Heading Back to the T Dot :)))

I’ve found my new home :)  As expected the search itself was a true pain in the butt.  Having the freedom to move pretty much anywhere I want with no limitations actually made it a lot harder than usual.  There are so many choices out there !!

Ideally I’d love to move somewhere where it’s sunny and warm all the time.  If I never see snow again for the rest of my life, I’d be one happy camper.  And these sub-zero temperatures can kiss my ass.  However the reality is this is not an easy task.  Since 9/11, relocating to the U.S. is a lot harder now, and sadly I don’t really have any special skills to get myself a job and/or work visa down there.  And I don’t know that I’m brave enough to move abroad.  20 years ago maybe, but unfortunately with age comes cowardice.

So that pretty much leaves Canada, and there’s nowhere I’d rather live in Canada than right here in Toronto.  I am counting the days until I get out of Brampton, and even though my new home is a mere 40 km away from my current home, it’s like a completely different world.  As I fought my way through traffic on the 401 yesterday to meet the realtor and sign the paperwork, I felt an incredible sense of excitement pulsing through my veins.

I’m not quite in the heart of Toronto, but in my opinion, just close enough.  Although I looked at various options, I decided to go the condo route.  I’m giving myself one year to test the waters; I’ve never lived in a condo before, so this will be a big lifestyle change for me and will likely take a period of adjustment.  However I’m a pretty adaptable person, so I think I’ll be fine.  Most people tell me that I’ll love the condo life. 

I was never one to spend much time in my own backyard, perhaps because it was always small and boring.  Yard work is the bane of my existence; I can think of about a million other things I’d rather do with my time.  I mowed the lawn and plucked the weeds, but that was the extent of my gardening chores, so there’s nothing to miss there.  And although I don’t mind shoveling snow, I can’t say I ever skipped happily outdoors excited about the task that lay ahead.  So I’m not missing out in that regard either.  I suspect I will love it during the winter months, but the summertime may pose some problems.

I do love being outdoors, and when it’s sunny and warm, I despise being inside.  I have heard from some current and former condo owners that this is one drawback to condo life.  Of course you can still go outside, but it can be a nuisance at times.  We shall see I guess … is slipping on some shoes and taking an elevator down for a walk all that much harder than taking a few steps down my front porch?  Time will tell.

The condo itself is gorgeous.  It’s small of course, but I was actually surprised that it didn’t seem as small and claustrophobic as I expected.  Being the eternal numbers person, with each unit I considered I plugged the measurements into a spreadsheet and calculated the square footage, and also compared room to room dimensions.  The total square footage of the condo is a little over 100 square feet smaller than the equivalent living space I use right now in my home.  I’m missing out on the rooms in my house that are empty or never used.  As far as I’m concerned, less stuff to clean.

It’s never been lived in, so it’s shiny and new and sparkling clean, right up my alley !!  It’s fully upgraded … 4 brand new stainless steel appliances, ensuite laundry, hardwood and ceramic floors, upgraded fixtures, a walk in closet in the bedroom, and a small den that will become my new computer room. 

However the best part is the balcony and the view.  All the other places I saw had teeny tiny balconies, with some of them in the oddest locations … entries only through the bedroom ?!?!  My new home boasts a balcony that run along the entire width of the unit, expanding across the living room and bedroom.  The entry is through the living room via sliding glass doors, adjacent to floor to ceiling windows filling the remainder of the back wall.  With its southern exposure that means I’ll get plenty of that sunshine I love so dearly.  The 10th floor landscape consists of a clear and unobstructed view of the Toronto skyline and the CN Tower, the newly revitalized 500+ acre Downsview Park (site of the infamous Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert, aka SARS Concert in 2003), and the prismatic lighted runway of the Toronto/Downsview Airport.

Sweet !!! 

Another added benefit is that’s it’s directly across from Downsview Station, the last stop of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line that leads directly to downtown Toronto.  I can walk across the street, jump on the subway and be in the heart of T.O. in about 10-15 minutes without the concern of parking, traffic or watching how much I have to drink ;-)  I see lots of trips to the city in my future.  And the building has some great amenities; the gym is one of the best I’ve seen, an indoor pool, sauna and whirlpool … oh ya, and an indoor golf simulator free to all residents.  I swear that didn’t influence my decision, but what a great perk. 

