Victoria

Drinks and dinner with my favorite French Mexican and Jason Segal...this weekend will be amazing =)

More tomorrow once I'm home and have sobered up!

Great Expectations

This is an oldie but a goodie - originally written Dec 7, 2009.  Clearly I'm crashing after all the caffeine from the past couple of days and am in no shape to come up with something original tonight.  Hopefully those of you that already read this will enjoy it as much today as you did back then, assuming you liked it that is =)

It's not about what happens; it's about how it makes you feel about your life, your friends, and everything around you.

I like to think that I am fairly easy going for a control freak. Yes I like things done a certain way, but I can give up control if I need to. You have to know which battles to fight and when to walk away. I have expectations of myself which can be extreme in either direction but we all have to start somewhere. The question of the evening is whether or not to impose those expectations onto others.

I don't think it's wrong to have expectations of the people in our lives or even people in general. However, we do need to be realistic of our expectations. For example, I would not expect all of my co-workers to put in the same amount of additional time into our store. Not everyone has the same level of experience and some of them are more invested than others. Similarly, while I almost always pick up my phone if it rings in the middle of the night it would be unwise to trust that all of my friends would do the same.

One thing you can count on is that people will surprise you at every turn. Whether it's discovering new allies or experiencing heartbreaking disappointment, expectations are like rules; they are made to be broken.

Note - it's almost 15 months later and I'm realizing how difficult it is to be realistic about my expectations in regards to other people.  This is a note I should have re-read several months ago after feeling let down.  Some things never change, and others just take a while so get ready to test your patience.

Montreal to Vancouver

Last summer I thought of taking a trip to Montreal.  The catch?  Driving back to Vancouver in under a two weeks.  It's ambitious to be sure, but not impossible if you're spending less than 24 hours in each location.  Because I'm posting in the narrow margin between jobs today, I'm making this quick and easy.  Here's my ultimate 10 day road trip schedule:

Day 1 - Arrive in Montreal (after taking the red-eye from Vancouver) at 7:30 am
          - Drive to Ottawa for dinner, spend the night

Day 2 - Drive to Toronto for lunch, spend the night


No maps allowed! 
We're not lost, we're on an adventure =)



Day 3 - Drive to Niagra for lunch

          - Drive to Sudbury to spend the night

Day 4 - Drive to Sault Ste Marie for brunch
          - Drive to Thunder Bay for dinner

Day 5 - Leave Thunder Bay after breakfast
          - Arrive in Winnipeg for dinner

Day 6 - Leave Winnipeg after lunch
          - Drive to Regina for dinner

Day 7 - Leave Regina at the crack of dawn
          - Spend the afternoon in Drumheller
          - Leave for Calgary after dinner

Day 8 - Drive to Banff for lunch
          - Drive to Lake Louise for dinner

Day 9 - Drive to Jasper for lunch
          - Drive to Prince George for dinner

Day 10 - Leave Prince George at the crack of dawn
            - Late lunch in Whistler
            - Drive home for dinner

I'm sad I can't show you the wicked colour coded time table I actually created for this trip or maybe I'm just sad because I actually made a time table.  I'll let you all decide that one.  But seriously, this trip has the potential for equal parts disaster and awesomeness - hopefully I'll get to take it (or the actual coast to coast trip!) some day soon =)

Restless

For some reason today I felt extremely restless - as in I wanted to get in the car and just keep driving until I hit another ocean.  This feeling always come up unexpectedly and I have no idea what triggers it.  All I know is it makes me feel so open to opportunity that I just want to go chase it down.  Probably not the best idea for someone who has to be at work at 9 am to start a 15-16 hour day but such is life when you work two jobs.

Road trip anyone?

But if I could, I would've driven across the country, visiting all my friends along the way, or at least down the coast and watch the sun rise in Oregon or California.  This could be a solo trip or with a car full for friends but either way, it would be one of those epic moments where anything and everything happens - the sky's the limit. 

It's an amazing feeling to have but also slightly dangerous because you feel invincible enough to do something ridiculous like jump out of a plane (done that - it's freaking amazing!) or swim with sharks.  This is the time when people would be able to take advantage and convince me to do things I would normally say no to.  Hopefully this will last through the weekend but I can see it disappearing pretty fast tomorrow, especially as we hit hour 12 or so.  One thing is for sure - Starbucks is gonna love me on Friday =)

Baby Steps

Recently I wrote that one of my major to-do's in life is to get published.  Today, I got one step closer by having an article I wrote, "Best Cakes, Cupcakes & Chocolate,"posted on The Finer Details blog =) The downside?  Other than my first name featured at the bottom of the post, you would have no idea it was mine.  Still, it's the first step in what is sure to be an extremely long and somewhat painful process. 

