Sean and I went to stay with our friend Jake at a cottage in Stoney Lake for a week and it was lovely. I honestly, can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have to work on ‘vacation‘. A career in social means you are kinda ‘on’ 24-7′. I’ve never had a job like Funday/Hvr, where they actually value a break.👏 Grateful to work with such awesome people! This is the first time in my life my work was like ‘no, you’re on vacation‘ and didn’t reach out or ask me to do stuff. It was absolutely glorious!

I took naps, read my book, listened to a whole novel on Audible and did next to nothing. Highly recommend Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, get the audiobook, great story. My sister and I listened at the same time and texted about it non-stop.

Sean also rented a sea doo (that he later purchased!) and we cruised the lake together in the sunshine. It was magical. I left the cottage feeling relaxed and refreshed. 😎

Where did the last month go? Summer is passing by too fast and I wish time would slow down!

Last weekend I went I took the train to Chatham to visit my family in Kingsville, Ontario. It was so great! I hadn’t seen them in ages and we had the most relaxing time. We’ve not really been up at the cottage much this summer so getting out of a city was just what I needed.

Got my hair done yesterday at Sasson and feel like a new woman. It’s so much blonder and shorter than it was this time last year. Remember my long pandemic hair?

Been pretty busy the last couple of weeks with work and am looking forward to a little break. Next week we’re going to a friend’s cottage for five days. I can’t wait to float in the lake, ride the sea doo with Sean, and work on my tan.

In other news, we’ve released a bunch of new podcast episodes and you can watch them all right here on YouTube or listen on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes come out weekly on Wednesday! This one with friend Brigitte is one of my favs! She’s got such a great attitude and cracks me up. You’ll enjoy learning about her life and career path in television.

THE TIME HAS COME! Cast of Creators IS LIVE!

I’ve wanted to do a podcast for ages and creating this with Nelson & the Hvr Team has been a dream. I have truly never had so much fun ‘working’ in my entire life.

Nelson & I have spent our careers in media and publishing now we’re setting the stage for industry leaders, bloggers, creators and more to share their passions & perspectives. Each week, guests join us at Hvr Studios for a conversation about their lives, content creation, and business. We’ve had incredible conversations with inspiring people and laughed so much while doing it.

Cast of Creators is presented by Hvr, our new social browser, if you don’t have Hvr yet, download it here! If you’d like a little more info about Hvr, read this blog post.

Our initial guests include Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, performance artist DevoDLive, multimedia host & producer Brigitte Truong, and more. For a peek at other upcoming guests, read our release on Financial Times here.

Hvr, developer of the first social-forward web browser, today announced the launch of the Cast of Creators podcast, hosted by its CEO Nelson B. Thall and award-winning blogger Casie Stewart. The video and audio podcast features perspectives on innovation and the future of content with notable guests including Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida, performance artist, DevoDLive, and multimedia host & producer, Brigitte Truong, and is available for download wherever you consume podcasts. You can subscribe to the podcast at castofcreators.com. Hvr is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Financial Post, June 20,2022

Please subscribe/follow on Youtube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to our first episode with Jules Mercanti here or scroll down to watch the first three episodes on YouTube. If you like the show, please follow, subscribe, leave a review, or leave a comment!

I look forward to your feedback on our first three episodes. We have weekly episodes on Wednesday so please follow and subscribe to the show!

Episode 1: The Fine Line Between Art & Reality with Jules Mercanti

Episode 2: From Travel blogger to Filmmaker with Andrew Lovesey

Episode 3: The Power of Fandom and NFT’s with Raine Maida

I took myself on a beach date yesterday and it was lovely! It’s been years since I went to the beaches, and I don’t know why I haven’t done this sooner!

Found a nice little spot on the beach and started a great new book by one of my fav authors, Lisa Jewel. Felt like I needed a little escape, found out yesterday that my grandma in New Zealand passed away. She was my last living grandparent. It’s always hard when someone passes but this hits right in the heart and really makes me miss my family in New Zealand.

I walked around the neighbourhood and was reminded how cute The Beaches are. I used to live in the East End years ago.

Stopped into the store my sister works at, Charming Parrot. They have so many nice things in there! Resort wear, cute tops, beautiful silk dresses, and accessories. Say hi if you see her!

I’m planning to get back to the beach more this summer. I want to visit the island too!

I went to Collision Conference 2022 and it was great! I’d been once 2019 and after two years of a pandemic, it was nice to be in a conference environment. There were 35,000 attendees and 600 speakers over three days + events and more. I shared some tweets from the conference on our @FundayAgency account and soaked up as much marketing knowledge as I could.

One of my fav things was the TikTok booth, they had a 360 photo op. I loved it. See the video on Instagram.

Nelson and I attended a few sessions in the afternoon and walked the conference floor. Some of my favourite talks were Global Marketing Trends, What’s in for Gen Z This Season, Censorship in the Era of Misinformation, and the Future of Journalism. Also met TikTok & Instagram superstar, Bruce, aka @falafel.kimchi.

On Wednesday night Nadia went to the Collision After Dark party at Stackt Market. It was super fun.

On Thursday, to close out the conference, Nelson and I did four episodes of Cast of Creators, our new podcast. The first ep we did there was with Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace. We talked about web3, NFTs, connecting with his fans and more.

Collision is back in Toronto next year and if you can make it I highly recommend checking it out. I’m thinking about going to their next conference, Web Summit in Lisbon.

In other news, making our show is super fun! I can’t wait to share the first three episodes of Cast of Creators with you on July 20th. We have really laughed and had some seriously good conversations.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I’m back with updates! Events have definitely returned and summer is here. Earlier this month we celebrated the official opening of the Bisha’s summer season, poolside on the roof. If you’re looking for a place to work, stay, and play, this is the place to be. I’ve stayed here a few times and the hotel is amazing.  

Hand fun seeing a bunch of familiar faces, many I’d not seen in 2+years, and having drinks with Miche & Nadia.

Saw Bretty Boop IRL, such a cool babe. Girl crush! Have been following her on IG for a while, check her out at @bretttyboop and find her DJing around the city.

Thank you Lori & team for the invite, hospitality, and gift bag! Had a great time and look forward to my next visit to Bisha, especially the rooftop pool. Next time I’m bringing my swimsuit!

Photo credit: @arthurmola 

We drove up to the cottage on Thursday night to spend the May long weekend in Muskoka. I haven’t been up North much this year but was really looking forward to a few days out of the city. It was meant to rain all weekend but Friday was a magical sunny day. I took FULL ADVANTAGE.

Went for a nice 7K walk/run in the middle of the day and it was beautiful. At Funday, we get a bonus vacation day during our birthday month so I booked mine to make an extra-long weekend.

We took the boat out and Sean wakeboarded even though the water is still pretty cold. I don’t mind being captain lol. Fun times!

With love from the woods!