So I’ve got this Empire apple tree, right? And I don’t really like apples (or fruit more generally TBH) so I while I love the idea of apples, they become a bit of a millstone in September. Two weekends ago, I picked a bagful and threw them in the slow cooker for a few hours with some water and a few spices and then put the mixture through a cheesecloth. You see, juice I can handle. I know, I know. Fibre. But in my defence, I eat a lot of vegetables.

Then I saw a recipe using apple juice in beef stew.

Faren Bogach’s lane-leap from equity partner in a 100+ lawyer Toronto firm to start her own construction law firm as a 39 year old mother of three is nearly unheard of. Lawyers are paid to spot risk and then help clients avoid them. Is it any wonder then that many of us lawyers and ex-lawyers make decisions like we’re teetering on a rail-less ledge 1,000 feet over a pit of alligators? But no hurtling into the mouth of an alligator for Faren. Her firm, Construct Legal, is a hit. How’d she get there? Read on.

If you’re in the co-op housing sector, you’ll know Elana Harte, the Executive Director of the Central Ontario Co-operative Housing Federation (COCHF). But wait, you ask, is that the Elana Harte whose group, the Sling Sisters, released their first album last week? Or the Elana Harte who fronts one Bowie tribute band and plays guitar in another? Or the Elana Harte who chaired your last co-op meeting? Or the Elana Harte who consults for the Danforth Creative Commons?  Yup, yup, and yup. And more. Buckle up. We’re about to embark on some next-level life-highway driving!

I’m a big fan of the slow cooker. The process of letting things cook while you work is a treat I’ve afforded myself for most of my adult life, even though it produces quantities that can overwhelm my tiny Chandlerville kitchen. Sometimes that feeling of being swamped by food is worth it. When the New York Times cooking page recently sent some slow cooker recipes, it was a sure sign of fall! Out came the slow cooker to dominate my counter for a day.

KIC Gardening Services appears as regularly in my Facebook feed now as its work does in the parks and yards of my Weston Neighbourhood. Its founder, Valerie Groves, is a neighbour too and so it was a no-brainer when I asked her to create a new garden in my backyard. Although I’ve known Val a bit for a couple of years, it was only during a consult about my garden did I realize she’s one of us — another lane changer!

Judy Holm and I met four years ago in an online memoir writing group. I’d googled her of course - no-one’s immune from my background research. But while it was her film-producer look complete with white baby-bangs and funky glasses that first grabbed me, the stories she shared with the group about her life that kept me in her grip.

Ok, I’m proud of this one. Hear me out.

With leftover Big Mountain cauliflower crumble in the fridge and a red pepper, what was to stop me stuffing one into the other? And there was that feta too, crying out to be opened. Maybe a bit of that crumbled on top?

Carolyn Whitzman and I could have been friends when our respective careers began at the City of Toronto. Instead, it’s only now, 35 years later, that we’ve met, both working as we do in housing. We have lane changing to thank for that!

Thirty-five years ago, pre-teen Marya moved with her family to a house on King Street in my community of Weston. After high school and a college hospitality and tourism program, she fled town for the west coast. Her goal then? to achieve the state of happiness that had eluded her in her first 20 years. In her mid-40s now, the goal hasn’t changed much. But let’s look at the lanes that took her around the world and back to her yoga studio across from that King Street house.