Victoria’s Read

Hi, I’m Victoria’s Ride and I am spoiled.  I suppose I shouldn’t hide it since it’s written all over my face.

I admit that I like the bling bling and Victoria just loves to buy it for me! Yeah..I like to shine but don’t let my pink exterior fool you.  I can keep up with the boys and I just love the attention.

Frank at Ayer’s Automotive gave me a complete physical and I mean… complete. He can tend to my body… ANYTIME!

I really dig my new, shiny designer spinner heels. They keep me rolling in style!

It’s been said that I’m as hot as Sunfire and that I have a nice rear end.  Well, I’m still blushing all over.

My stylist Bob transformed me from the once dark caracter I used to be to the vibrant model I am today. I must say that he’s quite cartistic! Thanks Bobby. You always know how to make me  better.

The Electric Playground hooked me up with some cartunes to get my groove on and The Sign People did some sexy Body Art on me. It didn’t even hurt!

So, if you see me on the street, stop and say hi. I’m very approachable.

Written by Victoria Reed

If someone knows how to wear many hats and manage them well, its Sherry St. Denis. Sherry’s roles include: wife, mother, friend, Chairman of the Board with the MFRC, estimator with Walkers’ Moving and Storage and representative with Primerica Financial Services, to name a few.

The St. Denis family moved to North Bay in 1985. Sherry’s married, has 2 children and helped raise a third, 2 now in University and 1 still in high school.

Sherry and her husband Claude were both members of the Canadian Military when they moved here. Since then, Sherry has resigned from the military life in one way and has become involved in another.

For the last 8 years, Sherry’s been with the Military Family Resource Center, the first year as a volunteer and then working her way up to being Chairman of the Board. Sherry really enjoys working with the MFRC as it makes her feel good to help other military families with issues that only military families have to deal with.
Sherry also works for Walkers Moving and Storage as an estimator and has worked with them for the last 4 years. This job involves travelling to peoples’ homes and giving them an estimate on what it would cost for them to have Walkers’ move them. Sherry is often surprised at how little people think a move will cost and advises people to err on the side of overestimating what they think it will cost rather than underestimate it.

This job varies in intensity with the seasons, spring and summers being the busiest, fall and winter being the slowest. This tapering off of business gives Sherry the opportunity to also to pursue a part-time career with Primerica Financial Services.

She is also very involved with her teenage son, often dropping him off and picking him up for football practice.

Sherry is very well organized – she has to be! – to manage her busy lifestyle. Sherry is down to earth with a great sense of humour. Anyone lucky enough to get to know Sherry is drawn to her and is fortunate to be a friend of hers.

By Michelle Lashbrock

Known bladder irritants include caffeine and alcohol. Some people report problems with other foods, including acidic foods or fruit juices, spicy foods, sugar and milk products.                    

To begin to identify the causes of irritation, remove all bladder irritants for one week and drink only water. Keep a diary to note the changes in your urinary habits. Then, add one food item back at a time for 3 days.                                                                       

 Watch for changes in your bladder diary and slowly eliminate what you feel to be causing problems.                                            

Pelvic muscle exercises, also known as Kegel exercises, work the pelvic floor muscles, which normally tighten around the urethra to prevent leakage. To practice pelvic muscle exercises, squeeze the muscles quickly, then relax. Do this three times with a 10-second rest in between and repeat for 10 to 15 minutes twice a day. You can either sit or lie down with your knees up, to practice pelvic muscle exercises.                                                           

Prolapse and sexual activity can increase the risk of UTIs. Certain contraceptives, including spermicide, non-lubricated condoms and diaphragms may also put you at an increased risk.            

Although the following are healthy habits, it does not appear that these can significantly reduce the risk of recurrent UTIs: voiding habits (including frequent emptying and emptying after intercourse); personal hygiene habits (e.g., wiping front to back, using tampons instead of pads and wearing cotton underwear); and fluid consumption (including drinking more water, avoiding caffeine, and drinking unsweetened cranberry juice).

Factors that can put pre-menopausal women at a greater risk for recurrent UTIs include heredity, a history of childhood UTIs and sexual activity. Factors that can put postmenopausal women at greater risk include incontinence, prolapse, atrophic vaginitis and prior UTIs. For elderly or institutionalized women, catheters, incontinence, dementia, and antibiotic exposure can increase the risk.

Medication can be prescribed for women with recurrent UTIs, allowing them to start treatment themselves when they recognize symptoms to prevent them from worsening. There is also medication available that can be taken daily or immediately after intercourse.

Nov 11, 1879 to Feb 2, 1968

Violet McNaughton was a leader in the Canadian farm, women’s, peace and co-operative movements. She became the most influential farm woman in Canada and in Saskatchewan during the first half of the 20th century.

Born on November 11, 1879 and raised in radical north Kent in southeastern England, she worked as a schoolteacher. Immigrating in 1909, she joined her father and brother, homesteaders near Harris. In May 1910, Violet married John McNaughton who was a neighbouring homesteader.

A feminist sympathizer, she became an active agrarian feminist by 1914, when she began to organize farm women. Her ardour arose out of the dire living and working conditions on the rural prairies during the newcomer settlement period.                           

As well, McNaughton had a serious gynecological operation in 1911 while living in these conditions. Unable to have children as a result, she resolved during her lengthy recovery to work to make the world a better place for all children.

She organized the Women Grain Growers (WGG) in Saskatchewan. A leader of the Saskatchewan women’s suffrage movement, she also led the WGG’s campaign for trained midwives as well as more nurses, doctors and hospitals; the WGG wanted these services be to affordable and in close proximity to all farm families. As a result of their campaign, legislation in 1916 allowed for the establishment of union hospitals, municipal nurses and municipal doctors. This was the first step on the long road to medicare in Saskatchewan and later, Canada.

