Tag Archives: Kelowna

5 Years

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IMG_3093resizedMy wife and I have been married for 5 years today.  I remember the day like it was yesterday, warm sunny beach down in St. Lucia at the beautiful Sandals Regency, now La Toc.  Fast forward five years and we’ve come along way.  We’ve been blessed with a beautiful son, have paid down enormous amounts of debt and are debt free with cash on hand, we’ve been witness to a lot of friends who’ve also had babies, a wife that has the choice to work or not, and most importantly through the last five years we’ve created a solid foundation in our marriage. We really do owe the success of our marriage to hard work at keeping our marriage strong and by surrounding ourselves with people that also are great examples of marriages.

I’m pumped at what the next 5 years will bring, more kids, continued success with our Amway business, even more savings, upgraded living situation next month, trips, a huge family reunion, weddings, moving to Kelowna, having the choice to step away from my job, and the list goes on. 

I’m very proud of my wife and what she’s accomplished over the last five years.  I’m more in love with her today than I was the day we were married.  She inspires me to become a better man, father and server of other men and for that I’m eternally grateful.  I look back at the last five years and I cannot think of anything I would take back and that includes going into what I’d call an almost bankrupt state.  We’ve become stronger and wiser for it and can use that to share our story with those we meet. 

Five years these days seems like a lot of time yet at the same time it’s not.  What’s sad is there is so much divorce these days where people potentially take the easy way out and don’t necessarily work through those problems.  I can’t say everything can be worked out but I do believe there is to high of a divorce rate and that needs to change.  People taking marriage more serious and actually living the commitment of marriage and being those examples in society is part of what will help change that I believe.  Crazy or not, I believe things like that can be changed.

I’ll end off with this bit of advice that has helped me through the last five years.  Don’t ever take your spouse for granted, tell them you love them every single day and at minimum before you go to bed, and always make sure to not sweat the small stuff.  Oh and read “The Five Love Languages” :)

Traveling for Work

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airportBecause I’ve recently moved into management in my day job, I have to travel a little bit to some of our branch offices.  I know quite a few people who travel a lot in the IT industry for work and travel far more than I do.  So much they’ve received super elite status with airlines like Air Canada.  That’s a lot of flying, try 100,000 miles or 95 segments. CRAZY!  Thankfully I don’t have to travel that much and may only reach the “prestige” level.  Not that I’m counting…

Anyway I’m thankful that I am in control of when I fly out and can work our family schedule around it so that I don’t inconvenience my family when I’m away and also so we can keep our options open for building our business in the evenings.  There is a silver lining though to my traveling and that is getting out and meeting new people with the possibility of having business at a distance.  One of our goals is to have a distance leg this year so that we can expand our business into another city.  While building business in Edmonton is awesome and we are ever so thankful that we have a kick butt team there, we wouldn’t mind expanding into British Columbia as we eventually want to move out there to the Kelowna area. 

When travelling you’d be surprised at how many people you meet and how open they are to talking.  When on the plane try talking to the person beside you (if they are open to it) and just strike up a conversation.  You never know where that conversation may lead to.  I’m not saying you need to try and “prospect” the person sitting beside you but having a casual conversation with the person next to you helps pass the time and also you’ve met someone new.  I love that about this business, it allows you to stretch your comfort zone (if you have issues with talking to people) and allows you to geniunly have conversations with strangers you may not have had before. 

With that I think more people could be more friendly especially with the way the world is going these days.  Anyway my plane is here and they are calling of boarding. 

If you travel for business, safe travels!

Choosing Your Attitude

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Today I woke up and looked outside and it was cloudy, +13 (COLD), and dreary outside.  It’s August and I always think of August still being warm but not this year.  Apparently Edmonton has had a pretty crappy summer this year, the crappiest since the mid 90’s I heard from my brother in-law.  So weather usually affects me in a bit way, it determines my attitude sometimes and really can put me in a great mood if its blue skies and sunny and WARM, or a crappy mood if it’s like today.  I know it shouldn’t do this but it does and has for years. 

I recently heard a audio file or maybe read in a book recently (cannot remember where, doesn’t really matter) about your attitude is what you choose it to be.  You are 100% in control of your attitude and how you feel about the things around you.  Weather as we all know is out of our control and yet so many people are affected by it.  I was so pissy this morning that I went on a tweet tyrant (maybe just one tweet) about how pissy I was and just needed to get it off my chest.  Did it do anything?  Not really, however it did make me instantly realize what I had just done and how I should be in better control of my attitude.  I reflected back on what I had heard/read about how you choose your own attitude. 

bad_attitude So I guess that’s my inspiration for this blog entry today and why I’m writing about it.  First it’s helping me understand just exactly why my attitude is the way it is, or was. I’ve since changed my attitude this morning. And second what I can do about it.  I can continue to be a grump ass and just be pissed at the world because the weather is crappy or I can look on the bright side and choose to have a better attitude about it.  Like I’ve said I decided to be a bit more positive about it.  So how did I do that?

