I am super excited to be launching a new series here on the blog. I’m calling it 7 Wonders, and it is going to consist of two different kinds of posts.

The first will be feature creatives of all kinds shouting out some things they love. These posts might be as simple as a list of beloved items or a grid of images, or as in-depth as a series of mini-essays. The things they celebrate might be big or small, silly or profound, physical or abstract. I want to give people lots of flexibility to have fun and make it their own. The other type of post will detail simple wonders from various aspects of my own life, from my picture book practice to my pantry.

I thought I would kick things off by sharing a kind of hybrid post featuring my own general 7 Wonders, a handful of small things that bring me great joy.

Here we go!

Pencils
I love my laptop, but I am a luddite at heart. In order to feel truly at ease, I need to know there are plenty of sharp pencils within reach. There are jars of them sprinkled all over my house and at least one rolling around the bottom of every drawer and handbag. More often than not, I have one twisted into my hair, which has the added bonus of giving me very impressive beachy waves when I finally remove it. I love pencils so much, I even had one tattooed on my left arm to celebrate the sale of my first book.
I am pretty loyal to my classic yellow Ticonderogas, although lately I have been tempted by these Blackwing pencils that I have hear a lot of writers talk about. I might have to ask Santa to slip a box into my stocking this year!

2. My Kitchen Table

Our kitchen table was the first real serious piece of furniture Michael and I purchased for our first house. I justified the extravagant cost by telling myself that, unlike a couch, it would last a lifetime, and be something we could one day pass down to one of our girls. It’s solid walnut, with a self-contained butterfly leaf that makes it possible for even a child to extend it in a flash. Reminiscent of a traditional trestle table but with sleek, minimalist lines, it is like an anchor at the very center of our home, magically unifying all of the desperate elements of our eclectic, constantly shifting style.

While we waited the weeks and weeks it took for this baby to be delivered, I daydreamed about all the fancy dinner parties I would throw, how I would set it with candles, and handwritten place cards, and the Kate Spade china I had insisted on registering for. Around this table, we would become real adults.

Fast forward several years, and I have still never hosted a holiday dinner. The china only gets used twice a year, on my daughter’s birthdays, when I serve boxed macaroni and hot dog coins off of it. Instead, it is the place we eat super together every night, often shoving aside an avalanche of paper or Lego to make room for our plates. It’s where we gather with friends for take out, or for creative dinners we cobbled together out of the collective contents of our refrigerators. It’s where we did online learning during the early days of the pandemic, before my kids were old enough to operate a laptop without help. It’s where we craft, and play Sushi Go!, and linger over pancakes and coffee on Saturday mornings.

While I still don’t like to think too hard about how much this table cost, I believe in my heart it was worth ever penny.

3. The wallpaper in our entryway

I grew up in a 1980’s suburban house that was full of dusty rose carpet and terrible wallpaper. I can remember my mother hanging wallpaper in my childhood bedroom late into the night, swearing through clenched teeth because she couldn’t get the boarder straight. I also remember the hours it took her a few years later to peel it all off again because I had announced that I now wanted— nay, needed!— for my room to be painted navy with metallic stars and moons and yellow trim.

Because of this, I swore that if I ever had my own house, wallpaper would never be allowed through the door. Ever. But times change, and so does wallpaper. At the end of the day, wallpaper is neither inherently good or bad— it is simply a medium like any other.

I think happen to think this wallpaper, which covers a huge wall in our entryway, is so, so good. It was designed by the artist Geoff McFetridge for his company Pottok. It is graphic, fun, and so very human. But I know not everyone agrees. I know because I see the look of confusion on that often passes across the faces of people as they enter our house for the first time. Once upon a time, I would been horrified by such looks, but it’s one of the many gifts of my old age to be able to fill the entrance of our home with such a bold declaration of my personal taste and not give two farts what anyone else thinks of it.

The very best part of this paper is that you can make up stories about the people in it while you’re getting your shoes on. For instance, the boy sitting on the ball with his head in his hands has just blown the dodgeball world championships. His team is super pissed. His mother (left) is mortified.

4. Michael’s English Muffins

I have always loved toasted English muffins. In fact, a nutritionist I went to in collage once looked at the eating log I had completed for her, shook her head, and pronounced that 70% of my problem was the volume of English muffins I was eating.

During the pandemic, Michael started making his own English muffins, using this recipe. They make store bought ones taste like sad trash. They are my favourite food on Earth.

4. My Bathtub

I love baths so much that in university I regularly braved the gross communal tub in my dorm. There was no plug (which in retrospect I realize was probably to discourage people from actually using it) so I would stuff a sock down the drain. I am not proud of this.

This is the tub in my current bathroom, and I will never stop being grateful for it. I read here, and write. It is also where I retreat to recover from migraines, which I unfortunately suffer from several times a month.

Last year for Valentine’s Day, my wonderful husband commissioned a local teen boy on Facebook Marketplace to craft me this tray. It holds an iPad nicely, along with a little cordless keyboard and any other essentials I might need that day (a cup of coffee, a cocktail, a hamburger, etc.). I love it (and him!) so much!

5. Adult Tap Class

I took dance lessons as a kid, and by far my favourite style was tap. A few years ago, my friend Sarah and I decided to take an adult class together, and I fell right back in love with it. It is kind of like playing the drums with your feet! Not only is a great cardio workout, I truly believe it’s the secret to keeping my brain young and agile.

Plus, Sarah is probably the most fun person I know, and spending a couple of hours with her every week is such a fountain of joy. After class, we often sit in her car laughing and talking about Christmas movies and Devon Sowa, and our favourite snacks. Eventually, Michael comes out and tells us our voices are so loud they are keeping the children awake. Oops!

Sarah made us matching shirts to wear to class on her beloved Cricut machine. Everyone there thinks we are very cool, naturally.

6. Waffles

I dislike unitasker kitchen gadgets as a rule, but I make an exception for my waffle maker, which you will have to pry out of my cold, dead hands.

I have very strong beliefs surrounding waffles:

They should be eaten the minute they are ready, not kept warm in the oven until you’ve cooked the whole batch.
You may eat your waffles with whatever toppings float your boat, except for artificial ‘pancake syrup,’ which is an abomination.
The recipe, hands down, is Marian Cunningham’s yeasted waffles, but you have to start them the night before, so if you need waffles immediately, your best bet is Aretha Frankenstein’s Waffles of Insane Greatness.
All waffles taste best if someone else makes them and serves them to you.

7. Leo

Leo is our wily, 2 1/2 year-old bernedoodle. At the dog park, his favourite place on earth, he is the bounciest, silliest pup. At home he is a skeptical old-man who often behaves more like a cat. He loves to cuddle, except when he absolutely does not. He is very gentle with children, but tries to (lovingly) eat the wrists of every adult who enters our home. He’s super chill, except when he is a bundle of anxiety who tries to bite every vet or groomer that comes near him. His preferred foods include cheese, tofu, toilet paper rolls. He spends his days destroying silicone muffin cups and napping on velvet couches with his head on the most expensive throw pillow he can find.

But the most dominant fact of being Leo’s mom is that he must be walked three times a day, rain or shine, in sickness or in health, or else he scratches incessantly on every surface in our house. While this is not always convenient, it does force us to get out of the house and move our bodies ever single day, which has had a powerful impact on our mental and physical health. Over the past few years he and I have spent more hours than I can count circling the neighbourhood or tromping through the trails we love through the woods and along the river, and while we walk I think, and I listen to podcast after podcasts, and I work through writing problems that seemed unsolvable while I was sitting at my desk.

Having a dog is so, so much harder than I ever imagined, but it is also my favourite thing.