Riding the Wave… and Crashing!

January is the beginning of "Wave Season", a three month selling season for travel agents.  Our "Christmas" if you will.  It is when the cruise lines in particular start shelling out amazing deals and offers for winter getaways and summer cruises to Europe and Alaska.  Normally I would be thrilled for the busyness and excitement of this frenzy of selling activity but I have to say that "riding the wave" this season is killing me!

Today was a prime example of my crashing during this season… and the season of moving.  I was up early (for me) and after a slow start I got up and started working right away.  I had ticket issues I needed to confirm from the night before's purchase with one of our consolidators.  All the while I was tapping away on my computer, the packing boxes in my home were calling out to me.  Pack me… pack me!  I planned to get to those in the afternoon.

While I continued some travel business, I kept getting calls about the move.  The bank re: the mortgage, Hubby about insurance issues.  I thought my brain was going to explode from the quick shift it was repeatedly making going from one focus to the next.  When I got up stairs after a quick lunch of Greek yogurt, I was fighting with a packing box, trying to jam my baking supplies in one single box when the phone rang again with Hubby wanting me to do something else for the insurance company… or the bank… or the lawyers… I forget now.

Like a rubber band about to snap, I lashed out at Hubby in my frustration, and he kindly took it but I knew he was not thrilled with the stressed out woman on the other end of the phone.  Not long after I called to apologize for being such a freak.  I decided at that point I needed some "balance" in my day and I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed my journal and began documenting my day and eventually having a visit with Jesus.  Journalling often helps me in finding perspective and right relationship with God.  Do you find that?  After my time with God I took another quick moment to watch an episode of Last Man Standing on Netflix.  Tim Allen's "Mike Baxter" always makes me laugh as does the rest of the cast.  I remember my former doctor telling me to have at least one good belly laugh a day.  I was just following doctor's orders at that point.

Before I got back to packing (and preparing our house for the new buyers to stop by for an hour's visit tomorrow) I started to prep for dinner in between calls and emails for business.  I had a roast I'd taken out of the freezer so I cut up onion, carrots and potatoes and placed them around the roast.  Easy breezy dinner… and delicious to boot!

The rest of the evening was again a mix of packing, cleaning and business.  Little by little the house is filling up with boxes while the cozy-factor declines.  I feel badly for the buyers when they come in tomorrow.  This place looks NOTHING like the place did when they first came in ;-)  Hopefully they will understand… we're doing this all for them after all - ha ha.

So… today I felt like I crashed riding the wave of life… and wave season.  I was not the Spirit-filled woman I would have liked to be.  I let exhaustion and overwhelm get the best of me.  I was a woman of in-balance today and I don't like that.  As Scarlett O'Hara said though… "I won't think about that now.  After all… tomorrow is another day!"

Until next time...

Bitter Cold

As I sit in my office after a long evening of work, booking my first cruise of 2014 for friends from church, the temperature outside is 1F, feeling like -22F.  It is a BITTER COLD day here in Southern Ontario!  Brrr.  (Can you hear my teeth chattering).

Despite the cool temperature in my office though, I am profoundly aware that I have it good tonight. There are many who are literally freezing to death in North America tonight because they can't escape this arctic blast from Old Man Winter… who by the way can go back to wherever he came from!

I heard on the news tonight about an escaped convict in Kentucky today who actually asked to be arrested, just so he could head back to prison.  Guess escaping in winter wasn't the smartest move, huh?

I wish I were anywhere warm tonight, but I'm not.  Instead I am here, in Canada, being super productive today, both vocationally as a travel agent, and as a homemaker, packing up her house for moving soon.

Today I worked on the storage closet under the stairs.  I packed up the kitchen appliances that we store down there, plus some other stuff that makes it's home hidden from the naked eye.  I suffer from "packratitis" and haven't thrown out hardly anything yet, but I am making a nice 'donation' pile of some things I don't want anymore.

Now that January is in full swing and the holidays are behind us, balance is going to be more necessary as in the travel agent world we enter "Wave" season… the busiest time of the year for agents.  This bitter cold weather can only help business but with packing looming overhead I will need to guard my time closely so I am able to handle both major "jobs" I have right now.

I realize in my need for balancing these two contrasting worlds that my time with God is even more important.  Through staying balanced in Him, I will be able to juggle the balls of packing and planning vacations.  Without Him I will crumble to the ground in a lump and neither job will be done well.  Can you relate or are you someone who juggles well?

Tomorrow I'm off for a much needed chiropractor appointment before heading out to help other friends plan vacation time.  Have I told you lately how much I love my job?!  When all my hard work develops results and I help people make their vacation dreams a reality, my heart sings.  La la la!

Well I think I'll close off for tonight.  My eyes are buggy from staring at this screen for two days and I need to take some much needed… balanced… rest.

Until next time...

Busy Times Means Little Blogging!

Hello Blogging Buddies… I hope you've all been doing well since my last blog post.  It amazes me how quickly time flies!  Lots has been happening since my last post and I've been here & there with tales to tell so let's get started…

As you know that the past year I've been embarking on a new, exciting career that combines my passion for travel with a tiny amount of income.  I LOVE my job as a travel consultant and one of the "perks" of the job is getting the opportunity to check things out in order to recommend clients, also known as "FAM" trips (or familiarization trips).  In late September I went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic on my very first FAM … and LOVED IT!

