The Luckiest No Matter What!

This coming week, I will be saying goodbye to, Lori, one of my closest high school friends,  who lost her very hard and determined battle with cancer.  Receiving the text last Sunday morning that she had passed away crippled and shocked me to my absolute core.  As someone who is rarely at a loss for words (clearly), I've had a really hard time making sense of all this and an even harder time trying to articulate how truly heartbroken I am. Through my grief, what I keep going to is thinking back to high school and remembering just what an amazing friend she was to me and what a special friendship we had. High school is a tumultuous time- there's change, hormones, academic and emotional stress, planning for your future, and the hardest part, for me, an anxious perfectionist, was finding where I truly fit- worrying about having a sense of belonging, of community, figuring out who I was and trying to surround yourself with people who accepted and loved me for that.  ...

We have grandiose plans to be a family who travels. Toronto is one of our very favorite cities.  In fact, and this may be shocking to some of you, we'd MUCH rather go there than Chicago... like hands down.  Did you know it's a bit less than five hours away?  With less horrible traffic?  We didn't either- you're welcome. We absolutely love the walkability of the city- particularly the PATH, which is an underground walkway so that even in bad weather, you can still walk the city.  The people are kind, friendly, polite, and helpful (as Canadians are stereotypically), it is calm and doesn't feel too fast-paced, there is plenty to do and see, the traffic is manageable, the food is sensational, and it has a very European feel.  There is also access to Lake Ontario, a flatiron, a Little Italy (which is essential for this gal when in big cities) Dundas Square (which is like Time's Square), and a beautiful mix of old and new. Toronto's Little Italy Josh and...