10 Reasons You Should Come See Breadwinner At the Toronto Fringe

Happy Canada Day!! I hope my Canadian readers and members are having a lovely day off! Not only is today a holiday, but it’s opening night for my new show!! I’ve been hard at work over the last month working on a new musical called Breadwinner by Megan Benjafield as a part of the Toronto Fringe Festival and the time has finally come for us to have an audience. I’m so excited!!

Our amazing director Megan (who also wrote the show) put together a top 10 list of reasons to see it and I loved it so much that I’m posting it here!

[Photo Credit: Eric Shepherd]

Top 10 Reasons to Come See Breadwinner at the Toronto Fringe

10. You've read one of the dozens of articles in the current media about "The End of Men", or "The Alpha Woman" and want to know what all the fuss is about.
9. You are the female breadwinner in your relationship, and you want to see yourself reflected on stage.
8. You miss your girlfriends and don't want to wait for your next annual girls' weekend to feel that bond!
7. Your wife makes more than you do and you don't understand her.
6. You know someone in the cast, band or crew! (You know you owe it to them to see their work, they've come and seen yours!)
5. You try to catch all of the Fringe Musicals every year.
4. You want to hear some funky music, some contemporary ballads, a comedic group song and a character song, from some killer singers.
3. You want to see lively discussions from dishes to boners.
2. You want to be one of the first people talking about it at the Fringe tent.
1. There will definitely be things to talk about after you leave the theatre!

Show Times:
Thursday, July 1, 10:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 3, 1:45 p.m.
Sunday, July 4, 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, July 6, 4:45 p.m.
Thursday, July 8, 5:45 p.m.
Friday, July 9, 2:15 p.m.
Saturday, July 10. 9:45 p.m.

At The Annex Theatre, 1 block south of Bloor, on Bathurst.
Tickets are $10 at the door, or available through The Toronto Fringe Festival through various methods.

Have an amazing day off and I hope to see you at the theatre!! I’ve also got some exciting posts up my sleeve for July now that I’m going to have some time to sit down and write so stay tuned!

Just Another Sunday In The Park With Crohn’s

I can’t believe the 15th annual Heel ‘n’ Wheel-a-thon is now behind us!

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks leading up to the event and I had the honour (as honorary chair, tee hee) to chat with some local media leading up to the event. I was excited to know that on Thursday I made the cover of the Beach/Leslieville/Riverdale Mirror!The article discussed my involvement with the event and focused on my desire to raise awareness of IBD in Canada.

As I wrote my honorary chair speech on Saturday, I realized that I was less than $200 away from reaching my fundraising goal of $3000 so I solicited some donations on Facebook and Twitter over the course of the afternoon and was able to hit $3000 on the dot! Thanks so much to everyone who donated – I can’t wait to see if the Toronto event hit its goal of $325,000!

All week the weather people were talking about thunderstorms and rain for the day of the walk, which made me pretty sad. Apparently it NEVER rains on Heel ’n’ Wheel day and I didn’t want my year as Honorary Chair to break that tradition!! I got up bright and early on Sunday and was greeted by cloudy skies. Clouds I could deal with! I arrived onsite a little before 7 am and spent the morning helping wherever I could… and socializing with other members of the Committee… and seeing friends – old and new! I spent a bit of time with Hannah, who was the awesome Honorary Chair last year. I remembered seeing Hannah’s team (the Cranky Colons) with their bright green t-shirts at last year’s walk. Her mum was on the organizing committee and it was awesome to meet Hannah this year and chat about our similar (yet very different) journeys with this disease. I also had the pleasure of meeting super cute Megan who writes The Gut Gazette Megan and I have been corresponding via email and blogs for a long time now, so it was awesome to finally put the online persona and actual person together! Megan and her team the Grand Poo-Bahs were decked out in purple t-shirts and did an amazing job fundraising!

My friends Lindsay, Michelle & Brenda arrived to join me on the walkIt was so sweet of them to join me for the event and I was excited to have some great friends to enjoy Sunnybrook Park with! After a super fun and energetic warm up(with scissors no less) we were ready to hit the road! I got to cut the ribbon…  and we were off! We enjoyed stickers and delicious fruit  along our beautiful 5k in Sunnybrook. The weather held up and it was the perfect temperature to be walking. The 4 of us had a lovely time chatting along the route and cheering at each of the route stations. We took about an hour to do the 5k before hitting the finish line Just like last year, the food was still an issue for me at the event… made worse by the presence of a dessert truck Seriously? I recognize that there may have been a time in years past that I might have jumped on the opportunity for a deep-fried twinkie (!) but things have changed since then, and I truly believe that at an event around raising money and awareness for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, we should be promoting HEALTH. Deep-fried things on sticks, pizza and burgers don’t promote health to me at all and I hope that moving forward it is something that will continue to evolve. One of the members of the organizing committee and I are going to chat about ideas for next year and I hope that I can leave an imprint on the event in that way. I brought my own food for the day and had fun chatting with the healthier vendors in attendance like Bio K and Simply Bars.

After having my face painted I had the pleasure of thanking everyone for coming out and sharing a bit of my story. I felt really comfortable up on stage and later our PR Coordinator told me that I was very brave. It was a very successful (but long!) day and overall it’s been great to have been the Honorary Chair for this year’s event. It has enabled me to connect with some great people and has also given me the opportunity to share my story with others and in turn hopefully raise awareness of IBD.

Thank you to everyone who supported me in this event with words, donations or by joining me at the walk. I couldn’t have done it without all of you and I truly appreciate it!!

Heel ‘n’ Wheel-A-Thon in T-Minus 2 Days

The big day is just around the corner! I can hardly believe that it’s been a full year since the last time I did the event. At that time, it had still been less than a year that I had been diagnosed and was still working to figure this all out. So much has changed in a year, but I’m proud to say that I feel even healthier than I did at last year’s event and I am so excited to continue to head in that direction.

I hope that as a result of being the Honorary Chair and sharing my story that I’ve raised some awareness about the prevalence of IBD in our society. IBD affects more than 200,000 Canadians with more than 9,200 cases each year, but somehow before I was diagnosed I didn’t know anything about it. I want people to realize that they can speak up about this disease and that there are options out there. I realize that I’ve taken a bit more of an “unconventional” path to healing (not just medication and surgery but with primarily food!), but it has worked wonders and I’m so happy that I feel as healthy as I do today. Join me this Sunday in Sunnybrook Park at 10 am for the annual Heel ‘n’ Wheel-a-thon!

Funny Article in Wired

Check out this article a fellow ww.ca member posted today. If you really think about it Weight Watchers really is like a game. I know some of my members even think of the Weekly Points allowance as "bonus points". Keeping this kind of playful attitude while on WW could really help keep things interesting and fun while enjoying the countless benefits of your Lifestyle change!