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	<title>Rona Maynard - Let's Talk</title>
	<link>http://ronamaynard.com</link>
	<description>Instead of wine or coffee, Im serving storiesthe kind women tell among friends</description>
    <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:05:21 EST</pubDate>
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	<copyright>Copyright 2007 Rona Maynard</copyright>
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	<title>Rona Maynard</title>
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<title>Woman against computer</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:48:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I am now the perplexed, strung-out owner of a spiffy new desktop computer. It has a monitor so big and bright, I can see my reflection while writing this (better book that hair appointment pronto). Its operating system has the subtlety and cunning to hide essential files in mysterious virtual crannies. Its keyboard boasts more symbols and buttons than the control panel of a jet.]]></description>
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<title>Greening my emotional ecosystem</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:21:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I like to think I do my part for this pollution-choked world we all share. I don&#039;t drive and I&#039;d sooner cross the street naked than sully it with used styrofoam. But I&#039;d better not give myself airs. Metaphorically speaking, there&#039;s another whole ecosystem needing my attention---and everyone&#039;s. It&#039;s the emotional space between any two people, be they spouses, colleagues or harried strangers in a checkout line.]]></description>
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<title>A locker room of her own</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/YbVpy98cc6A/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My first locker room, in the basement of Oyster River Junior High School, had beige cinderblock walls and open showers that exposed your cringing, naked pre-teen body for the whole class to see. Oh, the horror! I never guessed that I would come to rely on locker rooms for solace, renewal and that special camaraderie found only where women gather naked---all ages, all sizes---with no expectation but a fleeting escape from the rigors of the day.]]></description>
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<title>Condolence notes I've treasured</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:55:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/0pRRxcOWoM8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Last month I shared what life and loss have taught me about the writing of condolence notes. That post already ranks with the most popular I&#039;ve written since this site began. So here I am with an open file folder of the letters that sustained me after my mother&#039;s death. I still reread my favourites. What makes them so consoling? See for yourself.]]></description>
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<title>Wanted: online support group for parents with adult kids at home</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/gzIZYxqGMtE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Just after my most recent speech on dealing with difficult people, a 40-something woman approached me and confided in a desperate half-whisper, &quot;My problem is my 22-year-old daughter who lives with me. She&#039;s a single mother with no job and no plans. It&#039;s not working. I don&#039;t know how much more of this I can take. What should I do?&quot;]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Dr. Jerri Nielsen: healer, adventurer, role model</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/8Qg454DknqA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I learned last night that Dr. Jerri Nielsen had died of breast cancer at age 57, I couldn&#039;t help but take it personally, even though I&#039;d forgotten her name in the 10 years since she made news around the world. I still remembered the tale of her dramatic rescue from the Antarctic research station where she had diagnosed and treated her own disease all winter until a plane could land.]]></description>
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<title>The power of wanting and the death of Neda</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/uMA_c9T8ykE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Admit it: sometimes you just want more. There&#039;s so much stuff out there for the craving, and so many other people have more of it than you. I&#039;ve been there. Last week, in a want-more moment, I became transfixed by a young woman&#039;s death on the seething streets of Tehran. And I thought about what it means to want the most important thing of all, with such urgency and passion that you&#039;ll put your life on the line.]]></description>
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<title>Diana Athill's guide to old age</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:40:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The way some people carry on, you&#039;d think old age was the well deserved affliction of the lazy and the clueless. Crow&#039;s feet, turkey neck? Get yourself to a surgeon, honey. Aches and pains got you down? Tsk tsk. Guess you&#039;ve been neglecting yoga. But the fact is that one of two things will happen to us all: we&#039;ll die too soon, or we&#039;ll grow old. Thank goodness we now have a straight-talking mentor in the unwelcome art of aging---legendary British author Diana Athill, now 91.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Myrna Cheeseman</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:14:48 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I don&#039;t tell my mom, Myrna, often enough, but she... Posted by Lisa MacColl. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Reasons to blog</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:07:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I don&#039;t know anyone in Novi Sad, most likely will never go there and had to Google the place to find out that it&#039;s in Serbia. So I can&#039;t help but wonder how it happened that on May 14 some stranger in Novi Sad set out for an online stroll and ended up on this website. We&#039;re not talking just a peek in my virtual doorway. The mystery guest actually read these pages for 11 minutes and 47 seconds---a not-inconsiderable sojourn in Blogland.]]></description>
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<title>My coffee dilemma: Alzheimer's protection vs sleep</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Last summer, with much yawning and complaining, I reduced my coffee intake from five cups daily to two. A doctor had warned that if I didn&#039;t ease up on the caffeine, I&#039;d have to put up with chronic insomnia. Now a study of 1400 people shows that drinking three to five cups of coffee a day can dramatically reduce your risk of Alzheimer&#039;s disease, which has ravaged my family. What to do?]]></description>
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<title>What to call the baby: name or nickname?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Our grandson had no name for what seemed like the longest time. Then he got one---Gabriel---only to be renamed Cameron. A fine name, in my opinion. But everyone calls him Peanut. As one who never had a baby name, I&#039;d better own up to some mixed emotions about that.]]></description>
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<title>What remains when the intellect is gone</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/sLg-GBKRowM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I was in no hurry to read Still Alice, the best-selling novel in which Alzheimer&#039;s disease overtakes a woman of 50. I didn&#039;t want to care about Alice Howland---wife, mother and Harvard neuroscientist---only to see her erased the illness I fear most, which runs in my family. But I had a long flight ahead, and a little more room in my carry-on bag. Now I&#039;m here to say, &quot;You&#039;ve got to read this book.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Tiananmen Square on my mind</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/k85v2pNhf9I/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Twenty years ago today, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square and crushed a peaceful protest with harrowing force, I was too caught up in my own pain to give more than a fleeting glance to reports from the scene. My mother was dying of brain cancer. In the fog of impending bereavement, I couldn&#039;t mourn the students whose mangled bikes were their only memorial. Now, just back from China, I can&#039;t get them off my mind.]]></description>
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<title>Guest post: My embarrassing father</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:59:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/c8Ut7YlkSiE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Have you ever cringed at some annoying habit of your father&#039;s? Have you wished he&#039;d act more like normal people and less like his incorrigible self? Ann Banks has been there. With Father&#039;s Day around the corner, she looks back on the first man in her life and sees the gift that escaped her notice then.]]></description>
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<title>The toilet that ruled my life</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2009 09:54:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/JztSE7d0F6c/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ We wanted an elegant English toilet for our one and only bathroom. On the throne of our choice, you could complete the most challenging of crosswords in comfort. We were so proud of our champagne-coloured Twyford toilet---until the day it stopped flushing. Then I found myself searching far and wide for a Twyford ball cock, and nothing on earth seemed more precious.]]></description>
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<title>The secret language of families</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/j260sFYqBpc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Around our house we never speak of Tim Hortons. It&#039;s not that we&#039;re too high and mighty for the omnipresent doughnut chain, just that we have our own name for those familiar coffee-scented shops. To us they will always be Hornuts. And when we talk about Hornuts, the real subject isn&#039;t fat-and-sugar-laden confections but the identity we&#039;ve shaped as a family.]]></description>
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<title>Guest post: Size 10 seeks same with matching Tupperware</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2009 05:47:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ZoOGyxj2_sM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My virtual friend Jules Torti will go anywhere, eat anything and write about it with her characteristic full-tilt originality. On the face of things, we couldn&#039;t be more different from each other. Yet I recognize myself in Jules&#039;s wonderful essay on what it really means to find your soul mate.]]></description>
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<title>My first love</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/4mZO7LOS1Y4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Robbie and I were five years old when he named his doll Rona after me. We were going to get married someday. Relationships like ours are belittlingly called &quot;puppy love,&quot; yet there&#039;s nothing trivial or cute about the tenderness of children&#039;s first longings for each other or the anguish of their first heartbreaks.]]></description>
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<title>A few more memories I'll take home from Shanghai</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 12:22:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/BIxvhG8m4LQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My brain goes into spasm at the thought of living in China&#039;s biggest, bursting-at-the-seams metropolis, with its omnipresent cranes and pollution haze. Still, I have to admire the city&#039;s heritage of openness and the scope of its current ambitions. Here, a few memories I&#039;ll be sharing with friends back home. Shanghailights, you might say.]]></description>
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<title>Shanghai: a crane on every block, chamber pots in every alley</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 16 May 2009 05:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/4pcP6vwOwvY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Shanghai, where we&#039;ve spent six brain-jangling days, is a city of 19 million in one hell of a hurry. You could argue that we&#039;ve picked a  bad time to come, with a World Expo set to open in less than a year and construction hoardings on every block. But it seems to me we&#039;ve arrived just in time to see vanishing downtown neighbourhoods that have scarcely changed since the Communists came to power.]]></description>
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<title>Guest post: Sesame Street is...40??</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ My virtual friend Marnie Woodrow is about to turn 40. Sesame Street has already reached that milestone. So who better than Marnie, an accomplished fiction writer and fan of the show from its earliest days, to reflect on how Big Bird, Elmo and the gang could expand the world of a child? ]]></description>
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<title>A few things I've learned about condolence notes</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 12:45:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Back when I was a death virgin, unscathed by irreparable loss, I had no idea how to write to the bereaved. Then my mother died and I became a student of condolence. Her friends became my mentors, teaching me the difference between a truly comforting thought and an irritating platitude.]]></description>
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<title>Mothers and mentors</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 09:01:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/HhXLrJbGqlg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Why every young woman needs a wise female friend to cheer her on---someone who never worried about her report card or grounded her for missing curfew.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Elizabeth Makuz</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2009 12:04:12 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ 
     I was ten when my... Posted by Carin Makuz. ]]></description>
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<title>The daughter I never had</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I always thought I wanted a daughter, but the time was never right for a second baby. I had one excuse after another---until at last I realized that one child was enough for me. It was time to make absolutely certain that my birthing years were over. ]]></description>
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<title>Guest post: At least the baby's library is ready</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 04:10:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/UhXoSLNQKiI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Some mothers-to-be plan the baby&#039;s fashion statements. Others can&#039;t wait to see their child on the piano bench or the playing field. For book blogger Kerry Clare, baby dreams feature lots and lots of reading and a chance to reconnect with childhood favourites.]]></description>
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<title>Off to China, but the coffee's still on at this virtual kitchen table</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/iJE9vED2qds/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m packing my bag, clearing out the fridge and wondering which essential item I&#039;ll forget on my long-awaited trip to China (please, not my glasses). Any minute now, I&#039;ll turn off the computer. Used to be, these steps were enough to get me out the door. Now there&#039;s one more: stock my website with lively reading.]]></description>
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<title>Got the blues? Give thanks for something good</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2009 06:55:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ When I was climbing out of chronic depression more than 20 years ago, I read somewhere about a bedtime ritual that was said to nudge the weariest of hearts toward hope. You were to lie in the dark and give thanks to whatever gods there be for the best moment of your day. How simplistic, I thought. How impossibly naive. What about all the days when nothing good happened?]]></description>
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<title>The many moods of motherhood: 10 songs I love</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/vjVDz539DSI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Let&#039;s hear it for Mother&#039;s Day---and I mean that literally. I&#039;ve gathered a bright but thorny garland of songs to express the many moods of having or being a mother: the starry-eyed admiration of childhood, the guns-blazing rebellion of adolescence, the oceanic missing that follows a mother&#039;s death. We&#039;ve all yearned for a mother who is boundlessly empathic and consoling. But real-world mothers have their quirks and complications, as songwriters have known since the heyday of Anonymous.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Adele</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2009 12:09:49 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ When I was 5 months old, my mom adopted me... Posted by Chris. ]]></description>
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<title>The boy who called a truce where adults made nothing but trouble</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:50:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve been cheering for a boy, just turned 18, who has achieved what battalions of lawyers and child welfare experts could not. He brokered a peace in his conflict-ravaged family, torn for the past eight years by the implacable fury of his parents&#039; divorce. Who says today&#039;s teens are just gossip-crazed airheads?]]></description>
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<title>Why writers need ticked-off readers</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/nB34a4-pLzk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I keep a folder full of letters from readers who say that my words changed their lives. I might start to get complacent if not for my angry readers. Their aggrieved, insistent voices remind me that not everyone shares my take on things.]]></description>
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<title>The gentle art of healing an estrangement</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:48:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/amYKo0hyt3M/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A friend is just back from spending several days with her sister. Why am I telling you this? Isn&#039;t hanging out together just part of being sisters? Not for these two. They had barely spoken for 15 years. when my friend told me she was making this journey, she looked both resolute and anxious. Now she says her visit was &quot;wonderful.&quot; Her eyes glisten. She means &quot;full of wonder.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>A fine day to be born</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:02:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/z9LLrlpKV7E/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Friday, April 17, 2009 was to all intents and purposes the first day of spring: a day for sandals and pink nail polish; for skateboards and sidewalk cafes; for remembering to stock up on sunscreen and forgetting you had ever worn clodhopper boots, filmed at the toes with salt. Our second grandson was born on April 17, at 8:30 a.m.]]></description>
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<title>The new crisis in children's mental health</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:49:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ryqGnpX08Mw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m thinking today of a preteen boy in Windsor, Ontario, the auto town just across the river from Detroit. I don&#039;t even know his age, let alone his name, his favourite sports team, what kind of music excites him or whether he&#039;s ever loved a dog. But I know something intimate about this boy. I know what he fears. When both his parents lost their jobs in the auto industry, he worried that they couldn&#039;t afford to raise him. So he tried to take his life.]]></description>
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<title>Celebrate National Mental Health Week with Rona Maynard</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:04:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/kdy0gapfVDE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I remember when we hardly said a word about mental illness in the workplace. The business community lost talent, time and money because no one dared to face the truth. So when the Women&#039;s Executive Network asked me to be the Patron Host of a May 4 luncheon in Toronto that will highlight the business case for grappling with mental illness, I was quick to say, &quot;Count me in.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>All hail the humble toaster!</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I have been the jaded owner of every kitchen gadget that ever buzzed, flashed or inspired a slew of cookbooks. These gizmos have their uses but they all involve chopping and fussing. Besides, they won&#039;t give you any comfort when you&#039;ve just schlepped home from the airport at midnight with a suitcase full of laundry. For comfort, you need a toaster---100 years old this year and still the key to simple but soulful meals.]]></description>
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<title>Suicide in the family: the legacy of Nicholas Hughes</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:05:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/dDLs4-WwmBg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Suicides are all but invisible--except when they&#039;re notorious. Nicholas Hughes, a marine biologist and outdoorsman who hanged himself last month, would have been the invisible kind if not for his mother: Sylvia Plath, as famous for killing herself as she is for her remarkable poems. Some say we&#039;ve heard enough about the death of Nicholas Hughes. Writers Linda Gray Sexton and Jeremy Gavron, who also lost literary mothers to suicide, would beg to disagree. ]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard speaks in Saint John about women and depression</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:23:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/asHKbRA2Q9o/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I wrote my first Chatelaine editorial on overcoming my chronic depression, a reader called to thank me. She was struggling with her own debilitating depression, yet she couldn&#039;t bring herself to say the word, so great is the stigma that surrounds this treatable condition. I&#039;ll be thinking of her on April 15, when I&#039;ll be speaking in Saint John at the Canadian Mental Health Association&#039;s third annual A Day in her Shoes fundraiser. ]]></description>
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<title>Revealed: the secret lives of grandmothers</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ytyqmM013Dk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ If you are or expect to be a grandmother; if you&#039;ve ever felt a surge of gratitude or a stab of resentment at a grandmother in your child&#039;s life; if you treasure the shoes-off, second-cup-of-coffee frankness of women sharing secrets among friends, you owe it to yourself to read Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Share the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother. Full disclosure: I&#039;m one of the writers.]]></description>
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<title>The glamorous life of an author on the road</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:48:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/IVNnC9gcO4Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Here in Toronto my gardening friends complain that spring has been teasing them. Up north in Sudbury, where a gray crust of snow still covers the frozen earth, people know better than to rush the seasons. So I&#039;ve just learned on my first visit to the Nickel City, where I was speaking and signing copies of My Mother&#039;s Daughter at the annual Celebrate Women fundraiser.]]></description>
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<title>The  loneliness of the baffled male shopper</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/E62Q9eVM_ew/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ There&#039;s a bafflement that softens men&#039;s faces when they have to make a purchase outside their comfort zone. They need a woman to answer their questions: &quot;Is this parsley?&quot; &quot;Which one of these mops is best? And, most touching of all, &quot;Should I get these flowers or the ones over there?&quot; ]]></description>
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<title>Fit for the pickiest eater</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:43:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/bPxdOj4m2jg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I love my grandson dearly but I can&#039;t bear to cook for him. The way I see it, every meal could use a jolt of flavour from at least one of the following: anchovies, avocadoes, mushrooms, pesto, olives, onions, assertive cheese, fresh herbs (bring on the cilantro!), green veg (the more pungent, the better) and a generous quantity of garlic. My grandson, age 12, will eat nothing on my hit parade.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Mary (Longo) Lucchetta</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:19:01 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Mom &amp; Me, on the Q.T.

