It's comin on Christmas

It’s cold, it’s crisp, it’s beautiful. It makes us want to wrap up cosy warm with a big blanket in front of a fire in an old log cabin somewhere. It’s all about families, letters from far-away friends, midnight walks in softly falling snow. This to me is what is so wonderful about living here in Canada in the wintertime.

It doesn’t take much to put me in a Christmas mood: While Joni Mitchell sings 'River' on the Ipod, I sip hot chocolate with marshmallows and bake Christmas cookies. I recently found these gorgeous mugs at HTTP://brownandneville.com/  

I love the simplicity of gingerbread cookies decorated with drops of icing. I found a good recipe in my bible, 'Joy of Cooking'. Here's an on line version of the recipe, true to the original. HTTP://www.tastebook.com/recipes/3118831-The-Most-Wonderful-Gingerbread-Cookies

This when we want to entertain. We enjoy the company of friends and toast the end of another crazy year, and the hopeful beginning of another. In my family, we work on a big jigsaw puzzle, listen to music or maybe share freshly cracked nuts while watching an old black and white movie. 

You know how smells evoke memories? One of my favourites is the combination of nuts and tangerines. It reminds me of nights by the fire when my mother would tell us stories about growing up on a Saskatchewan farm. As I sat surrounded by Barbie dolls, Etch a Sketch and new skates, I marvelled at how Mom’s Christmas present was a single orange.

My absolute favourite Christmas time memory is lying under the Christmas tree. I would look up at the lights; blue, red, gold and tinsel in the green tree. I unfocused my eyes and let the colours soften and meld together. It felt like magic. And that is what I wish for you. A magic holiday filled with love and cheer. 

Summer Time and the Living is Easy

Whenever I hear the words ‘summer time’ I think of the George Gershwin song, and my mind drifts to thoughts of lazy, hot days sitting by the river, listening to the quiet splash of water over rocks, maybe a fish reaching for a bug. The air is warm and everything moves at a slower pace.

In the summer, I like to spend as much time as possible in my back yard. Over the years I have made some small improvements to make it my personal oasis. I have a quiet space in the shade under a tree where I like to read. There are lots of perennials and shrubs so I have a minimum of maintenance. The stone patio is big enough for an arrangement of comfy couches and a low table. One day soon I will build a broad covered deck off the back of the house for dinner parties.

Just like a well-designed living room, the outdoor space should have a few different seating areas: One for small gatherings, a quiet area for reflection, and a comfortably sized eating area where people will want to linger after a meal and continue the conversation.

In the summer, I like to invite the neighbours for pot luck dinners. I place a couple of old Ikea pine tables and mismatched chairs out on the stone patio. I cover the tables with light blue tablecloths, and fill glass bowls with peonies and daisies from my garden. I coordinate with white plates, flowered napkins, and lots of glass candle holders with plain white candles. I put citronella garden candles in the garden beds to provide soft light and discourage mosquitoes. Then I make a batch of my secret Sangria recipe, turn on the jazz and let the music and laughter carry me into the evening.

I love the outdoor room concept. It’s so easy to make it happen. It isn’t permanent, so it doesn’t require tons of money and construction. It captures the essence of our Canadian summers that arrive suddenly and are gone before you know it. We want to take advantage of every moment and enjoy it while it lasts!

As a realtor, I know that most people who list in May and June are hoping to sell in early summer so that they can move into their new home and be settled before the school year starts in September. They don’t want to be rushed. So the outdoor room becomes even more attractive as the place to hang out, and the house stays reasonably tidy for showings. Remember that like calls to like. The people who will buy your house will choose it because it makes them comfortable. Their lifestyle will be similar to yours. So make it comfortable for you!

Green Day May 10, 2014

For a while now, I've been wondering about my neighbours. I'd like to know them better, and it would be great if we could hang out together. So I decided to do something about it. I went door to door and introduced myself, and talked about how great it would be if we all knew each other a little better. I suggested we could have a street party. This suggestion was met with real enthusiasm, so we're going ahead.

