Welcome, everyone! Continuing where the lovely Michele left off… Here’s your Weekend Meet n’ Greet!

Thank you to the wonderful people who play multiple times, each of you are guilty of spreading lots of comment cheer – hugs from me.

Spread the Comment Cheer!

How to play:

1. Leave a comment here that says hello.
2. Now, visit the person who commented above you, leave a comment on their site that includes the oft-repeated tagline: “Hello, NetChick sent me”.

Please play along.

Note to the first person commenting: simply say hello to me.

And YES, of course you are invited to play often. As you know, Michele always encouraged this, and so do I!

~ Tanya

—-

Help spread the word: Please ReTweet the game by clicking on this link, or let your own blog community know about it… Always fun to get new faces in the mix! Thanks guys!

I find, when I need to “reset”, I go looking for someone to mentor.

Weird, huh? It seems backwards, I know… I seek out someone who’s a little unfocused in their career goals or unclear on their career path, and I help them see the light.

And, as I help someone else through hurdles, I find myself incredibly invigorated and rejuvenated. The excitement from the person I’m mentoring is incredibly inspiring for me. I love seeing that light click on above their head when they realize there are usually some easy solutions to career issues.

Now, I’m no Jennifer Priest — I’m not a personal coach at all… I’ll leave that stuff in her extremely capable hands. I just love to inspire people to meet professional goals, or be an understanding ear through a career change.

What do you do, when you need a reset or inspiration in your life?

Okay, it’s November 3rd, so I’m allowed to start thinking about Christmas. Hell, at work, we’ve been in “Christmas mode” for over a month now.

With the onset of the Christmas season, I’m left wondering…

When does everyone put up their Christmas tree (for those of you who celebrate Christmas, of course)? And, do you celebrate “Christmas” as a Christian, or simply celebrate the season as a time of year to socialize, enjoy your family, and drink too much rum-laced eggnog?

This year is going to be somewhat different for me. I have someone special in my life, and we’re ready to create some new traditions with each other. We’ll find a place for a brand new fake tree (the joys of living in a condo) in our 750 square feet of living space, and we’ll create new “special things” to make our season a special one with each other. But, when is too early to put up the tree?

I’m a freak when it comes to the season — And, I can’t wait to deck the halls! It’s November… Let’s get some celebrating going!

Your turn! What do you think?

This has been a Monday.

I think I need to bring back “Friday Silliness”, only on Mondays.

I have a lot to do in nine days before I leave on a work trip to San Diego for the NAR conference, so I’ll leave you with this:

Got something funny to share? Drop me a comment… I thank you, and I’m sure my readers do, too!

OMG! I can’t believe I’m here…

…We had a fantastic time!!

This is especially true when it comes to computer issues.

Late last week and Monday, my computer at work decided it didn’t want to play nicely with others, and crashed badly. I believe the problem might have been the NTFS system, because it wouldn’t even fully boot in safe mode.

So, off I went to Best Buy to purchase a new drive and operating system. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else decided to do clean installs of Windows 7 that weekend, and the store was completely out of stock of ANY sata drives.

Insanity.

So, we drove to Future Shop, where they, too, were completely sold out of drives. But, I got lucky, and they had one drive left that was housed in an enclosure… I bought it.

On Monday, I spent almost the entire day messing around with the install (note to self: don’t install a brand new OS on a computer that’s three years old. I still don’t have an operating sound card, and given that I work primarily with Radio, that’s slightly problematic to say the least). Finally, after many hours, I have everything re-installed on the work machine.

Monday night, I’m SO sick of dealing with computers that I don’t come within 10 feet of my home machine… But, last night, Barry and I wanted to watch some older episodes of Mad Men, so I turned on my desktop…

To… a USB / motherboard fault/failure.

!@)E*&$@)E&$*@)!(&@#$)@*#)$&@#&)*$

The computer won’t even boot.

This computer is only a year old, and I paid a LOT of money for it.

My wonderful friends on Facebook, after reading of my horror story, insisted that I should give my head a shake and buy a Mac. Really guys? That’s not very helpful. After an investment of close to $3000 for this machine, that’s NOT an option. Please stop offering me the Apple Koolaid for-the-love-of-whatever-diety you believe in.

So, within a couple of days, I’ve had two very important computers insist on taking an extended vacation. It’s just bad luck… And it happens to everyone. Including the Mac fanboys.

Now, I’m left wondering… What the third thing will be?

How often do you step back, and ask yourself… “Self, are you enjoying your life as much as you can at the moment?”

