The NEST is wrapping up: a goodbye, for now.

Ladies and gents, the NEST is bidding you adieu.

The NEST chronicled the experience of a newlywed couple living a frugal, offbeat lifestyle. We blogged about food, love, intimacy, childrearing, local events, crafts, and even renos. We took you along on a year-long journey, and I am so grateful that so many of you followed along. Because of you readers loving what you read, I got to do some amazing things, like helping to organize a spectacular social media conference, and getting to read my favourite blog post to a live audience. I rekindled my love of writing, and got to showcase some amazing local events and businesses. It's been a blast. 

So now, readers, you've got a choice to make. Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure novels you read as a kid? You're at one of those crossroads right now, my friends. You can end your readership here, with the closure of the NEST. The story will forever be the same, a happily ever after story. It's that point in the book where you can close it and walk away right now. Or, you can follow me once more into a new phase of my life, my writing, and my relationships. 

So, for the readers who choose to part ways here at the end of the NEST, let me say thank you. Thank you for being a part of my world, and for laughing, crying, and crafting along with me. 

For the readers who are ready to see what comes next, let me say...be ready for a whole new adventure. Click here to follow onwards...

-Jordan

Play It Again Sports: Meet our new patron and savvy shopping spot!

WELCOME TO PLAY IT AGAIN SPORTS!

We have a new patron on the NEST, and we’re super excited to introduce them to you! Play It Again Sports has been in Ottawa for almost 20 years, and is a prime spot for picking up gently used sports gear—a concept that we love, because it’s ‘eco-economical’, or ‘green but cheap’. As two very active people who like to explore a lot of sports and hobbies (but maybe not stick with them forever), used gear is a helpful, handy way of keeping the cost down. And of course, for readers who have kids in sports, used gear is pretty much a necessity.

Let’s get right to the introductions! We chatted with Rob Lavoie, Regional Manager for PIAS Ottawa, and here’s what he told us.

1. WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS NAME?

Play It Again Sports

2. WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND YOUR POSITION?

Rob Lavoie, Regional Manager of the 4 Ottawa area locations.

3. HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU?

We have 4 stores in the Ottawa area: Orleans, Ottawa, Nepean and Kanata, as well as a specialized Goalie Store in the new CHDC Centre in Stittsville.

We have a website, we’re on Facebook, and on Twitter

4. WHAT DOES YOUR BUSINESS DO?

Play It Again Sports is your neighborhood sporting goods store offering new and quality used sports equipment. Kids grow like weeds, teens want name-brand everything, and you want affordable prices! That is why Play It Again Sports is the sporting goods store for the entire family. We buy, sell and trade new and used sports equipment and pass along the savings to you.

5. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN BUSINESS?

We have been locally owned and operated in the Ottawa area for almost 20 years.

6. WHAT’S YOUR SPECIALTY?

We have two main points of difference between us and the “big box” guys:

1) Customer Service, and

2) We’ll take your trade-in to save you even more off of our already low prices. Obviously being a Canadian sports store, we have always specialized in Hockey gear and skates. We take the time to make sure you have both the proper gear and the proper fit, as this ensures that you’ll have fun and that you’ll be well protected at the same time. Having said that, we aren’t just a one-trick pony: we carry ski & snowboard gear in the winter and soccer, baseball, inlines and golf in the spring and summer. We also carry all-season apparel from Under Armour.

7. HOW DID YOUR BUSINESS GET STARTED?

We are a locally-owned member of a franchise group under the Winmark umbrella of stores. Two brothers took their love of sports and decided in 1993 to open our first store in Orleans and we haven’t looked back since, expanding across this great city of ours.

8. WHAT WARMS YOUR HEART OR MAKES YOU SMILE?

There is nothing more rewarding than seeing someone’s eyes light up as they try a new sport for the first time. It’s exciting to be a part of people and their families’ first experiences in new adventures and its fun to see customers grow and come back year after year playing sports.

9. WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE TO YOUNG NEWLYWED COUPLES?

Stay active and don’t be afraid to try new things. Bonding while trying new sports or activities is a great way to strengthen a relationship. Often money can be tight in the first few years of marriage and there are many inexpensive sports and activities to try out. Saving a few bucks picking up some gently used gear can help ease that strain as every little bit counts. Starting a healthy, active lifestyle at the outset of your life together will only lead to good habits that you’ll eventually pass along to future generations.

Play It Again Sports has four local locations, so chances are there’s a PIAS near you! Be sure to go in and say hello. And this September, all you hockey families remember that there’s a great place to get gear for your hockey players that won’t break the bank.

Welcome to the NEST, Play It Again Sports! We’re proud to have you on board.

Friday's With Bri - 9 Months Wow...

Gatineau Park

The nine month anniversary is almost surreal. It is a phase where you still have all the vivid memories from the wedding day, but there is a lot of future planning happening: what is the plan for living arrangements or what trips do you want to take… all these planning tasks we have been doing. But what Jordan wrote in her last post about her view of our 9 month anniversary rang so true. Taking the time to stop and enjoy what has been happening in the moment is so important.

"JUST WATCH WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND YOU."

We took a trip up to the Gatineau hills on our anniversary and we just sat at one of the lookouts and just enjoyed the moment. Watching the clouds roll in, the wind was picking up and we enjoyed the new smells of summer.  I just loved looking over and seeing Jordan there with me. We also planted our first vegetable garden; I was so impressed to see Jordan in there with the gloves she bought and fearlessly digging in the dirt to plant the seedlings we started. It is particularly impressive due to Jordan’s paralyzing fear of bugs. I took some time to just watch, it was so awesome. Taking time to do small things, like just stopping and watching, has been awesome. I highly recommend it to everyone: take some time and just watch what’s going on around you. 

This is our first summer as a married couple, and these past months every day has been a first. Taking time to enjoy these new firsts is something I want to share and I am so glad we have all of you out there listening, too.

Project: Priceless--the NEST would love to hear your stories of "firsts", or just some recommendations of firsts you think we should experience.

Blog News: We're speaking, reading, and blogging!

Man alive, the last couple weeks have been awesome for the NEST. We’ve got some great news, and can’t wait to share it: 

SOCIAL CAPITAL OTTAWA: WE’RE SPEAKING!

Last year saw the debut of Ottawa’s premier social media learnathon, called Social Capital. Social Capital (also called SoCapOtt for short) is a one-day conference gathering 250 social media fanatics and providing them with some of the smartest and coolest social media savants available. And this year, the speaker lineup includes Brian and me! We’ll be offering a session on ‘putting the soul back in social media’—details to come.

This is super exciting for us. I attended SoCapOtt last year, and was completely unprepared for the eye-opening, mind-expanding speakers and round table discussions. It was at this conference that I had my great lightbulb moment and realized I had found my mothership.

This year, the conference is offering four learning streams:

Personal Use: for the blogger/tweeter/Tumblr-er/etc who would like to expand their knowledge, influence, and personal goals.

Small Business: for the independent business owner who is looking to better harness social media to grow their brand and business.

Professional: for the communications pro who’s looking to solidify and streamline a great social media strategy for their company.

Non-profit/Government: for the community service or government worker who is looking to expand their offices’ reach and image via social media.

Personally, I’m going to recommend mix-and-matching; sometimes, what you really want to learn is in a different stream than you thought it would be, and that’s great!

The SoCapOtt conference is on Saturday July 21^st this year, and tickets are already on sale. Be sure to grab ‘em early, because last year they sold out and there’s no way to beg, borrow, or steal an extra pair!

BLOG OUT LOUD OTTAWA: JORDAN READS!

