Monthly Archives: March 2010

#21 on the List starts with an E.

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*this picture has nothing to do with this post. i just like it. Fleet Week, NYC 2009.

I’ve been holding something back from you.

I teach yoga.

It all started about eight years ago, after a competitive figure skating career (I use that term loosely, since I quite when I was the ripe old age of 16, he-hem) and a then short-lived career as a bouncing, yelling, butt-busting fitness instructor. And then came the yoga.

After being laid-off from my first post-university web-geek genius job (one of many examples whereby I pimped my words for dollars) I decided to take my part-time yoga teaching life to a whole new level and embark on the path I know I was born to walk:

Entrepreneurship.

I called it, Organic Body Yoga and Fitness. It was “mobile wellness studio”. I took my show on the road and opted out of being bound to a studio, waiting for eager yoga lovers to come to me. Instead, I would go to them, taking my classes to the masses, teaching both yoga and fitness (and later, yes, even Pilates.)

My office was my car.

I carried mats, weights and even a blown-up Swiss ball in my back seat (if you don’t know what a Swiss ball is, I suggest you Google it. Hilarious.)

I lived a rather broke life, but I loved what I did. For a time, anyway.

Eventually, life on the road, bouncing from one gym or studio or empty boardroom to the next drove me crazy – the exact opposite of yoga.

I lost the passion for what I was doing, and that never leads to a happy ending. Ever.

My writing became non-existent. And yoga, dear readers of this little ‘ol blog, became….work. Eventually, I caved and entered the 9 to 5 workforce again, peddling my words for cash and dental benefits.

That was five years ago. And now I’m turning 30. Poof. And that is how your 20s pass you by and you ask yourself, “how the fuck did I get to be 29 and not achieve my dreams?”

But I really shouldn’t complain.

After many lame jobs, I ended up nabbing myself two great ones and I did some pretty cool things:

1. I was one half of a team of two that launched Canada’s first Earth Hour for the World Wildlife Fund. I love philanthropy and the Earth and everything, so this ranks high on my list of awesome things I’ve done. And I even got to meet famous people. And the mayor of Toronto (but who cares.)

2. I landed the near impossible and became a working writer with benefits and a pension plan. I edit full-time for a women’s fitness magazine and, at the end of the month, it’s estimated that over one million people read our publication. I write the cover story each month, test beauty products sent to me by the box- load and get to meet some of the most beautiful and fit women in the industry.

But I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and that’s the truth.

This isn’t some weirdly blogged letter of resignation or some passive-aggressive way of saying I don’t like what I do, because I do. I’m lucky. I get that.

This, dear friends, is just my way of saying that five years ago I wish I had followed my heart just. a. little. bit. more and remained my own boss, even if just part of the time. I wish I believed in myself like I do now.

But you know what? I believe in the power of process and I believe pimping my words the way I did, falling out of love with yoga the way I did (and then falling back in love over and over again), and even pining for full dental coverage the way I did (thank you fillings) all brought me to this:

#21 – Return to the passion of entrepreneurship once again.

Do I know what or how or when? Not exactly. But if it’s on the List, you know it’ll be happening soon, because today I realized that I turn 30 in exactly five months. Five months (and yes, I’m counting Isn’t that what this blog is about? er…ya, let’s go with that.)

***

Join the conversation: Have you ever dreamed of being your own boss? Are you? Dish!

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I’ve added something else to the List.

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It’s a good one.

Long time coming.

I’m just working out the details for you in a post, but I couldn’t wait to share that there will be an addition coming soon.

Oh, and I’ll be posting my final assignment from my class, which yes, should have gone up nearly 10 days ago, but we bought a house, Rob played a show and I’ve generally just filled my evenings with some charity work and meetings.

Anyway.

Please come back in like, a few hours. Deal?

xx
sb

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This has nothing to do with Lists or being 29 or even jumping out of airplanes.

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follow your dreams.

Last night Rob did something amazing.

Because he really, really believes. And I love that.

Rob won the first round of the  Y108 Battle of the Bands contest with his band, Franky Moonlight.

