Lost in the Fog

Have you ever been in such thick fog that you can’t see anything around you? I’m talking about the kind of fog when you lift your hand out in front of you, your eyes cannot even find your body’s missing …

Debunking Car Sales: What You Need to Know!

I have come to learn that there are a lot of misconceptions in the world about car salesmen, so I’m here to fill you in a little bit.

#1: Salesmen usually only make a commission, which means no sales, no income. Which leads to #2.

#2: When you go in without an intention to buy, you are wasting their time to have a chance of making money for their families.

#3: You may think that every salesman is ripping you off, but here’s the deal. They only make 25% of the profit the dealership makes, which means, if you refuse to pay much over the wholesale price, that salesman is only taking home $250 or less. And when you calculate how many hours they spend with each customer explaining everything, taking test drives, dealing with you, taking you through the finance process, they really are not becoming “rich” off of those deals.

#4: Sales do not happen everyday. So put together the profits from above, mix with days that people don’t show up for the appointments they said they would, plus a dead day at the dealership. Sorry, food is not produced from love alone. Most salesmen have kids at home just like you do.

#5: If you ever wonder why salesmen can get upset, it’s because people do crazy things. In my husband’s short time in sales, he’s had people come in and ask to go for a test drive just to get dropped off somewhere so they didn’t have to pay for a taxi. He’s had countless people CONFIRM their appointments with him, and never show up. He’s had a ton of people even put deposits on vehicles, and then go out of contact for weeks, often before saying they are no longer taking the vehicle or fighting for a lower price than was agreed on. He’s had people yell at him for giving him their name before going on a test drive, although it is typical for the dealership to know who you are before they let you drive tens of thousands of dollars down the road. He’s had people come back and yell at him for not noticing things (including a ripped seat…) when they drove it off the lot. He’s had people yell at him for not being approved for financing because they haven’t paid their bills in six months. I mean, seriously people… you can’t be a jerk to people and expect them to be happy all the time. It doesn’t work that way.

#6: There are times that dealerships will let vehicles go for less than what they paid for it. Now, before you go jumping for joy, remember the profit we talked about above? How much do you think the salesmen are bringing home for their families if the dealership isn’t even profiting off the vehicle? Yeah… think about it.

I know there is probably a ton of things I’m missing, but this is a good start. Car sales is not the typical way I’ve thought of it before. I’m that wife at home with our three dog-children. There is not even a chance I could be a stay-at-home person for the very facts I mentioned above. It’s so easy to think that you’re the one being wronged all the time, but unless you truly understand how it all works, you’ll never realize what you’re doing to the people behind the scenes.

Are there rich car salesmen? Of course there are. Some people have enough money that they never bat an eye at the sticker price and will pay whatever the dealership originally asked for the vehicle. And depending on the vehicle, that can be a decent profit. But that’s not how most customers are, and that’s where the problem lies.

So next time you buy a vehicle, sure, ask for a lower price, but don’t beat them over the head until your salesman has to go home and tell his kids he’s made almost no profit again, and he’s upset because someone gave him a hard time for doing his job yet again. Please think of the people you interact with. Your purchase is their bread and butter on the table. Remember, no sales mean no money. Love is important, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

The Surefire Way to Fail

As always, when you’re trying to do something new, you will almost always figure out the ways NOT to do it before you find what is successful. Taking a look at famous people of our times, many of them failed even up to hundreds of times before becoming as successful as they are. So you can be sure that I’ve now figured out a failing method on my journey to veganism.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about making my mind up 100%. That was true. But what I didn’t know was that some of the fruit I had planned on eating had gone bad. So it came to the point I ate that pizza well before 4.

The surefire way to fail on the vegan road is to run out of fruit. If it’s not there, you can’t eat it. And if you can’t eat it when you’re hungry, you’re going to reach for things you probably shouldn’t.

Lesson learned: plan the fruit you are going to eat and make sure to have it on hand!

