World Childless Week 2026, Day 3: 10 Things You Should Know About Me

Today's topic for World Childless Week 2026 (Day 3) is "10 Things You Should Know About Me."  From the WCW website description:  

In recognition of this being World Childless Week’s 10th year imagine sitting in a room with a captive audience. What are the 10 things you’d want them to know about how childlessness has shaped you? Would you explain the heartache and pain or the glimmers and new found dreams? The struggles of not being heard or seen when pronatalism bends and distorts the reality of being childless in the press, media, workplace and politics etc? Your lost dreams and doubts about your worth, or the inner courage, strength and resilience you have fought for? The sorrow of living with a disenfranchised grief or the beauty of who you are as a unique individual regardless of being childless? 

What 10 things EXPLAIN YOU?

I didn't have time to put together a submission for this topic (or any other one) -- and I will admit I did not give this list a lot of thought! -- but off the top of my head, this is what I came up with for this post (listed in no particular order of importance):  

1. My childlessness was not a choice. I chose to end the insanity of fertility treatments and move on with my life, but I did not "choose" to be childless. It is not something I wanted, or decided on the spur of the moment. It is beyond hurtful when people (particularly politicians trying to score political points) say nasty things about those of us without children.  

2.  I don't talk a lot about my stillborn daughter, the trauma of failed fertility treatments or the pain of permanent involuntary childlessness. I have learned to live with my grief over the past 28 years -- and it does not dominate my life the way it once did. (But make no mistake, it has shaped the person I've become, and it is there, lurking in the background. Always.)   

3.  Not everyone understands what pregnancy loss involves (and different women will experience it differently, depending on the gestation of the baby and the circumstances of the loss).  I may not be sharing my labour & delivery story (because I'm really not sure you want to hear it...!), but believe me, I have one too.  I held my dead daughter in my arms for the first and only time. I have just six precious Polaroid photos of her, taken by the nurse (and you can't even see her wee face in three of them.)  Not all losses are marked by a funeral, but I had one for my baby.  I visited her niche in the cemetery almost every week for the 18 years after her stillbirth that we lived in that community, and we still make a stop at the cemetery every time we're in the area. 

4. Fertility treatments have helped a lot of people, but they don't work for everyone. Likewise, adoption can be a wonderful thing, but it is not the solution for everyone, and it is not as simple or cheap as many people seem to think it is. 

5. Sometimes I'm happy to come to your baby shower or child's birthday party. Sometimes it's just too hard to be around happy parents & kids and be confronted with the reality of what I've missed out on. But I do appreciate being invited.  Thank you for inviting me (please keep doing so), and thank you for understanding if and when I decline, or if I go quiet and leave the room when the "mom talk" gets to be too much. .    

6. I absolutely love being an auntie and great-auntie. It's a special relationship, I'm lucky to have them, and I treasure the time I get to spend with them.  But it's not a substitute for being a mother to my own children.   

7. I always wanted and hoped I'd be a mother -- but it was not the only thing I wanted to do with my life, and not the only thing I wanted people to know about me. I've always said "I am more than my uterus" and I think that belief is one of the key things that's helped me get through these past 25 years.  

8. I have made so many wonderful friends in the childless community over the past 25 years (most of them online. I am so very thankful my childlessness arrived around the same time widespread use of the Internet did!

9. I don't want pity. And I don't expect you could understand my life, when it's been so different from yours. But I sure would appreciate a little respect and consideration.  

10.  My childless life is not better or worse than a parent's. There is a good life, and joy, to be had without children too. It's just different.  

See also this similar/somewhat related 2021 post: "20 years of childless living."

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and webinars, including ones on how our relationships with childlessness can change over time, rewriting our dreams, and aging and thriving (not just surviving!) without children. All webinars are recorded and will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day Three page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

Tomorrow (Day Four) will be "Childless Mother's/Father's Day."  I'll be taking part in one of the webinars then too:  "All in the Family: Childless women, Caregiving/Caring and Family of Origin Dynamics."  Hope to see some of you there!  