My mom and I had... Posted by Carla Maria Lucchetta. ]]></description>
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<title>Looking for hope</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:22:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/b3l4yXPDOsI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ On my way to a friend&#039;s memorial service, I passed a newsstand. A headline caught my eye: &quot;The case for optimism.&quot; Why should I be hopeful? Well, according to Maclean&#039;s, the economy just might be picking up. Hmmm. Only yesterday Maclean&#039;s was crying doom. I&#039;ve learned not stake my mood on the swings of the market or pronouncements in the press. What gives me hope is people who are not afraid to say, in any circumstances at all, &quot;This matters.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Writing the obit: one friend's last gift to another</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:12:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The obituary section lies open on my desk. A woman smiles up at me, lighting up the page as she used to light up rooms, podiums and bars in many countries. The words have the familiar laurel-wreath ring of all ceremonial tributes: &quot;Alison Youngman died peacefully at home on March 8, concluding a short illness with the dignity, grace and good humour that had defined her life as a lawyer, volunteer and champion of women&#039;s leadership.]]></description>
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<title>Apocalypse? Armageddon? I've got a life to live!</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:43:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/cCG74SHoKWQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I refuse to spend the next year or five &quot;waiting for the bottom&quot; like a kid on an interminable road trip, pleading to mom and dad, &quot;Are we there yet?&quot; At least mom and dad knew the route to Grandma&#039;s house. No one&#039;s got a clue when we&#039;ll get to the bottom of this economic mess---let alone what it will take to climb out. And meanwhile the prophets of doom keep blowing hot air on the flames of panic, setting the blogosphere ablaze.]]></description>
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<title>The joy of telling the truth about depression</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:13:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/2JcrNpn_tE8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Hey, everybody: I&#039;ve suffered from a mental illness. It&#039;s called depression and it affects one in five of us at some point in our lives. That&#039;s why I&#039;m determined to help break the silence around this still-taboo subject. Here are some video clips from my recent keynote speech to the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation.]]></description>
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<title>Want to be (or find) a mentor? Read my advice in Best Health</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/8G6tLCVA9rc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ How can you attract---and keep---a mentor who&#039;ll open doors for you? Can a corporate program connect you with that special person? And once you&#039;re on the path to success, how can you find time to mentor others without running yourself ragged in the process? These questions are close to my heart, for reasons you&#039;ll discover in the March issue of Best Health, at Canadian newsstands now.]]></description>
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<title>I lost it in the hotel closet (or the cab or the plane)</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:27:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ We had just settled into our airy retreat at a Sarasota B&amp;B (think antiques, hardwood and a prime view of sailboats skimming the bay) when I realized it had happened again. I had arrived somewhere lovely minus something essential. My favourite jeans, which fit me like no other jeans on earth.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Patricia M. Rayner</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:56:30 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ My favorite photo of my mother is one I took... Posted by Franke James. ]]></description>
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<title>My most-requested story was the first</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:53:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I wish I could choose which writings of mine would resonate most deeply with readers. I wouldn&#039;t pick &quot;The Fan Club,&quot; a story I wrote at age 14 that continues to find new readers after more than 40 years. But an Iowa teacher tells me that &quot;The Fan Club&quot; sparked her love of words and her ambition to become a writer. What an honour.]]></description>
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<title>The Fan Club</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I was 14 years old and in the ninth grade at Oyster River High School in Durham, N.H., when I wrote this short story, a prizewinner in the Scholastic Magazines annual writing contest for young people. My first published work, it was later featured in the long-vanished Read magazine and has since appeared in countless anthologies for high school students. After more than 40 years, I still get inquiries about &quot;The Fan Club.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>4000 lives we shouldn't be losing</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ This morning I asked myself how many people in my circle had been touched by the suicide of someone dear to them. Without even trying, I counted 12 names.]]></description>
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<title>Following a tough act</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:38:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/W2v4G5l429Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ If I had known my plenary speech the other day was going to follow a speech by Canada&#039;s most enduringly beloved female comic, you can bet I&#039;d have done a couple of things differently. First, I&#039;d have hot-footed it over to the Royal York Hotel to catch every minute of inspired mimicry and sheer unbridled nuttiness from Luba Goy of Air Farce Fame. Second, I&#039;d have felt a titch nervous about following Luba.]]></description>
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<title>The poetry of random facts about ourselves</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/oMoJtFc4AII/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The hottest fad on Facebook, &quot;25 random things about me,&quot; has been debunked as the blatherings of airheads. Yet it proves that the age-old human impulse to connect with others through words is still thriving in the age of the iPod. The best lists have the vividness of poetry. And for me they bring back memories of a remarkable poem written in 1967 by an American college student, Eleanor Wait.]]></description>
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<title>Help! Middle-aged teeth are chewing up the family budget</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Wi3VZBei17U/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I try to live within my shrinking means, I really do. No more but-I-love-it purchases for me! Yet whenever I make a date with Lisa, my good intentions desert me. &quot;Do I really need this?&quot; cuts no ice with Lisa. Ditto &quot;I can get it cheaper down the street&quot; or &quot;I think I&#039;ll just wait for the sale.&quot; Lisa is my dentist, a woman of standards. I never guessed I would log so many hours in her chair.]]></description>
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<title> When the president says, &amp;quot;I screwed up&amp;quot;</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/px9-rlXVvrw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Just when I was getting used to the welcome but startling notion of a black president who invites his opponents and their kids to watch the Superbowl at the White House, Barack Obama surprised me again. He told NBC news, &quot;I think I screwed up.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Hold the Botox, but please don't deprive me of Photoshop!</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:32:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/jvcOj_JoeB8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m about two weeks younger than Bruce Springsteen, whose leaping, limbo-ing performance at last night&#039;s Superbowl made me almost proud to be closing in on 60. My knees aren&#039;t up to such moves, but I have it on good authority that I too am a role model for almost-sexagenarians. Which prompts me to ask: can I be a role model and still have my portraits Photoshopped, as normal female vanity requires?]]></description>
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<title>Death of a muse</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:18:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/qN3vrSpKTXk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I had never heard of Dina Vierny when I read that she had died in Paris, age 89. Yet I had often seen the splendour of her naked body, sculpted by Aristide Maillol, whose creative powers she awakened when he was 73 and she the 15-year-old schoolgirl he knew on sight to be his model of a lifetime.]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard speaks on leadership at Celebrate Women in Sudbury</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:47:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/GS_I0-s_npQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Have you ever thought that inspirational leaders look nothing like you? That they never struggle with uncertainty, never admit to failure, never answer burning questions with &quot;I don&#039;t know&quot;? I used to buy the same tired leadership myths. In fact, I never thought of myself as a leader until I looked around and noticed that people were following. On March 26 I&#039;ll share the seven lessons of my leadership journey at Sudbury&#039;s annual Celebrate Women fundraiser.]]></description>
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<title>My tried-and-true ritual for falling asleep</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:45:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/CIhyDtAN8Uc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ In the small cheerless hours of the morning, when there&#039;s nothing I want in the world except another few hours of sleep, I close my eyes and revisit our first house. I find it soothing to contemplate the rooms where, for 14 years, I read and wrote and cooked and raised my son.]]></description>
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<title>Discovering my inner dancer</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/jY5gLV20t_Q/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Once upon a time, when I played with paper dolls and wore Mary Janes, I wanted to be a ballerina. I thought I was the star of my Saturday morning ballet class, pirouetting with more enthusiasm than grace. I didn&#039;t know that my short waist, knock knees and crooked spine disqualified me from the tutu&#039;d elite. When I danced, I felt beautiful.]]></description>
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<title>How did we get to be veterans?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ASPAuo6zs60/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ On October 18, 1979, when I was starting out at Flare magazine, I dictated the letter that gave a young journalist named Antonia Zerbisias her first magazine assignment. I had high hopes for Antonia, who&#039;d just sent us one of those rare pitch letters that have editors asking, &quot;Why has no one else discovered this writer and how fast can I connect her with my readers?&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard speaks to ETFO about what she learned from difficult people</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Pq5u7Wb4SHs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Have you ever wondered how certain people keep blowing your cool to smithereens? Where they get that seemingly infallible power to make you run for cover---or shoot your mouth off and kick yourself afterwards? Rona Maynard has been there. She let ego-bashers, nay-sayers and win-at-all-costs competitors stand between her and her goals. Then she learned to turn crazy-making conflicts into wellsprings of strength and inspiration.]]></description>
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<title>The job of cooking</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:34:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/BIfMSYrBA98/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Ah, Sunday. Where did it go? Mostly, I cooked. I haven&#039;t cooked so much--we&#039;re talking both frequency and volume, great potfuls of garlicky fare--since I was young and poor. Now I&#039;m middle-aged, recession-battered and frugal. Out comes the slow cooker. What an apt name. Believe me, it&#039;s a project to cook this way.]]></description>
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<title>So what is this thing called the magic of friendship?</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/TSSiO-q9iCg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The hardest thing about writing is saying what you mean. Or is it finding just the right words to make your point? I waffle back and forth on this, and no wonder: wordcraft is all about meaning. If you haven&#039;t figured out what you mean, you&#039;re bound to cloak your woolly-mindedness in one of those vague, catch-all expressions that leave the burden of interpretation to the reader.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Irene McNeil</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:19:47 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/7hUSKjDz-JA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I lost my mother when I was 21; she was... Posted by deb paris. ]]></description>
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<title>The year of friends lost and found</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:25:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/cGbOjzg3bFA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m plenty old enough to know that my talent for predicting the future is roughly equivalent to my flair for Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics. yet I persist in thinking of my life as a story I can shape--every year with a theme and a tidy resolution. I imagine myself as the author. Fact is, I&#039;m an uppity character with delusions of control.]]></description>
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<title>Kids in the office? Oh, please!</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:19:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/7L0TW2QKvLI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Way back when I had a child at home and an overflowing in-tray at the office, there were times when some emergency or other left me no other choice but to bring my son to work. It was a tense business for us both, not to mention my colleagues. So I was amazed to hear about the new trend shaking up the workplace---kid-friendly offices where children check in every day.]]></description>
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<title>Dumbest euphemism yet for &amp;quot;fired&amp;quot;</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/D-6vAhzSP9E/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ &quot;Terminated,&quot; &quot;downsized&quot; and &quot;packaged&quot; are bad enough. Now along comes---brace yourself---&quot;upgraded.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Things I'm smart enough not to believe anymore</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:16:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/IziTITHuJa4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Everyone&#039;s got a mental museum where the discarded beliefs of a lifetime gather dust. Welcome to mine. Step right up! I&#039;m not embarrssed in the least.]]></description>
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<title>A writer's guide to drunks</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/L5iy2M3gX6I/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ If someone you love is an alcoholic, one question is never very far from your mind: &quot;Why is he doing this to me?&quot; Maybe your drunk is a she, but that&#039;s a detail. All of these stories are essentially the same, and one of them is mine. Which is why, especially around Christmas, I turn for insight to alcoholic writers---John Cheever and Raymond Carver---who have told the truth about their illness.]]></description>
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<title>I've never been fired. How quaint!</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/u08DOFA93Dc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Today it struck me that I&#039;m falling out of step with humankind. I&#039;ve never been downsized, let go, laid off, packaged, terminated or otherwise exiled from the ranks of the gainfully employed. I left every one of my jobs when the moment seemed right, not when someone else decided my time was up. How quaint.]]></description>
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<title>My thank-you note to a happy chorister</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:50:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ There must be 150 singers in the Mendelssohn Choir, whose splendid performance of Messiah I&#039;ve just seen. But I could still pick out the bobbing silver ponytail of my long-lost former workout buddy, Debbie Fleming, whose infectious joy became the highlight of my evening.]]></description>
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<title>Marrying into the family Christmas</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:44:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/pOdx-gHSf9A/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ In the first tentative phase of couplehood, every day seemd a contest between my way with domestic matters and my husband&#039;s. On top of all the everyday conundrums, we now had to negotiate Christmas. I had always assumed there was one right way to orchestrate seasonal cheer---and where I came from, we didn&#039;t wear tissue-paper crowns at the Christmas table.]]></description>
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<title>Still on HRT after all these years of bad news</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:13:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ If there was ever a time to feel like a chump for taking HRT to manage menopausal symptoms, that time is now. The latest study underscores the link between HRT and breast cancer, while news breaks of a drug company paying doctors to affix their names to articles endorsing the controversial therapy. Yet I won&#039;t be quitting anytime soon. Here&#039;s why.]]></description>
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<title>Women who miss their mothers</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/MatGNKhZiBw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ For all of us with empty places at our Christmas table, this is the season of missing. I&#039;ve been thinking lately about those of you who&#039;ve lost someone (especially your mother) because it&#039;s clear from my daily Google statistics that grief brings many people to this site. Here, a found poem from the searches of women missing their mothers.]]></description>
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<title>What I learned from my first Christmas gift to my sister</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/n3vhoRvfU-A/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I wasn&#039;t ticking her name off a list, expressing my knowledge of red-carpet trends or flaunting my generosity with that famous little blue box. I was just an eight-year-old with saved-up allowance in the palm of my mitten. And what I chose to buy was as fine a gift as any I have given.]]></description>
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<title>Mood control for the frazzled and fed-up</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m not sure why I feel so optimistic these days. It&#039;s not as if the audacity of hope has yet crossed the border to Canada&#039;s capital. Here we&#039;re stuck with the audacity of arrogance and deceit, which is the price of electing the schoolyard bully for Prime Minister. Meanwhile winter&#039;s digging in and the economic news keeps getting worse. The one thing I can control is my mood.]]></description>
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<title>Hey, readers! Buy a book now! Publishers and writers need you!</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:51:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/FB4hVMaPU9s/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Have you heard about the big New York publisher that put a freeze on acquiring books? No, this isn&#039;t the latest joke from the sultans of satire at The Onion. It really happened this week at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as staff at other houses lost their jobs in droves.]]></description>
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<title>A brief conversation that changed my life</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:58:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/b1lXIGP9RxM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The best part of being a journalist is interviewing people who have led extraordinary lives. I look back on some of them as mentors. For instance, the vital and exuberant woman who pursued her dream despite ovarian cancer---and whose victory gave me hope as I struggled with depression, the life-threatening cancer of the soul. 

