Blogs on More

This time of year approaching Canada Day always puts me in mind of when I lived in Montreal and friends and coworkers would move on July 1st. In fact, Canada Day is unofficially “moving day,” aka Fête du déménagement in Quebec.

When’s the last time you moved? One of our Facebook friends, writer and life coach Janet Auty-Carlisle is moving, but hasn’t found a new home yet. Here’s an excerpt from her blog that she shared with us on the More.ca Facebook page:

Facing Fearless: My Summer of Leaving, Day One
“This summer I will chronicle my final days here…I have 57 days left before the moving truck comes to take it all away to, well I don’t even know where at this point. For me, I feel at this time, that has been the biggest piece of the leaving: I’m going and I don’t know where I’m going to. That safety net of knowing I will have a home, a place to call my own, to cook on my own stove, to decorate the way I like to decorate, to craft and create and coach my beautifully inspiring clients. I know not where I will be doing any of this.

I’m 55, I don’t know where I’m going to live, I have 57 days to find out and, for the first time in my life, I’m ok with that thought. I’m ok with the knowing of the unknown. Perhaps I’ll spend some time in a tent, perhaps a beach house close by, perhaps we’ll gather up the dogs and travel somewhere else for a while, I don’t know and, right now, I don’t care.

I wonder if I’ll feel the same way as the date gets closer.”

Read the rest of Janet’s blog here (and see a photo of the gorgeous country house she’s leaving).

Today’s question for you: Would you ever (voluntarily) sell your house and move without finding a new place first?

-Helen

Update: June 28. And the winner is Carolyn! Thanks for your tip, Carolyn. See my note below in the comments!

The scoop from More beauty editor Beth Thompson on her must-have summer hair products.

Savvy summer solutions for hair – under $25!
Here’s a round-up of our favourite hot-weather helpers to keep your locks healthy, manageable and vibrant all season long.

For Hydration: Nature Clean Pure-Moisture Shampoo ($9). This 98% natural shampoo contains Babassu Oil for added luster.

For Ultimate Conditioning: Just Bee Natural Quenched Sparkling Pom Moisturizing Conditioner ($7). Paraben and phosphate free.

For Colour Maintenance: Ojon Color Sustain Gloss Finishing Hair Spray ($25). Monoi Oil promises to keep colour rich and true.

For Tangle-Free Strands: Yves Rocher Detangling Styling Water ($9). Linden extract coats and smoothes hair for easy styling.

For Manageable Waves: Marc Anthony Dream Waves Beach Spray ($12). Hydrolyzed Silk and Provitamin B5 add body and moisture for dreamy curls. Win this! What’s your best easy summer hairstyling tip? Tell us in the comments below by tomorrow before midnight (that’s June 24th, 11:59 pm) and we’ll send this beach spray to the writer of the best response!

-Beth

Listen, if you’re anti-Twitter, I’m not going to attempt to convert you. I did that with a friend who promptly gave up “tweeting” after a mere 48 hours.

If you’re on the fence, come join us. You can hop off if you don’t like what you see. @more_ca is our handle. Twitter is so much more than Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher posting photos of themselves, I promise.

Twitter can be a tool to check public transportation updates, a place to network, to promote your business, and a place to have fun.

I think we strike a nice balance between fun stuff and exploring content on our site on twitter.com/more_ca. As of right now, 2,602 followers seem to think so, too. Linda tweets, and so do I (we put our initials after each post. LL is Linda Lewis, and HR is me, Helen Racanelli).

Here’s a sample tweet from this morning:
@more_ca Help wanted: I joined more_ca twits (or I hope, wits) last fall, at 1400 followers. Hoping to double # soon so I can boast to the boss.-LL

So yes, there is an ulterior motive for encouraging you to join us. Linda and I want more followers!

Let us know what you think, what you like, what you’d like to see more of from us, either on Twitter or right here in the comments.

-Helen

This story is too good not to share. Yesterday I was indulging in a fabulously calorific sushi meal with a friend. I’m talking edamame, tempura vegetables, sesame rice noodles, yam tempura maki, teriyaki chicken. But the food was only half as good as the conversation, which I will relate in brief here.

Basically, my chum told me that she had seen an ex recently, someone who broke her heart 10-plus years ago (she’s in another happy relationship now). This ex convinced her to meet up for an innocent dinner. He profusely apologized for having been a jerk so long ago. He told her that no one has ever measured up to her, and bottom-line, he can’t find another woman as worthy as her to love.

And do you know what she said?

These were my guesses, based on what I thought she should have said:
Him: No one has ever measured up to you
Her: You know it!

Him: No one has ever measured up to you
Her: No kidding! I was the best thing that ever happened to you. Fool.

Him: No one has ever measured up to you
Her: Ha ha ha ha. Ha!

But that’s not what she said. She told him that she was “surrounded by so many amazing woman” in her life, and if he couldn’t find that or see that for himself in his own life, that was his problem. It’s true, right? Unless this guy was in a penitentiary for the last 10 years, it’s not possible he hasn’t crossed paths with amazing, worthy women.

Yet how generous and classy is that response? How many of us would think to respond in the same way, to brush off the compliment and turn it into a cheer for all the amazing women that truly do surround us?

I raise my glass to my classy pal, I’m proud to be her friend.

-Helen

If you thought teens or university-age students were the fastest growing group on Facebook, guess again. Today I learned an interesting fact, the fastest-growing demographic for Facebook is actually women at or approaching midlife (ages 35 to 54 to be exact).

