In December of 2023, I stopped house sitting and signed on to work with a company serving Ottawa and surrounding areas. The company is called Leaf Filter.
What is Leaf Filter?
Leaf Filter is a 23 year old company (almost 24) that began in Ohio. We’ve been in Canada now for 11 years (almost 12), and in Ottawa for almost 7 years.
We can install new gutters, or fix the ones you have and make them stop dripping and leaking.
Our biggest seller is our Leaf Filter covers.
We add a totally enclosed cover to your existing (or new) gutters, that only allows water in.
The system has a lifetime totally transferrable warranty (if you sell the house), and a no-clog money-back guarantee. Yes, I said money-back guarantee!
This is the only system I know of that keeps out everything, except for water.
The lids are made of virgin vinyl that won’t discolour or change shape, and medical-grade stainless steel, that won’t rust and doesn’t allow anything organic to grow on it.
This is a set-it and forget-it system.No more cleaning your gutters!!
My office services the greater Ottawa area from Hawkesbury, to Cornwall, to Deep River to Brockville.
If you’re in this area, I would be happy to give you a free quote, and show you what the product looks like. Email me at Sherri.LeafFilter at gmail.com
It will benefit you if all the decision makers can attend the call. We have certain discounts we can offer you while we’re in your home.
If you’re in Ontario, but outside of this area, or you’re somewhere else in Canada or the US, you can still get in touch. I can see if we have a professional to give you a quote in your area.
If you have a lot of trees on your property, and your gutters fill up once or twice a year, you would benefit from having the covers installed.
If you have a second or third story on your house, and you can’t or choose not to get a ladder up there, you would benefit from having the covers installed.
If you don’t want to fall off of a ladder, no matter how many stories your home has, or you don’t want your parent/sibling/friend falling off a ladder, they would benefit from having the covers installed.
Can we just clean the gutters without adding the covers?
Absolutely, we can. If you have leaking or dripping gutters, which always seem to be over a driveway, porch or doorway, we can do what we call a CSR, Clean, Seal and Realign. We clean your existing gutters, use a 50-year marine grade silicone to seal all the seams on the end caps, corners and downspouts, we add hidden hangers and realign the gutters as needed, so the water flows where it’s supposed to go.
Your house is usually your biggest asset. Let me help you take great care of it.
I found this beach on a sunny day in March. I had some time after a Leaf Filter call, and decided to explore.
I’m happy I did!
Yes, there was still ice out on the Ottawa River, but it was a warm day on the land, around +14C.
I walked the paved and cement trail all the way around the peer that juts out first. Then I followed it along the water to the edge of a neighbourhood and back to my parking spot.
You can find the parking area here at: 2805 Carling Ave in Ottawa, Ontario. Follow the signs down a big hill. You’ll see the Tennis Club up ahead, and find the parking lot to your right.
This beach has the paved Greenbelt (West) trail going straight through it.
Those who want to run on a paved surface, push a stroller or use a wheelchair can enjoy this trail.
They had a portable bathroom in the parking lot, which I used. It was wheelchair accessible.
I appreciate when cities add this amenity in public parks, especially out of season.
The surface of the beach here was a very dense and hard sand. It was more like dirt or large pebbles. I stuck to the dirt and cement trails.
Only time will tell if they take care of the beach during beach season and groom the sand to make it softer.
This beach and park area is very large, and has several different parking areas. I am going to assume that in the Summer months, this place is crazy busy.
This is a magical park. I really enjoyed exploring it. I was slightly saddened that some of the trails were close, and some were still icy.
This trail is located in the far right, back parking lot of the Nepean Sportsplex. The address is: 1701 Woodroffe Avenue, in Nepean, Ontario.
Facing the front of the Sportsplex from Woodroffe Ave, take the far right entrance all the way to the back. The trail is on your back right.
One of the trails near P15 has an outhouse, and you can use the facilities inside the Sportsplex if you’re hiking during business hours.