I ask myself that question quite often. And, quite often the answer is “Not completely” — I always wish I had time to DO more.

It’s the moments, after all… Isn’t it? Don’t we hear that all the time? “Stay present” says those who are ‘in-the-know’. But, for the most part, I actually dislike that advice. Staying “present” to me means not taking time to look forward, and have a game plan. Sure, enjoy what’s going on around you… But, if we constantly stopped to enjoy the roses, we wouldn’t get anything done.

I recently picked up where I left off with Jennifer – my personal coach, and as always, the call left me feeling a sense of urgency to actually get things done. Too often, I let all the little things in life get in the way of the bigger picture, and Jennifer helped me clarify what it was that I needed to be doing to embark on my next goals in life. And, she asked me how I felt about some of the decisions I made recently, which I often forget to do for myself.

Because, realistically, the roadblocks come in when I’m not facing how I feel about things, and procrastination sets in, at least for me, when I’m not mindful of my feelings.

I think the world would be a far more productive, balanced place if everyone just had a clone of Jennifer nearby

Stand by for my next installment of my personal coaching journey coming soon!

——-
Jennifer Priest is a personal coach, facilitating creative solutions, inspiring motivation and creating accountability in clients’ personal and professional lives. More about Jennifer is available at her site here.

Welcome, everyone! Continuing where the lovely Michele left off… Here’s your Weekend Meet n’ Greet!

Thank you to the wonderful people who play multiple times, each of you are guilty of spreading lots of comment cheer – hugs from me.

Spread the Comment Cheer!

How to play:

1. Leave a comment here that says hello.
2. Now, visit the person who commented above you, leave a comment on their site that includes the oft-repeated tagline: “Hello, NetChick sent me”.

Please play along.

Note to the first person commenting: simply say hello to me.

And YES, of course you are invited to play often. As you know, Michele always encouraged this, and so do I!

~ Tanya

—-

Help spread the word: Please ReTweet the game by clicking on this link, or let your own blog community know about it… Always fun to get new faces in the mix! Thanks guys!

I think I must be feeling better.

Or, not-so-instant, in my case.

I received the Starbucks VIA gift pack to review a couple of weeks ago, and I hadn’t yet gotten around to reviewing it until today.

Let me first say… I love instant coffee. When many others would make faces brewing Nescafe instant while camping etc, I was in my glory. I have always liked the taste of instant, especially since I can make it super strong without being really muddy like drip coffee that has too many grinds in it. So, I was really happy to hear that Starbucks was entering that market.

And, the new VIA cup that Starbucks sent to try it with? Ingenious…

It has a metal inner layer, and space for enough VIA hits for the week! What a great idea for a cup design.

Making my first batch, I was a little skeptical that it would taste like Starbucks drip coffee (which, honestly, I don’t often order because I have a six shot skim milk mocha addiction to feed most days), but it did taste exactly like the drip, actually.

There’s two flavours available: (or at least, I received two flavours in the gift pack) Medium/Columbia and Extra Bold/Italian Roast. Both taste true to their drip versions.

I guess the only thing I need to find now, is the long packages of coffee whitener that would fit in my cup with the VIA packages, so that I’m ready for coffee anywhere my cup is!

Thanks for the gift pack, Starbucks! I really enjoyed trying your VIA Ready Brew!

Back in February, I started working with an extraordinarily talented personal coach, Jennifer Priest.

I’d been thinking about working with someone like Jennifer for a while, in order to gain focus on my life’s goals, and start achieving some of the milestones I’d been setting out for myself for the past few years. During our first call, we discussed what some of my objectives were, when working with a personal coach.

Some of those “milestones” I had wanted to strive for included:

• purchasing my dream car (an Audi TT convertible)
• gaining perspective and success with dating
• buying my first home
• clarifying my career objectives
• finding peace with my family crisis / disconnect

I’d held off writing this post until I fully realized all of these objectives. In the past few weeks, that’s exactly what I’ve done — all with the help and encouragement of Jennifer.

I not only met my objectives, thanks to Jennifer’s talented guidance, I surpassed my goals exponentially.

In under 8 months, I’ve purchased my own home — a beautiful condo in Yaletown; gotten engaged to a wonderfully perfect guy that I couldn’t have imagine existed before this year; purchased the ‘Chicklette’ (my silver Audi TT convertible) at a steal of a deal; solidified my career plan; and found total resolution to a family crisis that had, until a few weeks ago, severed all communication with my brother.

