Edmonton Journal: An Estate Home

 

Photo Credit: Bruce Edwards, The Edmonton Journal

I visited Alison Rayner after one of the first major Edmonton snow storms of the season. As I drove slowly out to her 8.4 acre property, I found my tense "I-hate-winter-driving-muscles" relax despite the icy highway. There was no way NOT to marvel. I was surrounded by a fantasy winterscape- ice dripping off trees, fields full of glinting diamonds.

The Rayner home was just finished, after a 3 year building process. As we drank our tea, you could tell Alison was both relieved and giddy that the project was over. She was a generous host and thoughtful homeowner.

To see pictures of their 6000-square foot estate home, and read more about the building process, click here.

The Edmonton Journal: Embracing the Golden Stain of Time"

Photograph by: John Lucas, Edmonton Journal

My time with Ruth Glancy was an afternoon filled with discussion of English literature, architectural and political theory.

I've always respected the Arts and Crafts movement- much of the theory's ideas of quality over quantity and beauty before utility resonate in my own interior design.

Meet Ruth Glancy and view her lovely home here. 

The Edmonton Journal: Highwood Distillers' Flood Recovery

Barry Wilde, President of Highwood Distillers.

The staff at Highwood Distillers had about six minutes to get out of the distillery. Still, on their exit two feet of water had flooded 1st Street in High River. Many were later stranded in their cars on the surreal drive home.

The Highwood River often floods the deck of the centre street bridge, but this year on June 20th, it did the unimaginable: it flooded most of the town.

Much of the distillery's spirits ready for shipping were destroyed, however, their whisky stocks were saved. When I toured their facility, 40 days after the flood, staff had worked 30,000 hours for 30 days. 300 trips had been made to the dump. While their losses were yet to be tallied, Barry Wilde, President of Highwood Distillers, said with a hint of resignation, "It represents millions of dollars of lost product and revenue." They still do not know if their bottling line can be repaired: and store stocks dwindle.

This Spotlight on Small Business feature was was printed in the Edmonton Journal on August 23, 2013 and the Calgary Herald on August 24, 2013.

Globe and Mail: I Know Nothing About Raising Her Right

Art by Tara Hardy as published in the Globe and Mail, August 21, 2013

At the moment of our daughter’s conception, we threw caution to the wind, but soon found ourselves scrambling to get it back.

It’s not that we didn’t want a baby, but we had debts to pay, grad programs to start and a pathological fear of minivans that hung heavily over bi-monthly talks titled “Children and Other Distractions.”

Circuitous conversations, they went something like this: “Let’s try to have a kid – but we’ll need a new car – we can’t afford that – so we’ll just work a little longer – but if I had another degree surely I’d make more money – yeah, let’s wait to finish school – but then I’ll be too old – fine, let’s try to have a kid – but…”

On the evening in question, her dad declared: “Seriously, will there ever be a good time?” Locked in an embrace that would distract him from that question, I never did voice the fear that hovered above my right ear: What if we raise her wrong?
I know so little about everything. Well, at least everything that is important to raising a child right.


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This essay, originally titled Trust Me: I Don't Know,consumed me the month after my son was born: writing between feedings, editing in the middle of the night. It has been written and rewritten a dozen of times since. Today, it found a home off my hard drive, in a very condensed format (there are about 2000 words more), in the Globe and Mail.

If you enjoyed this narrative non-fiction style, check out my other essays: My Neighborhood In Transition and Backyard Betrayal.