I ended up walking this trail in reverse. The only reason I know that is because have outdoor fitness stations setup to upgrade your outdoor experience.
There was some ice present on some trails that made them a bit treacherous, and some parts were very muddy.
This time of year, March 13th, you can expect that.
I really enjoyed this trail. The loop is very short, maybe a little over 1 km. If you take the side trail, it will extend your steps. The park boasts 6.4 km of trails, when they’re all open.
There are maps at a couple of corners so you don’t get lost. I really appreciate this!
If the trails were all open and accessible, I would give this park a 5/5. For now, I give it a 4/5.
This was a magical Spring-like day in March 2024, March 12th to be exact.
I was in Smiths Falls for work, but I came out over an hour early. I decided to explore the Smiths Falls Heritage Trail.
It connects with part of the Rideau Trail, and also the Rideau Canal National Historic Site of Canada and Victoria Park.
I walked over 10,000 steps on this sunny afternoon. I took video of the water moving through the new locks, and read all about the history of the old locks in Smiths Falls.
There are plenty of gravel and paved trails all along this area.
I parked on the side of the road at the address for the Heritage Park trail at 8 River Street.
I walked all the way down to the yellow airplane in Victoria Park.
You can easily bike most of this path, or push a stroller. There are sections with many steps along the river that would make this tricky.
The best part of my day was feeling the water as I watched it move through the area around the locks.
Locks in Smiths Falls within the Rideau Canal National Historic Site
I give this sunny Spring day a 5/5, and the walking trails and parks a 4/5.
Yesterday, I drove by the closed gate of this Provincial Park and vowed to stop the next time I passed by.
On my way back home, I decided to stop. The address is: 2680 Donnelly Drive, in Kemptville, ON.
Once I snuck through the gate on foot, I headed for the water.
It was a +16C day, but there was still ice to avoid on the pavement and trails.
The grass around the picnic area was very soggy. But the view was worth it!
I found the Shoreline Trail which curves its way along the bank of the river. It leaves the park boundary and continues on to a boat ramp, playground and beyond.
I’m sure this park is very busy in the Summer months. It was nice to see it in the off season.
One of the things I wanted to do and never did while I was housesitting was review places to eat, and hiking trails.
Well, it’s a bit too late for that, but I can do the same thing where I live now, in the Ottawa area.
This morning, I felt a bit of a nudge to go check out this breakfast and lunch place called Tutti Frutti. I don’t eat out often, but when I do, I prefer breakfast foods, or Pad Thai.
I had the Western Omelet with red peppers, onions and tomatoes. They didn’t have gluten free bread, so I asked for no bread. It came with thin oval shaped potatoes and two slices of tomato. (Sorry, no picture.)
The meal cost me $22 with taxes and 20% tip. Not a super cheap place, but I left pleasantly satisfied. They do have $10 omelets on Wednesdays, at least at this location in Barrhaven: 4335 Strandherd Dr, Barrhaven, ON K2J 6E5
I used the bathroom here and it was nice and clean. They have several individual bathrooms.
I liked the decor and the wait staff was pleasant.
I got as many toxins as possible out of my home and body.
Think make-up, toilet bowl cleaner, dish soap, hand soap, shampoo, nail polish, birth control pills, Advil and any other medications that you don’t *need* to be taking.
I use a free app called Think Dirty to check products on the fly while at the grocery store. I highly recommend you download it and use it to help you buy cosmetics, cleaning supplies and toiletries.
Many of the ‘normal’ products we use like Dawn, Tide, Comet, Crest and more, even some of the ones that are supposed to be ‘green’, score at an 8/10 on the toxicity scale in the app. That’s highly toxic. Especially when we tend to stick to a product and use it daily or weekly for years.
All those chemicals add up. Your poor liver is working overtime trying to clear out the gunk.
I try to find products that are a 4/10 or lower. It’s easy when it comes to hand soap, shampoo, etc. Most grocery stores have a ‘healthy’ section. But, things like nail polish can be a bit trickier. The nail polish I love is called Pure Anada Glamour Nail Polish. It goes on smooth, dries fast and stays on a long time. You just need to do some research.