I was born and raised in Toronto, and unlike most of my siblings that live in small towns north of here, I’m a city girl at heart.  I feel like I’m finally coming home :)

Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow

Since starting my career transition and creating this blog, I’ve been collecting inspirational quotes, such as the one above, to help keep my spirits up.  I’ve found many in the books I’ve read or online, and have a list of them saved that I refer to now and again, and as you may have noticed I use them often in my blog.

I found this particular one by Norman Vincent Peale some time ago; I can’t really recall when or where.  I immediately liked it, although I can’t honestly say I fully understood its meaning.  It just sort of captivated me, so I added it to my list.

Today I Googled it trying to discover it’s meaning, or at least other people’s interpretation of it.  I found an article by a woman named Linda Ellis who, like me, worked in a corporate environment for a good 20 years before deciding to leave it all behind to pursue her passion in life to achieve success.  Okay, she left voluntarily, but still, the similarities were freaky !!  This is how she deciphers Mr. Peale’s quote:

There is a quote by Norman Vincent Peale which reads: “Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.” If I had to summarize this journey into one sentence, that would have to be it.  Because true success, that is, complete success is attained when you find personal fulfillment in what you do, instead of just going through motions to receive a paycheck. It comes down to making a life versus making a living. 

Now I know why I was immediately captivated by that quote.  That is exactly what I’m trying to achieve here with my new career path.  It's not about the paycheck anymore, and I think I've proven that with the steps I'm taking to achieve my goals, most notably selling my house. I could keep the house if I continued my career in Finance, but it’s certainly not my dream.

I decided this week that even though I’m not finished either of my courses and have no certification yet, I would officially start my job search for opportunities in the fitness industry.  I sent out a dozen or so resumes in response to ads for various positions, just to see what’s out there and get my feet wet.  I already got 3 calls back, had one interview today and I have one next week :)

The job I interviewed for today was not good, it was mostly a sales position with a very low base and commission driven.  I know I have to start at the bottom, but not that far down !!  Their expectations were high, and really not completely ethical in my opinion.  The job starts with doing fitness assessments on new clients, as well as periodic re-assessments with current clients.  While all that stuff sounds good to me and would be a great initiation into the field, this is where the ethics issue comes into play.  The hidden agenda of course is to try and sell personal training.

I think I mentioned previous my success … or lack thereof, in the sales arena, so even though they’ve already asked for a second interview on Monday, I’m quite certain I’m going to pass.  I know that pretty much any job I end up getting in the fitness industry will involve some sales on my part, but I don’t want it to be exclusive.

But back to my blog title and why that particular quote intrigued me.  Even though after realizing today’s interview was a bust, I was sooooo excited to be there.  The interview itself actually went really well, and the Manager and I talked at length about our passion for fitness and our desire to help other’s achieve their goals.  Like me, she has battled with her weight and fought hard to get healthy, and like me she wants to share that joy with others.  I know it sounds totally cheesy but it’s really what I want to do.  We talked about how there will be many frustrations along the way as I encounter resistance and discouragement with clients, but when you can actually help someone improve their life and their health and make them truly happy, the rewards can be incredible.  I can’t wait :)

I suppose this is a good time to mention that I sold my house !!  The home inspection was a success and they waived the condition yesterday ... closing is February 28th. Things are starting to progress rather rapidly now and once again I'm scared shitless.  I have no idea where I'm going to live and I have just 45 days to figure that out. I do have options, three of my sisters and my parents have offered to let me stay with them until I get settled, and while 3 of these options are totally cool with me, I'd prefer to get to my final destination sooner rather than later. Moving has got to be one of the biggest pains in the ass I know, so I prefer to do it just once.  BTW the three options are staying with my sisters; I think I'd rather live in a box under a highway overpass before moving back in with mom and dad.  I love my parents, I just wanna keep it that way ;)

So the next month and a half is going to be crazy busy for me. House hunting, job hunting, packing, studying, and gym time of course. Maybe I'll try and squeeze a life in there while I'm at it, just for fun :O

It’s always darkest before the dawn, but you can always turn on the lights

So when I last updated my blog, I was going to mention that I had sold my house.  I believe I mentioned an offer that I received on Christmas Eve, but I'm not referring to that.  That offer met a quick death. They came in at a ridiculous $15,000 below asking, I countered pretty aggressively to show that I was serious, and they never came back. I should have known from the low ball offer they were wasting my time.