Beating Mind Tendencies

I’m going to be embarrassingly honest with you in this post. We are all human, and we all have our own struggles. But when you choose to do something, you better do it 100%, or you will never be successful. There’s only one major road block that will battle you daily: your brain.

Yesterday, I decided I needed to do this vegan thing 100%. I’ve had too many travelling days in the past 3 weeks where I’ve had little control over what I could eat. Now that I’m home, I’ve gotta buckle down and do this.

My goals for this new lifestyle are as follows:
-Get rid of acne
-Weight Loss
-Feel Better
-Better Digestion
-More Energy

What I’m going to do:
-Work up to 8 hours of sleep per night
-Increase water intake up to 3L a day
-Raw fruit until 4 (some days raw all day)
-Minimize salt intake

So yesterday, when I completely made up my mind, I still started the day off wrong. I had half of a leftover black bean burger in the fridge, and simply because my husband was eating his leftovers and it seemed convenient, I ate mine. Remember, raw food is much better in the morning!

Throughout the day, I did well on the vegan side, but not the raw side. I did eat 6 organic bananas for one meal/snack, and then black bean pasta with marinara and nutritional yeast flakes for lunch. I could tell I definitely didn’t eat enough fruit because then I cooked up some “dessert” of coconut oil, oatmeal, and brown sugar. Sure it tasted good, but that was way too high in fat, and was another cooked meal before 4.

I don’t recall eating too much else throughout the rest of the day, but for a late, late supper, my husband and I went for pizza. I thought the place only had one option for vegan pizza. It was a wood-stove cooked, marinara pizza with fresh tomato marinara, basil leaves, and some rosemary mix. As I was browsing through the menu at all the other delicious pizzas I used to eat there, I noticed a side option of Daiya vegan cheese! My husband jumped right up and asked them to add that to my pizza. I was feeling pretty excited!

Now I’m not sure if it was because my taste buds are reprogrammed to all the junk food I had the past few weeks, but if I could describe the pizza in one word, it would be “fresh”. It literally tasted like tomatoes, oil, and a bit of flavouring. The cheese sadly didn’t do much against the amount of oil I’m sure they put on that pizza. I ate most of it, but took two slices to go. It honestly was all I could do not to reach out and put that parmesan cheese on my pizza, knowing it would improve the flavour so much. I’m holding out on this vegan thing, I can do it!

Now naturally, this morning, I wanted to reach in and grab those two pieces of pizza. But I’ve been watching a lot of Freelee’s videos lately. I’ve started with her oldest ones and I’m working my way to the newest. When you have so much of that information running through your head, I can honestly say it makes a difference.

Now, the embarrassingly honest part is that I was coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why I should eat the pizza. I was thinking about my blog, and how I could just not talk about what I ate today. I was thinking about how I want to eat raw until 4, but I could just go one more day. I’m sure we all know about that “one more day” psychology… And as I sat there making up excuse after excuse, I put my foot down and said no. I need to do this right, right now, not later.

And so I’m happy to say that this morning so far, I’ve juiced 6 oranges, savoured every sip of that fresh orange juice, and in a bit, throughout the day, I’ll be eating pears, a mango, apricots, and nectarines. I would love to get into more mono-meals, but right now this is what I have on hand so it will have to do.

I hope you are all having an awesome weekend!

The Comfort of a Gray, Rainy Day

Yesterday morning, I jumped in my car like usual. I drove to the end of the driveway like usual, and turned down our street like usual. But something was slightly unusual about today, and that was the atmosphere around me.

I normally have the radio tuned into our local Christian station, but my husband had taken my car to the gym the night before without me. So instead, I turned on the ignition to the beginning of the song, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa. I normally don’t like his music, but with the impact this song had, especially at the end of the latest Fast and Furious. I really, really like this song. Mix that song, with gray skies, and light rain. Perfection. A certain mood attained. Just right for this moment.