You are what you put on your skin! I know the saying is “You are what you eat.” That counts, too, such as eating more organic and grass fed when you can find it, but we tend to forget about the products we use.
Your skin absorbs products within 30 seconds. Choose natural ones!
I stopped gossiping.
This is an interesting one, imho.
I used to chat with friends and talk about what was going on with everyone we knew, some of which was not so good.
What I realized was this actually dropped my energy instead of feeding my positivity. I felt tired after seeing my friends or gossiping in the lunch room. I had to stop doing that!
I believe in the law of attraction.
What you speak, you create. Yes, you are THAT powerful.
Energy, what you say, think and feel, is emitted or vibrated out into the Universe and the same or a similar kind of energy is returned to you.
I highly recommend you keep your conversations as positive and up-beat as possible, and spend time around people who feed your soul.
I stopped working out as much, and changed how I worked out.
I toned down my workouts to include more walking and yoga. I was a fitness and spin instructor. It was nothing for me to teach 7 or 10 classes a week. That was A LOT of pressure and stress on my body. It was fun and I loved it, but over time it was just too much.
My body was already struggling, so intense workouts made me feel worse, really tired, or gave me a headache.
My goal was to feel better, calmer and more relaxed.
I stopped working out as much, and changed how I worked out.
I stopped eating gluten.
Let me be clear here, I don’t believe that everyone healing from a thyroid condition needs to give up gluten, but I do believe that it will greatly help some people, like myself.
Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, rye, spelt and barley. The acronym you can use to remember the grains that contain gluten is BROWS. Barley, rye, oats (if they are not marked as gluten free), wheat and spelt.
Wheat has been genetically modified for years to decrease the growing season, increase the yield and make it very resilient to bugs. That makes it hard for us humans to digest.
In your small intestine, you have these little guys called villi that line the walls, They have a very important job. They are meant to absorb your nutrients as they float by. (You mouth to anus is actually a tube that keeps things outside of your body.)
Since the wheat is so resilient, it actually scrapes these nutrient absorbers off. As this gets worse, you can get small tears in the walls of the intestines where food will leak outside of the body. That’s bad. No one wants food particles floating around inside them where they aren’t supposed to be. It’s gross and it can hurt.
But, the bigger problem is that when the villi get rubbed off, your body has less chances to absorb nutrients. Over time, you start to starve. Your body will start taking nutrients from your bones, muscles and more to keep your body functioning. It can create muscle atrophy where your body catabolizes muscle to use elsewhere. Then the muscles become weak and the body has less strength and ability to do normal functions like walk up the stairs.
Eating gluten might not create an instant reaction for you, unless you have celiac disease. It’s a process that happens a little over time. For me, I notice that my skin is very dry the day after I eat gluten, abnormally dry.
If you don’t know if gluten is a problem, take it out of your diet for a month and see if anything changes. Know that gluten is in EVERYTHING, so it can be tricky to avoid completely.
I started using a high quality essential oil.
If you have a problem, guaranteed there’s an essential oil that can help. For releasing weight, I use Smart & Sassy by DoTerra. to relax, you can use Lavender. To feel better emotionally, you can use Console or Forgive, or an oil like Patchuli.
Using a high quality oil is very important. Remember we talked about how products can enter the skin and get into the bod in 30 seconds or less? Essential oils are no different. If you’re using a Walmart brand, you’re not getting a high quality oil and you’ll just be adding more toxins in.
The two brands I have knowledge of are Young Living and DoTerra. (If you need an oil distributor, let me know.)
You can topically apply oils (often mixed with a carrier oil), inhale them using a diffuser, or ingest them. Take caution with ingesting.
There are oils for sleep (Serenity), for releasing cellulite (cedarwood, geranium, grapefruit), to decrease the pain from a headache (peppermint, rosemary and lavender), and DoTerra has an oil called ZenGest that is the bomb for reducing upset stomachs or indigestion when rubbed over the stomach.