We are calling it Green Day, because we live on Green Street. What a great name for a Guelph street, right? It's my favourite colour: the colour of new leaves, fresh grass, Spring, possibility.

Green Street was once really green. I'm told there used to be trees up and down the street, but they were cut down because they died due to disease or age. For whatever reason, they were never replaced. It would be great to plant some trees and make Green Street really green again. I've asked the people at Transition Guelph and Tree Mobile to help. Maybe we can work out a deal with a nursery and get a volume discount.

I'm looking into other ways to make it even better. I've asked Bullfrog Power for help. There are others nearby who might see this as an opportunity to showcase things they have done to help build community, help make it more green, more friendly, more sustainable. I'm open to any ideas.

It's going to be a street event for the people who live here. It can be a garage sale, furniture swap, pot luck picnic, or maybe just a day to hang out together. The date is set for May 10, 9-6. I hope it will be a warm, sunny, fun day and that everyone will want to do it again, year after year.

What do you think of this idea? Do you have any suggestions on how we can make it better?

And then I got busy

This won't be another breast-beating rant about how we're all so busy and why there's a huge gap between this and my previous blog. I promise. It's about making promises to oneself and then not keeping them. It's okay though, I'm forgiven. I've checked with myself and it's all good. Heaven knows, if the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, I've probably put a six lane highway through to the Bad Place, complete with rest stops.

So I got busy. I got busy making my life more like what I want it to be. I want to be engaged in my community. I want to have a smaller carbon foot print. I want to get to know my friends better, and build long lasting relationships. I want to be involved in things that I enjoy. When time allows, I want to paint and write. First though, I needed to concentrate on living in my community. I decided I didn't like commuting to Waterloo. I moved to Guelph for a better quality of life, right? With many hugs and promises to stay in touch with my KW friends, I decided to concentrate on building my community in Guelph, rather than just sleeping here.

Next: Get a job in Guelph. I did the usual things: freshened the resume, did a lot of networking, went to a few interviews and quickly realized that the job market was uninspiring. It was time to put my marketing and sales skills to work for me. The only way to get the perfect job is to build it. I researched some ideas - a little like Holly in P.S. I Love You - and finally settled on something I knew I could do well: real estate.

My mom was in real estate for many years. She got her license when she became frustrated with what she felt were unimaginative agents in my home town of St-Bruno, Quebec. We lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired ranch style bungalow that my parents designed and built. My father was transferred to Ottawa, so it was time to sell, but because the house was so different from the typical suburban home, the agents were having trouble selling it. I knew a lot about real estate through conversations at the dinner table. One clear plus is that real estate agents are as busy as they want to be. I can do this until I die, if I want to.

Prior to the marketing gig in Waterloo, I worked in renovations for eight years - six of them in Guelph. I found that my strength lay in helping my clients visualize what was possible, while keeping them firmly within their budget range. Also, I acted as liaison between my clients and the contractors, helping them understand each other. This is a great skill for a real estate agent to have. While I will always insist that my clients get an independent home inspection, I am glad that I can help buyers decide if a house has good bones, and I can help sellers prepare a cost-effective plan to make their homes 'move ready'.

Just recently, I joined the At Home Group Realty brokerage, because I am impressed with their values and their dedication to providing added value in everything they do. It isn't a franchise, so instead of paying franchise fees, I can invest in my clients with great added value items like free staging, photography and moving packages.

So now I'm even busier, working on my business. I'm not making any promises, but I intend to keep writing. Lavidalise is about where I am in the moment. Right now, I like the view. I hope you enjoy it too.

