Erin's Journals

I hope that, since these are our last few days here, you won’t mind me sharing a view or two from our winter here in Palm Springs. I’ve been reluctant to do so before, as I don’t want to tick you off – especially when I see cold weather and icy condition alerts in my Twitter feed, not to mention scads of cancellations. Stay safe! Now – think warm thoughts (again).
 
These are a few of the glorious sights of Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve, just a short drive from Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Palm Desert. It’s free to enter and walk, and is a most enjoyable experience.
 

 

 
It was here three years ago that I shot a video for my journal, talking about the new adventure I was about to take with my incoming partner at CHFI. Who could have known that by the end of the year I’d have decided to take my leave of the airwaves? Crazy.
 
The sunsets here in the Palm Springs area are not to believed. Where our house is situated, we lost the sunlight (thanks to a mountain) at about 4 pm each day and it immediately got noticeably chillier. But when we got out of the neighbourhood, no matter how cool (or, eventually, rainy) the days were, we were frequently treated to gorgeous sunsets. Here are a few:
 

 
I’ll leave you with those today. Tomorrow: wheels up to YYJ. I’ll be back here with you, though with some thoughts on love – is it all you need – and thanks for coming by to share a little bit of time with me today. As always, I’m grateful.
 

Well, after three months here, incredibly, it’s almost time to go home, back north to the snowy scenes the Calgary couple house sitting at our place near Victoria have sent us in the past few days. There’s about 15 cm of snow in our driveway, which hasn’t seen a shovel yet this season. Major thoroughfares on the island were shut down completely on Sunday as folks who are just not accustomed to the white stuff struggled to navigate the snowy roads.
 
I know that I won’t get any sympathy from you if you’re in Southern Ontario with a storm bearing down, yet again. In fact, our Keswick-area guests, who were to depart today, flew out yesterday, a day early, to beat the weather. Thank goodness. I’ll be honest: I’m getting really worried about a book tour taking me from Oakville to Oshawa to Ottawa at the end of the month, but hoping that the Old Farmer’s Almanac forecast for rainy but milder weather turns out to be true. 
 
After what was meant to be a relaxing winter – and truly, at times, it was – we’re in full gear for the big adventure next week of a book tour. I still can’t really believe this is all happening, but here it is. At long last, Mourning Has Broken will be out, the TV events will take place and public appearances will be made.
  
I will be wheels-up from Palm Springs International Airport on Thursday, when I wave good-bye to my Valentine and fly home to BC. Rob drives home with Molly starting Saturday. Is your head spinning yet? Walk a mile in my Skechers!
 
My aim from here on in is to stay healthy! I’ve been drinking effervescent Airborne immunity boosters for the past week and have been slamming the Vitamin C tablets since one of our guests came down with a terrible cold, but have decided not to get the vitamin IV I was planning on before setting foot on an airplane full of wintry germs.
 
Although I used to get them in Toronto every November before I started getting run down with the incredible pace of our schedule every holiday season, the jury is out on how effective the IVs actually are, so I decided against it. (The same scientific jury is out on Airborne, too, but we think it helps.)
 
We haven’t had our flu shots this year because we left BC before we’d had a chance, darn it. So I’m just going to pray that I’m surrounded by healthy folks for the next two weeks and that I manage to get enough rest. After March 4th, I can let my guard down. I don’t know how my body will react to cold temperatures but clearly I’ve got some toughening up to do!
 
These last few days have been spent carpe-ing the heck out of each diem. On Friday, we ventured to one of the most beautiful spots I’ve encountered in California. It wasn’t on the ocean, but water did have a starring role in its beauty. At $7 per person admission to the Indian Canyons, its price may strike you as steep when you enter. However, you’re soon in awe of the incredible beauty of this place with its many hiking trails, a gift shop and snack bar. Take a look at some of the shots I took during our visit.
 

 
If you have time and funds to pay to see just one natural wonder, I’d choose this over the sprawling but unusual views of Joshua Tree Park anyday. I think next year we’ll bite the bullet, buy a $90 pass and visit regularly. It’s good for the soul and I hope it helped brighten your Tuesday, too.
 
Back here with you tomorrow with some more shots as we get set to put Palm Springs in the rearview mirror. I hope you won’t mind doing some California dreamin’ for a few days, as we will be soon as well!
 

