I’ve given myself 10 minutes to write this blog post. So let’s see what happens.

Since my camera has 1574 photos on it, it looks like we won’t be posting any new photos today — except maybe this terrible photo I snapped and downloaded a few days ago of MAARRRGE with a Halloween skull on her….

I put the skull on her just to take this photo for you, Gorgeouses, and in hopes of bringing back this OLD tradition (whew, that’s an old blog post).

MAARRRGE has become a little high maintenance in her old age. I have to give her a thyroid pill twice a day. But look at her — she’s FIFTEEN and FABULOUS!

I have 10 minutes to write a blog post, and I’m talking kitty geriatrics? Oy veh.

But you know, I was at Blissdom Canada last weekend, and I did my Tribe Leader thing. And someone in the tribe insisted I write mostly about “emotions” and “feelings” in this blog, even though I distinctly demonstrated in my last blog post that I’m not interested feelings, italicized feelings.

So I thought I better write about something that had nothing to do with feelings asap. So here we are. Kitty geriatrics. Booyah!

MAAARRRGE.

Anyway, I only have 10 minutes to write here this week, Gorgeouses, because we have some very exciting stuff going on at Todaysparent.com: we are fully relaunching the website. It is going to be state-of-the-art when it’s fully ready — but getting there is a huge process involving the whole team (actually several teams!). ALL HANDS ON DECK.

So I have to go migrate articles and find photos and format and stylize and edit — while tweeting, Facebooking and writing at most one blog post a day at Celebrity Candy.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! That’s 10 minutes!

Love love love! I’ll keep you posted when the seriously adorable new Todaysparent.com site is up and running. In the meantime…, I’m quitting chai lattes officially for what must be the 4,457th time. Wish me luck!

Here’s a quote that should help me and anyone of you with a sweet-cinnamony addiction. I found it in VegNews Magazine (p. 47), which I was flipping through with great agitation earlier today outside the Monkey’s dance class, as the Rascal asked me question after question every two seconds. Checkit:

If you look for sweetness, your search will be endless; if you seek the true taste, you will find what you’re looking for.

Ahhh, the Buddhist axiom! VegNews Mag suggests this one means FRUIT is ultimately sweeter than chai tea lattes. Blergh.

The Rascal has conjunctivitis.

See what’s happening here? 5 extra minutes of PROCRASTINATION. But, whew, it’s amazing (sighh, maybe not amazing) what you can write in 15 minutes. I should do this more often…. GOTTAGO!

Later, Loves!
xo Haley-O

Maybe it’s because I’ve been sick for 10 days with a virus that was having an identity crisis — one day a sinus cold, the next the stomach flu.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t sleep at all during the stomach flu parts.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t gone to yoga in five days because I was too exhausted from the virus to make my kids breakfast, let alone bend over backwards on my mat.

Maybe it’s because I’ve missed some of that unconditional acceptance I feel when I walk into the yoga shala every morning.

Maybe that’s not the best photo for melancholy. I wanted a picture of fall leaves, but it felt too cliché; so I went with this horribly cropped photo of Betty White looking longingly out the front window, not to go outside — hells no — but to bark intimidatingly at a squirrel or ‘nother dog from within the safety of her own home.

Whatever the reason, today was a melancholy day.

It wasn’t a bad day. It was a really good day. Which is strange because it was a melancholy day. It was definitely a strange day.

Maybe it’s because I practise yoga, or maybe because I’m extra tired, or because I’m a little introspective by nature, spiritual, a dreamer. But I didn’t let the melancholy eat me up as it easily could have had I plunged inside. I didn’t get depressed or dark and twisted, anxious as usual. I got pensive, peaceful. I accepted it. I liked it.

It was a good melancholy. The kind that gets you closer to yourself. The kind that makes you feel so alone that you can almost touch your soul. And if there is no soul, no self, then I mean you feel so alone you can almost feel — really feel.

As I wrote last week, Dr. Laura was right when she said motivation is BS. But she was wrong about just doing it. That may be enough for a skinny, shrilly radio host who could care less about feelings (as she herself would say). But for many of us who are often overwhelmed by life, doing something as massive as losing weight or quitting an addiction goes much deeper than feelings — italicized feelings, whiny, woe-is-me feelings. And if there is no depth then it’s just much subtler than that, more symbolic, abstract. Wherever acceptance is.