World Childless Week 2026, Day 2: Disability & Chronic Illness

Today's topic for World Childless Week 2026 (Day 2) is Childless: Disability and Chronic Illness.  From the WCW website description:  

Has your situation meant you were unable to have children or did you decide to not have children because you felt you were unable to give them the life you wanted to? Have you been judged for your decisions when others with the same disability or illness decided to have children? Have people compared your life to theirs and dismissed the reality of your situation? Have people been surprised to discover you wanted children because they made assumptions based on your health/ability. Have you been made to feel like a fraud because “you don't look ill”? Has anyone dismissed your grief and implied you are childfree because they don’t understand you made the toughest of decisions?

What is the truth of your story?

I don't really have anything personal to offer regarding this topic, but I know health issues (both physical and mental) are a major reason why some women don't have the children they wanted.  

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and webinars, including ones focused on endometriosis, and navigating healthcare.  All webinars are recorded and will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day Two page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

In honour of WCW's 10th (!) anniversary, tomorrow (Day Three)'s topic will be "10 Things You Should Know About Me." 

"The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy

Way back in March, I decided to read -- or at least to START reading! -- "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy, in advance of a new TV adaptation ("The Forsytes") that started showing that month on PBS. (It ran for six episodes, and has been renewed for a second season.)  One of my blog readers (you know who you are!) offered to join me in a "slow readalong," and we have had fun comparing notes as we both slowly made our way through the book (while juggling others at the same time)!  

"The Forsyte Saga" is a massive book, running more than 900 pages (!) in paperback. (I read an e-version.) It's actually a trilogy -- three volumes in one:  The Man of Property (1906), In Chancery (1920), and To Let (1921). (I should really count this as three books read instead of one, no??) Galsworthy was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga," and was only the second English author to receive the award since its inception in 1901.

The book tells the story of three generations of the Forsytes, a large, upper middle-class English family, starting in 1886 and ending in the early 1920s -- years of great social change and upheaval in Britain, including both the Boer War and First World War.  There's a broad cast of characters spotlighted at various points in the book, but the focus throughout is particularly on the very proper (and very pompous) "man of property," Soames Forsyte, his unhappy marriage to Irene Heron, and its reverberations throughout the family over the years.   

Galsworthy was a well-known social activist who advocated for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights, and the book is surprisingly modern in its treatment of women, who (as the book reminds us at several points) were then considered the property of their husbands (!).  Divorce was extremely difficult to get and was considered highly scandalous -- thank goodness laws have evolved since then!  Interestingly from my perspective, it also includes several strong, independent childless female characters, including June, who runs an art gallery and nurtures young artists; and her younger half-sister Holly, who marries her cousin and decides not to have children as a result. 

The ebook edition I read had helpful clickable footnotes explaining the unfamiliar terms and historical references, as well as a family tree at the front, which helped a lot, especially at the beginning when I was trying to figure out all the relationships!  (Spoiler alert:  The tree does contain some spoilers re: various births, deaths and marriages.) 

Content warnings:  The book includes a traumatic episode of marital rape (not shown) and its aftermath. As well, a racial slur that is considered strictly verboten today is used in Book 3, Part One, Chapter V.   

It's a very long book, but overall, I enjoyed it tremendously -- and although the final few chapters were not quite what I expected, I thought it was a great way to wrap up the book.  And I'm very glad I at least got a start on reading it before I watched the TV show -- it helped a lot in figuring out who was who (even though -- as I mentioned in posts here and here -- the TV show is a highly soap-ified "reimagining" of the books that doesn't stick too strictly to the source material -- caveat emptor!) (I got a real kick out of reading the catty comments on this Reddit thread!  lol)   

A solid 4 stars. 

This was Book #27 read to date in 2026 (and Book #2 finished in September), bringing me to 68% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently 1 book behind pace to meet my goal. You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."  

#MicroblogMondays: World Childless Week 2026: Day 1: Our Stories

(Reposted with updates and additions from previous years' WCW Day One: Our Stories posts.)  

World Childless Week is here!  -- an entire week filled with inspiring and comforting things to read, watch, listen to and participate in, focused on a different topic/theme each day (and new material posted daily too). If you miss some of the live webinars, don't worry;  they are posted on the WCW website later in the day/week to be enjoyed and consulted indefinitely. (Previous years' WCW content is also available onsite -- what a great resource for our community!) 

