Love From Maria

With my thirtieth birthday fast approaching and my year of reflections in full swing I write today about my work, my passion, my weird little family - Vivo. I have written a wee ode to Vivo before - but at a different time in my life. ​ ​ S M XL Today I was showered with love at a surprise, early birthday celebration. I laughed, hugged and shared stories with the people that I choose to see every day. I looked around the room and realized just how many of those people have been in my life for a decade, or nearly a decade. For one third of my life I have been uplifted, supported, encouraged and taken care of by this amazing family. I was just a kooky nineteen year old when I first joined the team. I ate peanut butter sandwiches at the desk, sorry Sally. And once I ripped the butt out of my Lulu's while working - without a second thought Tracey let me borrow a pair of hers. Mary and I spent countless hours studying for her citizenship test, celebrating the life growing

Anyone who knows me must know this is something close to my heart. Anyone who lives near me has the experience, and potential annoyance, of my overt neighbourliness.  ​ ​ S M L Today we spent the afternoon with our neighbours, our friends, on a walk and then a search for lady bugs across the front yards. I spent the evening reflecting on this, our amazing neighbours. Nearly four years ago we sat around a table in a room full of strangers, eating cookies and other standard meeting foods and waiting for the presentation to start. We were at a presentation from our home builder.  That's right. Our home builder. We had assigned seating that night, every person at our table was a future neighbour of ours. We were all strategically seated so we would meet and get to know the people we would soon be living near. That night we exchanged numbers with our future neighbours and our friendship fires were stoked. ​ ​ S M L Since moving into our neighbourhood, and spen