Spring Catch-up

- Visited my Grandpa a couple weekends ago
- Had my third Easter away from home (first of the 3 not to be in Central America), and made first Easter meal
- Now working at getting back into the Manitoba-teaching world
- Current work is going well
- Starting to miss Hamilton already yet looking forward to our settling in Winnipeg
- Recently explored Dundas with my good friend Jenni the other day--awesome town!
- JANESSA VISITS--less than a week away!
- One month till our Toronto weekend...
- Have enjoyed spending more time with Jon now that his super intense end of semester stuff is winding down

Easter ham/meal

On another note, Jon and I went for an evening walk last night...in our sweaters! Lovely weather the past few days...Spring is definitely here in Ontario--lots of flowers starting to bloom! Love it. I think the sign below says it best: Welcome- Spring!

Flowers seen on our walk

This Makes Me Happy

Cadbury is making steps to have its most popular chocolate bar in the UK Fair Trade. It's a start in a positive direction for a major international company! I'm happy for those in Ghana who will be positively effected by this.

What is Fair Trade? Find out more here.

The Big 26

Yesterday - March 27th - was Jon's 26th Birthday! And although he is in the midst of a LOT of work right now, we took some time to celebrate! We had butter chicken with rice & salad for supper, and a cherry pie for desert. This morning we went out with our good Hamilton friends, Joel & Jenni for breakfast (one of Jon's favourite things)...

The Birthday Pie

Birthday BreakfastJenni's the artist, but Joel created a special pancake message today...Happy Birthday, Jon!! Love you.

Babe & Burkas

I painted this a while ago after seeing a photograph in the Winnipeg Free Press (online). The photograph portrayed Afghan refugee women (and this young child) in a Pakistan refugee camp. One of the things I thought about as I stared at the photograph was, Wow, there are women like me under those burkas, fleeing horrific circumstances. I wonder what these women were thinking at this time? Were they talking? Laughing? Crying? Silent? Praying? I care about these women. The child also stood out to me. Those eyes.

I have recently read A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini and highly recommend them. Both are incredibly powerful, informative, and beautifully written.

So what now?

Valentine's

This year, Jon and I decided to stay home for Valentine's Day. It was one of the best! It included making dinner together, dressing up, candlelight, dancing, and a movie. Lovely.

Jon is the cutest. I came home from work on V Day to these beautiful "Happy Valentines Day + Happy New Job" tulips!Our meal: Ricotta & Spinach stuffed Cannelloni with a Rose Sauce, Parmesan/Garlic Breaded Chicken, Spinach/Romaine salad, and wine. Yum! Not only was our food incredibly tasty, but we had a fantastic time making it together.We got dressed up...

Jon's head is a bit cut off, but this was the only slow shutter picture where I didn't blink! :)

Job

After much searching, applying, and waiting...I am pleased to announce that I now have a full time job!! It is not teaching (for a while now I have known that teaching will have to wait until September) but I am very excited nonetheless. I think too, that I am all the more grateful for this job because I had to wait so long for it. Had I gotten this right away, I think I would have been disappointed it wasn't teaching related, but because I have had time to just want pretty much any job, this is perfect!! The next couple weeks will be spent in training/finishing up my tutoring position.

So, I am now a customer rep. for a car rental company. It will be perfect for us until we move back to Winnipeg. Jon and I are pretty happy. Thank you, God!

A Kite

I picked up A Child's First Book of Poems (pictures by Cindy Szekeres) the other day and had so much fun reading the poetry! My Auntie Gayle gave it to me a a child. As I read through the poems and studied the pictures, childhood feelings and memories came back to me. I love that. Here is one poem that I think is really sweet.

A Kite

I often sit and wish that I
Could be a kite up in the sky,
And ride upon the breeze and go
Whichever way I chanced to blow.
Then I could look beyond the town,
And see the river winding down,
And follow all the ships that sail
Like me before the merry gale,
Until at last with them I came
To some place with a foreign name.

~Frank Dempster Sherman