A few facts about Rob’s music:

-He taught himself to play guitar and can play just about any instrument in the whole world, including the harmonica.

-He wrote a special song for me to walk down the aisle to. I still can’t hear it in its entirety because it makes my eyes water, but in the good way.

-He is a musician and artist from the depth of his soul and the tips of the hairs on his head (which are getting thinner, but don’t tell him I said that.)

-He works on his music with such fervor and passion, that it never fails to remind me what I love about working hard on my craft, too.

-We’ve spent many nights working away with glasses of wine, a guitar, a laptop and our little cat. He’ll play something and ask, “How does this sound?” And then I’ll write something and ask him the same thing.

-Most nights, I write while he strums the guitar. Most of my writing is created to the soundtrack of his music.

-More than anything, I want my husband to be a rockstar. Not necessarily the famous or too-rich kind, but the kind that gets to play his music for a living, everyday.

-For our first Christmas together, I had a silver guitar pick made with the words, “Follow Your Dreams” inscribed on it. He won’t play a single show without it. He says it’s good luck. Last night, before the show, he called me in a panic to say, “I forgot my pick… can you bring it? I can’t go on without it.” Then, after his band won the contest, he thanked me for bringing him the pick and said it gave him courage.

I told him we should run away and be hippies, just like I always wanted.

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Things I learned at 29: How to be extraordinary (and shop for a coat rack.)

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The extraordinary rack.

I learned something about being extraordinary and now I have to tell you. I learned it from a coat rack.

We’re moving in three weeks.

We’re leaving our quaint and trendy little neighborhood – Roncesvalles Village, home of the Cherry Bomb and Revue Theatre – to move 10 minutes away to a neighborhood we never thought we’d live in. It’s one of Toronto’s “in transition” neighborhoods, which is sort of the real estate market’s way of saying, “don’t walk there alone after dark… but good investment.”

After much deliberation, we’re okay with it. Mainly because we have to be – the house is bought and there is no sense in crying over spilled mortgage papers (if I ever write those words again, I implore you to stop reading this blog.)

In a city like Toronto, you have million-dollar neighborhoods book-ended by areas that we Torontonians affectionately refer to as “up and coming”. These “up and coming” pockets house everything from couples like us (the brunching, weekend thrifting, mid-week dinners, drunk on Sundays, random weekend trips kind) to Ladies of the Night and hobos to what we refer to ’round these parts as “crack hoes”.

Ah, the city.

I was tempted to put “Buy a house” on my List, but felt that was cheating, since I knew purchasing was inevitable this year. Wanting to buy again had less to do with turning 30 than it had to do with Rob and I not wanting to get too comfortable. So it didn’t go on the List.

And screw comfortable.

Our renting days are over and we just feel like it’s time to plant some roots again – oh, you know, paint the walls my preferred shade of not-so-white and hang vintage chandeliers in strange places – that sort of thing.

When I tell people about the “planting roots” thing, they immediately think we want kids, which we don’t. Not now anyway. “So why do you want to settle down then and buy a house?” they ask, which is valid, I guess, although I’d like to think that we’re not buying a house for any other reason than to just live a little more extraordinarily than we do right now.

But what is extraordinary?

Let’s face it, the word arrangement is all wrong for something that’s supposed to be so great: extra-ordinary. I mean, c’mon. Being just a little ordinary not enough?

Interestingly, while shopping for a table made of reclaimed church pews and then stumbling on this coat rack creation, I just sort of figured it out…

Extraordinary is like adding nice hardware to cheap Ikea kitchen cabinets or wrapping a vintage scarf around the handles of a an old handbag that you love. It’s like adding hot fudge to plain ‘ol vanilla ice cream or writing a love letter instead of an email. It’s taking something as ordinary as marriage and giving it the details of warm morning kisses, coffee made just the way you like it and wearing his shirt to bed because you couldn’t possibly fall asleep without his scent.

Extraordinary, I learned, simply means taking something ordinary and giving it that little something extra, even if it’s just a place to hang your hat and coat at the end of the day.

Make it extraordinary.

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