]]></description>
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<title>My favourite gift to a friend is a standout letter of recommendation</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:15:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/50ZQi9vYEZI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I don&#039;t drive friends to the airport, bring them treats from my kitchen or even remember their birthdays but I have my own way of honouring their presence in my life. I write standout letters of recommendation. Here&#039;s how I do it.]]></description>
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<title>Whoever stole my iPod stole the soundtrack of my life</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/hQvmkqEHpRw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Although I&#039;ve never Twittered or even texted and am rapidly acquiring the knees of a nonagerian, I share a bond with kids who have yet to take a legal drink. Some lowlife has stolen my iPod.]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard talks about mothers and daughters at AOL Canada</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:44:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/JS5ddkiQNR4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I once saw an ad for a designer handbag that, aside from all its other irresistibly of-the-moment features, was &quot;big enough for everything except your issues with your mother.&quot; We modern women still have enough of those to fill an old-fashioned steamer trunk. Writer Sarah Treleaven unpacks the maternal trunk with me in an interview for her &quot;How to Be Happy&quot; series.]]></description>
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<title>Cyclists vs drivers: a war on the streets of my city</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:36:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/zeSoMaIL7B4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Lately I&#039;ve been thinking of a man who&#039;s lying in a hospital bed, incoherent and minus a leg. It&#039;s been almost a week now since he was maimed in a stand-off with a taxi driver, and he&#039;s still in no condition to tell police exactly what happened late last Friday night on a picturesque downtown corner flanked on one side by a cafe and on the other by a former bread factory, recently converted into lofts.]]></description>
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<title>Home alone and loving it</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:24:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Ds5FL_hWSAc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ After close to 40 years with the man I love, there are times when the sweetest thing he can tell me is, &quot;I&#039;m going out of town on business for a couple of days.&quot; ]]></description>
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<title>How I learned to love my son's teen years</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:06:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/YfMMJMXunrQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I feared that my son&#039;s adolescence would reduce me to screaming, fist-shaking fury. I had no idea that the dread teen years would be my best years as a mother.]]></description>
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<title>Bamboozled by a fake blogger</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/tDWZEPLIXVk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The more I learn about Sarah Palin, the less I trust her. But I&#039;m not here to tell you why I&#039;ve hardened my heart. I&#039;m actually rushing to Sarah&#039;s defense. Remember that dishy story about her thinking Africa is a country? Turns out it&#039;s a fiction planted on the blogosphere by a fake policy wonk named Martin Eisenstadt.]]></description>
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<title>A boy and his Xbox: the death of Brandon Crisp</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/C5HY8QIqSVc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Sometimes I look back on my son&#039;s teenage years and wonder how we ever got through. It&#039;s not that we had a hell-raiser on our hands, just that there are so many ways for a promising, likeable, headstrong kid to fall from the precipice of adolescence. A kid like Brandon Crisp, age 15. His funeral in Barrie, Ontario, is expected to draw 1,000 mourners who loved him, searched high and low for him or simply know in their hearts that what happened to Brandon could happen to their own child.]]></description>
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<title>I wish I'd been with Dylan on election night</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/pyRMtTdcNL4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I could have sworn the place to be on the momentous night of November 4, 2008 was Grant Park in Chicago. But I&#039;ve only just found out that a joyous crowd of Bob Dylan fans were celebrating change at the University of Minnesota, in a sell-out concert by the man with the big white hat, the sunken cheeks, the ruined growl and the visionary grasp of the tumultuous American story.]]></description>
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<title>Three small good things I did this week</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:55:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/mpCubvrdfQw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Should&#039;ve, could&#039;ve, would&#039;ve...there must be all kinds of ways I fell short this week. Enough guilt-tripping, I say. I can think of three small, good things that I almost didn&#039;t bother to do because they seemed so inconsequential. And sometimes it&#039;s the little things that people remember.]]></description>
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<title>Obama's win is my win too---and the country's</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:54:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/RvEWplCAYsk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ On Tuesday night along with countless millions all over the world, I held my breath in front of the TV, waiting for the moment I never thought I&#039;d see in my lifetime: a black President-elect, Barack Obama, addressing an exultant crowd where friends wept in each other&#039;s arms and exhausted but awe-struck children sat on their parents&#039; shoulders to get a good look at a spectacle that will linger in their minds until they leave this earth. I have always been something of a loner, but yesterday the windows in my head blew open and I saw myself part of that throng.]]></description>
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<title>Lucky me! A second grandchild in April!</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/elBCO3Gt6X0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Although Hallmark doesn&#039;t know it yet, April is grandchild month around here: a new grandbaby on the way, another for my sister-in-law Linda, plus an essay of mine in a terrific forthcoming anthology Eye of My Heart: the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of being a Grandmother. ]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Sheila Mary Wenn Mitchell</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:18:48 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/b9Xnp1dKdzs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When my mother took her last breath, my sister was... Posted by Carol Harrison. ]]></description>
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<title>When Elizabeth Edwards took off her ring</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:51:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Njqrrt7fvLE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ With the Washington rumour machine in pre-election overdrive, we&#039;re not hearing much about the sad, sordid tale of John and Elizabeth Edwards: he the philandering senator and former presidential hopeful, she the wronged wife with a deadly cancer. A scant two months ago, the press was busy raking muck and hinting of explosive revelations to come. But that was before Joe the Plumber, Bill Ayers and the Palin family&#039;s $150,000 campaign wardrobe. I will never forget the Edwardses, though.]]></description>
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<title>When the marital mattress gets heaved down the stairs</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/4bbW_Tnw3sw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I could tell you that infidelity is not the end of the world. I could add that an apparent tailspin a marriage, which looks to outsiders like certain disaster, just might bring a change for the better. But maxims don&#039;t have anywhere near the impact that a good story does. That&#039;s why I&#039;m sharing a story from the Globe and Mail&#039;s fine obituary of Connie Rooke, the writer and critic who died this month after nearly 40 years of marriage to the writer Leon Rooke.]]></description>
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<title>Hunting and gathering for dinner at St. Lawrence Market</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/yCXObPXtAFM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Around 9 o&#039;clock on Saturday morning, while less obsessive types have barely settled down to their first cup of coffee and favourite section of the paper, I hot-foot it over to St. Lawrence Market for the ritual foraging that, in my book, weekend cooking demands.]]></description>
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<title>One more precious year of my 50s</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:18:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Cz9QZ29qXKI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I can&#039;t say it seems like yesterday that some friends took me out to a 50th birthday lunch. Eighteen months ago, maybe. Three years, absolute tops. The merry throng commandeered two tables at the bistro of the moment, which long ago morphed into something else.]]></description>
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<title>Insights found while reading</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/3UfkUvpR2V8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Every life is a story, which is why I&#039;m drawn to biography and memoir. In the dramas that someone actually lived, I find insights I can use in my own helter-skelter life, where the lines of the narrative keeping getting lost. I read with pen in hand, thinking, &quot;Yes, that&#039;s it!&quot; Here, a few discoveries from the books on my bedside table.]]></description>
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<title>Hear Rona Maynard's speech at Canadian Psychiatric Foundation dinner on November 25</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/8sJilIYTtYY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It&#039;s been more than 20 years since I gathered the courage to pick up the phone, dial a mental health clinic and say, in a rush, &quot;I need help. How soon can I come in?&quot; I had living with depression, on and off, ever since I could remember. Yet the subject seemed too shameful to talk about. So I&#039;m honoured and delighted to be speaking at the Canadian Psychiatric Foundation&#039;s Silver Dinner on November 25 at the Four Seasons in Toronto.]]></description>
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<title>Revealed! The first day of my 60th year</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:59:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ltyfjRd6tYk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Scene: my den, yesterday morning, somewhere between breakfast time and flossing time. I&#039;m not exactly sure because I can&#039;t find my watch. But I could find the computer blindfolded because it&#039;s where i start every day, barefoot in my pink plush bathrobe.  Including this day, October 20, 2008. The first day of my 60th year.]]></description>
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<title>Could you run a business with your daughter? Rona Maynard explores the risks and rewards</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/bB4CL0rVqOs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Let&#039;s say you&#039;re a woman with a thriving business---or an entrepreneurial dream you&#039;re determind to pursue. You&#039;re also the mother of a daughter with skills to share and a career to build. Can you bring her on board and still like each other in the end? More, Canada&#039;s magazine for women over 40, asked me to find out.]]></description>
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<title>Forgiving your parents: real-life wisdom from Steve Martin</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/RTUaOFC0egs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I thought Steve Martin&#039;s memoir, Born Standing Up: A Comic&#039;s Life, was going to made me laugh. Instead this startlingly wise and nuanced book made me think in a whole new way about what it takes to embrace the future as your best and boldest self without leaving a painful past behind.]]></description>
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<title>The rocks-and-holes theory of marital happiness</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:31:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/1bYoeugnTsQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ After nearly 38 years with the man I married, I must know at least a smidgen about what it takes to stay together. But when my son and his longtime fiancee finally tied the knot, I didn&#039;t want to overload the newlyweds with sage advice. Which life-changing insight to share? My mother&#039;s, of course.]]></description>
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<title>Marriage is a lifelong adventure</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:08:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/QmZKtye-a_Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ There are all kinds of ways to push the boundaries of experience. You can hike mountain trails in grizzly country. You can swim with dolphins. Meditate on your inner energy. These are quick routes to a whole new perspective. But let&#039;s talk about the long route, where how-did-I-get-into-this fears and over-my-dead-body standoffs deter all but the truly committed. It&#039;s called marriage and it&#039;s a lifelong adventure in the unexpected.]]></description>
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<title>When adult children move home: do you have a story to share?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:12:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/WxP5EMEq_mY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When our son moved back home in his mid-20s, we all thought he&#039;d stay for a couple of months until he planned his next step into the adult world. Turned out we had him with us for a couple of years. And by the time he finally moved out (into a house we helped him buy), things had grown a bit tense between us and our beloved only child.]]></description>
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<title>Home at last! The joy of breakfast at my own table</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/3QUU_NoyXKQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ At Harrington House, which has just served as our base for hiking in the Cotswolds, the exposed beams date back to Tudor times and breakfast features an array of choices, all as British as Buckingham palace: bacon, kippers, blood pudding, fried tomatoes and eggs cooked any way you choose. I felt like Christopher Robin when my poached egg arrived, nestled in a circle cut from the surrounding slice of pale whole-grain bread. But breakfast is a highly personal affair, and I missed the familiar pour-and-stir meal that kickstarts my day at home. ]]></description>
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<title>Don't call me &amp;quot;sweetie;&amp;quot; my name is Rona</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:09:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/yG1xBzIp6EU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Feel free to call me Rona, although Ms. Maynard does nicely if you&#039;re the formal type. I don&#039;t encourage Ro, much as I appreciate the good intentions signaled by a nickname. What you must ever even think of calling me, unless we&#039;re on intimate terms, is &quot;sweetie&quot; or &quot;dear.&quot; And there&#039;s no excuse whatsoever for the dread &quot;young lady.&quot; I have a perfectly serviceable name and I expect you to use it. Especially if you end up serving gluey mashed potatoes in the old age home where I, in my bathrobe, am presumed to be addled just because I&#039;m a little shaky on my feet.]]></description>
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<title>Question of the day: how can I reconcile with my sister?</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/EKg4QVCt4eI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I read your story about making amends with your sister, I recognized my sister and me. We drive each other crazy and haven&#039;t spoken for years. I&#039;d like to make amends but I doubt if my sister wants to hear from me. I so envy women whose sisters are their best friends! What&#039;s your advice?]]></description>
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<title>My first complicated valentine to my sister Joyce</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/bsyA7Zl1NZY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Thirty years before my sister and I told our widely read story of rivalry and love in More magazine, she inspired my very first feature article. I was 28, she was 24, two young women taking their first steps toward a truce in their lifelong conflict.]]></description>
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<title>When my best friend died</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/6A2HZbaXjb4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You don&#039;t just make friends; you keep them, one guess-what phone call or soul-baring confidence at a time. But the reality is that you can&#039;t keep a friend forever. One of you will die and the other will mourn. And the odds are that no one will send a condolence card. In the hierarchy of loss, friends are thought to rank last, even though a friend&#039;s death changes a woman forever.]]></description>
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<title>Fat chance! Why I'm not giving up bacon</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/GbEES4ROHkU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Every time I fill my kitchen with the racy aroma of sizzling Berkshire bacon, so generously marbled that my rashers crisp in a splattering pool of golden fat, I think wistfully to myself, &quot;Will no one ever tell me that this wonderful stuff is good for me?&quot; At last someone has risen to the challenge: Jennifer McLagan, the pleasure-loving author of Fat: an Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes.]]></description>
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<title>Dazzled by a night of shooting stars</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/cYC4BRALqS8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ By the time you read this, my husband and I will be in London, which as far as we&#039;re concerned is the world&#039;s most glorious city. We&#039;ll have a mental checklist of favourite places to revisit, and far too many ideas for other places we haven&#039;t yet seen. But if there&#039;s anything we&#039;ve learned in our travels so far, it&#039;s that the best vacation moments can&#039;t be scripted. They take you by surprise, and then they take your breath away. For instance, the once-in-a-lifetime Leonid meteor shower of 2002.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Lois Shilts</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:09:33 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Reading all the stories from other women that have lost... Posted by Karen Waitek. ]]></description>