I’m so busy with my kids, work, a squealy-barking dog, the loud city, stress, responsibility, anxiety, that I haven’t really been hearing. I may listen, but I rarely open my ears and hear, open my wounds and feel, open my eyes and see, not just look. The melancholy opened me up with great, serene breaths to accept everything that was today. Even the Rascal, who loves a good loud whine. Even the Monkey, who loves a good loud shriek.

So even as I stood in the playground from 3:30 to 5:15 so my children could be children and play and laugh and scream, I enjoyed the silence of my own melancholy, the ease of my own breath, the silence of my own mind. When I got home, I made everyone a nice warm meal. I didn’t react when my kids ordered me to GO GET WATER as soon as I sat down, or when the Monkey rebelliously put her feet on the table, or the Rascal said “ew” at the mysterious beans on his plate. I just responded calmly, from a different place.

Although I’m probably not as fun to be around with the melancholy, I like it here for now. And I’ll do my best to take it with me to the next big feeling.

Maybe it was because I wore the white elephant on my necklace today.

Love…

xo Haley-O

Occasionally, I listen to a radio talk show that sometimes makes me hate myself, but that sometimes makes me go hmmm….

Dr. Laura Schlessinger would not like that my kids are in public school. She would not like that my son goes to a (lovely little) morning school while I’m at work. But she’d be somewhat satisfied that I finish work at 2:30pm in time to pick both my kids up from school, and that my husband works from home. She would like that I’m married, but she would not like that I’m on Twitter and Facebook. She would not like that I had a lovely part-time nanny whom I said goodbye to last week while shedding giant crocodile tears.

She would not like that I’m fat.

I listen to Dr. Laura’s show occasionally on my way home from work, bracing myself for points of view that make me shudder, but eagerly anticipating the odd pearl of wisdom. My mom used to listen to the show in the car when I was a kid, so the familiarity of Dr. Laura’s notoriously shrill voice at times renders comfort and reassurance — and at times makes me want to put myself in the corner with a giant dunce cap on my head.

After slapping working mom after divorced mom on the virtual wrist and blaming cheated-on wives for not pleasing their husbands enough in the bedroom, and chastising others for “shacking up” before marriage, she offered one forlorn fat caller some refreshingly eye-opening advice for losing weight.

The woman was calling because her husband was complaining about her weight gain, and she gave a bunch of excuses as to why she couldn’t lose the weight — hormones, no time to exercise, not motivated. Dr. Laura pooh-poohed every one of the excuses, and nearly lost it on the caller when she asked the question I, for one, really wanted an answer to: “But, Dr. Laura, how do I motivate myself to exercise and eat well?”

“MOTIVATION IS BS,” Dr. Laura exclaimed. “Do you think I want to drop and do 20 pushups during the commercial break?” she asked. “Do you think I want to get up in the morning and workout in the gym? No. Nobody does. But it’s the right thing to do, morally, for your health, for your husband. Maybe once you get to the gym, you realize, ‘Hey, this isn’t so bad.’ But it’s much easier to be LAZY.” (I’m not sure if these were her exact words, by the way — except for “motivation is BS.”)

“Motivation is BS.” How true is this, Gorgeouses? I mean, I have all the motivation in the world to lose my excess belly fat — my kids! my husband, myself, yoga, energy, my new Lululemon clothes, him….

And then I see my friends and loved ones who’ve been on the operating table numerous times for near-death heart surgeries diving into chocolate, cookies and other stuff that put them on the operating table in the first place. Motivation is BS.

And in saying “motivation is BS,” Dr. Laura motivated me to stop waiting to get motivated. And then Theresa Albert motivated me, shortly after I listened to Dr. Laura’s show, when I read her great article in The Toronto Star about how our excess of food choices makes us “choose badly,” and then Alice came back from Italy (finally!), and David said after yoga the other day, “No lattes.”