The next incredible honor is Blog Out Loud Ottawa. BOLO, as it’s generally known, is “an Ottawa-based get-together for bloggers, lurkers, and anyone who likes to hear good writing. “ In its fourth year, this event takes place this year at the Arrow & Loon pub in the Glebe, on June 14^th. You can learn more about the event here, but in a nutshell, it’s an opportunity to hear over 20 bloggers read out their best post of the year…and this year, yours truly is included in that lineup. We hope you’ll come out and listen to all these incredible bloggers. It should be an amazing evening, and I nervously, yet excitedly, await my opportunity to read!

GUEST POST ON WELLMAN WILSON

Thirdly: last week, I (Jordan) wrote a post for the Wellman Wilson blog. Wellman Wilson is a social media consultation firm here in Ottawa—a damn fine one, with two of the smartest social media Jedi I’ve yet met. The owners of this company only recently joined forces, which means they’ve amalgamated their efforts, and their blogs. I heartily recommend subscribing to their blog for some of the best, most user-friendly social media news and knowledge you can find. So imagine my utter amazement when they agreed to have me on for a guest post! The only catch was a (joking) request from Lara Wellman that I provide a photo of myself, dressed on theme with my post. The topic is branding, and I specifically talked about what happens when you don’t pull together a cohesive ‘ensemble’. Well, if Lara Wellman and Karen Wilson want a photo,then  sister, I’m gonna get one for you. Here’s the rest of the shoot for you to enjoy, but be sure to check out the actual post, too.

A great week for us here at the NEST. We’re feeling pretty proud of our writing, our social media knowledge, and our presence in the community. It’s so wonderfully affirming to be recognized in these wonderful ways, and for this, we are both incredibly grateful.

Like daughter, like dad: a Canadian blog story.

MY DAD, LOSE ON THE INTERNET.

Read the full post.

My dad is an opinionated man. He taught me everything I know about debating, arguing, and pontificating. He listens to talk radio, he’s always up on the latest politics, and generally he seems to have a working knowledge of just about anything you might want to discuss. My dad is the original Google.

So why it’s taken him this long to start up a blog, I do not know; but his subject matter is fitting, and so far, he’s off to a great start. The Canadian Defined is a blog about, well, just that: defining what ‘Canadian’ means. If you, yourself, are a Canadian, maybe you gave a little snort of laughter just now, as if to say, “What do you mean, define ‘Canadian’? It’s so obvious what Canadian is,” but I defy you to give a clear definition.

As a born-and-bred Canadian, my dad (Bill) has over 50 years of lived experience as a Canadian citizen. He’s worked as a photographer, a bicycle mechanic, a copper mine worker, and a business owner (of several businesses, actually). He was married to my mom at the same church his own parents were married, and three decades later, he and Mom are still very much in love. He’s experienced many Canadian things, from back bacon to social health care, and he’s lived everywhere from the nation’s capital to the backwoods of BC. And this man came up with the very poignant question: What is Canadian?

 THE BLOG, DEFINED

Read the full post.

The blog is quite new, with a handful of posts ranging from topics like poutine, to politicians. Bill sees this blog as being most valuable if it generates discussion, so he encourages you all to visit the blog regularly and comment on the posts. And then come back again, and comment on the comments. Together, we may actually succeed in sketching out a rough definition of what it means to be Canadian.

You non-Canadians are also welcome to partake; an outside perspective would likely help quite a bit.

I’m writing about The Canadian, Defined today partly because I’m just so darned proud of my dad and his new endeavour, but also because it’s been a time of reflection for me. Brian and I are frequently asked by people to help them get their social media/blog going, but there’s something really special about helping my own dad. It’s fun to share blogging wisdom with him, to show him the ropes and keep him out of trouble in the big scary world of the internet. Maybe it’s just a bit mindblowing that, for once (and only once) in my life, there’s something I know more about than he does.

Me and my dad.
And a really good pina colada.

Friday's with Bri - Beaudry’s Flowers and Silk Green house

MEET BEAUDRY FLOWERS, OUR NEWEST PATRON!

Have you ever seen a jungle indoors? Have you ever wanted to walk through a garden that would never die, no matter the season?