Marcia Preston said it best, "And writing itself is a mixed blessing.  We, who are addicted, berate ourselves and feel guilty when we do not write, at the same time put it off and hunt for diversions."  Clearly this is the very reason I agreed to write here every day and why my head increasingly feels like it may explode.  Nevertheless, I never thought I'd keep it going for this long and am still surprised when I look at my stats and see that this blog has been viewed over 1,000 times!

Maybe I'll invest in this book, "A Writer's Survival Guide to Getting Published."  I'm not going to lie - my initial interest came from the fact it had sharks on the cover.  Much like with most people, I too am swayed by a good looking cover.  Although, that has little to do with whether or not I actually buy it, it just determines whether I pick it up or not.  According to Amazon's product description, it is one of the most informative books on the market.  Terry Burns is an award-winning author and a Hartline Literary agent (a profession I tried to pursue quite a few years ago) who takes fledgling writers through the whole process, from getting your initial letter read to surviving the editor's final cut.  Hopefully it'll come in handy for me some day soon.

Slow & Steady

When you have a job that you love to do, work isn't just work, it's fun.  Today, I went to work, then after I was done, I went and had some fun.  Don't get me wrong - I LIKE my job and the people I work with and for, but I LOVE events and The Finer Details team.  Having worked with them over the past 15 months, I've had a chance to learn quite a bit from everyone and really feel like part of the team even though it's only been official for two months. 

Tonight was our monthly staff meeting which is always entertaining to say the least.  The first hour is spent going over upcoming events and getting feedback on various topics (i.e. ways to strike an event more efficiently).  The last two hours feature a guest speaker talking about a specific topic.  Last month we met Megan Halkett of Patio Social, who spoke about Social Media and how we can make it work for us.  If you recall, it sparked my Social Scene series, which is still in the process of being finished =s Tonight's topic?  Personality Styles - Characteristics and how to identify/work with them.

Led by a great BNI contact of Deborah's, Darren (I have no idea what his last name is but once I find out I'll let you know), we took a quick personality test to see what behavioural style we fall under; Directing, Influencing, Steady, or Cautious.  It was actually a little surprising that out of eight of us, only one was Directing dominant.  Unsurprisingly, it was Deborah that fell under Directing which is excellent because we definitely need a strong hand to keep the rest of us in line =)

The rest of us were split 5/3 between Influencing and Steady, myself falling in the latter category.  You've all heard enough about my personality (here and here just in case you forgot and were curious) lately so I won't dive into all the details, but I will highlight the main thing the rest of the group heartily agreed with - Can't Say No!  Apparently it's obvious that I have a problem saying this little word and tend to take on too much.  Darren even used one of my favourite trigger words, guilt, when talking about why Steady people take on as much as they do. 

Anyone interested in learning more about DISC personalities and interacting with the various behavioural styles can take the quiz (don't blame me if this is no good - I just Googled disc personality test free and this was the first one that popped up!) and if you're really keen, check out the book "Who Do You Think You Are Anyway?"  It's currently on my wish list but can be difficult to find.  If I do get my hands on one, I'm not letting it go as I have a feeling it'll come in handy in the years to come =)

Hitting Rewind

Supposedly you can't go back again.  The actual saying is "you can't go home again" which comes from the the novel "You Can't Go Home Again" by Thomas Wolfe, published in 1940.  These words come to the protagonist of Wolfe's story at the finale of the novel; "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood...back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame...back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time - back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

No offence to Wolfe, but this is crap.  Of course you can go home again!  The catch is that you can't expect it to all be exactly the same.  The longer we are away from a certain place, physically or mentally, the more our perspective about it changes.  We are influenced by new ideas and experiences, making it impossible to return as the same person that left.

This weekend I figured out that even though you can't go back as the exact same person that left, the experiences you have in between can still bring you back as a similar person; one that feels the same way as before, but sees things more clearly.  It's like going back but better because you finally understand how things are supposed to be.

I'm sure this isn't the easiest train of thought to follow but it really is the most amazing thing I've learned to do so far this year.  As another saying goes, "if you love someone (or something) you're supposed to let it go, and if it comes back you know it was meant to be."  Well, in a year of letting things go, I have to say what a relief it's been to see some of those things come back better than ever.