As usual, I didn't manage to get my act together to write something new (or even in time for a morning post...!)  -- but (as I recently posted) I will be taking part in a webinar on Thursday. And I'm always happy to promote WCW here!  

A couple of years ago, it occurred to me that I've already covered many of the WCW topics in my blog over the almost (gulp) 19 (!) years I've been writing here. So each day this week, I will *attempt* (I have great intentions...!) to post about the day's topic here, with some links to some of my own previous writing here on the subject (if any). (Some of the content I wrote for previous years' WCW summary posts may be repurposed for this year's posts.) 

Enjoy! :) 

*** *** *** 

Day One is focused on the theme "Our Stories" (as it usually is). 

This is the day to speak from your heart about your childless life. The reasons you became childless, or the life that just led you where you are today. The emotions that have swelled in your heart, the grief you are living with. The pain of pronatalism and the cruelty of disenfranchised grief. 

Be raw, be honest, BE YOU. 

I'm a firm believer in the power of telling our stories (if only to each other, at least at first). Meetings of the pregnancy loss support group that dh & I attended and later facilitated (1998-2009) would always begin by going around the room and having each person introduce themselves and tell their story, what brought them there. Sometimes (especially at first), the stories would be long, detailed and filled with tears. Over time, new details would emerge that we hadn't heard before. And we'd learn to develop a shortened "Reader's Digest" version of our story, which left more time for the longer stories (plus, over time, the "regulars" would all get to know each other and each others' stories pretty well, so it wasn't quite as necessary or important to go through all the details for the umpteenth time). 

Telling and retelling our stories to each other like this, week after week, in a supportive environment among others who had similar stories to tell, was good practice for handling those inevitable innocent questions and awkward encounters that all of us experience, sooner or later. In training sessions, we also learned that telling our stories, or some version of them -- over and over and over again -- actually helps our brains to process what happened. Over time, telling our stories repeatedly (or some version of them) gradually becomes less difficult.  

I think the same principles apply to our stories about our childlessness.  Our stories matter, because they're OURS, and because by telling them, we light the way for other childless women looking for support and comfort.  

Our stories remind each other that we are not alone.  

This entire blog, of course, is my story :) (or at least parts of/a version of it) and it has evolved, along with my story, over the past 19 years.  A barebones, thumbnail version of my story can be found in the "About me" Blogger profile near the top of this page on the right-hand side (or in the link here). You can find a slightly longer version in the "About me" page (found just under the title/header of this blog). The "Timeline" page (link right beside the "About me" link) also gives you an idea of how my story unfolded and some significant dates & events. 

If you're *really* interested in all the gory details (and be forewarned, some of them ARE a bit gory, emotionally if not physically), I wrote a series of posts tagged "1998 memories" in which I relived my one doomed pregnancy, 10 years after the fact. I did the same thing with "The Treatment Diaries," all about our foray into infertility treatments, written 10 years after we abandoned them and resigned ourselves to permanent childlessness. 

I also wrote a few posts shortly after I started this blog, where I told a condensed version of my story (up to that time): 

• Blogtivism: My Story (& how mandated coverage could have helped) (November 2007)
• How we made "the decision" (November 2007)

If you have some difficulty telling your story to others (and I know I have!) -- especially to parents who might not understand/appreciate the subtleties of involuntary childlessness -- take comfort in the words of Brene Brown -- who emphasizes the importance of telling our stories -- but also this:  

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions. Today's webinars have all concluded (as World Childless Week is a UK-based initiative, most webinars take place in the early morning through mid-afternoon hours, North American time), but all were recorded, and the videos will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day One page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

There will be more community submissions and webinars tomorrow, when the topic will be Childless:  Disability and Chronic Illness. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. (LINK TO BE ADDED) 

(Oops, I was trying to schedule this to post tomorrow morning and accidentally published it now. Oh well...!) 

"The Wedding People" by Alison Espach (re-read)

I hugely enjoyed "The Wedding People" by Alison Espach the first time I read it, back in February 2025, and I immediately pegged it as a book my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club would likely enjoy, as it features that rare creature: a childless-not-by-choice heroine!  Happily, my co-host read the book and agreed!  and our group will be reading and chatting about "The Wedding People" throughout the month of October.  :)  I just finished re-reading it in preparation for our discussions, and (spoiler alert! lol)  I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.  