I can hardly believe the success I’ve had, to be honest. I attribute all of this growth… learning to be accountable, having meaningful goals with a plan of action, and staying on task… to Jennifer. Although, I’ve always been a successful person when I put my mind to it, I lacked some personal accountability and certainly a lot of the planning for success that Jennifer put me on track with — she provided powerful tools to get past some roadblocks I’d put up, and without this help, there’s no way I could have seen this success.

Thanks so much, Jennifer, for being the acutely aware, and incredibly thought-provoking guide I needed along the way. I can’t wait to work with you again on future goals — There’s some big ones coming up!

——-
Jennifer Priest is a personal coach, facilitating creative solutions, inspiring motivation and creating accountability in clients’ personal and professional lives. More about Jennifer is available at her site here.

I’m almost back! Can you believe it?

Back, that is, from the brink of the plague. From weeks — actually, months — of suffering from waves of nausea and vomiting, coughing so hard I felt like my lungs were coming out, and body pain and extreme fatigue that left me feeling frustrated and wiped out. I can say, this illness hasn’t been much fun, but it sure has given me reason for being thankful for the healthy times ahead. And, I can’t imagine what people with far more serious illnesses than me have to deal with. I can’t imagine suffering another day.

It’s times like these that put everything into perspective.

I’ll be back to regularly-scheduled blogging in the next few days, but I wanted to share the happy news with you guys in the meantime…

Love and hugs to all those that stop by to say hi in the comments, and play the MEET n’ GREET on the weekends. You guys rock!

Hey guys…

Quick post to update ya! I’m STILL suffering from a serious bronchial infection that landed me in the Emergency Room in Kamloops, on the way back from Camrose, Alberta last weekend. Don’t worry — I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, it wasn’t the awesome driving adventure that I was hoping for, but at least Barry and his stuff got here in one piece, despite that not quite being the case for me. I’ll survive.

I still have several blog entries in my head that I haven’t been able to get to after taking a couple of days off of work last week:

– The Starbucks VIA package I received (Yum… Review coming)
– My Blogoversary was on September 30th! I’ve just entered my 13th year of blogging!
(That seems like a whole lot of blathering on, if you ask me. I’m glad you guys are still coming by to say hi!)
– I’m hosting a Windows 7 Launch Party in two weeks! I’ll write about why I’m drinking the MS Koolaid…
– The renos in the living room are nearly complete, but the kitchen renos took a u-turn (ARGH)

Hope you guys are doing awesome! What are you looking forward to, this weekend?

Me? Tonight is John B’s birthday out in the boonies, tomorrow night Barry and I are catching up with my brother and Diane, Sunday will bring yet another trip to IKEA to return some extra stuff from the kitchen reno (and pick up a few odds and ends still needed for the bedroom), and I have no idea what we’re doing on Monday yet.

Welcome, everyone! Continuing where the lovely Michele left off… Here’s your Weekend Meet n’ Greet!

Thank you to the wonderful people who play multiple times, each of you are guilty of spreading lots of comment cheer – hugs from me.

Spread the Comment Cheer!

How to play:

1. Leave a comment here that says hello.
2. Now, visit the person who commented above you, leave a comment on their site that includes the oft-repeated tagline: “Hello, NetChick sent me”.

Please play along.

Note to the first person commenting: simply say hello to me.

And YES, of course you are invited to play often. As you know, Michele always encouraged this, and so do I!

~ Tanya

—-

Help spread the word: Please ReTweet the game by clicking on this link, or let your own blog community know about it… Always fun to get new faces in the mix! Thanks guys!

Sometimes, I’m not so bright.

For example, in my effort to stretch our home renovation budget, I went with the cheapest countertop supplier out there… And, what we got on the surface (literally) looked great (mostly), but upon closer inspection, we received granite that is half as thick as what it should be (2 cm instead of 3 cm for the kitchen), and it definitely not installed properly — there are several areas where the granite floats without support!

But… the doozy decision recently for me, was to decide to stop having Depo Provera injections for birth control.

Let’s examine that for a second: I’ve been on this high-dose progesterone hormone for over 10 years, and I decided to stop *hormones* at a time of the most change I’ve ever experienced at once in my life.

Stupid Tanya.

Thank goodness Barry has more patience than anyone I’ve ever met. I tend to go on, ad nauseam, about the most ridiculous of things lately, when I’m actually stressing out about far more important stuff.

I hope the hormone swings stop soon. I want to fully enjoy all these wonderful things happening in my life…

Thankfully, we are nearly done with the living room! 24 doors have been attached, and the cabinets are done. The paint color was updated to a darker brown, and the metal door frame altered to fit the 16′ of cabinets… Finally, after over 20 hours of manual labour over the past couple of weeks… Here’s where we are at:

Excuse the quality of the photo… It was a quick one taken with the iPhone.