Random Act of Kindness Day

My first Random Act of Kindness experience was in the 90’s. I had just been through a difficult meeting and when I got back to my car, saw that I had a flat tire. It was one of those nasty cold, wet days when you wish you could curl up in front of a fire and forget the whole day. But here I was in my best ‘go-to-meeting’ duds, dripping, cold, despondent, staring at a flat tire. I had just opened the trunk and was digging around for the spare when a man approached me. Let’s call him Bill. In a very matter of fact way, he said, “here, let me take care of this for you”. As he worked, Bill told a story about how he had been stranded at an airport at Christmas time and was afraid that he would miss the holiday with his wife and children. A stranger approached Bill and offered to drive him to another airport where he could get a flight out. All he asked was that Bill ‘pay it forward’ when the opportunity arose.

I’m a big city girl so in my experience, acts of kindness of any kind, random or deliberate, are rare. This was a life changing moment for me. 

Do you commit random acts of kindness?

Your customers are tweeting about you. Are you ready?

It’s no secret that social media has changed the landscape. Consumers have a direct line to businesses in a way they never had before. Social media platforms are providing a public place for people to connect, share ideas, link to fun and thought-provoking stories and visuals. They are also sharing their customer experiences, good and bad, on all platforms, but with the most immediacy on Twitter. If you’re not already monitoring your brand on Twitter, you are missing out on a great opportunity to connect and engage with your customers.

Building your brand on Twitter starts with being real

Consumers expect to interact with brands on social media. In order to develop loyalty, it is imperative to create a personality for your brand that is human, credible, likeable, and approachable. It needs to be real, and it needs to be felt consistently across every touch-point.

Knowing that your customers are sharing their opinions about your product on Twitter, how can you be proactive? What is your relationship like with your customer? What are you doing to engage with your customers to encourage them to tweet positively about your brand?

Brands that do well on social media are those that build strategies that will get them noticed and remembered. Not every customer experience is going to be great, but finding ways to use Twitter and Facebook creatively will make you memorable.

Some brands have it right. My friend Karl (@TheKarltopia) hates being on the road, but since his work requires it he reasons that he may as well enjoy it, so he drives a Mercedes.  Karl is known for his positive attitude and when he loves something, he tweets about it. He sent some positive vibes toward Mercedes Benz recently and they responded promptly with a personal message and a custom banner, designed just for him. You can bet Karl told all his friends about it.

 

How are you reaching your customers through social media? What are they saying about you?

Today is my birthday

It's my birthday today. Today's the day to pick one goal, write it down and then commit to do whatever it takes to make my dreams come true. 


Lots of people have bucket lists of dreams that never come true. Or maybe they do, but my sense is that most people are like me. Lots of great ideas, but only so much energy and wherewithal.


I spoke with a personal coach recently, who asked, "What are your dreams?" Good question; obviously a good way for her to get a sense of who I am and what I want from life. I knew I had dreams ... somewhere ... but I have been too busy fighting with life to pay attention to them. I groped for an answer. "I want to write a book," I said. I wrote one in college, back in the days when they gave you credits for making yogurt. I convinced my English prof that I could write a novel, and I did. The first draft of a very embarrassing attempt in the 'sword and sorcery' genre about a man who found a sword that drank souls. (A vampire sword. Hmm. Maybe I should resurrect that).


I remember that it was a lot of fun, typing away on my mother's IBM Selectric. It had no correcting function and I was a rotten typist so I quickly ran out of correcting fluid. Fortunately, my story was a fantasy, so any time I misspelled something, I created a new word. It's a great exercise. Try it sometime. 


So after I nattered on a bit about how I put the book idea aside because I had decided that I needed life skills before I could really write anything that mattered, but hoped to do it one day, she stopped me. "When is that going to happen?" My first reaction was sardonic amusement. When indeed. Who am I kidding? But she stopped me again and said, "Really. When are you going to start?" She had me. I was feeling defensive. "I don't know, maybe when I retire?" She nodded slowly and asked,  "And when will that be?" 


The reality is that it's been thirty years since I wrote that first draft, and maybe another twenty until I retire. Do I really want to be the woman who let fifty years go by before she started making her dreams come true? Life moves pretty fast, according to Ferris Buehler. I decided that it was time to stop storing dreams and start acting on them. So today is the day that I will start with dream number one.