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For the first 18 years of my life, my family history was a complete mystery. I was adopted as a baby, and while at times that reality has been painful, I was extremely fortunate to have been raised by two of the kindest people who were simply meant to be parents. But despite having an idyllic childhood, I spent a lot of time imagining my birth family. I wondered what they looked like, what their voices sounded like, and if they shared my interests and passions. What I never really wondered abou

Squinting at the blurry image on the sonographer’s screen, Cindy Marie Jenkins—flanked by her husband and her young son—scanned excitedly for signs of life. Her first pregnancy had been so straightforward that this seemed like a special moment the entire family could share. But as the minutes dragged on, the sonographer became very quiet, leaving to find a doctor who delivered the news: There would be no baby.

I wrote two chapters of the Lonely Planet "Wellness Escapes" book. 1st Edition- Nov 2018 ISBN: 9781787016972 Curator: Lonely Planet 256 pages, 256pp color, 0 maps | Dimensions: 171mm × 216mm "United States: Canyon Ranch" pg. 31 "Portugal: Six Senses Spa Douro Valley" pg. 146

Picture a cosy weekend evening in a well-off family home. Mum goes out with female friends, leaving the nanny to mind the children and Dad to amuse himself. It’s a familiar enough situation. But for Melanie, an 18-year-old au pair, it was a minefield: another evening fending off the attentions of her male employer without alerting his wife, for that would cost her job, however innocent her own actions.

My favorite part of any audition-based reality show is when the contestants can’t sing at all, or have truly terrible ideas. It makes for delightfully cringe-worthy TV. But the other night, when I caught a Season 6 rerun of Dragon’s Den and saw Oakville, Ont., resident Tom Rumble laughed out the room for pitching his company, Room and Boardroom, I was, for once, rooting for the underdog. Truth be told, I actually thought it was a pretty ingenious idea.

During a routine ride to catch a flight, Jen Ruiz, a lawyer and travel blogger, experienced one of the occasional drawbacks to travelling solo as a woman. “In Argentina, an Uber driver pulled over on the way to the airport and insisted he wanted to robar un beso, a popular term for 'steal a kiss' in Spanish,” she says. On the side of a highway, with no way out, Ruiz played along so that she could get to her destination – and, more importantly, to safety.

Peggy’s Point Lighthouse in Peggy’s Cove, so named after the tale of a young woman, the only survivor from a shipwreck, is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world and one of over 150 to be found in this province. Kids will happily spend hours climbing over the smooth rocks and exploring the area, although parents should be cautious as the sea can be rough and unpredictable. A walk around the quaint fishing town and a stop for ice cream completes your visit.

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Relationships, the saying goes, are hard. Many couples find their sex drives are mismatched over time, a problem that sex therapists often suggest fixing by working on communication. The Spinner, launched in April of this year, offers a different route to marital bliss — the online service encourages dissatisfied husbands to skip all that messy relationship effort and instead try to manipulate their wives on a subconscious level, in a way only possible in the age of the Internet.

One of the most profound social changes in the past 50 years has been the mass entrance of women into the workforce. Although the gender wage gap continues to exist across every country and occupation, more and more women are bringing home larger paychecks than their boyfriends, partners, or husbands. A Pew Research Center study from 2013 found that 40 percent of American households include a woman as the main or sole earner.

Being soaked with dirty curb water by a fast passing vehicle feels like a cold, full-body slap. In what seemed like a prank caught on dashcam footage that subsequently went viral, a driver of a van in Ottawa was shown appearing to veer purposely into large puddles in an effort to soak pedestrians. This followed a particularly heavy thunderstorm, which left deep puddles along King Edward Avenue.

Before I got pregnant, I wondered what a child would make of my husband’s missing arm. Would they even notice, or would its absence be so normal, that it was just like part of the parental landscape? Do our kids really see us at all? Does your little one know what color eyes you have, for example, or what your first job was? Do they care? Aren't we just mom and dad to them?

The FME music festival in Quebec, Canada, just might be the most eclectic music festival in North America, with up to 70 live performers in a variety of genres and a ’gram-able array of art installations. But it’s what happens away from the announced venues that really makes the festival unique.

When navigating love and romance, nerve-wracking ambiguity and uncertainty just comes with the territory. Will they call? What did that text mean? Do they like me? Do I like them? Consent, however, should never be ambiguous. It should not be implied or presumed, negotiated or traded.

Brandon Libby, father to two daughters, describes staying home to care for his 1-year-old as “amazing,” although he has faced some condescension about his decision. In fact, if we do as a society, have a preconceived notion of the type of man who becomes a stay-at-home dad, it doesn’t often look like Brandon Libby.

Put it down to the crisp hotel sheets, the anonymity or the fact that you don't have to do any chores afterward, but sex in a rented room holds a certain cache. Upscale hotels, in particular, with their room service, luxury bedding, marble bathrooms and the absence of nosy roommates or inquisitive kids can be the setting for a weekend of sizzling passion.

In my family, we excel at delivering apologies. We fight loudly and passionately and then we make up. We hug, we say we're sorry and we move on. Not all families work this way. During my first few years of married life, I tried to put my husband through my version of an apology boot camp. He resisted every step of the way. Eventually, I taught him how to say sorry. Now he acknowledges not only the intentions of his words and actions, but also their impact.

Halfway down a dusty dirt road in the surf town of Santa Teresa on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, you’ll find the gates of Latitude 10. Enter through them and be ready to unplug and forget all about your inbox. And pretty much everything else.

The air is thin and misty up here, hanging in droplets from the hood of my raincoat. Edging forward to the sparse barrier of the mountaintop it feels as though I am standing right above the clouds – and, at an elevation of 3,000m, I suppose I am.