I might be a bit quiet and cranky for the next few days while I attempt to tackle a healing macrobiotics plan. It’s quite a radical shift from what I’ve been eating lately, but if I don’t do something radical, something to “jump start” some weight loss (as Dr. Laura put it before offering the caller a free month of a diet shake program she swears by), it will simply never happen. And though I’ve been averse to macrobiotics lately (only because I’m not the greatest cook…yet), I’ve been mysteriously drawn to it for years — like I am to yoga and other ancient stuff — and I think I have to honour that. As a vegan, there are so many, too many, “diets” to choose from; I’m finally choosing this one as a practice. Done. No more emotion around it, as my friend Ruth has wisely advised me on various subjects. Just do it.

This will definitely be a major challenge as I continue be a darn good, responsible mom (even if I’m not Dr. Laura’s ideal), and work my soon-to-be svelte arse off with our awesome Todaysparent.com team as we prepare for our massive site RELAUNCH later this month (so exciting)! But, apparently, I’ll be thinking more clearly in no time, have that increased energy I’ve been craving, I’ll feel lighter, and I might get some glow in my skin — just in time for the BlissDom Canada conference.

Anyone going to the BlissDom Canada Conference in Toronto, October 13-16?

I’m excited to tell you I’m a Tribe Leader for the “Lifestyle Tribe.” So, if you’re going to the conference, be sure to join my tribe for a roundtable discussion Friday morning on blogging about LIFE. And, like all tribe leaders, I’ll be available if you have any questions, and to “help you make the most of your conference experience”!

By the way, my co-Tribe Leader is the awesome Ali Martell, who sums up Lifestyle writing (and our friendship) perfectly in her most recent post: “We’d love to talk with you about how writing about nothing is truly writing about everything.” Now you have to join us because Ali+Haley=CRAZY FUN, and you’ll want to be a part of that!

Love!

xo Haley-O

PS. Lord help me if Dr. Laura’s people find this blog post and she reads it on the air…! It is entirely possible. To make myself a little more likeable, then, I should state for the record here that I also have a dog. She’s a Maltese, and her name’s Betty White.

“Too much film festival.” That’s what my yoga teacher said to me as I carried my mat to my spot in the hot room, alas, still wearing my gaudy rhinestone-encrusted Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses on my head. One of the funny teaching assistants quipped, “I think you should leave them on.”

Yes, a little too much Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF): I’ve been sick with a cold/flu — Heather Graham’s cold — and exhausted from interviews with gorj stars on the red carpet, interviews with awesome filmmakers in the heart of downtown Toronto, transcribing all of these interviews, and I’m still recovering from my peek at James Franco and my Clive Owen birthday encounter. *Swoon!*

Now, many of you have known me for years, right? So you know that, of all the celebs in the world, Clive Owen’s my number-one celebrity boyfriend, right? RIGHT? Even if you haven’t known me for long, just look at my Twitter bio. Clive Owen is part of WHO I AM. This is serious business, Gorgeouses. And, although I write about celebrities around the clock, trust me when I say I’m not obsessed with celebrities — not one bit — except for Clive just a little bit….

So when I saw the real Clive Owen standing before me, thanks some sweet VIP tix at the Killer Elite TIFF gala, I was beside myself — waving subtly, arm extended stick straight in the air, mouth uttering I-don’t-know-what, “I love you”?

But, because I love you, Gorgeouses, I’ll share the first photo with you, which no one’s seen yet because I was saving it for you. It’s added proof that (no matter what a certain dinner-party jealous-person-who-shall-not-be-named-you-know-who-you-are might say) Clive was STARING AT ME. Ready? CHECKIT!

Exhibit 1….

Bald guy on the right is Jason Statham, by the way. And pardon the fuzziness. It’s hard to wave and take photos at the same time…. Note that there is not a crowd of people around me. I had ample space on either side of me…!

Exhibit 2….

STARE, right? Doth mine eyes deceiveth me Gorgeouses? No. There it is. Gosh, now I think I may have underplayed the stare a little bit on Celebrity Candy. Now that you see the two exhibits together, you see — RIGHT? — that there was, indeed, a stare.