As well, she was active in the Progressives and helped to organize and maintain the Wheat Pools, the Saskatchewan Egg and Poultry Pool and the Western Producer, the liveliest farm paper in Canada. She became the Producer’s women’s editor in 1925.  

She also promoted Homemakers’ Clubs and Women’s Institutes, and other farm women’s groups. She retired as women’s editor in 1950 but wrote a Western Producer column for nine more years. She died in Saskatoon on February 2, 1968.

esask.uregina.ca

Apple Brown Rice

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 x large onion, peeled and chopped
2 x local apples, cored and chopped
2 cups brown rice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Add the onion and oil to a small saucepan and sauté over medium high heat until the onion just begins to turn golden brown, about five minutes.
Add the apple, rice, cinnamon, water and seasoning and stir well. Bring everything to a simmer and cover with a tight fitting lid. Turn heat to low and cook until water has been absorbed and rice is tender, about forty-five minutes.
Without removing the lid turn off the heat and let the rice rest, undisturbed, for another ten minutes or so before serving.

Apple Pie Carrots

Ingredients:
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1” chunks
1 cup apple cider
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter
Sprinkled sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup raisins

Directions:
Place everything in a small saucepot with a tight-fitting lid and bring to a simmer. Cook just until the carrots are tender, about 15 minutes or so. Stir in the raisins just before serving.

Five-Minute Apple Crisp

Ingredients:
4 apples
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 oz  apple brandy
1 cup crunchy granola
4 serving vanilla ice cream

Directions:
Peel and core and half apples. Slice into 1/4-inch pieces
In a sauté pan over medium high heat, melt butter and add apples. Sauté for 5 minutes, or until they begin to brown. Add brown sugar and cook for 4 more minutes or until apples are well browned. Pour in Calvados, let it heat up for 10 seconds, then ignite.  Add granola, toss a few times and serve immediately over ice cream.

www.foodtv.ca

This story is one of a series of stories that will be shared during a poverty awareness event that will be hosted by Nipissing University’s Mentorship Program and the North Bay Parent Advisory Committee.  The evening will be a blend of live music, performances by NUSU Students on Stage and a dance piece – all geared toward raising awareness about poverty.  It will take place on the evening of February 4th and is open to the public.

For more information, please email mentor@nipissingu.ca or call 474-3450 ext. 4241.

Rachel’s Story: 
Working to Survive

If someone had told me ten years ago that I would raise my children in poverty, I would have laughed at them. I mean, I graduated high school, attended college and was making something of my life. I’ve always worked. My husband and I have 2 beautiful daughters. We both work. We don’t have Ontario Works (OW), Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) or anything else. Everything we make is earned the old fashioned way, by hard work and integrity but we still struggle everyday to make ends meet.  Does this make us bad parents or bad people?  I think not. One day we will find our way out or at least, we hope we will. We’ve already made leaps and bounds from where we were 2 years ago. We’re doing it on our own. We’ve realized in that time, that everyone needs help sometimes.

We are not users or wasters. We do it on our own, when we can. Hand ups are accepted when needed and passed back in thanks to others who need it. We get only what we need, when we need it. Every penny is counted and saved when it can be. Sometimes I would like to give my children more but they are healthy, happy and loved. That’s what truly matters.

I can see that more and more minimum wage jobs are taken by average college and university grads – like me; People, who have worked their entire life towards a goal but find a lack of employment in their chosen field, people with the best laid plans, who somehow wind up living in poverty.

When many people think of poverty, they think of people on OW. Their first (unrealistic and over-generalized) thought is that these people are using the system and that tax payers are paying for it.  They paint all people who access OW with the same stereotype-tainted brush, meanwhile they don’t think of us, the working poor who are trying our best to provide for our families.
I

f you had asked me 10 years ago what poverty was, I would have had nothing to share. Now, sadly, I know far too well what it truly is.

-”Lesbos” is a Greek island where Sappho a Greek female poet lived and wrote about friendship and love between women at around 600 BC.

-A mother hen turns her egg approximately 50 times in a day. This is so the yolk does not stick to the shell.

-Female brown trout fake orgasms to encourage males to ejaculate prematurely. By doing so, they dupe their partner into thinking it has successfully mated, before the female fish moves on to find a better male.

Anne-Marie Nadeau always knew that she wanted a career in health care and when Bill 171 was finally passed allowing hygienists to practice without requiring permission from a dentist, she decided to open her own business.

Anne-Marie is a wife and mother of two young children. “My daughter is 7 and my son is 5. They like the fact that mommy has her own office.”

Her husband, Michael has always been a positive reinforcement in Anne-Marie’s life. “My husband is supportive and encouraging.” The couple met in Toronto and moved to North Bay 7 years ago. “I like it here. You are never more than five minutes away from anything by car.”

With a two year course through Saint Clair Collage in Windsor and 14 years of dental hygiene experience, Anne-Marie opened Brilliance Dental Hygiene and Whitening in July 2008. “I love being in business for myself. I’ve never been happier in my career. Juggling work and home life is much easier now that I am my own boss.”

Brilliance Dental Hygiene and Whitening is located at 150 Main Street West, North Bay. Anne-Marie’s goal was to offer more affordable dental hygiene services to the general public. As well, she offers Saturday and evening appointments for your scheduling convenience. The business offers dental cleansing, whitening, sealants and athletic mouth guards.

Anne-Marie would like to thank Graham Hodges at TD Canada Trust for his assistance. “I would also like to thank Gino and Karen Bitonti for their continuing help and support.”

Written by Victoria Reed