About this one

I am doing my best to raise my son with a sense of wonder and an appreciation for adventure. No, we don’t take off to exotic locales (usually), but instead find adventures and fun within our means. It’s nice to read about families that take off to backpack through countries newly-renamed risking life and limb, but if you’re like me you’d like to know what you yourself can do, here and now.  I try to inspire others by writing about what adventures we have and how we manage – also with some day-to-day coping thrown in. Even adventurers have to cook, clean, and deal with kids who don’t go to sleep when Mommy says to.

I’m Melanie, a single mom living in Vancouver, BC. My son Cameron and I are on our own; his dad is not involved at all.

I am a biologist, with background in microbial evolution and genetics. I’m now the Laboratory Manager and Administrator for a well-known biomedical research centre – managing equipment and people on a user-level, safety, purchasing, space, liaison between the lab managers for the individual labs and the Centre itself. I also manage one of the labs within the centre, manage a Level 2+ virus facility, and I am the financial administrator for a peptide synthesis service.  Eventually I’ll be settled enough that I’ll get to do some benchwork research myself.

Before I was a mommy, and hopefully in the near future again, I enjoyed rock climbing both indoors and out, hiking, snowboarding, cross country skiing, beach volleyball, kayaking, sailing, bike commuting (okay I didn’t enjoy that one so much as just did it), and pottery.

Cameron is a wonderful, charming three year old. He’s got some serious ability to focus going on, and can be quite driven to succeed. Like most preschoolers, he likes to run and climb and jump and get his own way.  All the better if this is done OUTSIDE, rain or shine.  He’s got close friends he loves to play with and talk about – Samuel, Lolo, Roselyn, and Grace. Those are just the real ones; there’s a whole ecosystem of animal friends and foes in his imagination. He’s determined to do things himself even if he doesn’t know how, which is fine when it’s reading, not so fine when it’s swimming or cooking.