However less than a week later my agent called with another offer. Yippie !!  We arranged for him to come over the following evening to present it, and in that time span yet another offer came in ... double yippie !!!  I was now in a multiple offer situation which is just about the best thing a seller can ask for.  The selling agent informs the buying agents that they are now competing, and this usually prompts them to up the ante, and up the ante they did.

One of the offers came in at less than $2,000 under asking. They waived the home inspection condition, leaving the offer conditional only on financing, and as per their agent, they had already been pre-approved by a major bank. Sweet :)

I wisely accepted the offer as is without a sign back. Closing was the end of March which gave me plenty of time to figure out where I might want to live. Considering I haven't even started looking yet, the more time the better.  They even asked for just 3 banking days to secure their financing; normally this is 5-10 banking days ... these buyers were confident and motivated.  

On banking day 2, I updated my blog and talked about resolutions. I was going to add a blurb at the end mentioning the sale, after all, the purpose of my blog is to verbalize my career change plans and the steps I'm taking to realize my dream. Selling my house - definitely related. New Year's Resolutions?  Not so much.

I started to write about it, then quickly hit the delete key. Superstition I guess, perhaps from years of being a hockey fan. Hockey fans can be almost as superstitious as the players themselves. When I'm watching my Wings I have little rituals I follow, you know, just in case. The logic part of my brain tells me I'm an idiot ... will my team actually lose the game because I didn't update my BBM status with a  "Go Wings Go" just prior to game time?  Are the players sitting in the dressing room shouting 'dammit Tina, hurry up, we can't win without you'. I'm gonna say not likely. However the smaller yet overpowering irrational part of my brain takes over and I follow my rituals just the same, to save the team of course.

So I hit the delete key because I didn't want to jinx it. I figured if I blurted out in my blog about my house sale before it was final, then something bad would happen and my dream offer would die. This thinking flies in the face of everything I have been preaching here and attempting to practice in life.  The Law of Attraction tells you that whatever you think you attract, so even if you think you don't want something, you’re thinking about that “don’t want”, and that’s what you’ll get.  So if you keep thinking something like "I don't want to get sick", then you're gonna get sick. Instead you should reflect on how good and healthy you feel, and that's what you will get. Like attracts like.

However old habits die hard and I let superstition reign. And guess what happened?  The deal died.  I won't go into the details, but even though they were pre-approved, they couldn’t get financing. 

FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK !!!!!

I was heartbroken. Everything about this deal was perfect; the price, the closing ... I even met the couple and really liked them. Not that it matters, but I did - I was excited for them. For the next 24 hours I fell hard, back into a state of depression. I felt like I was back to square one again :( 

My agent informed me that we'd open my house up to showings again, lovely.  Action started quickly and the very next day the office called with 2 showings booked. Well kudos to my agent, the first call he made after informing me of the bad news was to the other agent; the one who had lost out on the multiple offer bidding war. His clients had not bought and were still interested. That was appointment number one; they wanted to come back for another look.

They looked, they saw, they offered !!  Yesterday my agent presented an offer from them.  Of course it wasn't as good as the other offer when they had some competition, but it was still pretty damn good. It only went back once and they accepted, so once again I have a confirmed deal, with a condition. This buyer has actually waived financing which is pretty amazing; this is the most common condition to accompany a deal. The second most common condition is a home inspection, and that one remains. They have 5 banking days (which expires next Thursday) to have the home inspection completed, reported and to waive the condition.