At first glance at the cover and description, you might dismiss this one as a "beach read" -- after all, it takes place during a lavish week-long "destination wedding" at a swanky oceanside resort hotel in Newport, Rhode Island. But there's more to the story here.  

Phoebe Stone arrives at the Cornwall Inn without luggage, dressed up in a green silk frock and gold high heels. We soon learn why she's there. **CONTENT WARNING & SPOILER ALERT** She's always wanted to stay at the Cornwall, and she's flown there from St. Louis on the spur of the moment to treat herself to one last big splurge -- before she commits suicide. Her husband has left her, for someone she thought was a friend (a colleague AND a mother to boot!), following repeated (unsuccessful) rounds of IVF and a miscarriage. She just turned 40.  She's also struggling with job burnout and -- the final straw -- the death of her beloved cat.    

But while checking in, Phoebe learns the entire hotel (apart from her suite) has been booked for a lavish, week-long wedding party.  Almost immediately, she's drawn into the lives of "the wedding people," and, in particular, the self-centred, chatty young bridezilla, Lila.

So -- much more than a standard "beach read."  The book touches on a lot of sensitive themes/realities that the many readers will relate to (especially childless women), including some sharp observations about marriage and weddings, grief and loss, friendships and how they change over time. But it's also a fast and often very funny read that kept me turning the pages.  

Overall, I (still) loved it. :)  My original rating for this book was 4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 4 on Goodreads. "5 stars was very tempting," I said then. 

This time around, I'm giving into temptation:  5 stars.  :)   

This was Book #26 read to date in 2026 (and Book #1 finished in September), bringing me to 65% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently 1 book behind pace to meet my goal. You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."  

Odds & ends (including a World Childless Week webinar!)

I've been struggling a bit lately, with writing more regularly in this blog -- and with other parts of my life too. It feels like there are a gazillion things demanding my attention, and all I want to do is bury my nose in a book (Kobo reader?) or my phone and scroll mindlessly. I bounce from one thing to another and accomplish nothing, and fret over the dumbest little things. Frankly, I think I might be a little depressed -- and I guess it's not surprising, given the events and stresses and losses around me this past year(s/) -- both personal and in the broader world. 

Writing IS (always has been) a comfort and an outlet, though, and I have been collecting more odds & ends to share with you here (albeit there are a lot I meant to flag that have slipped through my fingers). Here are a few things I've been noticing and thinking about lately:   