When I was younger, my mother always drove when she was upset. In fact, we probably spent more time on the road than we ever did at home. Whether it was driving at the end of the school week to visit my grandparents, and then waiting until the morning of school to get up extra early and drive back in time to meet our bus, we were always on the road. It was a way of life.

My favourite was always being in the passenger seat while my mother was driving, when the skies were dark and there was a light rain with the radio on. To me, that speaks comfort. To me, that speaks perfection. To me, that speaks home. I may be a case of a kid who never really knew what home was. I may be a case of a person who has a distorted way of looking at things. But as an adult, I feel that in my confusion and unstable life, I have found the very things that can be stable, that can be comforting, no matter what season of life one may be in.

So call me crazy, or whatever you please. But I have security in the fact I have experienced so much in life. I’ve been through troubling places, I’ve lived and experienced so many different cultures and schools. I have been dragged through the fire multiple times, and yet I can tell you exactly how not to fall apart when others may possibly see no way out.

I’m not a person who has despised my childhood, but rather a person who is thankful for learning what is most important to survive whatever may come in an adult life. You can plan your life, you can plan your job, your spouse, your schooling, etc… But plans rarely work out the way they are supposed to. The one thing you can prepare is your reactions, your attitude, and your stability. If you have that, with God by your side, it won’t matter whether money is an obstacle or struggle. Because you’ve already learned how to deal with change before.

It pays to be happy with the little things in life, because it’s the little things that will keep you going. So learn now what makes you happy, learn now how to react to change. Find comfort in the things that are stable to you, even if it’s driving in a car on a gray, rainy day.

Day 18 – “You Got A Problem With Me?”

I have a problem. I brought home that veggie burger last night (and felt the misery of so much grease this morning), and do you think I did “RawTill4”? Absolutely not! I knew that burger was in there, and that’s what I went for. I’ve gotta learn to order only what I can eat that night, and not take things home. It’s not mentally working!

Meals:

Breakfast – Veggie Burger
Lunch – Vanilla Iced Coffee (I know, not much of a lunch…)
Late Snack – 4 Freezies (so hot here!)
Supper – Black Bean Burger, French Fries
Late Night Snack – Blood Orange Kombucha, Vegan Vanilla Cake

I didn’t workout today, but it was a bit of a weird, interesting day.

It was late this evening when we went to Planet Organic. I honestly love that store, and I needed some last minute items to take with me while I’m camping this week with my students.  When we got to the store, there was a very intoxicated man standing outside the doors. As soon as my husband got out of the car, he yelled at him saying something along the lines of, “You got a problem with me?”. Um, no Dude… we just pulled up and we’re going to get groceries. We hadn’t had a problem with you yet… But as we kept walking inside, repeating the word no several times, two bicycle policemen were walking towards him. As we went through the sliding doors, the store manager came over asking if he was still there, and was happy to see the police were there. I’m guessing this guy had been hanging around, causing trouble for awhile. What an extra little “spice” to the night.

Then it comes to me sitting here, eating this vegan vanilla cake. It takes me back to a whole different world…

A couple years ago, I was sitting in my apartment, my husband still unable to work, and living paycheque to paycheque. At times, I had to juggle which bill I could let slide for a month or two. Half of the time, our car didn’t work. It was such a different world. For us, it was such a treat to eat at Tim Hortons or McDonalds, McDonalds being the most frequent because it was the shorter walk from our place. We did what we could with what we had.

One day, we had taken the bus to go shopping down this road, covered with stores on both sides, and that’s when I saw the organic food market. I remember walking through there, not being able to really buy much (much more expensive than a McDonalds-night-out budget), but I so wanted to try this vegan vanilla cake. I had been vegetarian for many years and had heard lots of criticism about vegans and how the lack of dairy made everything taste bad. I so badly wanted to see for myself. Luckily, they sell pieces of the cake for a couple dollars, so I was able to get that and I think one special drink (I believe it was also the first time I tried kombucha). I couldn’t believe how good it was. In fact, I remember sitting at the bus stop, not realizing kombucha was carbonated, had shaken the bottle, opened it, and was quickly covered in what I immediately thought smelled like vinegar. What a smell for the ride home!