Since I let irrational thinking invade my brain the first time by refusing to vocalize the offer and that backfired, I decided to blog about this one.  Do the opposite ... it worked for George Costanza; let's hope it works for me :)

And as per The Law of Attraction, I'm sending out positive thoughts to the universe ... on or before January 13, 2011, I will have sold my house !!!

Everything you need is already inside. Just do it. - NIKE, Inc.

Along with dictionary.com’s Word of the Day that I get delivered to my Blackberry daily, I receive the Word of the Day from urbandictionary.com.  Unlike the dictionary.com version that is meant to help expand my vocabulary, the latter one is just for fun.  Many of the words or phrases are pretty lame, but every now and again there are some pretty good ones; funny, gross, eerily accurate !!  Their tagline defines their verbiage as “A veritable cornucopia of streetwise lingo, posted and defined by its readers”.

One of my all time favourites appeared a few years ago, a day or two after New Year’s Eve …

Resolutionary

Definition: People who join a gym after the New Year, only to quit going within 3 months.

Example: I couldn't find a free treadmill; the place was crawling with resolutionaries.

Ahhhh yes, I expect to find all the resolutionaries flocking the gym this week for the next several months.  Oh joy !!  I’m at least happy that I can adjust my hours now and go when it’s convenient and less busy, rather than fighting my way through the crowds after work like in years past.  And of course it’s not only the gyms that hope to profit so greatly from this magical time of the year, but the weight loss centres as well are bombarding our televisions with advertisements promising of helping you find a brand new you now !!  Seems to me all they are doing is preying on the desperate and hopeful.

About 10 or so years ago I decided to stop making New Year's resolutions. I found that every time I did, I was ultimately setting myself up for failure.  Like the aforementioned resolutionaries, I would dive in head first armed with enthusiasm and determination, only for my efforts to fizzle out and fade away within a very brief period of time ... months, weeks, even days.

I've been trying to figure out why I, like so many others, failed in my attempts at bettering myself at this time of year. Too many goals at once?  Improper planning??  Setting the bar too high???  I've been reading so many articles on it this week I feel like my head is gonna fall off. My conclusion is that I don't care.  I decided this year I'm going to make some resolutions for the first time in over a decade. I will take a few of the small tidbits of advice I found while researching the "why's" and utilize them, but I'm not going to beat it to death. I've only come up with a few small ones, they are definitely realistic and doable, and where possible I'm going to give myself deadlines as well.  I wouldn't be me if I didn't come up with a detailed plan of attack now would I?  Here goes nuthin:

•   Resolution # 1 - Okay fine, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and make my first resolution to be weight loss. This is an easy one, since the steps required to get there are already part of my routine, I just slipped a little over the holidays :)  Remember my blog about my Halloween weekend food bender?  Well let's just say I had several of those in the past couple of weeks.  To get back to the weight I am most comfortable with I need to lose 6 pounds, and I'm giving myself 4 weeks to do it. That is quite lofty for me considering it's those ‘last few pounds’, but I suspect the first few will come off rather quickly once I get back on track.

•   Resolution # 2 - STUDY STUDY STUDY. This is the definitely an area that I still struggle with big time. I did very little studying over the holidays, perhaps an hour or two a couple days a week, but at that rate I'll never get these courses done.  The school itself gives a deadline, and since I signed up for both courses at once they both fall on the same day, June 19th. That certainly is plenty of time, but I'd like to get them done sooner, for obvious reasons. I hesitate to give this one my own timeline ... so let's just say I'm going to have to study my little ass off. 

•   Resolution # 3 - I think I might attempt to start dating again.  I definitely have no plan of attack for this one, but I'll figure something out. I don't want a boyfriend at that moment, that's for sure; I just wouldn't mind getting out there now and again. After all, a girl's gotta eat ;)

Hmmm, for some strange reason that’s all I can think of right now.  Is it possible that my life is so perfect I have nothing else I feel I need to change and improve upon ??  Hardly.  I guess just with all the changes I’ve been making in my life recently with this career transition, I’ve already incorporated so many resolutions into my life in the past 6 months.  I got a big jump on the New Year this year.

Let’s see how it goes shall we ???  Happy New Year !!