• Latest annoying/anxiety-inducing thing:  Our GE Profile dishwasher (original to the condo, so likely about 12 years old) is leaking water from the bottom. :(  We've stopped using it (washing dishes by hand), and even turned off the valve to shut off the water to it, but it's still getting wet under there. 
• I've been sliding rags or sheets of paper towel underneath to catch and mop up the drips, and swapping them out for dry ones every few hours. 
• Beyond the leak, the springs on both sides of the door have snapped in recent years -- meaning we can't just open the door and let it drop (because it DROPS!) -- we have to either hold it or balance it against a hip and load/unload the dishes that way -- or lower the door very gently, and then rehook the hinges up to close it back up properly again. 
• Given these issues (and the likelihood of more to come), and given that 12 years seems to be ancient in appliance terms these days (yikes), we recently went dishwasher shopping. What to pick, from a dizzying array of choices?? (Did I mention I've been having some anxiety issues lately??)  
• We eventually selected a KitchenAid model. It's being delivered next Monday. 
• (I had to notify the property manager of the impending delivery -- and cough up a $500 (Canadian) security deposit in case of damages to the elevator or hallways during delivery/removal of the old machine. It will be returned, assuming all goes well. Sigh...) 
• Huge congratulations to Mali at No Kidding in NZ, who has been named People's Champion for World Childless Week 2026!!  She wrote about it here, and you can read her WCW profile here  So well deserved!!  
• Speaking of World Childless Week, it's next week!  I'll be writing more about it in the days ahead, but I especially wanted to give you a heads-up that I'll be appearing in a Zoom webinar/panel discussion on Thursday, Sept. 17th at 9 AM (Eastern time), along with three of my friends from the Childless Collective:  "All in the Family: Childless women, Caregiving/Caring and Family of Origin Dynamics." 
• Y'all know, I live some 1000 miles away from my family of origin -- and my (younger) sister has been the main point person as our parents have aged (and, in mom's case, passed away in January). But Sandy, the webinar organizer, thought it would be interesting to have my perspective on caregiving and contributing from a distance, so...! 
• You can watch live on Zoom, and the video will be posted on the WCW 2026 website and YouTube channel later that day for later viewing. More details and a sign-up link here.  
• We lost three childless/free icons in short order recently:  first Dolly Parton, then Tim Curry, followed by Gloria Steinem. (Did I mention I've been a bit depressed lately?? -- this didn't help...!) There's been some great writing on various childless/free blogs, etc., about these three and what they meant to us. 
• Gloria Steinem in particular was a familiar presence when I was growing up in the 1970s. Going through my old school essays when we were cleaning out my parents' house last spring, I was amused to find a declaration in one along the lines of "I'm not a big women's libber" -- ah, youth!!  Even if I was reluctant to embrace the F-label as a teenager (lol), there's absolutely no doubt what a huge impact Steinem and the women's movement had on my life, and that I have evolved considerably since then.  ;)  
• I was fortunate enough to briefly encounter Gloria Steinem twice in my life:  
• In 1994, I stood in line at a bookstore in the underground city that runs below Toronto's Financial District during my lunch hour to get her to sign a copy of her latest book, "Moving Beyond Words" (which I still have).  
• Several years after that, she was speaking at a convention of the Ontario Human Resources Professionals Association. Someone had given one of my coworkers tickets;  she was working, but my mom was visiting me and I was off that week, so she gave them to me and Mom & I went to the Toronto Convention Centre to hear Gloria speak.  We also caught a glimpse of her walking through the halls outside the meeting rooms. She was in her 60s then and wearing a miniskirt -- and she looked fabulous in it.  :)   Rest in power, Gloria. And thank you. 
• I was sad to read in the Toronto Star that Gilda's Club recently closed its doors here. 
• I was reminded of a post I wrote wayyyyyy back in 2012 (!) about Gilda Radner (who was childless not by choice) & Gilda's Club. (I also mentioned Gilda in this post from last year, about the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebrations.) 
• Sidenote:  The O'Keefe Centre/Hummingbird Centre/Sony Centre I refer to in that 2012 post has been Meridian Hall since 2019.  Sigh... 
• (The SkyDome is still the Rogers Centre -- but there's now also the Rogers Stadium, which -- as many unsuspecting event ticketholders have discovered, to their dismay! -- is about 20 miles away from the Rogers Centre, in a completely different part of the city...!) 
• New York Times gift link:  "When the Choice to Be Childless Is Not Your Own" by Anna Louise Sussman, author of the upcoming book “Inconceivable:The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty.” The article is U.S.-specific, but some of the questions it raises would apply in many other countries. 
• Sample quote:  "...what if we thought of starting a family as a fundamental human experience that should be available to all? What if we extended the ability to have a family — one that many possess as a matter of good fortune — into a basic human right?"
• (Not sure I have the "right" to have a family -- no one can guarantee that -- but I believe it should be a lot easier to TRY to have one, if that's what I want...)
• You've probably heard of "manspreading" -- entitled and oblivious men, spreading out and taking up valuable public space (particularly on public transit). How about "mumspreading"?  Emma Harris thoughtfully explains (on her own website, and on the Life Without Children Substack -- well worth a read!):   

Mumspreading, as I use it, describes something analogous: the ways in which some mums can take up physical, conversational, emotional space without much awareness of the impact on those around them.

This is, ultimately, a post about the invisible grief of childlessness, and what it means to take up space in a world not designed with you in mind.

