Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian bloggers out there. Take it easy on the turkey and stuffing, and enjoy your family.

Run for the Cure

For the past five years I’ve been up before the sun on the first Sunday in October to volunteer for a worthy cause. The CIBC Run for the Cure. It's an annual event that raises money for breast cancer.

My role is team leader in the food booth. You'd think that it would be an easy job but it's not. We unpack boxes of food and hand out thousands of items to runners, walkers and breast cancer survivors.

At times the mood can be quite somber when you read the messages on many people’s shirts: running for Grandma or Mom. Last year a little girl, no more than three years old wore a shirt that said, “In loving memory of my Mom”. How tragic for these children, grandchildren, husbands and sisters to lose their loved ones to this disease. I'm glad that I can contribute in a small way by giving my time. Hats off to my sister who ran the 5k race, along with her friends (see pics). Also, hats off to my mom who has been volunteering for seven years, its people like you who make this world a better place. God Bless you.

Word on the Street

I love to volunteer and I love to read books. So naturally one of my favorite events is Word on the Street, an annual book festival. I get to volunteer in an environment where I’m surrounded by books. At the festival there are lots of author readings and thousands of books on sale.

This year I was in the LongPen booth. All of the authors were in other countries (including the Canadian author Margaret Atwood). We were able to communicate with the authors live and the cool part is that they could sign books for fans from wherever they were. What a concept! People in remote areas will have the opportunity to see, hear and have books signed by their favourite authors. What a different age we live in.

I've included a few photos that I took while freezing my buns off in the cold....enjoy.