Use them as you need them, and again, buy a high quality oil.
I did a lot of other things to heal my own thyroid condition, including finding a naturopath and an NAET practitioner (it stands for Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Techniques) and more. I also made use of a probiotic and added kombucha to my diet and more.
This list of things will certainly get you started. If you are serious about healing from a thyroid condition, or a condition you feel is related to your thyroid even if your doctor doesn’t agree, then I can help.
I have a 3-month Thyroid Healing Kickstart 1-1 program that is designed to help you heal your symptoms. I am not a doctor, I am a massage therapist by trade, and I was able to heal my own thyroid.
The techniques I use include releasing any past life an ancestral karma, as we know we can carry forward things that we don’t want, and overcoming any limiting beliefs, thought patterns and trauma that may be contributing to the condition and/or symptoms.
In addition to changing physical things in your life, it’s also important to shift your thoughts, emotions and energy.
I also love to get your Higher Self involved. We can do a Future Progression session and she can tell you exactly how you heal it.
Send along a Facebook message if you feel this program may be for you. We can have a quick chat.
The way I will support you will be highly personalized. That’s the best way to heal as your past, your symptoms, your desires and experiences will be unique to you.
Why are the majority of online business owners not making the money they desire to make?
Isn’t that the magical question?
The question that over 90% of coaches and online business owners want the answer to?
Statistics show that over 90% of businesses fail in their first 4 months!!
I’ve been at this whole online business thing for years, so at least I’ve beat that statistic!
I used to work on strategy 90% to 100% of the time and on mindset 0-10% of the time.
That was a very backwards way for me to function.
Now, I know my way is more like 20% strategy and 80% mindset and alignment, where alignment is ALWAYS first.
So why aren’t more business owners making the money they want to make?
I’ve done A LOT of sales calls over the past few months.
I’ve had the opportunity to research this by asking potential clients why they feel they haven’t been successful yet in business.
I heard things like:
It’s the economy.
It’s where I live.
People just don’t have the money.
I’m not really sure, if I knew I’d fix it.
I don’t want to be rude or insensitive, but most of the reasons for not succeeding in business are connected to limiting beliefs, fears and doubts. Mostly from this life, but these things can also be karmic from past lives or your ancestry.
If you look at successful businesses, like the ones that have not only been thriving all through covid but expanding during this time, they had the ability to succeed no matter where they lived or what was going on in the world.
What do successful businesses do differently?
Successful businesses provide services that their clients WANT while also secretly giving them what they need.
Successful businesses share the value of their services and offers so their potential clients understand the exchange for their investment.
Some business owners even make their offers such a no-brainer that people feel a bit silly NOT investing in it.
I didn’t see the most successful business owners chopping their prices and offering the same value. Did you? Maybe they created lower priced offers, or even higher priced offers, but they didn’t discount what was already seen as valuable.
I’ll tell you the TWO things that have kept me stuck in business over previous years.
Self doubt. Can I really and truly do this? Little old small town Canadian me?!
Lack of commitment. What if I fail? What if I’m the laughing stock? What if I make it and then lose it all? Or worse, what if I succeed and I’m not satisfied or fulfilled? What if I do all the work and I don’t love the end result?
Whoa! Those are all big limiting beliefs. I’ve had them, and I bet you have them or have had them, too.
I used to like to dig into these things when I journaled.
I’ve actually been recording myself talking to my Spirit Team recently on video rather than writing. I’ve filled up dozens of journals over the last few years and writing just feels like a gargantuan chore these days.
I needed to find a way to allow it to be easy.
Now, I call in my Inner Being, Spirit Guides, the Council of Light and my Galactic Council and I just talk it out.
Sometimes that leaves me feeling like I’m a freak who talks to herself, and other times I get the most profound wisdom I wonder why I haven’t been using this technique more over the years.
How do I know what to talk about or ask my Spirit Team? (I prefer to call them Magenta. I know when I use this term, I’m talking to the whole lot of them, and they know it, too.)