What the stare was about, I have no idea. Maybe he was thinking there’s that cheaty girl from the Internet, who’s been calling me her boyfriend all these years bwah…!

Anyway. For me it was a surreal experience, like staring at a shark — mysterious, awesome, sublime. Clive.

One more thing before I leave feeling (as my favourite radio host Taylor Strecker likes to say) happy of myself. I may have had a little “too much festival,” but I’ve also been thinking about other more serious stuff lately — like the provincial election here in Ontario, Canada. Gorgeouses, those of you who’ve known me for years know that I stay away from politics because, unlike Clive, it’s so totally not my forte. But I did take to the keyboard the other day to write about an unsettling situation that involved an electoral candidate.

Sighh, I suppose, in the worst case, there’s always Jon Hamm…. But I’ll always have my stare.

Love!

xo Haley-O

PS: I’ll be posting more TIFF pics up on my Cheaty Monkey Facebook page, asap!

Photos: Haley Overland/Cheatymonkey.com

Maybe it’s because Halloween is in the air at work that I’ve noticed a little something I’ve been calling “The Veil of Fear.” I’m not sure exactly where it came from — just that one morning at the cottage, I lay down in savasana (corpse pose) at the end of my yoga practice, and I heard the words loud and clear in my head. Veil of fear, I heard. You have to lift the veil of fear. Hmmm…. So Yoda.

Even though I was supposed to be thinking about nothing (and, for sure, because I was supposed to be thinking about nothing), I relaxed into the yoga pose and started thinking about this veil of fear and how, epiphany, I live under one pretty much all the time. It’s very subtle, so I don’t always notice it; but it’s definitely there. And I suppose with the right dose of psychiatric drugs it would just fall away. But then that would be no fun, would it? And it would be bad news for the lakes, rivers, oceans — to which, bizarre as I sound today, I connect on, like, a visceral, pelvic level. I noticed that, too, the other day, as we drove home from the cottage for the last, *sniff,* time this summer.

So is it just me, or do you live under a veil of fear too? If you do, what happens when you imagine — even just for a moment — lifting it up? It’s like, ahhh…. Everything becomes clearer, no? Is it me? Or do most of us live with this? It is the age of anxiety, no? And with the kids going back to school, a huge transition, the veil’s thicker than ever….

I guess that’s one of the reasons I still can’t shake my chai latte addiction, why I can’t lose this thick veil of weight I’ve been carrying since the brutally anxious days of my pregnancies…. And it’s why I need to go to yoga every day — to wake up at a crazy hour (given how late I stay up working) and enter a room full of others, their journeys, veils. Because there it’s just breath, and being, and learning and floating, and lifting the veil as I bend my knees and fall backwards into a deep backbend, an upside-down rainbow.

Here’s the inspiring teacher who makes me do it — it’s time you guys officially met. In my 28 years of studying yoga, he’s the only teacher who’s gotten me to really practice daily and begin to transform. He is awesome, so check out his new DVD, okay?

I’ll let you know when the DVD becomes available….

I heart yoga.

I’ll be buzzing around downtown Toronto for the next week or so for the Toronto Film Festival. I’m going to the Hello! Canada Magazine red carpet Saturday night (my birthday!); the Monkey and I will be meeting Heather Graham Sunday; and we have some other interviews and fun stuff going on (like an early morning event with the Rascal that will keep me from yoga tomorrow, alas, but it’ll be fun).

In the meantime, the Monkey’s in Grade One, and the Rascal’s entering Kindergarten tomorrow. I guess that’s for another post — except to say that I shed tears, Gorgeouses, a veil of them.

Love!
xo Haley-O

The Monkey decorated our staircase. A skipping rope, my kukui-nut necklace from our Hawaiian honeymoon, a snake doll, Smurfette, Pablo, Elmo, Micky and his bride Minnie all adorn my banister and are making my house a mess home….

Sorry, Gorgeouses, I’ve been too busy to update lately, filling my evenings with celebrity blogging, writing articles, putting the kids to bed, preparing for TIFF, putting the kids to bed, getting my haircut, cleaning dishes, putting the kids to bed again. In other news, I’ve been grabbing my ankles in Urdhva Dhanurasana (hollaahhh!), and tomorrow I have to collect a pee sample from Betty White first thing in the morning before yoga.