Sometimes I think it’s important we look back and see how far we’ve come. My husband is now on his third job in this country, we live in a 3-level townhouse instead of a 1-bedroom apartment, we have 2 working vehicles instead of one that continuously broke down, we have our own washing machine instead of using coin laundry, and I’ve gone vegan, eating as organic as possible. We NEVER eat at McDonalds anymore. So much has changed. It doesn’t mean we’re quite comfortable to where I’d like to be, but we’re in a place where don’t have to worry about bills not being paid, or fun not being had (though still smaller scale). And as I’m sitting here eating this vegan vanilla cake, I can smile and know I’ve come a long way from the first time I was blown away with this delicious treat, and look forward to where I’ll be the next time I have it again.

The Most Emotional Spring Break

Wow. Where do I even begin…

This year I was actually looking forward to my Spring Break (for the first time since I’ve started teaching). I had the new passion planner my parents got me, I booked my days full of cleaning and catching up on life… and grading too.

On Friday, the very first thing that happened was my washing machine broke. I had so much laundry to catch-up on, but that was going to have to wait. Not a good beginning sign…

The next few days went rather well. Starting Monday, I found myself sticking to my schedules I had created, and conquering so much of the work that had been put off for way too long. I cleaned my basement, my kitchen, my entry, my stairs, my bedroom, part of my office, most of my bathroom, and even categorized some items I have to sell! It was so productive. And yes, I got quite a bit of grading done as well. I even spent excess time with my dogs and my skinny pig. I was so happy.

First, I got news that my sister was pregnant. Normally, this would be exciting news, except my sister’s life has been very rocky the last few years. She was currently with a not-so-good boyfriend, a not-so-good job, and renting a bedroom from a house – definitely not a place or situation to raise a child! She also has not had healthcare for years, and is not consistent with taking care of herself – not good for the baby, let alone her!

This turned into a very rocky situation of my step-father taking her to his hotel with him, her leaving behind his back, him buying her a plane ticket and her never returning to the hotel like she said she would. It turned into many phone calls, texts, and Facebook messages, few and far between responses from my sister, and potentially very bad situations that I cannot elaborate on at this time. What resulted of the situation was that my sister promised to be back in time for our day together on Friday which never happened. My step-father ended up picking her up on Sunday, keeping her with him Sunday night, and flying out with her on Monday. I was worried she would even refuse to get on the plane, but for some reason, she did it. Now she is home with my family who will help her get back on her feet and hopefully be able to handle her emotions at this time. It’s going to be a long road for her.

Amidst those difficulties, worrying and stress, my skinny pig died. After having an awesome week, being able to spend all that extra time with him, we noticed he was acting strange on Friday morning. So we went to the pet store, bought liquid vitamins to put in his water, and by the time we came home, he was dead. Mind you, he was at least 4 years old, if not more than that. So for a skinny/guinea pig, he was in the upper range of their age. It is just incredibly sad that he has been with us for 4 years and we have bonded with him so much. Our little guy’s passing was incredibly hard to take amidst everything else on this break.

As the title of this blog speaks, this was probably the most emotional Spring Break I’ve ever had. I hope it’s the last one like this I ever have. But from here, we can only move on and hope for better.

Winter and Bicycles

What are your thoughts about riding bicycles in the winter? Personally, I’m all for environmentally friendly methods of transportation, but when you live in Canada where the winters are bitterly cold, snowy and icy, I don’t think bicycles are a smart move. Mix that with living in a city where daily accidents already occur to inexperienced or careless winter drivers and the conditions of the roads themselves, you have a toxic combination.