Annoying things & small pleasures

Annoying things:  

• Maybe it's because I spent three weeks at my dad's, but it feels like this summer was especially short and went by WAY too fast.  :(  
• September arrived with a resurgence of summer heat & humidity on the 1st.  :p  Temperatures peaked at 26C, with the humidity making it feel more like 35C. (That's 79F and 95F.)  
• Crossing my fingers it will be gone by this time next week: repairs to our rooftop "chiller" unit, which provides air conditioning to the building, are scheduled then -- and we will be without a/c for a few days until the job is done...!  
• Like clockwork on Sept. 1st, I received an email from my family doctor with a requisition for bloodwork (to check my cholesterol levels in particular), six months after my last check-in. Sigh... I knew it was coming (if not exactly on the 1st!), but I am NOT looking forward to this...!  I've been doing the best I can, but with all the upheaval around my mom's death, extended time spent with my dad, etc., it's NOT been a great year, nutritionally or activity-wise...! 
• Remember the new sheets I wrote about, a little while back?  I said I was going to order a second set to keep in reserve, and I did that not long after I wrote that post.  Delivery was scheduled between Aug. 21st and 25th. 
• I didn't get any delivery notifications (not sure I signed up for them?), but I checked the tracking number with Canada Post on Monday, Aug. 24th -- and it indicated the package was delivered on Friday, Aug. 21st. ???  Some packages get left right outside our condo unit door, but anything that comes from Canada Post usually goes into a package locker in the mailbox area in the lobby downstairs, and they put a key to the locker in your mailbox. 
• Dh went downstairs to check -- but nothing was there??  And he told me he'd checked the mail on Friday or Saturday, and there WAS a key to the package locker then (he didn't know or remember I was expecting a package) -- so he put the key into the return slot and didn't think anything of it. 
• We figured there was some kind of mixup and my package was probably sitting in another locker. I called the property manager:  they don't have access to the mailboxes (rightly so), but she suggested we could put up a sign for the mail carrier by the boxes, or call Canada Post.
• We stopped at a postal outlet on our way back from the mall on Tuesday (Aug. 25th), and asked the clerk there for advice, and she gave me a 1-800 number to call. Of course it was all AI bots (eyeroll), and I couldn't get anywhere when I asked to speak to a human. I wound up going to their website and using the chatbot there to open an investigation. 
• I was told I'd hear from them one way or another within three business days. (After that, I'd have to contact the sender.)  It was SO annoying to know my package was very likely still in the building, but I couldn't get to it!! 
• Small pleasure: When we got back from visiting SIL and the Little Great-Nephews the next day around noon (Wednesday, Aug. 26th), my package was sitting outside our door!  I figure either Canada Post contacted the delivery person for our building and s/he brought it right to our door, or someone got our package by mistake and brought it over and left it there. 
• Either way, I finally got my new sheets, and I'm happy. :)  It's the first time I've had trouble with a package delivery since we moved here. 
• EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I've been at the mall lately (over the past six months, at least, possibly longer), I've walked by a certain spot in the mall where there are a couple of long, comfortable cushioned benches to sit on.  And there's always at least one, sometimes two or more young women there. (There were FIVE on a recent visit in August!!)  They often have some kind of duffel bag or even a small trolley in font of them. Their phones/cameras and sometimes even lights are set up on tripods, and they're pulling items of clothing out of the bag and holding them up in front of the camera, gesturing and talking rapidly.  It's clear they're some sort of online "influencers" (or wannabes), showing off their latest purchases. They take up valuable seating/rest space -- and even if there is an empty spot I don't want to sit there and listen to them or chance showing up in the background of their videos.  It's annoying as heck.  :p  
• American news anchors and reporters who can't pronounce "premier" or "Ontario." (On top of the even more annoying reasons why Ontario and its premier are in the American news lately in the first place...!)  Two times in two days this past week, I noticed CNN anchors mentioning "the preMEER of OnTAAHrio."  (It's "the PREEmyeer of OnTAIRio"!!)  Sigh.... 

Small pleasures:  

• Reading more again lately. I read 7 books in August (!) and I don't remember the last time I got through that many books in one month?? Not in recent years, for sure...!  
• Making plans to go for brunch on Tuesday (first day of school hereabouts)... because we can!  lol  :)  (One of the perqs of being childless, and retired!)  
• Spending time with the Little Great-Nephews, before Older LGN heads back to school  (We'll still be seeing his little brother most weeks -- he stays with his grandmother during the day while his parents are at work, as his brother once did.)  
• Also:  getting to see Older Nephew's dog last weekend, when he & the kids were at BIL & SIL's.  :)  Hadn't seen him in quite a while, and he was SO happy to see us!  :)  (He turned TEN this summer!)