Speaking of whom, this is what’s going on on my lap right now (the black mounds at the bottom of the photo would be my curvaceous bod, FYI)….

Sibling rivalry. I know it’s not the best photo. But it’s better than this other one I got when Minden suddenly went in for a kiss (that mysterious object on the bottom left would be his creepy li’l eye, FYI)….

Sighh, it feels good to blog about my cats again — now all I have to do is knit something. The other day I noticed that Minden mysteriously lost a bottom fang. He only has three fangs now. So gorj.

I have to go to bed now so I can wake up and collect Betty’s pee sample. I don’t think anything’s wrong with her, but there was a bit of a curious pee incident at the cottage last weekend, and our vet is insisting we take a sample to make sure she doesn’t have stones or a UTI. Are you fascinated? Nay, riveted? Are you riveted, Gorgeouses?

Ugh, she’s humping him again….

I was listening to this guy‘s podcast on my way to work today (he was my best friend in kindergarten and I love his work). He said ending an addiction could take a “moment”  — or it could take “thousands of years.” A moment…, to think. I think a lot could change if I could end my Starbucks addiction this moment and begin to really feed myself and maybe vow to become a morning person.

School’s starting next week. One weekend to rest and then it starts. Again.

Love….

xo Haley-O

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A few weeks ago, I hurried out of yoga class to get to work and stopped to say bye and thanks to my super-amazing yoga teacher David.

“My twists are terrible,” I told him as I slipped on my crocs.

“Awful!” He laughed.

“Terribly awful,” I insisted.

“How’s your diet?”

How’s my diet? At first I was excited that he asked because it meant that some good, motivating diet advice from my super-amazing health and spirituality guru was about to come. But, then I realized, gratefully, what an incredibly brave question that was for him to ask me. As my yoga buddy Jeff pointed out, it really shows the depths of a teacher’s compassion and investment in his students — that he’s willing to risk a slap in the face from overweight female straggler. Super amazing.

“It’s bad,” I told him. “Too many soy-chai lattes, sugar, bread, peanut butter. No time to cook for myself, blah blah blah.”

“That’s not good,” he told me. “You need to feed yourself.”

Feed yourself. My gosh. Once again, super-amazing yoga teacher has triggered epiphany. Feed myself. My gosh, I don’t feed myself. I eat, but I don’t feed myself. And I totally 100% eat to numb my emotions. I figured it out on my vacation over the last two weeks in cottage and farm country — i.e., miles away from STARBUCKS. A whole bunch of emotions (even happy ones!) surfaced as a result of not starting my days with a Starbucks sugar rush, and I had no idea what to do with them other than face them head-on or continue to stuff them down unsuccessfully with the sweetest cinnamony syrup I could find.

Practising yoga every day helped. Emotions arose and then vanished after a few poses. And I survived, incredibly.

I kayaked alone almost every day, and I noticed my emotions as I braved some big waves. Emotions ebbed and flowed. Seriously. It was meditation on water. And I survived, incredibly.

I tried to feed myself, as David advised. And I didn’t do that great. I ate chips (which I never eat), the kids’ vegan gummy bears, dark chocolate, peanut butter bagel sandwiches. I wasn’t feeding myself. I was eating.

And now that I’m back from vacation, I’m back on chai lattes.

So today’s the day, Gorgeouses. I’m going to start officially to feed myself. And I know it’s going to be tough, but I’m going to face my emotions head-on without food: anxieties about the kids, the stresses of feeding my family every day, responding to demands, tantrums, needs, wants (never mind my own needs and wants…). I can’t be a perfect parent because there’s just no such thing — I know that — but the stress of doing my best every day takes its toll. And sometimes at the end of the day I just want to veg — lay like broccoli, rather than eat it. I know this now.

Just breathe.

My body is supposed to be my temple. I believe that. And I want to move faster, feel lighter, look better.

I’ve been noticing lately that some women wear scarves around their necks to adorn their bodies. Others ink themselves with awesome tattoos. Others twist shiny strands into intricate ‘dos just to go to work.

