100 Things About Me

  1. I am a passionate, opinionated humanist who believes EVERYONE should be treated equally.
  2. I have a great sense of humour and I love a good laugh.
  3. I have an irrepressible will to live.  I appreciate every day.
  4. My husband Ed has more personal integrity and lives with more honesty than anyone else I know.
  5. Ed is the best person I know.  He has taught me about unconditional love, humility, compassion and patience.
6. My relationship with Ed is one of the most important successes in my life - we are best friends, lovers, partners and soulmates.
  7. We lived together for 10 years before we eloped.
  8. Ed wanted to get married from day one; I was the hold out.  I didn’t feel I needed to marry Ed to remain committed to him.
  9. I love being married.
10. One of our relationship goals is to make each other laugh at least once a day.
11. I don’t like to do the laundry or clean the bathroom but Ed does.  And Ed does the laundry and the bathrooms.
12. My favourite animal is a Penguin.
13. I believe in God.
14. I believe in spiritual enlightenment.
15. I believe in exercising love, forgiveness and acceptance.
16. I believe everyone deserves a second chance.
17. I believe that everyone is entitled to their own spiritual journey regardless of how they get there (as long as they don’t sanctimoniously judge, abuse, torture, brainwash or demean others).
18. I believe there is a serious shortage of tolerance, compassion, caring and generosity in this world and an abundance of ignorance, judgement and cruelty.
19. I went to College and majored in Printmaking and Weaving.
20. I went to University and received an Honours BA in Photography.
21. I have a Post Graduate degree in Art Psychotherapy.
22. I worked as a Psychotherapist prior to becoming sick.
23. Most of the work I did was with traumatized children.
24. I was qualified as an expert witness at the age of 30. I was qualified as an expert witness in two different provinces; Ontario and Manitoba. Before the age of 35. I am incredibly proud of this achievement.
25. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Lead Poisoning. I refuse to allow myself to be defined or limited by this.
26. I have a very strong philanthropic nature.
27. Ed and I sponsor 6 children through Foster Parents Plan, 2 children through World Vision and we make monthly contributions to Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders.
28. I would like to sponsor more children.
29. I practice trying to live in the moment.
30. I believe that too many of us are so busy ‘living’ that we don’t stop to appreciate the moment, i.e., the colour of the sky, the smell of the air, the sound of children playing or birds singing.
31. I am blown away by the power and beauty of nature.
32. I love to knit.  No, I LOVE to knit.
33.  Knitting has helped me to cope with my illness.
34. I wish I could knit faster.  FASTER.
35. I have and can also cross stitch, sew, quilt, bead and scrapbook.
36. I did catering as a teenager.  I had my own company.  I was a salad chef for a while after University.
37. I feel blessed with the gift of each new day.
38. I have a terrible sensitivity to cigarette smoke and most perfumes.
39. I endeavour to be a better person.  To be kinder. To be more gracious.
40. I lost my sister Robin and my best friends Julie and Hazel to cancer. I miss them very much and I try to live my life in a manner that honours their loss.
41. I don’t have a favourite colour.
42. I am a much better giver than a taker.
43. I love my farm.  I believe that living here saved my life.
44. That being said, I hate bugs, mice and bats.  We have lots of all of these at the farm.
45. I love pizza without the tomato sauce. My favourite is olive oil, herbs and garlic on the crust with cheese, mushrooms, onions and black olives for the toppings.
46. I was a vegan for 5 years.
47. I still don’t eat red meat although once in a while I crave a hamburger.  And I do indulge.
48. I love to read. Voraciously. One of the hardest things I experienced when I first got sick was not being able to read for about 2 1/2 years.
49.My favourite book is Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham.  There are a lot of other books I love but this is my all time favourite.
50. I love to garden. I love starting seeds.
51. I yearn to be better so that I can finally finish my kitchen garden.
52. I am amazed by the true power in a seed. It is amazing that a tiny little seed can grow into a lettuce, a tomato, a broccoli, a pumpkin….