This all stems from something I saw on my way from my chiropractor appointment one day. There is a crossing of two roads where it should be a 4-way stop, but it isn’t. The corners are not the easiest to see ahead because many vehicles line the streets, so most drivers naturally slow down where the roads cross just incase, even though there aren’t any signs or lights telling you to do so.

As I was driving out of this community, going through that same intersection, on the opposite side of the road, I saw an ambulance. However, I only saw one vehicle. Upon looking closer, I also noticed a bicycle and a rider on the ground with the paramedic bent over the rider. Oh my goodness! I didn’t see any blood or anything, but I can’t imagine how scary that must have been.

I don’t know. I just feel like I can barely trust other drivers when I’m driving in my own car, let alone on a defenceless bicycle. I do think bicycling is good for you, but definitely not in winter, and maybe not in a huge city. What do you think?

I Hope One Day My Students Understand

It has been such an emotional week for me this week. After an incident that occurred last week, the decision was brought down from Academic Standards Committee as to what would occur as punitive and redemptive actions in this situation. Of course, I had to write the e-mail, and then answer the questions that later ensued as to what had actually occurred as well as the details of the final decision.

So far, parents have seemed understanding and supportive. It’s the students that I worry about the most.

I hope one day my students understand
The reasons why I had to do what I did
The amount of punishment I suffered with them
The fact that I wanted to erase the event and the consequences with it
The reasons why I couldn’t
The reasons why I had to follow through even when I didn’t want to
The reasons why I can seem so harsh
Only because I want them to see their own potential
I hope one day my students understand
How much I cared and wanted them to succeed
The tears I’ve cried and the time I’ve spent
The lasting effects of memories
I hope one day my students understand
That I tried to do the best I could
A year is short in the grand scheme of life
There is no time to waste
I have to do what I can each day
Even if it means correcting mistakes
I hope one day my students understand
That it wasn’t just to “get them in trouble”
My care is genuine, much deeper than that
I hope one day they’ll see it.

To any other teachers reading this blog: Do you ever feel this way? I’m finding truth in the fact that it’s usually the more difficult students, the ones you spend so much time trying to “fix” or “correct” that grow on you the most. Since I have no children of my own, these students essentially are my children. And I think that just makes it worse when things go wrong.

I know I’ll get through this, it’s just another bump in the road. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. It’s so hard not to reach out and want to take all of their pain and hardships away. It’s hard to watch them learn the difficulties of life. But you have to, or they’ll never learn the difference between what is right and wrong. And so it is my prayer each night, that no matter what happens, they’ll someday understand and see how much I care. I hope one day my students will understand…

Week 11 Day 6

I didn’t want to let my husband go to work this morning. The storm continued over night and the snow is well over a foot and a half deep. It’s almost -40 C and I know the road conditions are going to be terrible. But my husband still got up and went off to work.

On the way to work, he took me over to get my car from the school. He shovelled (for as long as the cold would allow him before freezing) to get my car out of the snow, and let it run for a few minutes. I told him to go on ahead to work, but he refused until he saw me drive the car out. Well, let’s just say, my husband is smart. For the first time ever, my car would run for a second and shut off. I would start it again, and it would shut off. My car was absolutely refusing to run in the cold. The poor thing. So, my husband took me back home before going to work, and I rescheduled all of my appointments again. Taxis are not required to have winter tires, and I refuse to either get in an accident or be stuck on the road in a taxi. Everything will have to wait for another day.

My husband ended up coming home early. If they dared to stop, the work van would have been stuck. So they basically did a loop from home to the shop to the site, kept on driving back home. It was so nice to know he wasn’t on the road and he could be home safe and sound.

We only went two places: GNC for some things I needed. Black Friday sales were on and we got an awesome deal on lots of goodies!

We also went to the gym. I did an excellent shoulder workout. My shoulders burned so badly. I didn’t take the time to do cardio though, because even though I had the day off tomorrow, my husband didn’t, at least not yet that we knew of. So I left with a satisfied shoulder burn!

I’m ready to go home and sleep well in a warm house tonight!