Updated:  When I started this blog in 2007, below was my intro.  Lots has changed since then.  First, I’m no longer mid-50s.  Make that late-60s now.  Our menagerie of critters has changed.  Only Sam, our African Grey, remains part of our household from back then.  We’re now blessed with Festus (mutt) and Mavis (feline mutt).  Ralph, Maggie, Reggie, Marge and Wicket have all gone to the rainbow bridge.  And Don & I are back in the US, having opened a small country-convenience store (Erica Mall), and I’ve gone back to the private practice of law in our rural area.  

Original:
  I’m a mid-50s woman who took close to 50 years to find the love of her life, but in the intervening years was blessed with a daughter, some decent relationships (at least for a time), satisfying careers, and the opportunity to go to law school in my mid-30s. I moved to Canada in 1997 for a job (I thought it would be temporary); my husband Don joined me up here in 1999. We decided to apply for permanent residency (similar to US Green Card status), and we became permanent residents (or “landed immigrants”) in 2007.

I now have a wonderful life with Don, our canines Ralph (mutt), Maggie (rescued Great Pyr), Reggie (rescued yellow lab) feline Marge (who is responsible for all that goes wrong in the household, a la “MARGE!”) and parrots Sam (African Grey) and Wicket (rescued blue-fronted Amazon). We all hang out on 10 acres of heaven in rural Ontario.