Lunch Break Adventure!

During the summers, my job is super slow. So slow that I often take 2 hour lunches. The town I work in is famous for its' parks, so I sometimes take advantage of my time by checking them out.

Elgin Heritage Park was one of the first I visited, and was so cool I had to go back, and bring my camera. It was one of the things that led to the idea for this blog.

I stumbled across the park by accident-- I drove past the parking lot a few times, and one day decided it looked like as good a place as any to eat my peanut butter sandwich :) After lunch, I decided to take a bit of a walk... I was about eight months pregnant at the time and took any opportunity for exercise, to help minimize the incredibly frustrating swelling of my ankles I experienced. I found a trail...



wandered around a corner, admiring this neat little marsh...



and came across this view:



Gorgeous! An adorable, tiny marina on the river.



But it didn't end there... the park follows the river for a little ways...





And then splits off. One way continues along the river, the other way...



WOW.



A whole field of cattails... beautiful.



After passing across the bridge through the cattails, the trail turns another corner, and this is what you see:



What the heck is THAT you ask??



It's an owl house :) Apparently, barn owls are big in the area, but places for them to roost are growing thin. So the parks build these owl houses to give them homes. Really neat.

The trail winds back around on itself, and ends at the parking lot again-- the perfect walk for 8 months pregnant :D

I loved it, I've gone back several times, and I hope to go back later in the year-- it'll be interesting to watch how the changing of the seasons affects the trees and the river. Hopefully you enjoyed it too-- and I hope to share more of my lunch break adventures in the future!

Some ideas for the blog

I have tons of ideas for this blog, so I thought I'd put some of them down on paper (so to speak!) I don't know if all of them will come to fruition, but at least I have good intentions :)

Some things I'd like to try:

- cupcakes! Cupcakes are a big passion of mine. I love the idea of doing a "cupcake week", where I make a different cupcake recipe every day for a week. The only problem with this is timing-- I'd have to do this before a party or gathering, as I'm not great about actually EATING the cupcakes I bake. (The pregnancy hormones mess with my appetite really badly.) Beyond "cupcake week", perhaps a cupcake recipe or other food post one day a week.

- landscape photography. I have an idea for a post about my adventures around the Vancouver area, sharing photographs of the places I visit, hopefully once a week as well.

- things I love! I'd like to share a link at least once a week of something that has caught my eye out in the interwebz.

- horse news. Once I am healed from my recent c-section (and the unfortunate resulting complications), I intend to be "back in the saddle" as soon as humanly possible, and would like to share news and updates about my equine friends and clients.

- discussion. I have pretty strong opinions of various things I run across in my daily reading, and it would be fun to blatantly abuse my position as writer of the blog to post that opinion for open discussion :D

- wedding planning updates. I am nearly frantic with only about 2 months left to plan my December wedding, and having to take some time off to have my son.


So... I'm going to start this blog off with a little taste of the future. This is a great blog post written by Bakerella, reflecting on how far her own blog has come in the 3 years since she started writing it, and then chronicling her visit with a fellow food blogger whom she'd never have met otherwise. I'm sure she has a lot to say about how the internet has changed HER life :)

Jenny, written by Bakerella

So I guess all I can say is... watch this space in the future!

I love the internet

I love the internet. I admit it... I couldn't live without it. I know many people who don't feel the same way-- one of my ex-boyfriends was convinced that the internet only led to terrible things, like affairs or fraud or identity theft. As far as I know he still doesn't own a computer. My grandmother often laments the amount of drama she encounters on Facebook... but then again, at least my grandmother has a Facebook account :)

Personally, I am continually amazed at the things the internet has done to enrich my life. From little things, like making me laugh or helping me pass time at work (afternoons can be brutal-- what would I do without Zuma?). To bigger things, like giving me lots of information about my recent pregnancy and new baby, or enabling me in my baking obsession :)

To even bigger things. I found my current job through an ad on Craigslist. When I decided to go into business for myself, training horses and giving riding lessons, the internet was my strongest source of advertising, and even I was shocked at my success. The internet even brought my fiance and I together, in a way-- it was an easy, pressure-free way of communicating and getting to know each other before taking the plunge into actual "dating".

I have always been interested in blogging. I read a long list of blogs on a daily basis-- food blogs, horse blogs, anything that catches my interest. I don't know what the fascination is with the thoughts of people I will never meet... perhaps it's just the comfort in that feeling that we aren't alone in the struggles of our daily lives.

I myself have had an online journal before but after a long absence, I feel the need to strike out into the blogosphere again. I just find that there are many things I encounter in my own daily life that I would enjoy sharing with others. Of course, as the title of the blog states, I am ridiculously busy-- I work full-time, I have a toddler boy and just had a new baby boy only three weeks ago. I am getting married in December. I also have a ridiculous number of passions and hobbies-- among them cooking, photography, and of course, the horses. I really don't have time to blog. But, as they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person!

I hope this blog turns into something enjoyable for everyone out there... or at least for me :)