Well It’s been smoky in Edmonton since Thursday and because it has been cooler it’s been easier to deal with because its not hot and muggy.  Smoke + Hot + Muggy = The Suckage.  It also rained last night which helped get rid of the smoke and with that makes for a much better day.  So I guess there really is a positive in everything.  Do I still wish it was hotter, heck yeah.  I love the heat and I love summer.  Can we do something about that? Yup.  In 3 years we plan to move to Kelowna where they actually have a longer summer than in Edmonton and consistently have +30’s and above through the summer.  So while I bitch and complain about the weather here (or bitched and complained) I am actually going to do something about that in a few years.  :)

Its pretty awesome the power of reading as I mentioned in a previous post, it is what has helped me understand a lot about myself and how I deal with certain things.  So what I’m really getting at with this whole post is choose your attitude.  Is it really worth being all grumpy over something you cannot control?  Even if you can control it, is it worth all that energy to be pissy?  Nobody wants to hang around a pissy person.

Have a great Sunday!

 

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Check out these non-pissy bloggers – Cliff – Peer Pressure Works, Chad – The Grind, Kelly – ‘Round the Bend, Kim – In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Kyle – Teacher, Tinkerer, Farmer, Geek, Liam – In the Now, Brad – Kick Me Out Soon, Tammy – Tam I am, Erron – From The Inside Looking In, James – Feelings of White, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine - Because

Got Our Keys!

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house-keysWe got our keys after our walkthrough of our new home.  I could not be happier and more excited about  it as we start a new chapter in our lives.  This is pretty much the last home we will ever occupy here in Edmonton.  Our next step will be Kelowna which is the feature picture in my blog header.

Our landlords are amazing and we cannot wait to work with them on where 15% of our rent will go to charity.  Who does that?  I still cannot get over that.  Sure they will probably get a tax deduction but big deal, they are doing what most wouldn’t do.  Most would just keep the rent money and spend it on something probably less giving.  The new grass around the whole place looks awesome, and the house is just in perfect shape for an older home.  They really put some work into it and it shows.

I’ll try and keep this updated as we move into our place this weekend! OH YEAH!! 

Packing Isn’t Fun

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Packing isn’t fun however it’s a means to an ends.  This week we started to go hard on packing up the condo.  It’s quite a change for us going from a place we owned to a place we are now going to rent.  Which by the way is a great place with great landlords.  Landlords that want to donate 15% of our rent to a charity that we get a hand in helping pick.  Who does that these days?  That is quite impressive.  I think it’s a sign that we are doing the right thing.

So renting isn’t a bad thing.  I’ve crunched the numbers and we will save more money then our condo will ever appreciate in value and for damn sure more then we will ever pay off on our mortgage in the first 10-15 years.  Almost all mortgages are front loaded where the bank will get all their interest at the beginning.  I’d rather give someone who is going to donate part of my rent to a charity then give it to some money hungry bank that doesn’t give a rats ass about us. 

I also have to give a shout out to a friend who rented before they purchased or are purchasing their house.  I used to bug him so much about renting, saying why don’t you own, why are you renting, blah blah.  He had it right, he was doing what successful people do, save up BEFORE getting a mortgage.  I don’t know if he saved up enough to buy the whole house in cash however I do know he’s FAR better off then most people.  I have to give him credit because he did the opposite of the masses and despite ridicule he stuck to his guns.  Same idea for what we are doing, sticking to our guns and doing what we know is right and what most are not willing to do.

We will rent for the next few years debt free.  We will only have the car payment for another few months and then we will be 100% debt free. The stress that will be lifted with that will be unreal.  I cannot wait for this.  Being in debt is NOT something we will repeat.  So we will be renting here in Edmonton for the next 2-3 years and then move out to Kelowna where we have been wanting to raise our family.  As we move out there we will rent for a few more years, get an idea of where we want to build or buy a place and build it in cash.  Mock me, say it won’t happen, say I’m crazy, but I will do it.  The more you say I cannot do it, the more it will just fuel my fire to do it. So bring it on ;)

Kelowna here we come…

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