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To make things easier on myself, I’m going to do this in point-form:

* My birthday is on December 25th - yup, a Christmas baby!

* I grew up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and lived in the same place, had the same bedroom, from when I was a baby until I moved to Halifax when I was 25.

* Although I grew up in Montreal, some of my best and most vivid memories are from the weekends and summers spent in Rawdon, Quebec, which is located a little over an hour’s drive from Montreal. Both my grandmothers lived there, and we all used to joke that we were related to about half the town. Despite the chuckles, I do think that was more truth than joke!

* In 1995, when I was 15, Quebec had a Referendum over the issue of separating from Canada and becoming its own country. Although I couldn’t vote, I was certainly on the “No” (ie, the more rational) side of THAT debate. That was probably my first brush with politics that really hit home and pissed me off. That was also when I really started to realize that I did not want to spend the rest of my life in Quebec.

* In 2004, I visited Halifax, Nova Scotia. I visited the city with some girlfriends of mine, but they were driving and because I wanted to spend more time in Halifax, I decided to fly in a couple of days early. That was my very first flight. And I flew by myself. To a city I didn’t know. It was awesome, and I fell in love with this city on my first night here and knew this was where I wanted to live.

* Because I’m a world-class worrier, I didn’t end up moving to Halifax until the end of August 2005, almost a year after I visited here. But the main thing is that I made it! It was exactly one month after moving here that I started work at Wickwire Holm, a law firm downtown, as a receptionist. Less than a year later, I became the firm’s foreclosure paralegal.

* On Saint Patrick’s Day of 2006, the luck of the Irish was with me. That was when I met Neal in line at a bar - little did I know then that he would become my wonderful husband.

* Neal and I got married on September 5, 2009. It was a beautiful, glorious day with perfect weather, many laughs, no disasters, no tears, just happiness and lots and lots of dancing. He is my best friend. I cannot imagine my life without him.

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