I’m sorry. As Canadians we are notoriously known for being polite, with comedy sketches and internet pictures frequently mocking our excessive kindness and propensity towards apologies. We often read this as a favorable quality, this readiness to assume responsibility for a minor infraction or social inconvenience – but what does frequent apologizing really say about …
Top 10 Skills of Healthy Relationships: #10 Be the change
Check in weekly for Lindsey’s top 10 list…we will intersperse this series with other thoughts from therapists…tune in next week for #9. I’ve made a list of Ten Foundations of Meaningful Relationships I’ll be sharing these here over the next 10 weeks. If you want something (or someone) to change, begin by being that change …
Dear Car: Your Groom-Son
Dear Car, This week, your son gets married. While you have become much more a part of my life since I married your Husband, never more have you been in my/our thoughts than in the last several weeks. You are missed always, and these days especially. A week or so ago, your son and his …
Embracing Limitations: Leia the tripod dog
With our renaming to Conexus Counselling, Carolyn’s blog has become much more “our” blog. Expect to see other therapists’ thoughts here. Today, Deanna Carpentier gives us a valuable perspective! I never really thought much about getting a dog. I knew my husband wanted one – I mean really, really wanted one – but I wasn’t …
A Bittersweet Legacy
Carolyn here: Michael Quiring, one of the therapists here, is one of my favourite people. His dad has been struggling…I’vbeen asking him about his dad’s health for years. Michael’s dad became acutely ill a few weeks ago. I spoke to him early last week…the situation was grave, and the odds were stacked against recovery, but his dad …
Doin’ it right
“There’s no cracks in the outside foundation,” they said. “Well, if it was the window leaking, it would be running down the drywall…and it’s not, so it’s not the window,” they said. “It doesn’t seem like there is a standing water issue outside by the building,” they said. It was almost like they were trying …
Mealtime: It’s not about the food
At our house, Tuesday is family supper day. We have a Junior Tribe Members and fiancées who don’t live at home. On Tuesdays, they know to show up. They might have a game or a shift or something that has them miss occasionally, but it’s a day that we don’t arrange for them to come …
The chandelier in the laundry room
I put a chandelier in the laundry room this week. Well, actually, Husband put it up. Whimsy. That’s what it is. Whimsy. Basement laundry rooms are places of damp and dark and rough unfinishedness. Furnaces, tanks, and ducts. The underbelly of the house. Practical without any flash. A room of work…there’s not a lot of …
Reflections of a morning of snarkiness and grumpiness
You know those times which none of us want to admit having, but we all do. The ones where we are glad the windows are shut and the curtains drawn because there exists a side of us we’d just rather not admit to anyone? Yeah, Sabrina Friesen had one of those mornings. Today. Sabrina is …
Skipper and the Problem
Skipper was my husband’s dog before I knew him. She was one of those hunting-type dogs…the kind that can and needs to run for many miles. An odd sort of dog to choose to have in the city, but they loved her. The family still occasionally tells a Skipper story…and recently related a new one …