Life is good.

Well, it took a while, almost a year to be exact, but the pieces of my new life in Canada are coming together and my happiness quotient has taken a jump up. I just finished my second week at my new job in Circulation at a local small publishing company and it is proving to be very interesting. Publishing is a new world for me but I'm able to utilize my customer service skills that I have honed over the past couple of decades and I am finding publishing and circulation very interesting. The magazine I am involved with is Small Farm Canada - http://www.smallfarmcanada.ca - and already I have picked up a few pointers that I can use at home, mainly in the greenhouse with growing veggies and things. Our offices are in a rural area about 20 minutes from home and situated on the ocean. Next door is a small farm, Wind Whipped Farm, that grows organically and has a small roadside self-serve stand. I stopped for some salad fixin's on the way home yesterday and thought how fortunate I am to be able to do that, work relatively close to home and drive though the forest and along the ocean to and from work. It certainly beats the heck out of the freeway that I had to traverse daily back in the States. There is nothing like a commute with spectacular scenery and fresh ocean breezes to get one energized for work, and then renew the soul on the way home later in the day. The scents that are on the air range from sea breezes to pine forest and I just can't get enough of it! Oh yeah, I received my first paycheck today, something I have not seen since the end of September last year, and it sure was nice!

This weekend we are off to the Dragonboat Festival in Victoria and then some time spent relaxing at home. Last weekend we had guests, Dixon's mother and her husband, and we took them whale watching. This time we used Prince of Whales, out of downtown Victoria, to spare his mother's hair from undue wind in an open boat by booking on one of their newer ships with an enclosed main deck cabin. She was quite pleased with that and looked fabulous as she stepped from the ship when the adventure was finished. We were on the water for about three hours and we saw LOADS of whales this time. There are three resident Orca pods, J, K and L pod, and this particular day they had all decided to be very social and come together, forming what is referred to as a Super Pod. Everywhere we looked we saw Orca: fins slicing the water, whales jumping out and coming down with a great splash, groups surfacing in unison and then diving again. It was truly a magnificent adventure and I am sure I will be going again, although at $95 it might be a while. If you ever find yourself in this area on holiday I would urge you to budget the funds to take one of these trips - it really is a lifetime memory.

That's about it for now. Thanks for tuning in, and remember to click on the left side to Help the Animals.