Baby its Cold Outside

I caught this little guy sitting on a branch in Deer Lake Park early this week.  The temperature has dropped to -7 and while the days are sunny they are very very cold.

Huh!?

National Day of Mourning

Sunday morning brought beautiful sunshine, but wind and brutal cold. My partner and I dressed in layers of clothing, scarves, gloves and boots and with Lucy in tow headed out to the National Day of Mourning in Thornton Park. On December 6th, 1989 14 women were murdered by a lone gunman with a semi-automatic weapon at a college in Montreal. These women were ordinary women just trying to make their way in this world. They had done nothing to the gunman, Marc Lepine personally, but in his mind they represented everything that was wrong in his life.

Thornton Park has been set up as a memorial for these women and there are fourteen  marble seats with the names of the women on them. We are all given a scarf with either a picture or a saying about this event to wear around our necks. Then everyone walks in a circle around these seats while a Choir is singing.

As I walked the circle shivering in the wind and fighting to keep my scarf around my neck I thought how the weather seemed fitting to remember these women who were murdered for nothing more than being women.

It was uncomfortable. My feet soon went numb from the cold and the skin on my face was freezing and stinging from the wind beating against it. It made me realize that many of my fellow sisters around the world are living under conditions where they are uncomfortable all the time. Women have long been considered a lessor being and as such their lives have never been given the value that they deserve. In many countries women are sold into slavery from birth, raped as part of a war strategy, killed because they are deemed to have little value and made slaves by their husbands family.

At the end of the memorial the scarves are hung from a line between two trees  and as I left the park I looked back at these red and white scarves flapping around in the wind and wondered how long it was going to take and what it is going to take before the lives of women around the world are considered as valuable as the men.

Deer Lake Near My New Home

To Blog or Not to Blog - That is the Question

It has been five months since I wrote on this space. A couple of times a week I visit and ask myself if I want to start writing again. So much has happened in the last five months that I almost don't know where to begin or end. Some events have been life changing and others just plain fun!

Life Changing:

My Aunt died on June 15th just ten days short of her 88th birthday.
Two other 30 years + close friends left me since the beginning of the year.
I have someone special in my life for the first time in 18 years!
I sold almost everything I owned and put the rest in storage and moved to Burnaby with Miss Lucy to begin a new life.
I helped my daughters move to a new place of their own to begin their own way in the world.
I studied and passed my Life license and began work as a broker for a large company in the Vancouver city core.

Plain Fun!

I attended my first Pro Ball game in Seattle
I went to my first Jewish wedding in Montreal in a large synagogue
I shopped till I dropped in Montreal!
Lucy has two people who adore her and dote on her every wish!

Most days I want to pinch myself to make sure that it is all real and I am still alive. So much has changed.

What hasn't changed is Miss Lucy -she is still the sweetest dog of all!

I have not forgotten all the friends on here that have been so good to me over the years. The most faithful of all is my friend Lorelei over on Blogsdon who still faithfully has my link up on her site that clocks down the months since I last posted.
I still take hundreds of photos when ever I can and will post some of them again in the next little while.
I have discovered that starting my own business (as I am and independent broker) is a lot of work, but a wonderful and exciting challenge especially when there is someone who is so supportive of what you are trying to accomplish.
So the question of if I should blog again or not is still up in the air... but check back now and then.
Oh... and Lorelei... I am sure you owe me an e-mail.