Happy Monday! Hope you had a restful and relaxing weekend. Something happened to us on Friday that I have been thinking about since December of 2016, when I received an email from Iris Tupholme at HarperCollins saying she was in the audience of Tracy Moore’s Cityline tv show, heard what I said, and thought I had a book in me. This arrived on our doorstep at the end of last week.
 

 
It was about 5 pm when I heard a car come to a sudden stop in front of our rented house. There was a brisk knock at the door. Rob and I had been lost in our own worlds, pecking away at our respective laptops. Our friends Charles and Nancy were out for the afternoon, so we took the opportunity to get more work done: him on the audio book editing, me on writing articles for ideas.walmart.ca like the one I shared last week with you. 
 
By the time Rob got to the door, the driver had pulled away and there sat a package. The envelope’s return address said HarperCollins.
 
I had goosebumps as we stood together in the kitchen, Rob wielding the butcher knife that I didn’t trust myself with to open the stubborn plastic envelope. I closed my eyes as I pulled it out. When I opened them, there it was: my book, my labour of love, my tear-stained testament to the fact that you can love someone with all of your heart and yet find ways to fill it with joy when that heart is still in pieces. 
 
Until now, I’ve only held a paperback reviewer’s copy – one that still bore errors that would be caught and fixed in the months between that early edition and the one I held in my hands. The pages are carefully laid out and cleanly trimmed; it weighs not what we thought it might, but feels just right in my hands.
 
I held it and ran my fingers over the raised font on the cover, reading and re-reading the gentle, beautiful words of Jann Arden in its foreword, poring over the tiny type that said First Edition. This is all a small miracle – starting with how Iris came to be in that audience on that particular day (all by chance). I will always believe that Lauren’s hand was at work making these early connections, just as she guided me through the arduous months that followed. I will share with you the words of dedication that open the book:

Today, my thoughts are with my sister Leslie, whose eldest child Michael would have – should have – turned 25. I wrote a blog about his 2017 murder which, to this day, has yet to be solved.
 
But as grateful as I was to be able to offer Leslie a knowing ear and shoulder to cry on during those early days, as they awaited confirmation of her son’s death, I am equally indebted to her for offering to me two different perspectives on losing children: one, before she was able to join the world and, the other, two decades afterwards. She is one of a handful of amazing women who shared with me their stories so that I might be able to look at life after loss from points of view vastly different from my own.
 
I am grateful to each one for the stories these brave women shared with me and I know they’ll stay in your heart long after you’ve set this book aside. 
 
Thank you for being at my side and sharing the journey with us. Friday was one of the highs – and you were right there, too.
 

Today’s journal is for folks who like to travel with their furry family members.
 

 
Last month, Rob, Molly and I met up with our friend Mike Cooper in Las Vegas (he’s our other furry family member). That, you already know. But I wanted to share with you a BIG difference in hotels that claim to be pet-friendly and those that actually are. I’ll share with you first a post from two years ago this month that illustrates the worst experience we had with Miss Malone. 

We booked this Tacoma, Washington hotel (which says it’s an inn on a harbour, but is actually plunked next to a highway in more of an industrial setting) because of its favourable TripAdvisor reviews and pet-friendly designation. When we got there, I paid the extremely reasonable fee of ten dollars per night for Molly. But it was the 8 or 9 point waiver that we had to sign that really cast a pall on our stay.
 
In bold letters were words to the effect that we would not leave (y)our dog unattended in the room at any time!
 
I didn’t want to rock the boat or risk not having a place to stay that night or I might have asked, “I’m sorry – what? You just gave us breakfast vouchers for the restaurant in the hotel. Are my husband and I supposed to go dine in shifts?” Obviously, I didn’t say that. But we did start to worry.
 
As we made our way to our second floor room, visitors nearby clearly had brought at least two dogs who were being very vocal. Rob and I were suddenly grateful for having brought our trusty ear plugs, and worried that we’d inadvertently booked into a dog pound for the night! 
 
We decided on the spot that, rather than go out for dinner before the theatre in Tacoma, we’d walk together down the street and pick up pizza to bring back. We did have to leave Molly as we went out later; she was sleeping contentedly on Rob’s pillows (her natural habitat as you see above) and was, for all we know, fine while we were gone.
 