Beaudry Flowers and Silk Green House is all this and more!! It was so cool to walk into their store for the first time, and find out that they have their own personal jungle; from roses to maple trees, this shop is choc-full of amazing flora. We're welcoming this Ottawa institution as a patron of the blog this week, and interviewed them all about their family-owned business.

Surprisingly I found myself extremely excited when we walked in to their flower shop; I could not believe that these were not living flowers or trees! They have their silk shipped from suppliers in Toronto, Montreal, and the USA, and they create the plants right here in their shop. This makes for some very exciting, unique arrangements and allows for incredible custom work. Say you wanted a 12 ft tree for your lobby… they can make it for you and it would never die! You can even specify the type of 'bark' and the shape of leaves; you can literally invent a brand new tree.

And for the more traditional flower lover, as you move your way through their shop you find fresh cut flowers in the back. Beaudry has a prolific fresh flower business, mostly via online orders, but they have been famous in Ottawa for their silks for years.

Beaudry Flowers took some time to answer some questions for us so everyone can get to know them better:

INTERVIEW WITH BEAUDRY FLOWERS AND SILK GREEN HOUSE

1. WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS NAME?

Beaudry Flowers and Silk Greenhouse

Beautiful silk arrangements.

2. WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND YOUR POSITION?

Andreea Sincu – Business Developer and Decorator

3. HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU?

Address: 1761 st. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa,

Moving soon to 505 Industrial Road
Office: 613 789 7676

www.beaudrys.ca
Like us on FaceBook: http://on.fb.me/beaudryFB

Twitter: @beaudryflowers

4. WHAT DOES YOUR BUSINESS DO?

We are one of the leading florists in the country when it comes to fresh flower deliveries. We create and deliver beautiful fresh flower arrangements, delicious gourmet baskets for retail, home and corporate clients. We help our customers express their feelings whatever the occasion.

We are the wedding and event planners committed to making our client’s day easier! We bring the WOW effect through exquisite flower designs and professional customer service. 

Our Silk Greenhouse specializes in fresh and silk plants and trees for commercial & residential spaces.

5. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN FLORAL BUSINESS?

Oh, it would be 17 years now!

6. WHAT’S YOUR SPECIALTY?

We are the only authorized florist in Ottawa to supply Vera Wang’s wedding flower arrangements.

We are Ottawa’s specialists in the designing and manufacturing of silk trees from natural trunks and the highest quality foliage. All of our trees are custom made and come in many sizes and as large as requested. We also offer unique and elegant silk flower arrangements for commercial and residential clients.    

7. HOW DID YOUR BUSINESS GET STARTED?

The owners started the business as an outlet for their passion for flowers and love for design! They still carry that passion with them after 17 years.

8. WHAT WARMS YOUR HEART OR MAKES YOU SMILE?

Apart from my daughter’s laugh, I would say an amazed client! Seeing our beautiful arrangements leaving the door with a happy and content customer warms our hearts. 

9. WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE TO YOUNG NEWLYWED COUPLES?

I would remind them to enjoy each day to the fullest and never go to bed angry.

And a quick note: everyone should check out their Facebook page this week, because there's a great Mother's Day contest going on: share your best mom story and you could win flowers for your mom. 

We will definitely be talking with Beaudry’s again, and they will be an awesome place to get some flowers for Mother’s Day. Certainly check out their store at 1761 st. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, Ontario, K1G3V4 and score some amazing flowers at 50% off, as they prepare for their big move over to a space near the Trainyards shopping complex.

Stay tuned to the NEST for more information about their move and their new store's grand opening. And in the meantime, I may pick some silk flowers up for Jordan; that way we may actually have some flowers that last in our house despite her knack for killing plants.

We're monetizing!

We wanted to take a minute today and announce that we are officially open for monetization!

