About

Hi, my name is Renee Tougas. Nice to meet you.

Professional Introduction

Thanks for your interest in my work. Or rather, thanks for coming this far in your vetting process. Who is this Renee Tougas (pronounced two-gAH) anyways?

See my services portfolio here for a more complete overview of what I do.

To briefly summarize, I provide services that help creators, educators, founders, and small organizations bring their ideas to life online.

As a freelance virtual assistant, I work collaboratively with multiple clients providing site management, content development, course platform optimization, marketing, social media, and ongoing member support. While I specialize in online education, my skills and experience apply to any small online business. And because I work with several clients, no project is too small.

To set up a discovery call, email me: renee@tougas.net.

I love helping people move vision forward and keep projects running smoothly.

Personal Introduction

I am a midlife, empty nester, veteran homeschooling mom of 3 young adults; a fairly recent transplant to Lunenburg County, NS from Montreal, QC, where I lived with my family for 9 years. Before that we lived in other places. You can read those stories here.

I live with my husband and best friend (same person), across the driveway from more best friends and companions—my parents—with whom I share garden tools, daily texts and in-person chats, sauna, berry picking excursions, walks at the beach, and Sunday evening dinners.

Currently, my nephew also lives on the property though he isn’t a permanent resident here.

I love to read, think, and write. I love making home and especially excel at systems development, organization, and management. I am fiercely loyal to my people.

I photograph beautiful things, like my garden and landscapes, and things that bring me joy or comfort. One of my deepest sources of both joy and comfort is home.

I love to travel and road trip, to go on adventures, especially in wild and non-urban places.

I’ve been blogging for going on 22 years. Twenty-one of those here on my own domain and now, more recently at Substack.

My blog writing has changed over the years as I’ve experimented with different purposes and styles but the throughline has been telling the story of my life.

Always looking for new ways to tell that story, I’m also publishing videos to YouTube these days. Speaking of which, I have a “Hi, I’m Renee, nice to meet you” video on YouTube if you’d rather have a slow-moving, visual 37 minute introduction vs. the 3 minutes it takes you to read this. 🤣

After retiring from homeschooling in 2020 when our youngest started junior college, I went to grad school and in 2025 I graduated with a Master’s of Arts degree. While in school I published my first article to a peer-reviewed, academic journal (this too includes some autobiographical writing).

Homeschooling was a big part of my life for many years (3 kids all the way through) and education philosophies, practices, and policies are enduring interests. Hence the Master’s Degree in Educational Studies.

This blog is an archive of my writing from September 2004 to October 2025.

Find my up-to-date publishing on Substack where I write about living in Nova Scotia and intergenerational “homesteady” family life. I also publish the occasional personal, philosophical, spiritual and/or sociological essay, which often includes thoughts on education and homeschooling.

Click here for the bread crumb trail of old About pages.