[al from Canada]

Linda has been in education her entire working career. For the past 16 years she was department head of English at a number of different area high schools. Linda has always been the type of leader that she gave her team members the easiest classes and she always took the "sweat-hogs", the toughest to teach. That's were she found her strength and I guess; that's what drew her to me. You can draw your own conclusions about that comment. Linda went on long-term disability when she first became ill, mostly because she didn't want to spend 1 more minute away from her family.

I have been in the construction industry my entire working career, from carpenter to teaching construction technology to consulting. As well, some where along the line I picked-up auniversity degree part-time (in psycho-pharmacology; believe it or not) I am part of a consordium of 6 consultants, builders and building scientists in Ontario that work exclusively with residential track builders. Our mandate is to promote best practice through energy efficient construction, promoting EnerGuide for new houses and EnergyStar, to large builders. Through a process of value engineering, corporate re-tooling, trade negotiations, on-site training, and deliverable marketting and brand recognition advantages, we show them how to build smarter, tighter and better homes for approximately the same cost as their regular product. What was once an up-grade is now a standard.

I cut back my work hours dramtically when Linda got sick but struggle at keeping my work down to 2 days / week. I have lately done some work in Alberta and soon in BC ( these are the areas where my hours may spin out of control) but it's not much like work when I can bring Linda along.

Linda and I have a blended family of 5 kids and 1 granddaughter (1 year old next week). Three of the kids ( 22, 20, 19) still live here with us full time which makes for a pretty busy place as sometimes they are all "too much of a good thing". Once they are gone, we plan to sell our house and maybe move to our cottage on Lake Huron. In our life path, Linda and I have been extremely fortunate to have found eachother as we are still as deeply in love as we were 14 years ago when we got married. The problem is when you have a really tight bond with your partner, you tend to piss-off your friends and other people around you.

This cancer thing is our worst nightmare come true, as we often said, about once a week, that our combined greatest fear was one of us going to get sick and leave the other alone. We were to take early retirement this year....and had plans of travel, living in Vermont and skiing for 5 months. Well, we came to our senses and no one is going to leave anyone anytime soon. You hear about families falling apart because of stuff like this....it has brought us closer and we still plan for the future.

Great Idea,
Al