Yes, that’s right, boys and girls: The NEST has been doing so very well that we are ready to start offering ad space and other benefits for patrons of the blog. We’ve got a rapidly increasing reader base, and we’ve upped our content to three posts a week…and this means we’ve got to start looking at infrastructure costs (gag) as well as accounting for our blogging time. This is a win-win time for the NEST and for people who run the type of indie and/or green businesses that we love so much here at the Project: Priceless blogs. Here’s a bit of FAQ for you and your friends who may want to purchase some space:

 

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

We LOVE indie businesses, but are open to a range of patrons, as long as they tie in with the ‘feel’ of the blog. For instance, a large craft company may have a local branch, and we’d be happy to hear from them because of the DIY-supporting products they sell.

WHAT IS AVAILABLE?

Businesses, vendors, and artisans can get involved in three different ways:

□ A Patron of the Blog, with:

-ad space in the side column

-1 post or giveaway per quarter

-ad linking to latest post (optional)

 □ A Friend of the Blog, with:

-ad space underneath 4 blog posts/month

 □ A Collaborator, with:

-one-off reviews as schedule allows

WHAT’S THE PRICE?

We have a rate card that we’re happy to send out by request. Email us at projectpriceless@gmail.com for more details. We are starting with introductory rates which are 30-50% lower than market rates for this period where we iron out any wrinkles.

WHY ADVERTISE WITH THE NEST?

►The NEST is gaining popularity daily, with a constantly growing daily audience.

►We guest post regularly on blogs like UsedEverywhere.com/blog and Local Tourist Ottawa.

►We have a wide audience, ranging from baby boomers to new moms, to young urban couples.

►We offer a wide range of topics and posts; something for everyone!

►We can link your ad to a review of your business on our blog!

►Opportunities to offer giveaways to readers.

Please consider being a patron with us! We’re excited to work with some of the amazing businesses that make our community (both local and global) so fantastic. Space has already begun to fill up, so please be sure to email us swiftly as we will be working from a first-come, first-served basis.

Support your local bloggers! We are the word-of-mouth ninjas, and the new wave of newsmakers. Help us to expand the NEST to its full potential, and let us help you reach a great audience.

Fridays With Bri - Spot light on Amanda Cottreau

Amanda Cottreau, photo from showcaseyourmusic.com

Hey, everyone; just a quick post for today. With all the amazing events going on with Celebrate Her, I wanted to quickly highlight the brains behind the operation, the Celebrate Her mastermind: Amanda Cottreau.

I got a chance to sit down with her and groove to some incredible music last night, and find out why she wanted to do such an amazing thing for the women of the community. In a nutshell, Amanda wanted to find a way to link the community together and really show to everyone that, "Wow, Women are really doing that!" She wanted to show to all women around the city that they can achieve amazing things, and that we should really take time to celebrate them all.

SURROUNDED BY AMAZING WOMEN

Amanda and one of the nominated women Jules Hilliker

Amanda, a local song writer and musician who has truly married her music, told me about about her past and how at one point she had only $13 dollars in her pocket and no place to live. She got through these rough times by seeing amazing women achieve great things, and she stuck to her dream. Amanda pulled herself up and out of that situation. Now she owns her own house, finished her first album last year and is truly chasing down her dreams.

She told me that people call her story inspirational, but she said that it was because of those strong women she witnessed that she strives to succeed. She wanted to share that inspiration with more people, and make an International Women's Day celebration that appeals to all women and men. Since taking on the epic task of planning this week long event she has met more inspirational women than she can count. These amazing women are her "new heroes to look up to".

Alpha Soul Cafe, photos of inspirational women on the wall

When she started to plan the event she began by just wanting to provide a venue for people to recognize that there are amazing women all around...but sometimes we just don't see them. She started to talk with Max, the owner of Alpha Soul Cafe in Hintonburg, about having n photo installation at her restaurant that would show off some of these amazing women. This allowed Amanda to tie the whole celebration together through multiple mediums of art. Amanda wanted it to be an inspiration to others, and really to pass on hope to other women that they, too, can achieve great things.