Oh, and notice, the 52″ and stand is still there? Barry’s 46″ (of the exact same tv… weird, huh?) will be coming “home” next weekend, so I NEED to sell the 52″ top of the line Sharp Aquos, with the stand seen there. If you are interested, let me know! I’m putting it in CraigsList tomorrow. Someone’s going to get a helluva deal on this…

More (and better quality) photos to come soon. We still have 2 more things to build for the living room (and I need to clean up the disaster from it all, too) but we’re almost done!

UPDATE: The TV and stand is now sold!

Welcome, everyone! Continuing where the lovely Michele left off… Here’s your Weekend Meet n’ Greet!

Thank you to the wonderful people who play multiple times, each of you are guilty of spreading lots of comment cheer – hugs from me.

Spread the Comment Cheer!

How to play:

1. Leave a comment here that says hello.
2. Now, visit the person who commented above you, leave a comment on their site that includes the oft-repeated tagline: “Hello, NetChick sent me”.

Please play along.

Note to the first person commenting: simply say hello to me.

And YES, of course you are invited to play often. As you know, Michele always encouraged this, and so do I!

~ Tanya

—-

Help spread the word: Please ReTweet the game by clicking on this link, or let your own blog community know about it… Always fun to get new faces in the mix! Thanks guys!

You know, I really love NetChick.  Really really love her.  Unconditionally, and intensely.  But really, anyone that worried about a lamp…

Here’s the deal folks.  I got a lamp from my brother for my birthday.  We are somewhat estranged, and I can never tell if he’s exercising his warped sense of humour, being an ass, or just completely out to lunch. This lamp is the Mac Daddy of grand fromage! The base is shaped like a Las Vegas poker table, complete with a dealer that actually moves and has sound effects of people playing poker!  How cool/stupid is that?!  Plus, the shade is a translucent photo of The Strip.  Need I say more?

But wait, there’s more!

To turn it on, you press down on a stack of chips on the base, and before the light turns on it goes through the motions and sound effects – every time. And it has a night light.  If that doesn’t seal the deal for an avid player like myself I don’t know what would.  And Tanya is more afraid of this lamp than snakes, rats and moths combined!  I agree that there just isn’t room in our place for such a lovely work of art, so I will be letting it go.  It seems a shame to give it away, so maybe one of you hyperintelligent people will understand the beauty of owning one of the cheesiest lamps ever conceived…

So even though I love it, I choose the girl over the lamp.  Anyone want it?

That’s me, trying to stay positive about the insanity that is the condo renovations.

But, the title I chose has a double meaning — Barry is officially moving to Vancouver at the end of next week!

That’s right, kids, you won’t hear me bemoaning our long distance relationship any more. This weekend is the last time Barry will be “visiting” his new home, and next weekend I fly out to Edmonton/Camrose to help with the last of the packing, and then we drive back to Vancouver on Sunday the 4th.

It’s all terribly exciting!

But, we’ve both got a lot of work to do before next weekend. For starters, we have the kitchen counters coming in early next week, as well as a plumber coming in to install the new sink, fridge, and plumb the dishwasher… and we’ve got to finish building the IKEA stuff that is still in boxes. On top of that, we have the living room wall center to finish, and we both have more clothes to get rid of (my least favourite task) as we have only 1 closet for both of us… that’s going to be one of the most difficult parts of this whole exercise.

Okay, that and, Barry’s “LAMP”. Perhaps I’ll share a photo of said lamp here sometime soon. I think I have finally convinced him to give it way, at least. But, he insists on bringing it to Vancouver, first. If you have ever seen “When Harry Met Sally”, this is Barry’s wagon wheel coffee table. If he doesn’t give it away quickly, I may have to accidentally lose it off the balcony. Ooops.

The countdown is on… 11 more sleeps until my guy is here for good!

Can you tell I’m a wee bit excited?

Dear self,

I recognize you are busy, sick (again), and have a lot of life changes going on (and place any other preferred excuse here), however… you are falling far short of what’s an acceptable timeframe for getting back to friends and family.

Taking nearly two weeks to answer a personal email is completely absurd.

And, so is taking that length of time to return a call.

It’s time to take stock of what’s important. Friends and family are important. Everything else is secondary. — Take a page out of Jennifer’s guidance! She said it was incredibly important to take time for yourself every day, and that should include getting back to friends and family in a timely manner.

So, buck up and get it together.

Sincerely,
me.