Desiree Johnston

Where do you live and how long have you lived there?

Mil­ton, Ontario, Canada.

What do you love most about Canada? Like least?

Love Most:  I love the sea­sons!  You can expe­ri­ence all four sea­sons to the fullest.  It feels like it resem­bles dif­fer­ent stages in my life

Like least:  The fact that I can­not pop in and have a cup of tea with my par­ents.  That it takes three flights to get to them before I can actu­ally do that!

What is your favourite time of year?

Fall / Autumn!  I absolutely LOVE the intense and bold colours and the crisp bite in the air.

What was the biggest adjust­ment you had to make when mov­ing to Canada?

That I couldn’t pick up the phone and chat to my Mom every­day.  That it took an hour to find a cou­ple of gro­ceries that should’ve taken less than 10 mins.  That we had to have two young sin­gles live with us to help pay the rent.  That I had to look after an 11-month-old baby to help put food on the table and then to be diag­nosed and treated for depression.

What do you miss most about your coun­try of birth?

Fam­ily and Friends!  Being able to cel­e­brate birth­days, anniver­saries and Christ­mas together.  Our kids grow­ing up with­out their grand­par­ents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

What keeps you busy? (Busi­ness interests?)

Per­sonal Assis­tant and an Inde­pen­dent Con­sul­tant for a nat­ural Herb and Spice com­pany… easy to sell some­thing you believe in.

What is your favourite place?

 To be able to sit under my per­gola and just stop, soak up and enjoy the beauty of my gar­den whilst read­ing, hav­ing a cup of tea with friends or sip­ping an occa­sional glass of wine with dear friends over din­ner and hav­ing a good laugh while you are at it!

Any favourite restaurants/bakeries/cafes etc?

The ‘Tea Room’ in Streetsville … the scones are just too deli­cious!  ‘Star­bucks’, ‘Tim­mies’ (Tim Horten’s) and ‘The Hill Curry Co.’ in Streetsville.

Any hob­bies?

Gar­den­ing, grow­ing herbs and veg­gies, can­ning and pre­serv­ing.  I actu­ally just love pot­ter­ing because I do have a cre­ative side to me.

The per­son you most admire?

I have three …

My Man … for being a liv­ing exam­ple of stand­ing firm and not being shaken by the arrows that come and his abil­ity to put it in the ‘Lord’s intray’

My Dad … for push­ing on every day dur­ing his 13-year strug­gle with can­cer.  He has cer­tainly taught me how to per­se­vere in spite of where one finds oneself.

My Mom … for teach­ing me that noth­ing is too much!  To love and serve unconditionally.