39 years

Two months old...looking a wee bit like my youngest child.

My third birthday, wearing one of my mom's groovy 70s handmades.

My beautiful mother, lovingly feeding me. I remember the creak of that rocking chair, and my mother's scent.

My first home, out on the Queen's Line.

And another groovy handmade...

Thirty nine years ago today, I came into this world. I had two older sisters who loved me, and my parents named me Stephanie Rose (with the little pink toes). 

I had a happy childhood, full of homemade playdough, helping my mom bake, learning crafts, reading in the boughs of trees, and running the streets of my hometown with my little brother and best friend. 

I spent my teens activating for social and environmental change while also teasing my bangs, wearing too much makeup, and dating lots of boys. I went to France when I was 17, got drunk for the first time at 18, and headed to university at 19.

I became a teacher in my twenties but mostly spent my university years playing guitar at pubs and coffee houses and parties, being philosophical while smoking light cigarettes in cafes (especially when I lived in Belfast), then settling down in a rural schoolhouse in Ontario. Then I met my husband and the rest, they say, is history.

I am grateful to celebrate this new age in my life, the last year of my thirties. I would sum up that decade with one word: mothering.

I look forward to the coming year, and the next decade in my life with joy and anticipation!