Oh you’ll know exactly what to ask. If you’re stuck or feeling scared or doubtful, or non-committal like I was, then you have a ton of things to ask about.
Recently, my coach asked me: Why are you afraid to commit to your business 100%?
Aww poop. She was calling me out on my crap.
She’d asked me this several times before I actually committed to finding the answer.
Eventually, I turned the question over to her: Why am I not committing to my business?
I’m almost surprised she didn’t say: Not my monkeys. Lol. She wouldn’t have. But she did flip it back to me.
We coaches are good that way. We know what you need even when you don’t. We know how to push all the right buttons just enough to get you to take some kind of action.
We know you already KNOW the answers and you’re capable of finding them.
I’d obviously been skirting the issue of ‘commitment’.
But at least I was aware.
I’d been accused of seeing my business and treating it like a hobby rather than a business in my past.
Argh. I really do want a successful business, not a hobby. So why wasn’t I committing?
The cool thing about things you’ve been ignoring is that they can create life altering transformation when you do finally look at them and decide to shift them.
I did what I would expect my own clients to do, and what my coach expected me to do. I did some digging…
Well, in all honesty, I was on the toilet and the answer hit me. Lol.
I’ve always been the person who had several jobs at one time. Even when I was only 16. Even when I had a 9-5, I taught 7-10 hours of fitness classes a week.
I’ve ALWAYS felt the need to over fill my plate.
As a Projector in Human Design, that often leads to burnout if you do it too long, or in my case, you call in an auto-immune disease.
Something happens to trigger your body to SLOW DOWN and stop trying to work as hard or harder than everyone else.
I’ve kept up that same pattern of having multiple sources of income even while running my own business.
I’ve even stopped my own business several times and worked a J.O.B. of some kind instead.
That certainly doesn’t say: I’m committed to you, Business!
In recent months, I’ve been selling packages for other coaches in addition to working for myself.
My reason for this was because I felt I wasn’t good at selling. Honestly, I felt I sucked at it.
And I knew I wanted to be better.
In order to get good at something, you need to do it over and over. (Have you ever read Malcom Gladwell’s book The Outliers?)
I think it’s been a way for me to AVOID committing 100%, even though I have gotten better at asking questions on sales calls and digging into the real reasons why potential clients have not started or not yet succeeded in business.
If potential clients are getting on sales calls with you, they know they need help. The question is: Are they committed to getting the help?
The big question I really had to answer was: Why have I been I avoiding getting my transformation soul-aligned work even more into the world?
Why the heck would I do that? Why would I not choose to commit 100% to build my business and help more people thrive and create freedom in their own lives?
*Head scratch moment.*
Well, what came through is this:
I’ve committed to a lot of things in my past that didn’t work out.
Ahh crap. There it is.
Too many relationships to count that didn’t work out.
Jobs that I quit, got fired from, or hated that didn’t work out.
Network marketing businesses (bye bye DoTerra and Melaleuca) that didn’t work out.
I’ve invested in trainings, workshops, courses, coaches, and higher education that I never really used. I consumed most of them, but didn’t really USE them. Those things didn’t work out, either.
Why not? Why would I commit to the LEARNING, but not the DOING?
Sometimes we do things we think we should do, or we do them to honor or please others, but we’re just not ALL IN. Your heart and soul both need to be all in. Like 100%. No hokey pokey-ing.
Do you agree with me here?
I know that people can be really good at and succeed at things they hate, but they’re not fulfilled by them.
I don’t know about you, but I strive for fulfillment.
What about this commitment thing?
I know I’ve committed to things that haven’t been soul-aligned. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I’ve forced myself to commit to things I didn’t want to do.
I’ve even committed to things that I hoped wouldn’t work out! (I’m sure you, too, have gone out with people that you had zero intentions of seeing long-term. I’m not alone here.)
After all of that unsuccessful commitment, my subconscious mind had said: Enough is enough! No more committing and then feeling like a failure because it didn’t work out!
