My Favourite Place

I have a couple of favourite places depending on the season that we are in.

In late spring early summer, a trial alone and quiet listening to nature. I love the calm that enters your soul when you are in nature with nothing else but you and it.

Winter, which it is right now, I am not a fan of the cold is hard on my body with the medical issues I have. So my favourite place is in my car alone watching the water, reading a book and drinking a tea.
The quiet, the motions of the water, the just being still and letting your soul relax and take in the beauty.

My alone time is crucial to my mental health because I need it to recharge, to refresh to be able to keep going. I feed off others feelings and help so many that without my alone time I would go crazy.
It allows me to reset the chaos that I seem to absorb from everyone around me.

I give and give and give and focus on everyone and everything around me that my favourite places are where I refill my bucket so I can keep on giving and helping.

Where is your favourite place?

Summer bucket list!

Do you have a seasonal bucket list? I do, I write a new one each year in my bullet journal. Sometimes I get them done sometimes I don't but it is awesome for those days when you are not sure what you want to do. Kind of like a bored jar full of ideas.


When the weather is nice closer to late spring and all of summer I spend as much time outdoors as possible. I even work outside to get more time out there. When you live in Canada and the weather goes from 20 degrees one day to -5 degrees the very next day you tend to soak in as much nice weather as you can while it is here.

My summer bucket bucket list

--Beach!!!
We live in a city with water and beaches EVERYWHERE so not getting to beach is not an option. We try to go during the week so that they are not as crowded so we can enjoy it without being elbow to elbow with everyone in the city.

--Hike
Our Province has so many beautiful trails and green spaces if you don't hike you don't know what your missing out on. A few of trails I would love to either do again or do for the first time are: Flower Pot Island, Mystery Falls Trails, Killarney,and Frontenac.


--Weekly fun trips with the kids.
Some of the places we plan to visit we do as homeschool trips but the girls don't get to go with us on those because they are in school. Children's museum, Science North, Day out with Thomas, African Lion safari, Santa's village, Legoland, Niagara Children's Museum, Randos ranch and storybook gardens.



--Tent Camping!
I haven't attempted to take Blaine tent camping just yet so I am hoping this year I am able to.


--Drive in
We have one not to far from here and I have never been. It is something I have always wanted to do.

--Fishing
I love fishing and I am lucky enough to have a son who loves it too.


--St.Jacobs Market
This year will be the year I finally make it to the market EVERYONE talks about.



--Gardening
Not much to say here


--Visit every park in town at least once


--Visit all the splash pads everywhere


--Slow down and enjoy life more


--Do the Ontario Ice Cream tour

--Take lots of photos


--Visit family


--Paint slip and slide!


--Pick strawberries


And so so much more!!!

Do you know any secret trails?

Hiking: Dow Wet Lands

Dow wetlands is located on highway 40 just before Corunna. I use those trails quite often as they are kept cut and clean. Also its really peaceful there.

"This 35 acre DOW Wetlands site includes a memorial forest and is a Carolinian zone habitat playing host to a wide variety of plants and animals.  It consists of five ponds joined with meandering shallow channels.  The walking trail is mainly composed of compacted crushed gravel and many of the DOW Wetland Trails are suitable for wheelchair access.  The Dow Wetlands is situated at the corner of LaSalle Road and Highway 40 in Sarnia, Ontario." (http://www.lambtoncountytrails.com/trails/stclairriver/Pages/DOWWetlands.aspx)

The dogs love it, I love it, so much peace and beauty.  We hadn't been there is a while, not since the spring. It has been too hot of a summer to hike to far with the dogs. Excited with Lexi in toe (Bossco went to the dog park) we started to hike the trails, as we set out I noticed that the grass on the trail was longer than normal and chalked it up to all the rain and they just hadn't been out to groom it that week. The further we go I start to notice ALL of the off shoot grass trails are over run, and pretty much unnoticeable, so we stick to the main trail. As we keep going the main trail is now "unnoticeable" if I didn't know the trail well other than the park benches with grass up to the seats you would never know it was even a trail. It was horrible!!! I can hike any trail, path or no path but I like to stick to area that are groomed to cut back on tick exposure. This is one of those trails that I love using because it is normally so well maintained, I was so disappointed. We finished the trail with cuts on our legs, lots of bites and itchy like no other.

I am not entirely sure who dropped the ball on this trail grooming, but I do have an email into Lambton trails to see what is going on. Normally I would suggest this trail as a fairly easy one and great for ALL ages and fun too, but at this point I wouldn't take anyone there.