The past few days I've been doing a huge clean up of my condo. It's been feeling cluttered and oddly messy. Not the normal 'There's stuff all over the floors nothing is put away' kind of messy. The kind that you notice that you have so much stuff that you really don't need and may actually run out of space soon.We live in a decent size condo (1100 square feet). 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and solarium that we use as a playroom for Dechlan. Space isn't really an issue here. It's big enough for the 3 of us.

I looked around my place the other day and realized that I need to find room for my Mom when she's here. So I started moving things around and then saw that I had so much stuff I haven't even looked at in years. We've lived here for 4 years now and I've never really gone through everything and gotten rid of stuff. Sunday night, after we put Dechlan to bed, I went into my room and just started going through boxed and I just threw out everything I didn't really need or want. I cleared out a Rubbermaid container full of stuff and almost emptied out another of. Sadly, they didn't stay empty for long. I put Christmas decorations in the empty one. Yes, I had decorations just hanging around in my close. Filled the other container with random stuff I just couldn't part with.

Yesterday I went through boxes that were under my bed and found so many CD's and magazines and books. I cleaned the dust off and found them temporary homes. I cleaned off 1 dresser and 2 shelves. I sorted through all the blankets and sheets and found them homes in the closet.

Today I'm going through ALL my clothes and getting rid of anything I don't like, fit or plan on wearing. Should take a long time. I have a huge dresser full of clothes I barely wear. Time to stop hoarding things.

Do you do this? Just go through everything and throw out/ get rid of stuff in huge batches? How often? I'm going to have to do this more often.

I like to plan ahead. I'm very big on lists and plans etc.  My husband thinks it's odd but when I plan things out it usually leaves little room for things to go wrong. It does drive him nuts.

This September is going to be very exciting for my family. My Mother is coming to visit!! We haven't seen her in 3 years. She was here in Ontario for the birth of my Son and to help us out when he was first born. And then she was here for his first Birthday. Well, this September, my baby is turning 4! It's amazing how quickly time flies when you have a child. She is going to be here from the 7th until the 26th. I'm so excited for her to be here. Dechlan( My Son) is so different from when she saw him when he was a year old. My Mother and I are quite close and talk everyday. He likes to call her behind my back as well ( Haha). He loves his Nana.

So September is a big month. My Mother will be here, and while she's here we are going to celebrate her Birthday ( Which will be late because it's on September 1st) and we will be celebrating Dechlan's 4th Birthday as well.

I have a lot of planning to do. I'm planning out where we are going to take my Mom while she's here. I'm also working on her Birthday gift. I told her I was making a cookbook but that didn't go as planned. So I have another gift pretty much ready to go. I will post pics of it when it's done and I've given it to her. I want it to be a surprise. I'm also planning out what kind of cake/cupcakes to make Dechlan for his Birthday. I've got some good ideas for it. I just need to find everything I need to make it perfect for him.

I will probably make another post when I get things sorted and know exactly what I'm going :)

I'm not a big fan of the heat. The only good part of Summer is that we can go camping. I would actually rather go camping in the Spring and Fall. That is how my family always did it. I hate being in the sun because I get a sunburn so fast.

I used to love Summer but now I've realized how much I really am like my father. I LOVE the cold. But this Summer, it isn't the heat that I hate. What I'm hating is the fact that I've gotten sick also every month. Everyone says it's allergies, but I have never had allergies to anything non-food related (and even that has gone away). I've been stuffed up off and on for the last, I guess, 3 months now. I've had 1 Summer cold and this horrible stuffed up nose that gives me the worst headaches. It's gotten annoying.

Plus, I hate showing skin. I love to be bundled up in warm clothes. You can't do that during Summer! All the fun stuff for our family happens in the Fall, Winter and Spring. I find Summer kind of boring. I always have to be so careful with going outdoors with my little pale, red headed child. He doesn't like the heat either. He's just not a big fan of the outdoors in general. He's like his Father that way.