Saturday, we faced the same worries: what if we were busted for breaking the rules and leaving the pup alone in our room? We know she’s well behaved and quiet, but…what if she was somehow provoked by knocking at the door or a noisy neighbour?
 
So, after walking her and then parking her on her towel while we had breakfast, we stayed in almost the entire day, napping and reading and what you might call wasting a day in a city we had planned to explore (but for the rain). We took an hour out to go to Kohl’s department store but that was it. It was snacks in front of the TV for our dinner and then check out on Sunday after breakfast. 
 
I’m not sure how this “pet-friendly” stuff in hotels works; we’re new to it. Some hotels charge up to 40 dollars a night if you have a pet with you (which is ridiculous) and, of course, others don’t offer the option at all, which I get.
 
But allowing you to bring your dog and then making you sign an agreement not to leave them alone, no matter how well-behaved? That’s neither people- nor pet-friendly, in our books. 

Now let me tell you how pet-friendly really should – and does – work. When we went to Vegas last month, we chose a hotel far from the strip that TripAdvisor told us welcomed dogs. And it did! From a very boisterous greeting at front desk (the young woman was from Canada and welcomed us like family) to rules that were almost non-existent, we had a relaxed stay with our pup.
 
She behaved herself beautifully (as always) and had there been any problem during the time we’d left her peacefully dozing on her blanket, we left our phone numbers with front desk so we could be reached. Perfect, right? And the icing on the cake? NO CHARGE. Thank you, La Quinta!
 
Our next hotel stay on the California/Nevada border even had a special place for dogs to do their business. The sentiment is so sweet, I didn’t even take a Dremel and try to move the apostrophe!
 

 
Have a great weekend and I’ll be back with you here on Monday.
 

Hello and welcome in. I thought at first I’d have another astounding story about “found money” (as we did in Vegas when I came upon this ticket in the parking lot of a casino). You know me – always looking down expecting to find something: a dime, an American penny, a feather or even, in this case, a ticket.
 

 

 
Rob was heading out to the store yesterday and found this on the ground.
 

 
He brought it back into the house, where I was researching another Walmart article, and told me he had a little “project” for me. I immediately started thinking about the winnings. You know me: if I found a pile of manure I’d be digging through it looking for the proverbial pony that must be somewhere in there!
 
Then I started wondering, well, would we have to find the person who lost this ticket? What if it was one of the hardworking gardeners or construction folks toiling away in the sun who had lost their ticket to a better life? Would I go and look for its rightful owner or just cash in and keep the windfall? 
 
I needn’t have worried; someone threw away the ticket for a reason. Ah, well.
 
Then I remembered a story one of our guests pointed out to me on the weekend: in Paradise, Newfoundland, a woman had allegedly used a stolen credit card to buy lottery tickets. One Super Crossword scratch hit for the princely sum of $50,000.
 
Before we heard the outcome of the story, we started to wonder: would she, as the possessor of the winning ticket, have a rightful claim to its winnings, even though she’d allegedly come by them through nefarious means? Or would the $50,000 go to the person whose credit card she’d used? Perhaps she’d be fined $50,000 and the money would go to the man whose card had been stolen to begin with! 
 
Nope – none of those scenarios came to pass. When she showed up to cash in her winning ticket, she was charged with two counts of possessing a stolen credit card and five counts of fraud (as well as driving with a suspended license and without insurance). Suffice it to say her experience will not be one that shows up in a TV ad!
 
And it turns out the Atlantic Lottery rules state that no payment will be made in the case of winnings that are achieved through criminal means. So, no pay, no win, no bonus for the man who’d had his card stolen, no $50,000 punishment for the woman who allegedly stole the card and used it to buy tickets. Darn! I could see this becoming a great Judge Judy episode at its best, or at the very least, a case of karma coming back to bite one person and reward another. It’s too bad, really. 
 
The whole story made me wish I had a radio show so we could debate it. But grateful to have this journal, where I could share the story and the different angles with you! Here’s the story.
 
Tomorrow I’m going to share with you the difference between hotels that claim to be “pet friendly,” but hold you and your pet hostage, and ones that actually are. And let you bring them for free! 
 
Take good care, come on back tomorrow and we’ll wrap up this work week together.