53. I love to watch thunderstorms.  From a safe place of course.
54. My favourite season is Fall.
55. I seriously love a really good snowstorm.
56. I hope to become a Master Knitter.
57. And maybe even a Master Spinner.
58. I believe in good manners. It bothers me that most people don’t seem to be able to take the time to say thank you. Thank you is such an important statement. It means a lot to the person who did something for you. I mean how hard is it to give thanks? Really.
59. I live my life with gratitude.
60. I have so much to be thankful for and I never want take what I have forgranted.
61. I have lived in Toronto, North York, Unionville, Oakville and Warkworth, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; Winnipeg, Manitoba and Calgary, Alberta.
62. I have visited Victoria, Vancouver, Banff, Edmonton, Kenora, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Trois Rivieres, Quebec City, Moncton, Fredericton, St. John’s, St. John, Dartmouth, Halifax, Lunenburg and Prince Edward Island as well as a lot of little towns in between.
63. It is my goal to visit as much of Canada as I can. We have an incredibly beautiful country with some breathtaking scenery. I am a proud Canadian. Eh?
64. I have been to Florida, Buffalo, Maine, Cincinnati, Columbus, Atlanta, and Maui.
65. I was born in the same hospital 33 years before Nick.
66. I believe Nick is a gift.
67. I think that life is an intense experience.
68. I hate being dependent on other people.  My illness has forced me to become dependent on other people.
69. I love a good chick flick.
70. I skied a lot as a teenager with a group of guys. I was a bit of a wild child on the slopes.
71. I love to Canoe.
72. I am a Ninth Generation Canadian. I have relatives who came over on the Mayflower. The Catholic side stayed in Texas. The protestant side settled in New York and came to Canada during the civil war. They actually lived within an hour of where I now live. I didn’t know that when we moved here.
73. I have jumped out of an airplane.  Once.  I did have a parachute on.  It didn’t change my fear of heights.
74. I love Law and Order (the original, SVU and CI), Grey’s Anatomy and Survivor.
75. I am an introvert who works hard at being an extrovert.
76. Before I got sick, I loved to have a hot bath while drinking ice cold Vodka and listening to good jazz. I don’t drink anymore.
77. I love my kitchen to be clean before I go to bed.
78. I have a floor loom I inherited from my sister Robin.  It is my goal to set it up one day.
79. I think there is nothing better than a good chat on the phone.
80. One of my peak experiences was walking on a glacier in Alberta (also climbing to the peak of a mountain). I didn’t realize at the time you could fall through. I found that out later. The next week six people died walking on the same glacier.
81. I love order. Tidiness.
82. There is too much paper in my life.
83. When I am well, I am going to take a cheese making course so that I can make artesinal Goat Cheese.
84. Ed and I plan to make our farm self sufficient so that we can live off the land we own.
85. I hate humidity.  My bones hate humidity.
86. I owe my life to Ed, my medical doctor, Dr. Schleifer and my Naturopath, Dr. Finn.  And my parents of course.
87. My dog is a black standard poodle named Gryphon.  She rocks.  She is my girl.  She is getting old.  Which I totally hate.
88. I love water. I love to drink it. I love to swim in it. Preferably lake water. If I could, I would live by a big body of water, a lake or an ocean. I love water.
89. I love glass.  I have a collection of hand blown glass balls and a collection of crystal vases.
90. I know how to meditate and I strive to do it on a regular basis.
91. I am a type A person who can be obssessive.
92. I am learning to respect my adrenals - they work very hard in our times.
93. I usually have physical pain everyday; sometimes it is manageable and sometimes it is not.
94. I believe that I am a better person for having been through the events in my life.
95. I am NOT a celebrity worshipper. I believe that as human beings there is no one that is better than anyone else.
96. I believe that children are our future and we can raise them best by teaching them love, self-discipline and self-respect without violence and without indulging their every whim. Lots of unconditional love with firm boundaries.
97. I am a proud stepmother.
98. I love the writings of Alice Miller.
99. I love playing Mahjong, Yahtzee and Upwords on the computer.
100.I am sentimental and loyal and hardworking.