 
Please come to the closing gala Saturday March 10th 2012, to help us all celebrate the amazing women of Ottawa. Tickets are only 35$. You can also purchase a raffle ticket for an amazing guitar for only 5$; proceeds go the Ottawa Sexual Assault Support Center (SASC).


It is amazing how much saying, "Thank you, we appreciate you" goes; and truly to all women out there, I say thank you for all that you have done. We truly do appreciate you.
 
-Brian

Amanda album

Come one and all: Celebrate Her 2012 begins!

We've got a couple pieces of news from the Celebrate Her 2012 headquarters, so let me quickly update you!

First off, if you missed our previous blog entries, you may be asking, "What is Celebrate Her?" A quick reminder: Celebrate Her is a week-long fine-arts fundraising and awareness campaign benefiting Ottawa's Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC), “Amazing Women” and local artists running from March 3rd thru March 10th. And the two of us here at the NEST have been dubbed the official event bloggers, hurray!

ANNOUNCEMENT 1: THE SCHEDULE IS POSTED!
Head over to the Celebrate Her website, and see all the wonderful arts events going on this first week (and a bit) of March. The week starts off with an art crawl through the Wellington West/Hintonburg/Centretown areas, with a launch party to follow. As the week progresses, you will see there are slam poets, author signings, musicians, and tons more happening, with at least one event happening every evening over the eight days. Tickets are Pay What You Can, with a suggested amount of $10; the Grand Finale, of course, will be the place to be, and tickets start at $35. We'll be live tweeting and Facebook reviewing as many of the events as we can possibly get to, and blogging about our favourite moments. Stay in touch with Celebrate Her via twitter and facebook to be sure you don't miss a moment.

ANNOUNCEMENT 2: JORDAN IS NOMINATED!
From the site: "Celebrate HER presents a week-long Amazing Women photo installation open to the public from March 3-10, 2012.  This series was conceived to recognize and honor women in our community who live to love, inspire others and affect positive change." Anytime we recognize extraordinary women for their contributions and hard work, I'm excited...but this time, I'm super excited because I've been nominated, too.

Brian secretly nominated me, and I know that may seem like, "Oh, well, obviously her husband nominates her", but this means more to me than anyone else nominating me ever could. Brian read me his nomination letter, and in it he called me his hero. To have your partner call you their hero is one of the most gratifying experiences I think you can ever have. More than anyone, Brian sees the literal sweat, tears, and quaking anxiety attacks that go into my many projects and volunteer efforts. He sees how I labour over blog posts, fundraisers, or event coordination equally. He has watched me transform myself from quiet mouse to roaring lion (okay, but I'm getting there), and he thought enough of it to nominate me for recognition. I have a hard time with praise, but I hope he knows how much I am moved by this gesture.

CELEBRATE HER: COME ONE, COME ALL.
Everyone, regardless of gender, is invited to the Celebrate Her events. I hope we see many of you out there, and that you come say hi to us. I love it, always, when the 'fun' is put into a fundraiser, and we sincerely believe you'll experience just that at the Celebrate Her festivities.

Celebrate HER: A call for nominations, and a reminder to pat your own back.

It’s that time of year again: Self-Recrimination Time. You may better know it as New Year’s Resolution Time, but it’s the same thing. It’s that couple of weeks where we assess our progress as human beings to-date, then set ourselves obscenely lofty goals that, through their implementation, imply our accomplishments thus far are not quite good enough.

Women, especially, are excellent at setting newer, higher, and loftier goals, without taking the time to reflect and celebrate the successes we’ve already achieved. This is a trait that I, for my 30^th year on Earth, am committing to changing within myself: I want to become fantastic at celebrating my endeavours, my wins, and the bruises I get along the journey. I’ve been pondering this goal for a while now, so when I learned about the organization called Celebrate HER, I jumped right on board.