About 6 months to a year ago I stopped eating egg yolks. The other day I got sick of egg whites and made whole eggs. Turns out I HATE the taste of whole eggs now. When I first tried egg whites I thought they tastes weird and I just wasn't into it. Now I think they are absolutely amazing! They're healthier too!

I've realized that I just need to find new recipes. If you have any good breakfast recipes using egg whites and the star, please share them with me. Plain ol' egg whites or egg white omlettes are getting boring. I need some excitement in my food. I usually like to eat the same thing day in and day out. I need new favourites I think.

Since having a child, my whole body has changed so much. My skin for one. It's so freakin' dry and itchy and painful. But it's only like that on my face. I've tried so many facial washes and moisturizers but it just doesn't help.

I decided it was about time I did a bit of research on skin conditions and see if I could find anything. I found that it's mainly cause by taking too many showers and using water that is far too hot. So I'm going to attempt taking cooler showers and washing my face less and just having maybe one shower per day.

I didn't know it was possible to deprive my skin of moisture by just having hot showers. I can't help that I like to shower a lot but I CAN help the temperature of the water. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully it will work.

Since camping with Dechlan was such a bust, Hubby and I decided to go on our own for 2 nights. It was great until 10pm the first night. We went for a hike and then had lunch at the beach, found a site and then set up everything. We went for a small walk to explore and then sat for a little bit and read. In the late afternoon we went to Lake Simcoe which was really close to our site. Swam for an hour and then went to shower. Yes, we showered. I may love camping but I don't like being dirty and I certainly don't like outhouses (Ew). After showering we made dinner. BBQ chicken breasts and ceasar salad. We read until about 8:30 and then started our fire. We are terrible at building fires. We built it enough so that we could roast marshmallows and enjoy the sounds and smells of a campfire. Our fire died around 10-10:30pm which was okay because we were getting tired. It started to rain once we started putting things away. Just a light drizzle at first and once we were in our tent it started to just pour down on us. It didn't let up for hours and hours. It started to thunder and had some lightning and it woke us up. We looked around the tent to make sure it wasn't leaking and sure enough it was start to leak into the tent. It was about 3am and we heard people leaving from the sites around us. We had actually contemplated leaving too. But It was a one hour drive home and honestly, we just weren't sure it was a good idea to leave in the middle of the night. So we just put towels down and went back to sleep. Once we woke up we found that EVERY was soaked. Our picnic table was so wet that we weren't sure we would be able to use it that day. So we packed up our stuff, got a refund for the 1 day and headed home.

it was a great camping trip until the rain, haha! Next year we will be better prepared for rain that is for sure!

I forgot about this blog. I'm not sure how I forgot about it, but I did. I'm back at it. I promise to blog more often.

Our summer has been fun so far. My hubby and I spent a day at Canada's Wonderland. It was really fun but I came home with 2nd degree burns on my chest from the sun. I'm still healing from the burns actually. Almost better :) We also attempted camping a few weeks ago. That didn't go so well. Dechlan hated it. It was really hot and he was really bored. It didn't help that I wasn't feeling all that great. We didn't even spend the night. It wasn't the best experience. We've decided that we're going camping next Sunday without Dechlan. He will spend close to 3 days with his Grandparents. He`s actually very excited to spend a few days there.

We`re excited to have to adult time. We`re going to Sibbald Point. It`s about an hour away from here. A friend of mine suggested it so we checked it out and fell in love. We liked Bronte Creek in Oakville but Sibbald looks like it has a lot more to do. So next Sunday we are going to be enjoying some outdoor time just the two of us :)  We are going the 24th to 26th. The 26th we are leaving early and heading to Canada`s Wonderland to hit up the water park.

We have a busy week of fun coming up. Tuesday we are taking D to Canada`s Wonderland to go to the water park. He has been excited about it for weeks now. Honestly, I`m pretty excited to spend the day in the water with my family.

So those are our plans so far! Happy Summer!