Does that surprise you? It doesn’t surprise me. I say this because our Facebook page fans are growing steadily, even from a few months ago. We’re up to 570 “Likes” on our page. We were at 336 in January. Every week we have new page fans, and I’ve noticed new fans piping up in response to the questions I pose. A recent one that got comments was “Have you experienced ageism?” Please do come join the conversation.

Years ago, I was prodded relentlessly by my friend and colleague Natalie from styleathome.com to join Facebook. I didn’t want to–but then curiosity got the better of me and I did. And never looked back.

For me, the good outweighed the bad, and continues to do so. I enjoy seeing old friends and seeing their vacation pics and kids’ pics, and I’ve made new “friends” on it, too. Sure, the connections aren’t deep in many cases; it’s just a fleeting glance at a friend’s life, but it’s nice to reconnect all the same.

That said, I understand the concerns about privacy, and that it’s a time-sucker in a life already full of digital encroachments.

How about you?

1. If you are on Facebook, why do you like it?
2. If you aren’t on Facebook, what keeps you away?

-Helen

June is skin cancer awareness month. Today’s blog post is by More beauty editor Beth Thompson.

It started as a whisper, but in recent weeks the buzz over the safety of sunscreens has reached fever pitch.

Now the Canadian Dermatology Association (CDA) has released a statement assuring us it’s safe to continue slathering on our SPF everyday.

“Making proper sun safety part of your everyday routine will not only save you from red, painful sunburns, it will, most importantly, reduce your risk of developing skin cancer” says Dr. Ian Landells, CDA president.

Sunscreen ingredients such as oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate have come under scrutiny due to claims of hormone disruption and malformations in babies whose mothers used sunscreen during their pregnancy.

But Canadians can rest assured that sunscreens are safe, says the CDA; there have been no peer-reviewed studies providing conclusive evidence to support claims of hormone disruption or malformations.

If you want some guidance on choosing the best sunscreens, look for products with the CDA logo. These products have been reviewed by dermatologists and meet safety criteria, done through independent laboratory testing.

-Beth

(Worried about a mole? See associate editor Kate Daley’s visual guide to identifying skin cancer.)

One of my favourite things to do on the job is check up on what you More.ca visitors are reading. Turns out, these are the most popular stories from the last few weeks:

“My therapist slept with 13 of his patients. One of them was me.”
This article garnered lots of controversy in our comments. Check it out.

Symptoms of thyroid trouble
Always popular, and you might be surprised what those symptoms include.

Can you spot the pricier item?
This fun fashion quiz made its debut in the Haute Flash newsletter.

Did another More.ca article catch your attention? Tell me which one, I’d love to hear from you.

-Helen

This weekend, I spent a good deal of time watching shows and movies on Netflix, using my iPad. Netflix is a video streaming service, and you watch movies and episodes via your internet-connected device like your kid’s Wii or Xbox, or your computer or iPad. You need high-speed internet access, and you sign up online.

I’m going to give Netflix Canada a qualified thumbs-up. Here’s why:

The show selection
The new movies on tap are kind of meh for my liking (recent offerings include Knight & Day with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise, Date Night with Tina Fey), which has been the major Canadian criticism of Netflix. (Netflix offers many more choices to its American audience). But if you’re into obscure TV shows, you’ll dig Netflix. I got to watch Little Britain, Coupling and Top Gear (all Brit shows that can be hard to find here in Canada). There’s also Weeds, Arrested Development and others.

The movies from a few years ago
Where Netflix falters in offering new-to-DVD releases, it makes up for in good-quality movies you probably wanted to see but haven’t yet. Love in the time of Cholera (starring Javier Bardem. Just sayin’!), Milk and Memoirs of a Geisha (starring Ken Watanabe. Also just sayin’!) are all on my list.

You can try it for free
Right now Netflix is offering a one-month free trial. After that, it’s $7.99 per month. Maybe that’s not a huge steal if you don’t like the movie selection, but it pretty much guarantees you’ll have a TV show to watch whenever you want to. And, did I mention it’s an all-you-can-eat affair? You don’t pay per movie or show, it’s just a flat-fee for the month.

Do you have any interest in Netflix?
(June 9 update: If you do, enter our Netflix one-year-subscription contest!)

-Helen

June is skin cancer awareness month, but it’s also thyroid awareness month in Canada. Incidentally, one of More.ca’s all-time top-performing articles is this one: Symptoms of thyroid trouble.

I’d like to point out a new thyroid article on our site: How to take better care of your thyroid. Writer Sean Tarry interviews Ashok Bhaseen the National President of the Thyroid Foundation of Canada for his tips on taking better care of this important powerhouse.

One of the best pieces of advice Bhaseen gives, and one I can vouch for myself, is knowing your TSH numbers (get the full story on page 2 of this article). If you know your thyroid is under- or overactive or even normal, do you know what your actual lab results are?

I write everything down, and my different doctors always appreciate that I can rattle off the exact numbers–even if I don’t necessarily know how to interpret them. For me, interpreting is not the point; it’s record-keeping. It can feel intimidating to ask your specialist or doctor for the actual number from a lab test, or even a copy of the test itself, but in my experience they will oblige, if you ask.

Where I live, we don’t have electronic health records. I’m not advocating for them, but I will say (and I am not a physician, and this isn’t meant to replace medical advice) that if you have a history of accurate notes or copies of test results, that may be more helpful than saying “my previous doctor says my XYZ levels were normal, even though they were high (or low) before.”

Again, this is just my opinion borne of experience and what I see as common sense. What’s your take on the issue of keeping your own records?

-Helen