I wear makeup — not to adorn my temple, ahem, but to cover up the results of not feeding myself: zits, dehydration, exhaustion, need I go on? As for my hair, I’ll always wash and go….

But I took the kids to the grocery store today. We stocked up on veggies, fruits, all good organic stuff. And when we got home, I took the time to wash and chop everything up instead of letting it all rot untouched in my fridge, as usual.

David suggested that I don’t do anything extreme to feed myself. No raw diets, low-carb diets. Definitely a vegan diet, of course. He likes the macrobiotic way of eating. But he said that if, for example, I can’t find time to make a macrobiotic breakfast (i.e., porridge and blanched greens, blergh…) after yoga practice, that I should have fruit and nuts — “just feed yourself!”

So I’m going back to basics, with the help of this book and this new book…. And then we’ll see about getting macro-fancy. I just need to feed myself, and not eat so much. Know what I mean?

By the way, David did say that I can allow myself my favourite drug drink on moon days — so, I’m looking forward to Sunday….

How about you? Do you feed yourself? How?

Love!

xo Haley-O

I’m on vacation and spending way too much time tonight trying to get posts and pics for Celebrity Candy to load. And it’ll be a WONDER if I can actually post this blog post. The Internet gods have not been with me while I’ve been on vacation. Which is probably a sign that I should actually take a vacation….

We did have a post in mind to write tonight, and we were totally excited — we really wanted to write it. And in case you’re wondering, we’re speaking in the first-person plural because we just read a book in which one of the characters was trying to obliterate his ego by speaking in the first-person plural, and we quite liked the idea of that. What do you think, Gorgeouses?

Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on my vacation. We went to Josh’s parents’ farm for a few days, and we’re doing another week in cottage country — which would be sweet if only my Internet were working properly and I could load photos of sweet Rascal in the now-shallow lake water…. For now I can only tweet them.

So keep up with me by checking my Celebrity Candy blog, Twitter and Facebook (like us?)! I’ll be back up and running as soon as we (Josh and I) figure out this photo issue! Could be as soon as tomorrow, so check back — I got farm pics!

OH! Wait! We — well he — JUST figured it out…!

Sigh, I love this pic. Ooo! And now that we can post pics again, I’ve been meaning to share this pic from earlier this month….

That’s awesome Todaysparent.com editor Alex Mlynek, moi and Tori Spelling. Tori was totally lovely this time and felt bad for insinuating that I was short (“I feel so tall! It must be these shoes.” No, not the shoes!). Read all about it here!

Well, life can go on now. Josh put an end to the photo crisis. I can’t tell you how many back flips I want to do right now….

More to come — it’s been a long frustrating night. I plan on updating a little more regularly here. But you know where to find me now when I’m not here, right?

Here’s one more photo for the road woohoo!

Betty White! (And don’t worry about Minden and Maaarge! We have an awesome yogi taking good care of them and our home. But they do say hi…! Meoowww! Miss….)

Love!

xo Haley-O

I’m trying to gather up enough energy and stamina to write a post here. Thoughts have been forming and merging and collapsing lately, but fingers repel keys like magnets with like poles because exhausted and empty.

But just like I now get on the yoga mat each morning (thanks to persistent, available, compassionately whip-cracking teacher), I’m getting on the keyboard and writing this evening.

Yoga for writers: Do your writing, and all is coming….

Lately I’ve found myself thinking a lot about who on earth I am. I’ve had so much going on: my first TV appearance, celebrity interviews, and more and more celebrity interviews and two trips to New York in just over a month and trips to the cottage and work and…and…and…and family.

And my family, though last on that list of “so much going on,” is at the forefront of my thoughts all the time. When I pick up the phone to Jessica Alba’s very sweet voice, it occurs to me how close in age the Rascal is to her daughter. Does she want to know how much my son will love Spy Kids? Or how the Monkey loves the Little Mermaid, too? She has a Little Mermaid “babing suit”….

She turned six last week. SIX.

Gosh, and I’ve been blogging here since she was 8 months old….