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<title>My 10 favourite vacation discoveries</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:59:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/hzS6ZWGwQZ8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ These special spots aren&#039;t the ones I dreamed of visiting for years. Some I checked out in an idle moment, just because they happened to be there. Others tend to be upstaged by more celebrated sights down the road. What they all have in common is that I can&#039;t think of them without smiling. ]]></description>
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<title>While I'm on vacation...</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/HcAEcDRQoUA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I wouldn&#039;t dream of traveling with my computer anymore. A few years ago, while my husband was heaving all our overstuffed bags onto a bus at the San Francisco airport, leaving me with only a computer to carry, somehow abandoned the thing at the curb and spent the next several hours madly trying to find it while my husband grimly soldiered on with the rental car people. Oh, by the way it was his computer. So on the vacation that starts today, I won&#039;t be blogging on any park benches. But Letters from Rona will continue to appear because I&#039;ve stocked the virtual larder.]]></description>
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<title>Dress of a lifetime</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/fi66uDUv2cg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My son, who will be married this month (date and country to be arranged) has just phoned with a bulletin: &quot;Today we bought the dress.&quot; He&#039;s never been one to talk about fashion but he seemed most keen to talk about this.]]></description>
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<title>The plus side of Palinania</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:08:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/BqwlgXZem58/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I could have sworn my last mental gasket had been blown by Palinania. I was baffled, weary and plain fed up thanks to all of the following: John McCain for selecting such a stunningly unqualified running mate; our gal Sarah herself for being so damn charismatic and ...well, likeable despite her alarming stance on every one of the issues; frantic liberal commentators for writing her off as &quot;an Alaska hillbilly&quot; instead of giving any thoughts to the roots of her appeal; conservative cheerleaders for shrugging off evidence that the sworn foe of corruption and cronyism is breaking her own rules back home in Alaska; and myself for devouring the whole shamefully addictive drama like too-sweet chocolates with gooey centres.]]></description>
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<title>Hear Rona Maynard's latest interview at thecommentary.ca</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:57:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Ars9KattyWg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Joseph Planta, a Vancouver journalist who likes nothing better than a frank conversationa about arts and ideas, first crossed my path last fall when he interviewed me during my book tour for My Mother&#039;s Daughter. Today Joe and I got together again at thecommentary.ca, his online talkfest, and the conversation ranged from the meaning of Palinania to the life lessons of writing a memoir. You can listen to the interview here.]]></description>
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<title>My detail deficit</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:58:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/E6Vc64eRI6w/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Once upon a time I had a supremely organized assistant who kept my calendar in order. When she was in charge of my life&#039;s little details, I never showed up on Tuesday for meetings to take place on Thursday (or vice versa).]]></description>
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<title>A life history of my goals</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/D9q6CdY-baw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ As far as my parents were concerned, I had come to the University of Toronto to study. In fact my goal was to experience teen sex--and with it what seemed to me the full glory of the 60s--while I still could. In October I would turn 19. That gave me a year to raise my small facsmile of hell.]]></description>
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<title>So when is the wedding?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:14:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/S4rLXZc7FFc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I have a friend who never fails to ask, when we meet for dinner and a long heart-to-heart, &quot;So how&#039;s Ben doing? Any wedding plans yet?&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Career advice for young women, then and now</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/aGl-_qwAHPE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Once upon a time I wrote the career column for Miss Chatelaine magazine, where I had landed my first job. Miss Chatelaine could not afford a real career expert, any more than I could afford a navy suit on what they paid me. My advice came mostly from how-to books but wrapped in spunky, no-stopping-you prose, it made for a convincing read. Now Hannah Seligson, born in 1982, has written a career guide for the Girl Power generation. And to judge from her advice, not a whole lot has changed since my day.]]></description>
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<title>Dear Governor Palin</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/v6IXQR6omnQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ As a Hillary supporter, I&#039;m supposed to identify with you. To let you carry the banner of female power and purpose into the next election, despite the fact that when it comes to the issues, you and I agree on absolutely nothing. But we do share one very personal bond. You see, I&#039;m a grandmother. Like you and Bristol, I was caught off guard by an accidental pregnancy. But to everyone&#039;s continuing relief, my grandson&#039;s parents never married.]]></description>
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<title>Invasion of the subway evangelists</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/sBnkafSP4kM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The cool look for an urban male, this summer that&#039;s just about over, is reportedly plaid shorts, a white T-shirt and flip flops. Tell that to the smiling band of brothers who have lately appeared on Toronto&#039;s east-west subway line dressed for school photos of days gone by--pressed gray pants, crisp white shirts, jackets and ties. You&#039;ll never catch them zoning out like the rest of us blank-eyed commuters. They&#039;re much too busy chatting up strangers, and the other day one of them had the cheek to pick me.]]></description>
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<title>The presidential woman: does she really have the public's support?</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:32:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/_QR8qNmBXps/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ By now it&#039;s widely agreed that Hillary Clinton blew her history-making campaign for President. She did not lose because she was female. And yet it was the inconvenient fact of her gender that pushed her supporters to downplay her empathetic side and come on like an aggressive, armoured warrior queen. Now John McCain has stunned his party by picking first-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Just how big are those famous 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling?]]></description>
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<title>From the sword swallower to the Jersey Boys</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:23:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/SjxXmGVnwEI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The Space Cowboy, a tattooed trickster from Australia, wowed my jaded grandson at Buskerfest, Toronto&#039;s annual celebration of street theatre. Then it was time for grownup entertainment: the Toronto premiere of Jersey Boys, which celebrates the triumphantly hummable hits of the Four Seasons while telling a human story about being undone by one&#039;s own hard-won dream and finding the grace to go on. If this show doesn&#039;t pull in the crowds, I&#039;ll swallow a double-edged sword.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother's Daughter arrives in paperback</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9JwX2Z8EteM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Let&#039;s hear it for paperbacks! They&#039;re small enough to slip into your purse and light enough not to stress your shoulder. You can read them on planes, on elliptical machines and while trying to stay balanced on a lurching subway car at rush hour. Plus, they&#039;re affordably priced for book clubs and gift lists. So if you&#039;ve been waiting for the paperback edition of My Mother&#039;s Daughter, here&#039;s some good news: today is the day.]]></description>
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<title>My life as a fan: 44 years with Bob Dylan</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:47:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/bEq2B-MZ37w/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I was 14, with a brand-new $35 guitar and my own frizzy take on Joan Baez&#039;s flowing hair, I sent a buck to the Columbia Record Club and acquired a whole clutch of LPs for my folk collection: Peter, Paul and Mary (too slick), the New Christy Minstrels (too hokey), Harry Belafonte (my grandmother&#039;s heartthrob) and a minstrel poet who won my heart with his image on the cover of The Freewheelin&#039; Bob Dylan.]]></description>
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<title>Ace, righteous and hip to the tip</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:23:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/L9AUllSoLpI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The Hamilton bus terminal, where I killed time yesterday while waiting for a friend to sweep me away to the Bob Dylan concert, is not my idea of a woman-friendly hangout. But I&#039;d brought a good book to distract me and create a Dylanish mood: Straight from the Fridge, Dad: a Dictionary of Hipster Slang.]]></description>
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<title>Feisty old dames</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:32:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/qLfQZzTAuJg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Okay, I accept it. I&#039;m going to grow old. Either that or die too soon, a prospect so flat-out unacceptable that I&#039;m practically ready to shout, &quot;Bring on the signs of cronehood! The memory lapses, the wattles, the chin hairs and saggy bits! And while you&#039;re at it, bring me a mighty cane that I can bang with authority and vigour when young pups displease me.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>When a friend dies: Rona Maynard writes for More about the invisible passage</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:48:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/eATIp1FFSgU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When my best friend died of cancer this past winter, I was so unstrung by grief that one day I phoned her old number at the office, longing for the sound of her voice. Had I lost my mind? It seemed that way because I&#039;d lost my personal historian, who cared enough to remember small details of my life that even I had forgotten long ago. And yet because she wasn&#039;t family, my bereavement went unnoticed by the rest of the world. &quot;Losing Val,&quot; in the September issue of More, is my account of this life-changing, never-ending passage that every woman must face, sooner or later.]]></description>
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<title>A year in the life of ronamaynard.com</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ICXu70aV1tY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m breaking out the virtual champagne today. It&#039;s been exactly one year since I launched ronamaynard.com, and connecting with you online has been even more rewarding than I could have guessed. In case you&#039;re new to this community, I&#039;ve rounded up a few of my favourite posts. If you&#039;re an old friend, I&#039;d love to know if yours is among them. Either way, thank you for coming. Without the inspiration you&#039;ve provided in your comments and e-mail messages, this wouldn&#039;t be my online home.]]></description>
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<title>Free at last from the insomniac's little helper</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:49:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/U3oQ_3xmRAI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When it comes to sleep, I have long been a woman of firm convictions: I need eight hours, I can scrape by on six and if I don&#039;t get my share I&#039;ll be an addled, nauseated wraith with an obliterating headache. I was so fixated on sleep that I ended up with a nightly pill habit, which I&#039;ve just beaten while following a strict and unwelcome set of rules that really work.]]></description>
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<title>Spa treatment du jour: sleep therapy</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/f-Ix2GbqicA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I set out to break my sleeping pill habit, I schlepped by subway and bus to your basic red brick medical building. Alongside a mom with a stroller and an elderly gent in a wheelchair, I rode the elevator to the Toronto Sleep Clinic, where the walls are beige and the furniture best described as functional. It didn&#039;t even cross my mind that I could have embarked on this adventure in style, at one of those high-end spas where you&#039;re escorted to your treatment in the softest of robes as New Age music wafts in the fragrant air.]]></description>
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<title>Unloved, unlovely, unwanted by thieves</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/wjyGMTHC5VI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It was one of those unloved, unlovely things you can pass every day without noticing what it is you&#039;ve seen. A man&#039;s bike, sheathed in duct tape and many layers of thick black paint, with a matted plush tiger tail dangling from each handlebar. The mismatched reflectors on its wheels suggested a joyriding kid, but the ungainly proportions of the whole apparatus had an air of desperation, of cast-off parts cobbled together into a Frankenbike.]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard writes for Best Health about sustaining passion in marriage</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:04:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/c-zq_rtxCds/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It happens to even the best matched couple. You look at your beloved and loving spouse in his underwear and think to yourself, &quot;He&#039;s a terrific guy but it&#039;s been a long time since I had the hots for him.&quot; I went looking for advice that makes sense (endorsed by experts but tested by real-life skeptics like you and me). You can read what I learned in the September issue of Best Health. The secret: dating your spouse.]]></description>
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<title>The John Edwards imbroglio: please hold the sanctimony!</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:06:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/exQGTmwaS-w/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Ever since John Edwards finally admitted his long-suspected affair, moralists have been denouncing the former presidential candidate as the worst sort of scumbag. Yet the truth is that all married people fail their spouse sooner or later--at times grievously. At least most of us can confront our marital problems behind closed doors. Political couples have to do it while the cameras roll. ]]></description>
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<title>Peach picking: a sentimental journey</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/rdCc9Ol8UNg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Next Saturday morning, instead of working out with a butt-kicking trainer who is mercifully away on vacation, we&#039;ll be heading down the highway to a place of legend: the southern Ontario fruit farm where my husband briefly lived in his teens. This time of year, he used to stand under a likely-looking peach tree, extend his arm into the branches and let a perfectly sun-ripened peach drop into his waiting palm. Because I haven&#039;t been blessed with this experience, I don&#039;t know the glory of a peach--or so he has always maintained.]]></description>
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<title>A word of comfort in the night from M.F.K. Fisher</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:45:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/3cG24jnmEgA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ On doctor&#039;s orders, I now get up and read in the middle of the night when I can&#039;t sleep, although my natural inclination is to thrash grimly in bed. I&#039;ve found that the best books to read in the pre-dawn hours are the ones you can dip in and out of with no need to follow a plot--like the elegant, opinionated essays that comprise M.F.K. Fisher&#039;s Last House, in which I found a wonderful contrarian view of insomnia.]]></description>
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<title>Who knew? Paris Hilton is funny!</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:18:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I thought Paris Hilton was a sleek and shiny bimbo with no social graces until I discovered her tart satirical side in her video rebuttal of a John McCain ad. ]]></description>
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<title>A double standard in the bedroom</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:09:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/gVkDpALUSgc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The world does not look kindly on a woman who swaggers from bed to bed as men have always done. But to my mind, the real inequality is that a naked woman can&#039;t display her cellulite in post-coital splendour the way a naked man displays his gut.]]></description>
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<title>A writer's greatest reward</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:40:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The world positively teems with terrific writing, not only on bookstore shelves but online, where eclectic prose and thought are available free to all comers. For readers this is a wonderful thing. For writers it&#039;s profoundly humbling to know that people who love to read have more than enough options already to occupy their minds and hearts for a great many lifetimes. ]]></description>
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<title>My son, myself</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/6nrjFEH6X-8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;d been hoping for a daughter who would play with dolls as I used to do. Instead I had a son with a passion for trucks (the noisier, the better). It was not what I expected, but I&#039;ve learned to like surprises.]]></description>
