Believe it or not, we are less than a month away from Christmas! That means it’s time once again for another whirlwind tour of the blogosphere in search of great content. Let’s get started.

It’s around this time of year that many of us start to develop the wintertime blues. That’s why this new post from Janette Shearer is especially timely, reminding us to blog beyond the highlight reel of Instagram. I’ve discussed before how it’s impossible to keep up with the Facebook version of your friends, because we have to understand it’s a curated portrayal of their lives and not an accurate representation of their day-to-day struggles.

Following much the same line of thought, Jamie Dunlop Khau also tells us to look beyond the highlight reel of social media and realize that no one can do it all. You see all your friends going out for extravagant dinners and attending fancy events, but we need to put all of that into context and perspective. Be humble and be grateful for what you have.

As a parent, it can be difficult to find enough “me time” to explore your hobbies. You just have to make this a priority, which is what Tyler Ingram when he decided to pick up a Dell gaming desktop PC. He could have tried his hand at building his own gaming PC, but that could have been time-consuming. Get a ready-made rig out of the box means he has more time for actual gaming!

Onetime Vancouverite Buzz Bishop moved over to Cowtown several years ago and he’s been having a fun time exploring his new province. In particular, he recently highlight some of the great places to stop between Calgary and Edmonton. While it is a bit of a detour and not quite on the way like how Red Deer and Sylvan Lake are, I recommend hitting up the dinosaur museum in Drumheller.

With a chill in the air, we are all looking for comfort food to warm our stomachs. Reginia Lok explains how you can hack your soup into a balanced meal that everyone can enjoy. For this, she turned to The Soup Solution, who you might recall from my visit to the Healthy Family Expo. There’s nothing quite like homemade soup.

Part of the reason why I wrote my newest book was to encapsulate the first year of my daughter’s life, capturing my thoughts and experiences at the time. In similar fashion, Casey Palmer recently wrote a letter to his son on the occasion of his fourth birthday (his kid’s birthday, not his birthday). It’s like a time capsule that lives on the Internet.

I came about this life from completely the opposite direction of most work-at-home parents I know. I was already working from home when I became a parent, whereas others tend to become parents before deciding to work from home… but we end up in the same place. Salma Dinani lists six reasons why she loves being a work-at-home mom and I couldn’t agree more.

And wrapping things up for this speedlink, Nicholas Casey shares a whole series of questions and answers as his mind jumps from one thought to the next. What does he need to do to get all his kids to smile in unison long enough for him to snap a single photo? How can he convince her daughter she doesn’t need a boyfriend in fifth grade? Is he a good dad? Is he doing enough?