We threw her a fairy birthday party. Tinker Bell flew in and blew the Monkey away. She stayed much longer than she was supposed to (thankfully), went up to the Monkey’s room with all the girls, ate cake with us, took pictures. The Monkey hugged Tink for dear life when it was time to say goodbye. She really believed….

With so much going on, when I hang up the phone with Jessica Alba, when I leave work for the day, when the TV camera switches off and I’m wondering how I did, when I’m standing on my head at the yoga studio, when I crawl into a foreign hotel bed, I am all about my kids.

“Ooo, look at the upside down rainbow!” — my brother and his wife taunt me when I practice yoga at the cottage….

From the moment I crawl out from under the Rascal in the morning, to the time I pick them up from camp, they’re in my thoughts — emerging and retreating as my focus on other things waxes and wanes. How are they doing at camp? Is the Monkey wearing her hat? Is the Rascal asking his counselor for “Mama”? Is he eating his snack? What will we do together after camp? Hair cuts? The “fairy store”? The park?

I’m thinking about my family. That’s who I am. And I’m thinking about career and life and what I’ll make for tomorrow’s lunch when I finish writing this post. I’m thinking about my dharma.

Last night I dreamed of a cave and a guru. Another guru dream. There were no answers, nothing full or finite. Just open arms and a smile.

Love….

xo Haley-O

Hi Gorgeouses! This has to be the quickest blog update ever because I’m in the middle of watching Hall Pass with Josh-O at the cottage, and I didn’t want to forget to loop you all in on everything that’s going on.

Last week was basically the most insane week ever. And if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, or if you’re a regular reader of my Today’s Parent celebrity news blog, Celebrity Candy, then you pretty-much know most of this already. But here’s the basic roundup:

• Last Sunday I went to New York again for another overnight trip to meet and interview a celebrity mom for Today’s Parent. This time it was Alyson Hannigan! Long time Gorgeouses will know how very dear WILLOW is to my heart, so this was incredible….

Check out the great interview HERE! I even got to say “This one time? At band camp?” to her! It was definitely a highlight of my life…. Hee!

• Then, just as I’m finally starting to recuperate from Monday’s trip, yesterday (Friday) was CRAZY! The Canadian entertainment news show ETALK came to interview moi about celebrity secrets for post-baby weight loss….

My amazing and thoughtful General Manager Elana Schachter and my totally awesome NEW MANAGING EDITOR Nadine Silverthorne insisted that I get hair and makeup done so that I’d feel my best (verklempt, right?). So here’s me getting my makeup done in the Rogers offices by the sparkly and fabulous Elise Tremblay (closeup pics of that to come – I forgot my USB chord at home!)….

Here’s me apparently bending forward unflatteringly (!) while talking to eTalk….

Eeep! I hate to share this photo because, aside from Elise’s fab hairstyling, I look horrid, but it gives you a good idea of the environment I was working in, i.e., pretty scary at Today’s Parent/Flare/Chatelaine/Hello Canada Magazine reception area with camera in face — but the wonderful eTalk producer Heather Lin (above) was wonderful at making me feel relatively at ease (as were Nadine and our PR guru Hazel Picco).

So the episode of eTalk airs TUESDAY (July 26), 7pm, CTV. You can also catch it on channel 63 (in Toronto), at 6pm and 11pm. I’ll keep you posted on any changes on Twitter.

Gosh, I hope I look okay on TV and that I don’t twitch or anything!

• SO THEN! After I finish the interview, I’m in the middle of writing an article due yesterday, and I get a phone call. Apparently I’m interviewing JESSICA ALBA. She’s going to call me on the phone in a few hours.

So I spend the rest of the day scrambling to organize a blurb about it for Today’s Parent Magazine ASAP (huge thanks to the print team and Nadine for making THAT happen!), devising questions for Jessica, catching my breath…. The interview itself was great. She’s very sweet and real and had lots of useful things to say about motherhood and balance, and I can’t wait to share (next week on Celebrity Candy).

So how was your week, Gorgeouses?

Love!

xo Haley-O

eTalk photos c/o Nadine Silverthorne | Photo of Jessica Alba c/o Georges Biard