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<title>Nowhere I have to be, nothing I have to do: bliss!</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:59:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/eAfHC8xDh8Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ This holiday Monday, I have our loft to myself, with sunlight streaming from end to end of the place and none of the usual Monday sound track (rumbling buses, boisterous pedestrians) from the street outside. A year or even a week from now, I won&#039;t remember the sweet languor of this moment in my life unless I capture it now. ]]></description>
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<title>There's no such thing as a boring life</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/DDVYqgL7hKk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Women learn early to bite their tongues and let other people have the floor. We&#039;re so well trained in solicitude that we often need permission to speak. That&#039;s what my friend Elaine provides every summer at a raucous dinner party in our garden. She always asks us, one by one, to tell the group how our lives have changed since last year. The resulting stories prove that there&#039;s no such thing as a life without drama.]]></description>
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<title>The last sentence: 10 of the best</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:43:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/KdOpjCjdB3Q/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I first learned to read, I liked to flip ahead to the very last line to savour the secret of the ending. I knew this was not the approved way to read, which made it all the more seductive. I was supposed to be patient and let the author surprise me, but my notion of a surprise had nothing to do with what happened at the end, or did not. It was all about the story&#039;s destiny. A good closing sentence is the pinnacle toward which the story has been climbing.]]></description>
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<title>Want to be my bridesmaid? Lose those wrinkles first!</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:12:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/JrUfLDe-zB8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Weddings were created to celebrate married love. In the age of Botox and liposuction, they&#039;re becoming celebrations of physical perfection. No wrinkles, yellowed teeth or flat chests allowed.]]></description>
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<title>If looks could thrill</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:23:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Ql0mbi7hWXU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My new beauty role model is well into her 60s, and neither lifted nor Botoxed. She has given up stilettos, sheath dresses, eyeliner and a husband. When I&#039;m having a bad face day, she reminds me what beauty really is: the artless confidence that comes with letting go of whatever constricts a woman&#039;s best self.]]></description>
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<title>What she did for sex: a loose girl tells the truth</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/wj3gEjh4uME/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve read enough hand-wringing news reports about pre-teen girls giving blow jobs and dressing like hookers. The usual suspects (academics and therapists) keep telling me the same old story. I wanted to hear from a real expert: a young woman who has lived it and has the guts to tell the truth. Now along comes Kerry Cohen, author of the brave and eye-opening Loose Girl: a Memoir of Promiscuity.]]></description>
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<title>My new rented office: a progress report</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:53:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/omzHLpluyYg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The beauty of working at home, according to the popular notion, has something to do with the dress code: you can get down to business in your bathrobe (or nothing at all). The downside, I&#039;ve learned the hard way, is that it&#039;s just too easy to find yourself working all the time. That&#039;s why I now go out every morning to a funky rented office around the corner.]]></description>
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<title>If someone in your life has bipolar disorder, check this out now!</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:40:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/2EmrfwjQTz4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Here&#039;s another sign that the media are at last portraying the mentally ill as fully rounded people you might know and love. On the New York Times web site, you can watch men and women with bipolar disorder speak frankly and powerfully about their incurable but treatable condition. And they&#039;re using their real names, too.]]></description>
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<title>My sister and me: the next chapter</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:13:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/WZjyVFGPjzk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Last fall my sister Joyce and I shared the truth of our tangled, sometimes crazy-making, never less than loving relationship in MORE magazine. Heartfelt comments have been coming our way ever since. If you missed our essays, here&#039;s where to find them online, plus the next chapter of the story.]]></description>
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<title>Meet Rona Maynard at Read for the Cure on October 15</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:36:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/EhUBEH36GSw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve always enjoyed connecting face-to-face with readers, and my next gig promises to be the most rewarding yet. I&#039;ll be joining Giller Prize winners Vincent Lam and David Adams Richards when Read for the Cure comes to Oakville on October 15.]]></description>
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<title>Where will we go when we're not flying or driving?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/KqrIhNek9LI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ July used to be vacation time, when my city cleared out and I felt like the queen of the sidewalk. Now swarming crowds tell me people are staying home in the new era of soaring gas prices and stripped-down flight schedules. Perhaps that&#039;s not such a bad thing. Traveling less will challenge us all to seek other kinds of adventures, creatively, socially and intellectually. ]]></description>
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<title>Learning to sleep</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I never guessed I&#039;d become dependent on sleeping pills, but night after night of tossing and turning made a desperate woman of me. Now it&#039;s time to start getting through the night without the insomniac&#039;s little helper. So I&#039;ve just started a course of sleep behaviour therapy.]]></description>
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<title>Speak up if you support the Governor General</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:02:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/xgGty1h4oJ4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Canada&#039;s Governor General, Michaelle Jean, has always struck me as a woman of vision and courage, the kind of pathfinder you&#039;d want your daughter to become. Her quiet resolve was in the spotlight when she presented Dr. Henry Morgentaler with the Order of Canada. Now she&#039;s facing a tidal wave of anger from pro-lifers while polls show most Canadians are on her side. I&#039;ve been silent until now myself. But that&#039;s going to change right now. It&#039;s time she heard from the rest of us.]]></description>
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<title>A sad, solemn, necessary thing</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:22:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/IAWL_w4rjk8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When Dr. Henry Morgentaler received the Order of Canada for his unstinting, often life-threatening efforts to make abortion safe, legal and accessible, I thought he deserved the honour. Yet I couldn&#039;t rejoice; it would have felt like clapping at a funeral. I had no words to frame my conflicted thoughts until I watched a brave, remorseless movie about illegal abortion in Romania&#039;s darkest days.]]></description>
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<title>In search of the perfect dress</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:51:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Once I owned my idea of the perfect summer dress. It brought out my freewheeling side, and I wore it until it fell apart. When I spotted an identical dress on a young sales clerk, I wanted to rip it off her in a moment of extreme fashion lust.]]></description>
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<title>The Hillary I'll be watching</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:35:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton, and yet she disappointed me. Her rigid demeanour told me that in the 21st century, a woman of intelligence and fire is still not free to be herself. There must have been moments when she asked herself, &quot;What if the worst happens?&quot; Now she knows, and it must be a relief. As a woman roughly her age, I can&#039;t wait to see where she goes from here.]]></description>
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<title>Mental illness and the media: they can't look away anymore</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ There isn&#039;t any annual drive to wear a ribbon to fight mental illness. Corporate sponsors aren&#039;t flocking to bankroll fun runs for this largely invisible cause, even though one in seven of us will suffer from a mental illness at some point. But let&#039;s remember that no so long ago, breast cancer was also a shameful secret that touched every family. Then the press took notice. And now, at long last, mental illness is attracting the coverage it deserves.]]></description>
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<title>A lesson in courage from Martha Graham</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:06:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Martha Graham, the Picasso of dance, was still poor and unknown when the Nazis invited her to appear at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She had the courage to refuse. Reading this story, as Agnes DeMille tells it in a mesmerizing classic biography, gives me a jolt of courage.]]></description>
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<title>Portrait of the artist as a young woman blown off course</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/uyqcv7nWyS8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ In The Red Leather Diary, first-time author Lily Koppel turns the long-forgotten journal of a spirited Manhattan teenager named Florence Wolfson into a tender-hearted portrait of a woman who longed to be a writer but instead became the proper matron her parents wanted her to be.]]></description>
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<title>A smile between strangers</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ It&#039;s been a few decades since I was last accosted on the street by a strange man keen to tell me something. But last week I was hailed by a local shopkeeper who&#039;d been watching me go by every day. I was always smiling, he said. And he just had to thank me.]]></description>
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<title>A reunion in my online neighbourhood</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ When a stranger Googled &quot;mother daughter,&quot; she rekindled a cherished old connection right here in the mother/daughter gallery at ronamaynard.com. ]]></description>
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<title>What have you accomplished in your life?</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ One way or another, I&#039;ve spent my whole career sharing stories. I thought I was making a book, an article, a magazine or a web site. All along I was striving to create something bigger: a sense that the ordinary life means something. So I was moved to tears by a quiet little gem of a movie called The Visitor, which captures both the accessibility of meaning to us all and the emotional risk that is the price of admission.]]></description>
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<title>Missing Sheela</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:29:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Instead of answering today&#039;s e-mail, I&#039;ve been rereading old messages from my friend Sheela Basrur. It&#039;s a question of priorities. the people who are writing today will still be around tomorrow, or next week, come to that. I&#039;ll never have another message from Sheela, who died a week ago of cancer at 51, and whose lilting voice I need to fix in my mind.]]></description>
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<title>Life without recipes (or time in the kitchen)</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Not so long ago, I cooked dinner every day from scratch. I basted, I simmered, I marinated and turned at intervals prescribed by my latest glossy cookbook. Enough of all that, I say! Now I mostly just saute and grill whatever looks fresh at the market. But we still eat well thanks to a few ingredients that elevate the humblest meal. A big hand, please, for avocados, bacon, anchovies, pesto and olive oil.]]></description>
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<title>Rona Maynard shares the highs, lows and lessons of her life in magazines</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard started out as a lowly copy editor with no qualifications except a lifelong passion for magazines. She rose to the Editor&#039;s chair at Chatelaine, where she attracted a new generation of readers by rekindling the spark of community. Intimate conversation was Rona&#039;s editorial trademark, and now she&#039;s bringing it to MagNet for a Q&amp;A with D.B. Scott. Join her on Friday, June 6, as she looks back on the lessons of her eventful career, and forward to the challenges that face magazines in an era of brutal competition.]]></description>
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<title>Invisible afflictions</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 06:26:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I like to think I know how a life-threatening illness looks. Sunken eyes, pale skin, baldness from chemotherapy. But who am I kidding? Every day in Canada, where health care is the closest thing we have to a national religion, 10 people die of an invisible infliction. They take their own lives. Until the unthinkable happened, they blended right in with the rest of us. If we really value health as much as we claim, why don&#039;t we give mental illnesses the attention and resources they deserve?]]></description>
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<title>&amp;quot;Such a lovely family, we never saw it coming&amp;quot;</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 04:06:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ When I read the grim news about a suspected domestic homicide in a picture-book Calgary family, I immediately thought of Mary Swan&#039;s arresting and devastatingly assured first novel, The Boys in the Trees.]]></description>
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<title>A rhubarb pie between friends</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 03:29:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Now is the moment for homemade rhubarb pie, and my mother&#039;s were transcendent. After she died, I thought no one would ever again bake a rhubarb pie just to delight me. Then one spring at the height of rhubarb season, I went to see a friend who was terminally ill. She had a rhubarb patch. And despite my protests, she insisted on baking me a pie.]]></description>
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<title> Are online friendships for real? Rona answers the question in Best Health</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/RQNAad8d2hs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard once viewed online friendships as a threat to the time-honoured graces of real-world friendship (the dinner date, the hand-written note, the phone call just to say hello). That was before she learned to use the Internet to deepen old ties and make new ones possible. Read more in the summer 2008 issue of Best Health, the new magazine from Reader&#039;s Digest.]]></description>
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<title>Away from it all</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 27 May 2008 10:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9VXQY8hT8Fg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When we rented a getaway cottage in Maine one long-ago summer, we pictured ourselves eating fresh-caught lobster on a deck overlooking the water. Little did we know we had rented the homeliest of yurts.]]></description>
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<title>Home at last!</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 27 May 2008 10:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/TCdos2s3kMs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ There comes a point in even the most special vacation when my thoughts drift homeward to my own bed, my own books and paintings, my own fridge stocked the way I like it, with maple syrup, organic yogurt and hazelnut butter for my morning fruit-and-nut toast.]]></description>
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<title>The joyous gastronomic bargains of Argentina</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/I8EsJNirZ-M/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Argentina reminds me of that gorgeous, prodigiously gifted friend who can&acute;t seem to get her act together. She has infallibly bad taste in men, and a habit of dwelling on her tortured family past. Still, she&acute;s so much fun that you want to be around her. And much of the pleasure unfolds at the table, where fabulous food and wines of distinction can be had for a fraction of what you&acute;d have to pay almost anywhere else.]]></description>
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<title>A temple of books in Buenos Aires</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2008 12:19:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Th0N5tyNxoM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Some say Buenos Aires is the city of tango. Others say it&acute;s the city of soccer. Let me be the one to tell you it&acute;s a city of independent bookstores, including the most extraordinary shrine to the printed word I&acute;ve yet seen anywhere.]]></description>
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<title>A schlepper at Mount Aconcagua</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 15 May 2008 11:21:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/pjwR-Y7q63s/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Mind if I brag for a minute? After all, it&acute;s not every traveler who follows in the footsteps of the world&acute;s greatest climbers, drawn by the forbidding power of Mount Aconcagua, the tallest peak outside the Himalays.]]></description>
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<title>A fine day in Mendoza, Argentina</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/rVT1ugdOTEY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ This brilliant fall day in Argentine wine country, I&acute;ve done nothing at all except absorb the sights and sounds of a new place. Knowing it&acute;s spring back home makes the whole experience more refreshing.]]></description>