 Celebrate HER is a non-profit organization developed to make spaces where women can be recognized and celebrated for their achievements. The idea is to “facilitate greater social responsibility within our community” by honouring the work of women who have risen above and beyond. The org is in its second year, and the team is planning a week-long arts-based fete that will span several neighbourhoods of Ottawa Central, while communicating nationally with women (and supporters of all genders) via social media channels. From March 3^rd to 10^th, there will be art performances, an installation, and a special wrap-up party where women, nominated by the public, will be recognized for their achievements in the fields of arts, business, media, and politics. Funds will be raised throughout the week’s festivities and will be donated to women’s initiatives within the city.

source: myspace

Amanda Cottreau—musician, singer, and songsmith—is the spark that ignited this special project. Amanda herself is an incredible musician: her voice has a childlike quality, soft and vulnerable, while her lyrics and instrumentals tell the story of an old soul. When I met Amanda, I could tell right away that Celebrate HER is her passion. A woman who has overcome adversity, walked a winding path, and found her salvation through music, she truly believes in the message of the organization: honour, empower, and rally women and their supporters.

Last year, Celebrate HER festivities raised over $2500 for women’s programming in the Ottawa area. This year, with more community involvement and an expansion on the number of activities through the week, Amanda hopes that the fundraising increases exponentially. But it all sort of begins with nominations, by the public, of women to be recognized. Celebrate HER relies on your word-of-mouth to let them know about special women in your community. For the purpose of the week’s main events, the focus is on Ottawa-based women’s achievements, but Amanda encourages nominations of women from across the country: they will recognize these national nominations through Facebook, Twitter, and other social mediachannels.

This is where you all come in, and this is where you gently shove those New Year’s resolutions off the table for a moment. Let’s pause briefly, at this poignant time of the year, and reflect on our accomplishments. Never mind the usual measures of achievement…a loss of weight, an increase in income, a lack of dirty socks left around the bedroom…let’s look at ourselves (boys, you can do this, too) and give ourselves some credit. There are many ways to be inspirational, successful, and wonderful. Maybe we rallied our neighbours to petition a local city councillor to clean up a neighbourhood park…or maybe we are marking twenty years as an MPP who has worked to advance the wellbeing of our constituents over those many years. Maybe we started crafting macaroni angels to raise money for a local homeless shelter…or maybe we completed Phase I of our business plan and began franchising our cupcake business in other neighbourhoods. Big or small, many women out there have made a difference in the past year (and perhaps many years previous), and these women not only need to acknowledge their own hard work, but they deserve to be recognized by the people around them. So take some time and consider if you may know a woman that you would like to nominate for recognition by Celebrate HER. When you have someone in mind, email Amanda and her team to find out more about how to nominate.

And for those of us out there who maybe spent the last year pursuing less lofty goals: celebrate yourself, too, girl. I can tell you from personal experience, I absolutely deserve a solid gold Oscar for thriving in a year where my little family suffered job loss, serious illness, a death, and even a condemned, mouldy apartment. No, I didn’t manage to lose my saddle bags, and noooo, I didn’t lead a rally to ensure free milk for every middle school student in Canada…but that’s okay. I got married without becoming homicidal in the process, I managed to survive being the sole breadwinner in the house, and I didn’t cry the last time the dentist put a needle in my mouth. Celebrate your personal victories this January, ladies. Set new goals, but not at the expense of acknowledging your successes to-date. And if you do know someone who has achieved something pretty fantastic, nominate her for Celebrate HER recognition this month. Chances are, she sees her victories as commonplace as you see your own; sometimes, we need a reminder from the people around us that our achievements were recognized, valuable, and valued.

I and my husband, Brian, will be blogging about the Celebrate HER festivities from the NEST, as we have the incredible honour of being the official bloggers of Celebrate HER 2012. I wanna see nominations for women from all of you! And if you want, send me an email about your own achievements this past year, even if they’re tiny. I promise I’ll write you back and genuinely give you a virtual back-pat.

Let your New Year’s resolution this year be a simple one: celebrate yourself. Celebrate each other.