members from the non-profit Because I Am a Girl, Plan Canada and SmartWater, Olympian and Because I am a Girl Ambassador Jennifer Heil (who is the only reason I was able to get through a pretty terrifying chimpanzee tracking excursion — she kept me calm and helped me get through the treacherous hike even though my legs were shakin’ like jello, but that’s a story for ‘nother time) and three incredible Canadian women who won the title of SmartWater SmartGirls thanks to their work on helping to improve the lives of women. These three women — Kama Money, Caroline Smeenck and Christy Smith — continue to inspire me today.
The whole lot of us were in Rwanda to help celebrate the opening of a new school and to learn about and see Plan Canada’s projects in action. And you can read all about it in the April issue of Elle Canada on newsstands now!
March 11, 2012
If you’ve got the current issue of Elle Canada, you may have read my story about how I just discovered that I’m pretty low on vitamin D.
I actually kind of strutted into naturopathic doctor Carrie Watkins‘s office, confident of having very healthy vitamin D levels. I mean I run outdoors regularly and I was tested in the middle of summer with tons o’ sunshine beating down on me making my runs hot, sticky and gross (I hate to sweat, remember?). Surely my levels of the sunshine vitamin was enough to pass with flying colours, right?
Not so much.
Since getting my rather miserable vitamin D results, I’ve been dutifully taking D Drops, which, for me, is a big freakin’ deal (actually “taking” something regularly). When you cover health, you get tons of vitamins and supplements to sample–bottles upon bottles that I place on my desk right in front of me to remind me to take them. I don’t need reminding, though. I just plain don’t take them, not because I forget to, but because the pills and capsules are so darn huge they get lodged in my throat, so I can’t ever bring myself to taking them ever. I’m a wimp. I admit it.
But I’ve been all over these D Drops because it’s such a cinch to take. (and that’s even with its’ rather unappealing bottle–as a rule I am all about pretty packaging.)
(Oh, you vegetarians out there can take it, too, as it’s classified for ‘lacto-ovo’ vegetarian use. The D3 in the drops is naturally sourced from lanolin, ie. from sheep’s wool–which sort of makes me queasy to think about it–so I try not to, think about it that is, when I take the tasteless drops each morning).
(in fact, I sort of wish I hadn’t been so thorough in researching the product, as thoughts of greasy sheep’s wool isn’t very appetizing. But alas, too late…).
For more about getting more vitamin D and its health benefits, pick up the current issue of Elle Canada and read my story, yo!
October 13, 2010