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<title>A few delicious bites from the buffet of travel</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 09:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Q4CHHHyV5cw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A trip is like a breakfast buffet. I want to taste everything because it looks so tempting, and because at home I can&acute;t start my day with scrambled eggs unless I&acute;m going to scramble them myself. So of course I overdo it. The reality is, I&acute;ll never taste it all. ]]></description>
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<title>Books for the plane: my on-board survival kit</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/i_WX0yww8OY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Remember the good old days of air travel? You got a free pillow in a cardboard-y cover, you could take your biggest tube of hand cream on board and you didn&#039;t get dinged for an extra bag. Ah, luxury! Now the airlines have left us just one tiny indulgence: we can carry all the books we can stow beneath our seats. Thank goodness, because I&#039;m bracing myself for a 12-hour flight to Buenos Aires.]]></description>
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<title>At long last, a vacation!</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/AX3jDhuylng/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You&#039;ll be hearing from me less often these next several weeks. As I write this, I&#039;m packing for our trip to South America. Correction: I should be packing.]]></description>
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<title>Seen once, remembered forever: a tale of time and travel</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 05 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/inZd5qwqbas/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I used to think I&#039;d return to all the travel destinations that have stirred my soul. Now I&#039;ve had to face reality: too many enticing places to see, not enough years of healthy wandering. And if I go back to the Alhambra, I might miss the Great Wall of China. ]]></description>
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<title>Tossers and hoarders</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/WyNCWOcokBM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve never had any truck with pompous types who claim that there are two kinds of people in the world, except when I&#039;m the one making the pronouncement. So I am here to tell you that among those who own worldly goods, a spiritual and moral divide separates the tossers from the hoarders. We tossers get a self-righteous charge from purging every corner of stuff we deem to have served its purpose. As you&#039;ve doubtless observed from all those articles and web sites that exalt the &quot;conquering&quot; of clutter, our camp has the upper hand these days.]]></description>
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<title>Brilliantly bad prose: a celebration long overdue</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Eq7jtdQwl3M/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ All my life I have laboured to write well. But perhaps I&#039;ve been trying too hard. I&#039;ve just realized I may never craft a sentence as memorable as a whole flight of exuberantly bad sentences that appeared in my home-town paper back in 1972 and have resonated in my mind ever since. Trust me, to write this badly takes nerve, swagger and a kind of reckless brilliance.]]></description>
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<title>Another face of my city</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/jCWnRd8IWzg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The city I thought I knew like a friend revealed another side of itself when my husband and I took a long evening walk through urban corners we&#039;d never explored. Right on our own turf, we had a mini-vacation that was full of surprises.]]></description>
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<title>A friend to homeless women (and at least one first-time author)</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/6zPNA7LOamU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I didn&#039;t remember meeting Lia Grimanis, a spirited advocate for homeless women. But she remembered meeting me at a crowded reception. And when she bought my book, she took a minute to cheer me on.]]></description>
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<title>Breaking my own rules</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/y5oAN-Ie_tA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve always chafed against killjoy restrictions (never do this, always do that). Then I realized who the ultimate enforcer was. Me.]]></description>
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<title>Petals and thorns</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:12:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ZPmgudN2tFg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ If there&#039;s anyone who understands what it means to stand firm in a crisis, it&#039;s my friend Sheela Basrur, whose leadership during Toronto&#039;s SARS outbreak captured hearts and minds across the land. Now she has cancer, but cancer doesn&#039;t have Sheela. Last week I took a break from move-related mayhem to celebrate Sheela&#039;s latest honour, the Order of Ontario. I came away refreshed by the wisdom she shared at the podium.]]></description>
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<title>Eat here, diet at home</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Apr 2008 03:58:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/88YNtRzcy5g/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve yet to sample the famous burgers at the Patrician Grill, but whoever runs this joint has a delicious way with words.]]></description>
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<title>Moving day</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/aCpyDuEIatI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Some women have ex-husbands. I have ex-homes. Yesterday I let the movers carry all the traces of myself and my husband out yet another door. The time had come to live somewhere else (together, thank goodness). Even so, it hurt to leave home.]]></description>
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<title>My cast-off hat finds the perfect home</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/SkzkLuCJHCk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The most absurd fashion purchase I&#039;ve ever made was a navy blue cloche that cost way too much and never fit right. But it looks stunning on my friend Christa, who blogs about fashion at Petite Fashionista. May she wear it long and well. ]]></description>
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<title>A community of readers</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Cn44-a6rQhU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ What I learned from giving my cast-off fiction and poetry to Sanctuary, a charity that befriends the the scorned and forgotten.]]></description>
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<title>Goodbye, home office</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:34:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/vkrqhGVzFTI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ For more than 30 years, I&#039;ve had a home office where I could write in my bathrobe before dawn if the spirit moved me. I thought I&#039;d found the room of my own that every woman writer needs, according to Virginia Woolf. Then along came the Internet with all its distractions. Instead of writing, I&#039;m buying furniture and booking vacations. So I&#039;ve made a momentous decision. Starting now, I&#039;ll get dressed every morning and go out to work.]]></description>
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<title>Working for the wife</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:04:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/TyCWYkNfX_o/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A new breed of woman entrepreneur is proving that sometimes the best employee is your husband. Rona Maynard gets the inside story from four of the pathfinders.]]></description>
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<title>Age and beauty: Rona's latest article in More magazine</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:04:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ In &quot;If looks could thrill,&quot; 50-something Rona Maynard finds a new beauty role model: a confident, stylish, unBotoxed woman who just happens to be over 60.]]></description>
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<title>Department of amazing coincidences</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:41:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/NjD6xkgNKF0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The big city became a very small small world indeed when I discovered that we&#039;d bought our new home from our grandson&#039;s cousin.]]></description>
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<title>My secret bond with Jimmy Page</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ My heart goes out to Jimmy Page. The celebrated Led Zeppelin guitarist has to sell a cherished $2 million tapestry because he&#039;s run out of wall space in his mansions. I know how he feels, because the walls in our new loft won&#039;t hold a custom-made piece of neon art that doesn&#039;t mean a dime to anyone but me. Oh, the exquisite agony! ]]></description>
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<title>The wage gap: is the glass ceiling really to blame?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:22:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ We all know that day care workers earn peanuts, while engineers collect big bucks. So steering women into science courses ought to boost their earning potential. It hasn&#039;t worked out that way. In a provocative new book called The Sexual Paradox, psychologist Susan Pinker argues that well-intentioned efforts to close the wage gap have devalued women&#039;s real desires and motivations. Women don&#039;t see the world as men do, she says. And the reason is rooted in our brains.]]></description>
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<title>Lunch for the soul</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:01:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/UYNaarhaj-Q/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ There&#039;s not much left in my kitchen these days as we gear up to move. But right until the last day, I&#039;ll have the makings of my favourite last-minute lunch: the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich. I&#039;ve made all-day ragus that aren&#039;t nearly as delicious.]]></description>
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<title>Claiming the keys: a homeowner's love story</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ A naked home, when you&#039;ve just acquired it, is like a naked lover who has just left his date-night clothes on your floor for the very first time.]]></description>
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<title>Going, going, gone: my great pre-move giveaway</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:33:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Some people have yard sales to unload their excess baggage. I wouldn&#039;t bother, even if I had a yard and a brilliant spring day for displaying my cast-offs to the world. Too much work, I say. And besides, I get a buzz out of giving dust-catchers away to people who will really use them.]]></description>
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<title>Temporarily cool: ronamaynard.com gets an accolade</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:14:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I hadn&#039;t even heard of the Open Directory when they &quot;cooled&quot; my interactive web site, which just goes to show the limits of my coolness. Just when I got excited, my cool rating disappeared. Now it&#039;s back, for now. But like other good things in life, coolness is a temporary pleasure.]]></description>
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<title>Is a husband just a partner in life's everyday grind?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/JaTiKGIoaEI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It was my husband of 37 years who handed me the March issue of The Atlantic and told me not to miss a punchy piece called &quot;Marry Him,&quot; in which rueful never-married mother Lori Gottlieb makes &quot;the case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Just another tourist in search of transcendence</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:08:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/pS_zrB_EzCw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m not sure what I expected to find at the Grand Canyon. Beauty, certainly, but that&#039;s the wrong word for a chasm so vast and start, you can fly over it and see no end. A remarkable short story, &quot;Abyss&quot; by Richard Ford, took me straight to the dark heart of that feeling.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A Joni Mitchell moment on my winter vacation</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:58:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9ERp2gz-6G0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You wouldn&#039;t think there&#039;s any call for fake rocks in southern Utah. The place teems with real ones, majestically sculptured by nature over many millions of years. But the strangest things happen when you start paving paradise.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The best thing that happened this week</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/w_-LVt1oEFw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ She used to be my protegee. Now she&#039;s my friend and peer. As her mentor, I learned that the greatest reward of leadership is preparing others to lead.  So I was proud and delighted to recommend her for a well-deserved award.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The power of reading: Val Ross in her own words</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:36:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/DM59kIKczS4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Monday&#039;s post about Val Ross, my friend and colleague who died last weekend at age 57, has touched off a continuing flurry of messages from visitors to this site. Some of you say you wish you could have known her. You can, through her captivating words. Here is an excerpt from You Can&#039;t Read This, Val&#039;s history of lost and forbidden books through the ages.]]></description>
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<title>Neither young nor a lady</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/NXvPjE-gq9c/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The 20-something waiter called my husband &quot;sir.&quot; He addressed me as &quot;young lady.&quot; He did it once, he did it twice, and at the rate we were going he&#039;d be doing it all evening, this rosy-cheeked kid who was younger than my son. The last time this happened, I bit my tongue. But the best part of growing older is the freedom to speak your mind.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Two bowls of soup: in memory of Val Ross</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:50:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/7yrU-Li21gc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Readers knew Val Ross as an award-winning journalist and author. Countless people knew her as a friend of rare integrity and grace. I was blessed to be among them. This is my tribute to Val, who died in Toronto of a brain tumour on February 17, at age 57.]]></description>
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<title>My favourite first sentences</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ZSRIxwDnOBQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A great first sentence pulls the reader into the story. Even more important, it gives the writer heart to keep on telling the story in the first place. Here, a baker&#039;s dozen of the best, culled from novels I&#039;ve loved through the decades.]]></description>
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<title>The essential dinner-time ceremony</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:24:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/uY_lfcTB-Jc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ For years my husband has opened an interesting wine as we sat down to dinner. This year he&#039;s on the wagon. As recently as a few months ago, this decision would have unnerved me. Now I understand that conversation, not wine, is really what makes dinner special.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My sweet unlikely home</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:33:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/-doayM3bnKw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When we cashed out of our dream condo, we thought we&#039;d go back to a sensible house. Lo and behold, we&#039;ve bought an eccentrically beautiful loft instead. It&#039;s just the kind of bohemian pad that I aspired to back as a teenage rebel. In my 50s, I&#039;ve discovered it&#039;s not too late to have what I always wanted.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My other online hangout</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/CwCNSxZIy08/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My favourite web site, of course, is this one. But I do have another online hangout that serves a different purpose. It&#039;s called Teebeedee.com, and it&#039;s like a summer camp for the over-40 crowd. It&#039;s a place where we can learn, tell stories and have a lot of fun just being ourselves.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Ottawa Art Gallery features Max Maynard in a new show of landscape painting</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Zl3vUUY8T7Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ An early Max Maynard landscape of the Cowichan Valley will appear in the Ottawa Art Gallery&#039;s new exhibiton &quot;Deep Roots,&quot; on view February 2 to May 4. Rona Maynard&#039;s father is in distinguished company: other featured landscape artists include Emily Carr, Lawren Harris, Edwin Holgate and A.Y. Jackson. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Learning to love my gray hair</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:08:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/aIooG7sT-zY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Eight years ago, I made a decision that changed my life. I stopped pretending that my hair was still a rich, dark brown. At the time I was Editor of Chatelaine, where we featured my makeover from brown to gray. Next thing I knew, grateful middle-aged readers were pulling off my hat to admire my silver tresses.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The woman with the Canadian flag: an urban encounter</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:13:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/YVeodQHu3nc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I thought it must be a crime or an accident that had brought police and paramedics to a busy intersection in my city. In fact it was the cortege for a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan. And a woman he never knew was determined to him]]></description>
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<title>Hiring your husband: Rona talks with trail-blazing women who've done it</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/SRR_drW0eoo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ In old-school family businesses, Pop ran the show while Mom tended the files. Now a new breed of husband is proud to work for his wife. And she wouldn&#039;t have it any other way. Sound too good to be true? 