So I then found it really hard to commit. Impossible even. To almost anything.
I couldn’t commit to dating, to friends, to exercising, let alone to my business. It got a little crazy there for awhile.
I finally had to draw some lines in the sand, one at a time.
I had to stop giving my energy to things that I didn’t want to nurture, even if that meant turning away non-ideal clients.
I had to decide what to give my energy to and consistently do it. Yes, I had to commit.
Something like exercising, I’m no longer available to do it whenever. It’s not a maybe anymore, or only when I feel like it, its a must.
I’m committing like a PRO over here. Lol.
So… How do you get out of old self-sabotaging ways of thinking, shift out of lack and get into abundance and love?
You need to start fighting for your desires instead of your limitations.
Instead of: I don’t know if I can. What if I suck? What if no one likes me or wants what I offer?
You need to allow yourself to sink into and embody something like:
I’m valuable. What I do in the world is valuable. I can do this. I’m doing this. It’s as good as done.
But… How?
There’s a gazillion tools to choose from. But you need to actually USE them.
You can think about using them, intend to use them but never actually use the tools. That will take you no where but where you already are.
What I’ve found is that you need to do the work, but you need to allow the work to feel easy.
Umm? What?
It means you need to follow your heart and your intuition and allow yourself to be led.Guided.
For myself, I couldn’t offer to help other business owners and aspiring business owners to re-jig or create their own business to be soul-aligned if my own business wasn’t aligned with my soul.
You have to walk your talk.
Step 1: ASSESS IT.
I took a look at my entire business, the names of my programs, my pricing structure, what was included and really had to ask myself:
Is this me?
Is this aligned with who I really am?
Does offering this light me up?
Would I buy this for myself? Because if I wouldn’t invest in it, why would my clients?
Step 2: ALTER IT.
Of course, next was making the changes required to feel aligned.
That’s why I now run my business based on my soul details that I’ve gleaned from my Personal and Business Numerology, my Human Design and who I am at Soul Level based on my Akashic Record.
I won’t lie. It’s been a challenge to do things based on who I am rather than what I’ve been taught. It’s hard to go against what you think you know. But you have toalign your business with your soul or you won’t be fulfilled. (You can learn more about how I help clients with this here.)
Step 3: CHECK IT.
Then it’s time to do a fear/doubt limiting belief review and re-program. It’s actually more like CHUCK IT than CHECK IT. (I talk about some limiting beliefs in this video on YouTube.)
I have feared reliving my past in business and in relationships.
I don’t want to make the same mistakes, or waste more time. Which is a bit lame when I type it as I know that all time is either spent growing or learning.
You could fear being seen, failing, succeeding and more.
We all know that when we live from fear, we repel love and all things that match love.
We have to choose: Am I going to lean into love OR lean away from it?
If you have a ton of limiting beliefs, or other fears or doubts, you’re going to have to see them, feel them, and disprove them in order to overcome them and move into a place of thriving.
You could flip the order of step 2 and 3 if you wanted. I didn’t because the limiting belief piece can take a bit of time to sort through. Days, weeks, even months or years.
Why not set-up your business to be soul-aligned and then commence the digging? You can always re-jig your business after the re-programming process, if needed.
Let’s do a little review. Why do over 90% of business owners NOT succeed?
They set up their business based on someone else’s recommendations and wisdom instead of listening to their own inner wisdom and aligning with their soul.
They offer things they don’t want to offer, that don’t feel good, that don’t light them up, that they wouldn’t buy, usually because they feel they have to.
They’re afraid of all kinds of things, like failing, succeeding, being seen, being ridiculed, being rejected or abandoned and more and they don’t allow themselves to get past the fears.
If you’re ready to create a soul-aligned business that’s guaranteed to be fulfilling BECAUSE it’s soul-aligned, I’m ready to help.
You need to:
Have a business or want to create one.
Be willing to understand and align with your soul.
Be willing to allow your intuition to guide you.
Have the time, energy and money to invest in yourself.
