Well, first, we’ve just had a few fairly significant national events happen which should supercede anything else; Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada won the federal election with a Conservative opposition; the former PM Stephen Harper has resigned as leader of the Conservative party.

Justin Trudeau has also, as his first major act as Prime Minister, declared his intention to President Obama to pull Canadian Forces troops out of Iraq and Syria.

On a far more local level…..  I took today as an opportunity to just get out of the house and wander about town a bit.  I was actually hoping to make my way to the Legion so I could perhaps talk to someone there about getting help advocating for myself within the system, but my hobbled left side seized up so many times it took me nearly an hour to walk a mere five blocks, and when I did get there, the place was closed.

The day was a particularly productive one though, I think, as I was able to make my way into several of the boutiques that mark Stony Plain’s Main Street, and make new friends with the proprietors.  Any opportunity for me to discuss my favourite interests — counter-terrorism, shopping, fair trade, abolitionism, and fashion,

I found a particularly delightful shop called the Busy Bee Workshop near the bank, and stopped in for a great conversation with a bright and delightful brunette with sharp eyes and an incredible skill for paper art.

We discussed politics a bit.  She wasn’t impressed to hear that Justin Trudeau had won, but she was happy that there was going to be a massive shift in the national narrative from the past decade of Harper’s Conservative Government.

The Busy B Workshop is gloriously girly and full of luxury goods at reasonable prizes.  We discussed fair trade and trafficking and how the market plays a role in combating terror as a normal part of society.           

Evidently she offers classes in the art of tranforming paper prints in 1d into 3D gorgeous works of art.  She has several samples of her work available in the shop, and its really so amazing that at first I thought they were done in bisque or porcelain perhaps.  The classes are I think $180 a person to learn the fundamentals and basics, but she explained that the reality is that the project will take far longer than she offers classes for in order to master, and I can totally understand what she meant.  She, however, is a true artist at the matter, and her works are utterly amazing.  They range from forest stories to Asian classics rendered in full colour and movement, to hunting scenes, romance scenes, still life florals, etc.