The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Sue Horner is a freelance writer in Oakville, Ontario, who blogs about writing, newsletters, communications and running an independent business in The Red Jacket Diaries blog.

Back to reality

Here’s what I learned from taking a week off and flying to Florida for my younger son’s school break: If you’re looking for beach weather, Florida might or might not have it in February. We happened to hit a week of temperatures in the mid-70s, which...

Red Cross gets it right

There aren’t many companies that have earned the trust the Red Cross has. In my in-box today was the latest example of how they do it. I had made a donation to the Canadian Red Cross in support of their earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, and today they sent an...
Is the client buying ‘you’?

Is the client buying ‘you’?

While at the dentist’s office getting my teeth cleaned, the dental hygienist mentioned something we both found shocking: The dentist got his sister-in-law to buy everything for his wife’s Christmas stocking. Okay, so spinmasters will say Dr. P. was...

Bell’s upgrade looms

As the end of January approaches, I’m a little nervous. Bell has alerted me that they are “making changes to our e-mail systems which will require you to update the settings on your e-mail software…Please note that if you do not update your settings...

Ways to help Haiti

Disaster puts our petty little problems into context, doesn’t it? If you feel inclined to help the people of Haiti struggling after yesterday’s earthquake, here’s a suggestion: My colleague (through the Halton-Peel Communications Assocation) Marnie...

Project declutter underway

The start of a new year always seems to prompt at least a couple of weeks of good behaviour. Yeah, this is when so many people talk about losing 10 pounds, learning a new skill, getting organized. And so I found myself looking around at the mess in my home office over...

More random misspellings

While celebrating Christmas with family in a small Ontario town this past weekend, I ran across countless examples of misspelled signs, inappropriate use of apostrophes in what should have been plurals, random capitalization of Important Words and other affronts to...
Christmas laughs from Dave Barry

Christmas laughs from Dave Barry

“It’s the Holiday Season.” This phrase drives me crazy, whether or not it is accented by unnecessary capitalization. Winter is a season; so is spring. Christmas (and the ensuing holiday) is not a season, even though advertising that starts before the...