Happy Thanksgiving, Canadian Friends!

Yes, here in Canada, today is Thanksgiving Day. Many families celebrate it on the Sunday, but today is the actual holiday.

I really do have a lot to be thankful for, and please know that I am thankful to every one of you who takes the time to stop by and read my entries.

This year, my daughter was unable to come home for Thanksgiving, but she'll be here in a couple of weeks, to celebrate her birthday with us. She'll be 22! Even I can't believe it.

My husband works in television, and of course television never sleeps--not even on holidays--so he had to work today. However he does get an extra two weeks of vacation to make up for the fact that he works on holidays, so it's all good.

After a cloudless and sunny weekend, I'm sitting here almost in the dark at not yet 3:30 p.m. observing and listening to a thunderstorm. I don't mind; the rest of the weekend was so much more beautiful than one could have hoped for.

Having spent a record-long amount of time with a terrible bout of PMS (read: grumpiness), my period finally arrived on Friday, but for some reason, I've been feeling a bit weepy. I guess when one is approaching menopause, hormones just don't work in the manner we're used to.

I mentioned on Saturday that I'm looking forward to waist length hair for my 50th birthday next July, and also that I want to lose some weight before then.

I am so far failing at getting more exercise, but I have been cutting down on portions, and after months of being at the same weight, I've finally lost 5 pounds. Ideally, I'd like to lose 20 more pounds, but I can live with losing 15 more pounds.

As any of you over the age of 40 or 45 know, it's not quite as easy to keep the weight off as it was when we were in our 20s, but of course it can be done. I do not think however, that it's realistic to expect to get down to the weight I was at 21. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to.

The most important aspect that will decide whether or not I can lose this weight will be getting myself motivated to do regular exercise. I am at this moment committing myself to getting some extra exercise in every day.

I haven't exercised regularly for some time, so I'll have to go in baby steps, but that's okay.

As I've already said, I think it would be nice to have a prettier waist to go with my waist length hair when I turn 50.

I'm still feeling really good about my hair. I have wrapped up my experiment with the lemon juice rinse. I think it was successful in keeping more moisture in my hair.

I'm going to go back to ACV rinsing now, and assess how my hair feels after a month of that, and then decide which method I prefer.

Well, dark and thunderstormy; sounds like a perfect night for a movie.

I have decided that because I have such a passion for movies, I'm going to start a movie blog and discuss films new and old that I have really enjoyed. I'll be talking about classic films, indie films, foreign films and mainstream films if I like them.

I have no interest in writing about movies that I don't like. That's too negative for me, and I like to keep it all positive when possible.

It won't be a daily blog; my plan at this point is to write three times a week. I'll see how that works out. I may change my mind on that. I may have my first entry in tomorrow.

Well that's it for today, folks.

'Til tomorrow, my friends. Much love to all.
xo

Off-Topic Tuesday: Canada

On Thursday, July 1, it's Canada Day, the one day of the year when we Canadians allow ourselves to speak our patriotism out loud. This is the day we celebrate July 1, 1867 when our country was formed as a nation.

I have realized over the years that the citizens of even our closest neighbour, the U.S.A, don't really know much about Canada.

Canada is a vast country-- 5000 miles from coast to coast.  Our land mass is huge, but our population is only about 31,000,000 people. About 90 per cent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Further north it is much less populated, but here in Ontario, there a many huge national parks and lakes, and in the summer many people head "up north" to cottage country, where it's cooler and not so crowded.

It's a beautiful country, with many leafy trees as well as fir trees. The country is very diverse, culturally, geographically and with regard to the weather.

I live in Southern Ontario, in a city that was built beside Lake Ontario. I live an hour away from Toronto in one direction and Niagara Falls in another.  It takes only about an hour to get to the U.S. border from where I live. Where I live is actually south of many U.S. cities. In fact, it's further south of the entire states of Minnesota, Washington, North Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin, and most of Idaho and Oregon.

While we are officially a bilingual country, in reality, relatively few English speaking people speak French fluently. We do take French class in school, until High School after which it becomes optional. Unless one is immersed in a French community, it is not easy to learn French just from classes at school.

I had an American friend who thought that I, living in Canada, lived close to Alaska.  In fact, it would be about a 4000 mile car journey to Juneau, Alaska, which is one of the closest Alaskan cities to my home.

Which brings us to the weather. Like most of the northern U.S., we have 4 distinct seasons. Also like the U.S., the weather has a lot to do with geography.  We didn't experience very much snow this past winter, and the temperature rarely went much below the freezing mark.  We have lovely springs and autumns, where I live, fairly hot humid summers. It can be hot for a good 4-5 months.  We also usually have some rare days in March when it's warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.

However, depending on where one lives in Canada things can be different.  In the prairies and the plains further west, it can be extremely cold in winter. However, they can have hot summers too.

The thing that most visitors to our country notice the most is that the people are extremely polite. Obviously, not everyone is polite, but as a nation, we generally are. The other thing visitors notice is how clean our country is, in general. Further north there is a lot of beautiful unspoiled country. Even the populated areas manage to keep a lot of green space.

We celebrate diversity here in Canada, and while it may seem paradoxical, diversity is a huge part of our identity as a nation.

I was born in the city in which I currently reside, and I will likely be here for the rest of my life.

I love Canada. Happy Birthday.