Read Rona Maynard&#039;s eye-opening article &quot;Working for the Wife&quot; in the February/March issue of MORE, Canada&#039;s magazine celebrating women over 40.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A brief history of my hair</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/zUr8OCuwZPc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ From a botched Toni home permanent to the risks and rewards of going gray, the story of my hair has been the story of my life. Let&#039;s face it, to be female iis to struggle with your hair.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Mending a tear in the family fabric</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:11:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/LGGwGANyCkw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Growing up, I never knew I had a first cousin named Rosemary Woolery. Her father and mine were brothers in a complicated family where people seldom to spoke to one another. She died years ago. But thanks to her daughter Louisa, I&#039;ve met her right here on this site in the Mother/Daughter Gallery.

]]></description>
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<title>Could you love your gray hair? Rona explores the question on Sounds Like Canada</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:15:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/RQzyUD4Tv1I/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Is gray hair an old-ladyish career killer or the sign of a modern woman who&#039;s not afraid to be herself? Shelagh Rogers will pose the question to Rona (who&#039;s been happily gray for eight years), journalist Mary Wiens and career expert Barbara Moses. Tune in to Sounds Like Canada on Monday, January 25, at 11 a.m. in all time zones. Here&#039;s to a lively and eye-opening discussion.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My Mother - Rosemary Maynard Woolery</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:06:36 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/8FgqRIGCia8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The one thing that brings my mother to the forefront... Posted by Louisa Woolery. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My googleganger and me</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/dY-oDtNEyao/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I thought I must be the only Rona Maynard until I Googled myself and found another one online. Who was this woman? And why did it bother me to share my name with someone else?]]></description>
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<title>My city, myself</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/O8vKY8qqPOk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The Toronto I&#039;ve called home for my entire adult life is becoming an angrier, lonelier place. I could rage against this trend, but I know I&#039;m complicit.]]></description>
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<title>Unreal estate: the secret language of real estate ads</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/R5-VZvmm838/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The real meaning of &quot;million-dollar view,&quot; &quot;executive home&quot; and other terms that perplex the weary home buyer. How do I know? I&#039;ve been out there pounding the pavement and I&#039;m here to share my hard-earned wisdom.]]></description>
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<title>Adventures in real estate</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:48:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/05H0pt6OKag/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Looking for a home is like looking for love. You hope the next listing will be The One. You tell yourself you can make this work. But when you realize it won&#039;t, there&#039;s always tomorrow.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My first book club</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Meeting with book clubs is as much a part of being an author as rewriting the same pesky sentence 129 times. Thank goodness book club meetings are a lot more fun.]]></description>
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<title>Selling my dream home</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:02:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/sbfM4oIo1Rg/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Now that I&#039;m about to be homeless, I finally understand that home is a state of mind.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The parents you never knew</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:38:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ One of the hardest things for every more or less grownup person to understand is that our parents had complex lives, full of dreams and hopes and fears, before we came along.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Losing your parents and living better</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ It&#039;s not quite acceptable to admit it, but a parent&#039;s death can free the children to become their best selves.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Rona Maynard goes to Broadway</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Check out the January issue of Reader&#039;s Digest Canada for Rona&#039;s story on her appearance in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, now coming to Toronto.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A tourist in the kingdom of baseball</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 30 Dec 2007 07:15:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The secret of a lasting marriage has more than a little to do with exploring your spouse&#039;s burning interests. I never managed to develop a passion for baseball. Still, I&#039;m glad I made the effort.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My perfect Christmas tree</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2007 07:05:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Yaz2j0oFQCo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Real or artificial? Who cares? Anyone can buy the Christmas tree. Only I can decorate it with the lovingly collected ornaments that make it mine.]]></description>
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<title>Here's to good readers</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:52:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/0gsCjNRoxQc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Good readers are a lot like good life partners. They don&#039;t expect to love the whole package; they just want a rich experience that rewards the gift of their attention.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My two children: the son and the book</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/an7UH8cnyy4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I wrote My Mother&#039;s Daughter, I learned to forget about tangible results and let the work become its own reward. After years of corporate life, this felt a little strange. But it wasn&#039;t really. I have raised a son, and for parents there are no benchmarks except your own love and commitment.]]></description>
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<title>More words to live by</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/3ZxnmVgQUm4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The latest insights I&#039;ve cribbed from people who know something I don&#039;t.]]></description>
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<title>As long as I'm a mother...</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:24:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Just because I no longer listen for the click of my son&#039;s key in the front door doesn&#039;t mean I&#039;ve outgrown the habit of maternal worry.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Not your average dinner party</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:57:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/CeLxfZrKT-0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Why every woman should see Judy Chicago&#039;s stunning work &quot;The Dinner Party,&quot; which is 28 years old and still charged with excitement]]></description>
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<title>The woman who lived on words</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:45:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/rjBI0HgoFOc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It wasn&#039;t easy to be friends with Margaret Gibson, a ferociously original writer who struggled with severe mental illness. But by reading her a poem I knew she&#039;d love, I found a moment of grace.]]></description>
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<title>My favourite dish</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/o7jBSZ4Br_w/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Instead of homemade fettucine and other grand culinary productions, I stick to simple pleasures like this mustard-grilled flank steak.]]></description>
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<title>My morning laugh</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/I95x9J_KP8E/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I can count on The Onion&#039;s bang-on satire to light up the most ho-hum day.]]></description>
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<title>A moment of grace in cyberspace</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:20:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Vz75t3mBfpI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You never know how an online encounter with a stranger is going to enlarge your life. This morning, an e-mail from a stranger did precisely that.]]></description>
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<title>Five minutes alone with Leonard Cohen</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/vNEdUkF_o7s/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A poem is the perfect busy woman&#039;s read. It slips into the day&#039;s unexpected quiet places like a cat into a lap.]]></description>
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<title>Style therapy</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 24 Nov 2007 07:29:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/AUJMnKzndjw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Why buy an &quot;it bag&quot; that won&#039;t work as my bag? Let fashionistas chase the trends of the moment; I&#039;ll stick to wearable talismans that will lift my spirits for years.]]></description>
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<title>Words to live by</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9XqY6XasvIs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Culled from my recent reading: wise thoughts from Norman Mailer, Mary Pipher and Sandra Oh.]]></description>
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<title>What's so funny?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:42:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/TmqBQlGXAgA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ To truly appreciate Blazing Saddles, the classic spoof western by Mel Brooks, you have to watch it with a kid for whom the only thing funnier than a fart is a whole gleeful chorus of farts.]]></description>
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<title>Rona's book is monthly pick for businesswomen's e-newsletter</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:19:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Muk5HTtHem4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Company of Women, an innovative organization that connects Ontario businesswomen professionally and personally, highlights My Mother&#039;s Daughter by Rona Maynard in its monthly e-newsletter.]]></description>
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<title>Sleeping for success</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:03:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/-H8moJeQG8w/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ &quot;The Sleep Industrial Complex,&quot; a provocative cover story in the New York Times Magazine, won&#039;t tell you how to get the sleep of your dreams. But it does explain why you&#039;re so worried about those precious eight hours. I feel your pain.]]></description>
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<title>Written on the body</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:50:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/bRviZ2L7fEk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The scars and sags on my body are like dings on a well-used car. But to me these so-called &quot;imperfections&quot; are mementos of where I&#039;ve been and what&#039;s happened along the way.]]></description>
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<title>I'm new to this game myself</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:06:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/eBBvbbEvWQY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ What I&#039;ve learned about writing from June Callwood, Roger Daltrey and the sheer discombobulating thrill of being a beginner instead of the &quot;veteran&quot; I used to be.]]></description>
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<title>Rona's latest speeches: power, mentorship and success</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:51:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/EzNPN7yt08g/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ November is a busy speaking month for Rona Maynard. She&#039;s sharing her real-life wisdom on success and mentorship with the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Health Canada and the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce.]]></description>
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<title>Now available! The reading guide for My Mother's Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:55:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/dRUOvKzB1Jo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Now ready for your book club: Rona Maynard&#039;s own questions about her memoir, My Mother&#039;s Daughter.]]></description>
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<title>Question of the day: overcoming depression</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:47:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/5tIIpEqKQqU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You often speak and write about overcoming depression. What made you decide to go public, when so many people are ashamed to admit that mental illness has touched their lives?]]></description>
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<title>Friends no matter what</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/r8U9rqs9foA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Like a good marriage, the good friendship bends and expands to accommodate life&#039;s transitions.]]></description>
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<title>How old is grown-up?</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:34:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Yurpw7kTBzQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The older I get, the younger I feel inside. And I&#039;m in good company. My newest role model, 65-year-old soul diva Aretha Franklin, says she&#039;s planning to overcome fear of flying and study classical piano.]]></description>
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<title>Reasons for loving</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:10:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/JwlwDyksQRs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When a friend fell gravely ill, I didn&#039;t know what to do or how to help. So I filled a note card with all the things I love about her.]]></description>
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<title>Question of the day: the difference between sons and daughters</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/xLAL9ERdT8Y/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Your only child is a son, yet you write about the mother/daughter bond. Are you sorry that you never had a daughter? ]]></description>
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<title>Sharing happiness</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:45:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/zUsDSdgiYck/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ A cherished poem can bring friends together. For me, the ultimate pass-along poem is Jane Kenyon&#039;s wonderfully consoling &quot;Happiness.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Listen to Rona's interview with CBC Radio One</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:14:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ &quot;A mother teaches her daughter, for good and ill, what it means to be a woman,&quot; Rona tells Jo-Ann Roberts of CBC radio in Victoria. &quot;A mother is the keeper of hopes, but also of warnings.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Paper birds</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:13:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ My father, Max Maynard, never finished anything. So the the family legend went. When he joined A.A., determined to quit drinking in old age, he never quite pulled it off. But he made an honest effort, and that&#039;s what matters now.]]></description>
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<title>Rona goes restaurant reviewing with National Post critic Gina Mallet</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:48:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/CDBikdlLuEY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Rona has a walk-on part in a review of Gallery Grill by National Post restaurant critic Gina Mallet. Actually, it&#039;s more than a walk-on: she&#039;s quoted with cries of delight. The pair were celebrating the end of Rona&#039;s frantic book tour.]]></description>
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<title>London Free Press praises &amp;quot;style and verve&amp;quot; of My Mother's Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:30:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard tells her story with &quot;style and verve&quot; in her &quot;angry yet exultant memoir,&quot; says reviewer Nancy Schiefer. ]]></description>
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<title>The doors in my head</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:23:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ New possibilities are everywhere, at every age. It&#039;s all a question of seeing them.]]></description>
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<title>Read a profile of Rona in Moods magazine</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:57:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard&#039;s comeback from depression is the fall cover story in Moods, a unique magazine for people coping with mood disorders.]]></description>
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<title>Still married after all these years</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:09:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Like a fine bottle of wine, young lovers need time to lose their rough edges and reveal their best selves. Sometimes I wonder how we did it. ]]></description>
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<title>Join the conversation between Rona and Dale Goldhawk of Rogers TV</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 21 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The lines will be open at Rogers TV when Rona sits down with Dale Goldhawk to talk about a subject close to her heart: depression. ]]></description>
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<title>The truth about looking younger</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:55:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Back when I was going to bars with fake ID, I&#039;d do anything to look older. I thought I&#039;d always have this problem. Now I&#039;m always on the lookout for ways to look younger. Here&#039;s some unconventional wisdom.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Betty Postill</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:26:02 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ There are many stories about the courage my mother conjured... Posted by Terry Poulton. ]]></description>
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<title>Robert Fulford calls Rona's book &amp;quot;engrossing and eloquent&amp;quot;</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ National Post columnist Robert Fulford praises My Mother&#039;s Daughter while assessing the legacy of Rona&#039;s artist father, Max Maynard.]]></description>
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<title>Like a fish without a bicycle</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:20:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Once upon a time, feminists weren&#039;t supposed to admit that they actually needed a man. I thought we&#039;d left those days behind. But in a lively new book, feminist heroine Katha Pollitt admits to being a world-class fool for love. And some of her biggest fans are up in arms.]]></description>
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<title>Read the Globe interview with Rona</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/TcIl3BQiL20/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Sarah Hampson of the Globe calls My Mother&#039;s Daughter &quot;a beautifully told story of a horrific childhood.&quot; We have to question &quot;horrific,&quot; but we&#039;re not about to quibble with &quot;beautifully told.&quot;]]></description>
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<title>Scrambling for the back seat</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/mi0cb6pp46g/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Some women don&#039;t aim for leadership until they see that other people are already following. Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin is a perfect example, and she&#039;s honest own enough to talk about her battle with fear of failure.]]></description>
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<title>The envelope, please</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ It&#039;s been close to 20 years since my mother was alive to send me letters. Then a friend of hers appeared with the ultimate gift: a lost letter, full of feeling and insight.]]></description>
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<title>The gift of gratitude</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I can&#039;t demand gratitude of others, but I can cultivate it in myself. Thank goodness!]]></description>
