Have you tried using those plastic covers that slip over the body of the key? They come in different shapes so one can learn to distinguish keys in the dark, and it's not even considered a "special" blind person thing, so you can find them anywhere that cuts keys. I'm sure that Amazon sells them also. While totally able bodied people consider Amazon explitive, I can recommend it highly as a resource for anyone with a visual impairment, as the site is very accessible, and their customer support is amazing.
If you use an iPhone, their are tons of apps for people with visual impairments, and the text-to-speech is built right on, so all you have to do is turn it on. I just got an app that is a talking tuner for my guitar, but there are also apps for identifying money, colors, etc.
The unfun thing I would recommend is that you think about starting the process of getting registered with whatever government service that offers services for visually impaired people. I know this is a really difficult step, but once you are registered, it will facilitate the use of many other services. I'm not sure about the Canadian equivalent, but in the U.S., being registered with the Commission of the Blind makes me eligible for free public transportation and also can be used as prooff of impairment for Bookshare.org, which I am almost certain is also available to Canadians. Bookshare is a site which offers free ebooks for anyone with a disability, and a lot of these books are new books. Bookshare also has an iPhone app that lets you read the books on your iPhone, with a text-to-speech program reading them aloud, or with the TTS and the actual page images also.