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<title>Winnipeg Free Press applauds My Mother's Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard is indeed her mother&#039;s daughter, says the Free Press--&quot;brilliant, creative, feisty, fallible, honest, introspective and a terrific writer.&quot;]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A plan for kid-friendly communities</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/QnFO2ga-ryw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When kids run wild on safe streets, they stretch their minds and bodies while learning a sense of fair play. Now traditional childhood games are all but forgotten. A Canadian hero aims to turn things around, and she\&#039;s looking for help.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Watch Rona's interview on Fine Print</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/qXDfWEcfjC4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Passionate reader Carolyn Weaver speaks with Rona about mothers, daughters and becoming one&#039;s own woman.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Readers fall in love with My Mother's Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:41:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Ol9uenqouiQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ &quot;I couldn&#039;t put it down,&quot; readers say. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A tale of two sisters</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:28:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/AA_eMG_yX5U/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My sister Joyce and I share a complicated heritage of rivalry, love and disappointment. For years we didn&#039;t speak. Then at last we were able to embrace possibility instead of standing guard against pain.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The compliment conundrum</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:41:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/VgP3hSiFQJ4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ We love to tell other women what&#039;s special about themselves.  So why do we brush off compliments directed our way?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Age cannot wither her</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:09:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ekdWYHzEmVI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I hadn&#039;t thought of Patricia since she taught me English 35 years ago. Now here she was beside me on the subway platform, looking proudly and stylishly herself]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My Mother - Joanne Thompson</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:07:21 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9ng1me0phXQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[      &quot;You are so like your... Posted by Tiffany Anderson. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Looking for Mousie</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:33:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/P1xkJp3GysM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I tried to shield my child from the pain of loss, but losing is an art that every child needs to learn.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Hear Rona's interview with The Commentary</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/UFix9eCCUbk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The Commentary, an online arts and current affairs publication, calls My Mother&#039;s Daughter &quot;candid and absorbing.&quot; ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My Mother - Amelia</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:39:03 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/MHJKQQJigL4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Growing up, I always thought my mother Amelia was &quot;different&quot;.... Posted by Sarah. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Question of the day: why another Maynard family memoir?</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2007 09:21:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Sbl-AfrvAZw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Your mother and your sister both wrote memoirs. Now you&#039;ve joined the family business with your own memoir, My Mother&#039;s Daughter. Why did you choose to write another book about the Maynard family instead of an original story?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Holden Caulfield revisited</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:13:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/LWXiCJHUQmo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It&#039;s been more than 40 years since I fell in love with Salinger&#039;s hero, and he&#039;s not the same adorable guy. He&#039;s prickly, judgmental and afraid to grow up. But I still really want to hear about it. And The Catcher in the Rye is still a great book.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My kingdom for a good night's sleep</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/3n8mkdKekS0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Back when I could sleep through anything, I waged a nightly campaign to stave off bedtime. Oh, the irony!]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Bringing it all back home</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:21:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/5XuFLz4ezG8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I thought I never wanted to return to the prairie city where my mother came of age. But it&#039;s where she fell in love with my father, and where she used to struggle with her own formidable mother. Now Winnipeg is where my book tour begins. And I&#039;m keen to revisit my family&#039;s roots.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Globe calls My Mother's Daughter &amp;quot;a moving tribute&amp;quot;</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 22 Sep 2007 06:51:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/z08M5i9528M/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Globe and Mail reviewer Elizabeth Grove-White concludes, &quot;Maynard&#039;s memoir taps into the witches&#039; brew of clear-eyed candour and emotional ambivalence that colours many of our mother/daughter relationships.&quot;]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Question of the day: what a journalist needs to know</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:57:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/k3MZoSVfesU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;m a high school student and aspiring journalist making plans for university. Should I major in English or journalism?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>A few of my favourite books</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Lu_FQPg-rz8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Some of these books changed my life. Others are just so irresistibly compelling, I find myself telling every reader I know, &quot;You&#039;ve got to read this.&quot;]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Toronto Star applauds My Mother's Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:22:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/Iw0ibIhfpQY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Reviewer Robin Harvey calls My Mother&#039;s Daughter &quot;searingly honest&quot; and &quot;a most compelling read.&quot; ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Rona's book goes to Harvard</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:40:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/hsb-8YaUSAM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Paula J. Caplan, a leading feminist thinker and author, is recommending My Mother&#039;s Daughter to her students in a Harvard course entitled &quot;Myths of Motherhood.&quot;]]></description>
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<feedburner:origLink>http://ronamaynard.com/index.php?ronas-book-goes-to-harvard</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
<title>A better life than hers</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:10:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/7Gy7kD5_HeU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Every generation of women aspires to what mom didn&#039;t have. Now it&#039;s baby boomers&#039; turn to be told that our frantic lives didn&#039;t cut it. ]]></description>
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<feedburner:origLink>http://ronamaynard.com/index.php?a-better-life-than-hers</feedburner:origLink></item>
<item>
<title>Get real! Motherhood revisited</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 Sep 2007 11:07:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/8_zAKD6kyt4/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Rona Maynard&#039;s book about her relationship with her mother reveals the impossible expectations we all place on our own mum]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ronamaynard.com/index.php?get-real-motherhood-revisited</guid>
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<item>
<title>Hear Rona's speech for Gift of Wisdom breakfast series on October 29</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:44:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9_fHVrlLtzA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Meet Rona at the Arcadian Court, 401 Bay St., Toronto, to learn how the mother/daughter bond can point the way to success in the workplace. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>What women want...and other discoveries from the hot tub</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:06:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/hRqmOVxshFw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Take a happily exhausted group of hikers from all over. Add soothing hot water. Listen to the stories that prove we&#039;re more alike than different.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Mommy's too old</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:54:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/svJhxQmvsCA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When a woman in her 50s or 60s becomes pregnant, she has another shot at youth. But what does she lose?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Question of the day: how can I make peace between my warring daughters?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/-bsQr2DXEYc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You and your sister have written frankly about the difficulties between you. I&#039;m the mother of two young daughters whose relationship is full of pain. I have tried to mitigate my older daughter&#039;s rage and resentment but seemingly to no avail. Do you wish your mother had done something to lessen the pain between you and your sister? Am I unknowingly adding to my daughters&#039; pain?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>It's not my problem</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2007 02:50:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/OD9w619iTeQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Liberation means no more search and rescue.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Why I'm still married</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:16:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/DBfLpQsiDxc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I&#039;ve been married as long as some of my friends have been alive. While they were still putting peas in their ears, my husband and I were dealing loudly and gracelessly with weightier matters like whose turn it was to throw dinner on the table.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Hear Shelagh Rogers' interview with Rona and Joyce Maynard</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/2hFeXNG0cGI/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Rona and her sister Joyce have just met up on Sounds Like Canada to talk about their 50 years of passion and pain. The childhood rivals recently became collaborators on a joint project for MORE magazine, &quot;A tale of two sisters.&quot;]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Question of the day: how can I find Fredelle Maynard's books?</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:16:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/ld40w_R3EIo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Years ago I lent my copy of Raisins and Almonds to someone and never got it back. How can I replace it? I don&#039;t see your mother&#039;s books anywhere.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My Mother - Frances Perodeau</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:44:32 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/FcpCrNUSi-E/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ My mother died from cancer in 1950, when I was... Posted by Liz Carmichael. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My Mother - Gertrude S. Jordan</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:51:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/eWb9_E9Ktko/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Mom dreamed of being a music teacher or opera singer.... Posted by Kathleen J. Hemmer. ]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Question of the day: was writing your memoir a catharsis?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Sep 2007 03:25:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/StXQZwEBVi0/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You&#039;ve had a difficult childhood and a history of depression. Did you write your book to get it off your chest?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The necessary art of condolence notes</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:34:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/V33dmvI5ImU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Once I went shopping for the perfect black dress to accessorize for any occasion. Now I buy note cards for reaching out to friends in need. And white is the new black.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>From the book</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/jFPQO461hcs/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ With her formidable mind and inimitable style, I thought my mother would always be the invincible protector of my childhood. Then came the winter of her confusion.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Every second woman I know is in transition</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/9Ijc-XtcYFQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ We used to know our place in the world. Then a child left home or a job ended. What next?]]></description>
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<item>
<title>Writing the next chapter</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/VAErzUKjfPo/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ What&#039;s it like becoming a formerly important person? Rona Maynard tried to do it by the book]]></description>
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<item>
<title>The hat that got away</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:19:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/owk7MalFTPc/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It was perfect in every way, as if the hat gods had created it just for me. But I told myself I couldn&#039;t afford it.]]></description>
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<item>
<title>My bicultural identity</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:24:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/vcGEypJC7ps/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I chose to make Canada my home, but the U.S. is still my native land.]]></description>
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<title>Cats of my life</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:30:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ With my cats, I&#039;ve expressed every facet of my character--for better and worse]]></description>
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<title>A parent's place</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:06:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ I didn&#039;t want to say yes when my right hand man requested an eleventh-hour adoption leave. But I couldn&#039;t afford to say no.]]></description>
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<title>Question of the day: how did you balance your life?</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/s-2Wohw0-aU/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ You&#039;ve been able to combine career and motherhood. How did you balance your life?]]></description>
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<title>Teachers who changed my life</title>
<pubDate>Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/BmrFzDiJ6xM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Teaching just might be the purest expression of our need to connect with one another.]]></description>
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<title>Life lessons from my local beggars</title>
<pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/nI-muQp6u9I/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ One woman&#039;s struggle with urban guilt]]></description>
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<title>Latest favourite</title>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:59:18 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ The most recent favourite comment.]]></description>
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<title />
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:59:18 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/KIPAI2EyjEM/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ View all favourite comments as selected by Rona Maynard.]]></description>
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<title>Why I wrote My Mothers Daughter</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:45:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/l_F5AI9YAXQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ One January morning in 2005, I sat down at the desk in my home office and wondered what to do with the next phase of my life. I had just left my job at Chatelaine  a job that had defined me for a decade. ]]></description>
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<title>When your mother dies</title>
<pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:22:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/nonaE9UGH9E/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Around the time my mother died, the tender words of other women enveloped me like a quilt stitched by many pairs of hands. Longtime friends, mothers of friends and friends of colleagues, these women had one thing in common: their mothers had died. (&quot;It was 40 years ago,&quot; one said, &quot;and I still think of her every day.&quot;)]]></description>
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<title>Join the mother/daughter community</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:43:42 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/D4UkoKEMlC8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Add your story to the Mother/daughter community.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Rakieh Mourtada</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:33:56 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/J-luS799K6Q/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ In memory of Rakieh Mourtada, April 21, 1935 to June... Posted by Rasha Mourtada.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Lucia Dell'Agnese</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:29:31 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/nj5eXY9RPJk/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ When I was four, I had New Mom.  She... Posted by Angelica Siegel.]]></description>
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<title>My Mother - Dorothy Buxton</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:44:08 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/XA375uIiba8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ It's 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning, an ungodly hour... Posted by Bonnie Buxton.]]></description>
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<title>Question of the day: What would your mother think?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:00:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/YiYQtQuKUzw/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Your mother was a formidable character and a tough critic. What would she think of My Mother&#039;s Daughter?]]></description>
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<title>Intimate strangers</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:39:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/_SELMm4my44/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The healing art of confiding in someone you've just met]]></description>
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<title>Sexism and double standards</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:35:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/rLxZEMKhcak/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The real reasons critics dislike women's mags.]]></description>
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<title>My day care kid</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:21:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/qJeTa1diBcQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I have a wonderful son. At 24, Ben has friendships that have lasted for close to a decade, passions that range from Greek philosophy to graffiti art and a deep appreciation for women (one woman in particular). ]]></description>
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<title>For bed or for worse</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:19:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/gj8jo8x8pdA/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Why some of the happiest couples choose to sleep in separate beds]]></description>
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<title>May I help you?</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:17:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/EK0xIBL1yLE/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I have just spent a weekend unpacking from a move. You can picture the results: armfuls of cut-up boxes and a mountain of overstuffed garbage bags full of junk I should have tossed long ago. Late Sunday night, I made what felt like the hundred-and-forty-seventh trip to the garbage room of our new condominium. I was wondering how many more trips I had to go and whether my back would hold out when I heard a friendly voice call, &quot;Let me help you.&quot; ]]></description>
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<title>Food for the soul</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:15:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/vz-pvBNZqq8/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Every time my whole day falls apart, I know there&#039;s always one last chance to set things right. It&#039;s called dinner. ]]></description>
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<title>What I had to learn about success</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:01:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/QP7IBOfj0bY/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ I broke a bad habit: measuring my life against other people&#039;s.  ]]></description>
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<title>Ronas book tour kicks off in Winnipeg September 24.</title>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:23:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonaMaynard/~3/UsbY3yLZNIQ/index.php</link>
<description><![CDATA[ Here are the dates for Rona's western tour, as well as Ontario appearances confirmed so far. More dates and details will be added.]]></description>
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<title>Book a speech</title>
<pubDate>Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:05:00 EST</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[ Book a speech by Rona Maynard.]]></description>
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