Hubby was travelling on his own business trip so I invited my niece, "S" to join me.  We flew away on Air Canada Rouge to the sunny beaches of Arena Gorda in Punta Cana where we stayed at the lovely Iberostar Bavaro resort.

My "job" while here in the lush, tropical paradise was to do a site inspection of our resort (a task which would take all of 2 hours in our 7 day week stay).  Having never been to Punta Cana before (and having not been at an all-inclusive resort for almost 25 years), I decided to book other site inspections at a couple of resorts along the beach.   I checked out all 4 of Iberostar's resorts on Monday, the Grand Bahia Principe resorts on Tuesday, and Majestic Resorts (Colonial/Elegance) on Wednesday.

Heading to "work" Monday Morning

Each resort was beautiful and each had it's own personalities and strengths.  It was so helpful to see them all side by side in order to know what might appeal to certain clients and why I would send them to one resort over another - or even one section of a resort over another.

My work days were a few hours of site inspection those first 3 mornings, leaving the afternoon for other "research"… like enjoying the resort amenities!

Doing "research" on the beach

We enjoyed a massage on the beach, tried different a'la carte restaurants, numerous "fruity" drinks… all in the name of my job!  On Thursday, we took an excursion so we could check out what my clients might like to do while in Punta Cana.  We chose the Caribbean Festival where we boarded a pirate ship that took us swimming with nurse sharks and stingrays and snorkelling in the open waters.

The rest of the week was just R&R although my brain still couldn't stop "researching".  I would accost strangers at other resorts to ask questions about where they were staying.  I'd chat up people by the swim-up bar about their vacations past and present.  I would network with other agents from the U.S.  A travel agent's work is never done!!

I was only home about 10 days before Hubby and I hopped in the car to make our way South to NC to my niece's wedding.  We were honoured to be asked to read 1 Corinthians 13 at their ceremony and then were honoured to help my sister and her Hubby (parents of the bride) in getting the reception hall ready (and unready afterwards).  It was a LOT of work but it was a blessing.  God has allowed me to tick another "Mom" thing off my list as I married off one of my "kids"!

Hubby & Me w/ Newlyweds  ~  Sister Love

After the wedding we joined my Sister and her Hubby's family for a week (not quite a full week for us) at the Outer Banks.  Hubby & I were celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary on the Tuesday so instead of staying at the beach house with all of them, we had opted to get hotels where we could have privacy (wink wink).  On the Wednesday, we rallied the troops (or as many as wanted to join us) and we went on a Wild Horse Adventure Tour into the dunes of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, just north of Corolla, NC.  It was amazing as we 4-wheeled our way in the tour Hummer and self-driven Jeeps over the sand dunes to find the wild horses that roam the beaches.

A Collage of our time in the Outer Banks

Lighthouse in Corolla, NC

Although it's been a busy month of travelling, I feel so blessed by all that God's allowed me to do and see.  It's actually kind of nice to slow down though.  Maybe my brain will catch up with me now and I can get back to blogging more regularly again!  Until next time...

A Day in the Life

I've only been back to blogging about a week and already I'm struggling in what to write.  What has happened to my blogging mojo?  Is my life really this boring??  

I don't feel like my life is boring but perhaps why I struggle with what to write is because I fear boring you to death with the ins and outs of my life, which mainly, it seems, is focused on my business these days. 

I love my job and every day I plug away at building it, nurturing it and enhancing it.  This morning I met up with my clients who just came back from an Alaskan cruise last week.  They LOVED their first cruise experience and shared with me pictures from their vacation as well as stories of the things they experienced, both positive and negative.  Fortunately, the positive FAR outweighed the negatives and hopefully someday they will want to book a vacation with me again.  

I never had any desire to take an Alaskan cruise, that is until I started planning the cruise for these clients.  Seeing their pictures made me realize even more just how majestic and breath-taking this area of God's creation truly is.  One day Hubby and I will venture out that way and embark on our own Alaskan adventure!  In the meantime, it was wonderful to catch up with my clients and hear how much they enjoyed their first vacation in a very long time.

This afternoon I sat out on the back patio in the intense summer heat listening to a live webinar on Selling Destination Weddings.  This is a niche I am really interested in getting into - the Destination Wedding/Honeymoon business.  Not only do these types of vacations earn you more money as you book groups of people for destination weddings, it also interests me because I had toyed with the idea of being a wedding planner years ago.  Recently our office manager/owner signed up for a partnership with a local David's bridal shop.  We plan to go into the bridal shop and become destination wedding/honeymoon experts, there to help young brides with any wedding/honeymoon dreams they have for tropical and exotic nuptials or honeymoons.

My workday ended this evening with the booking of my very first "FAM" trip.  A "FAM" trip is a "familiarization" trip for travel agents wherein we are invited to book trips to certain hotels/resorts/cruises for significantly lower rates than the public.  The purpose of these trips is getting ourselves familiar with the destination so we can come home and sell it with confidence and conviction.    My first FAM will be at the Iberostar Bavaro resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  I've invited a niece to join me in this adventure since Hubby has business that week.  A mandatory site inspection where the manager or staff give a tour of the facilities, highlighting amenities and features is required and then the remainder of the trip is spent enjoying the facilities so I can come home and give an honest review of the resort.  It's a tough job but someone has to do it!  As I look at the reviews and pictures of the resort I am SO excited about this first FAM!  

Tomorrow morning before my niece and her kids come for a visit I need to give a "Welcome Home" call to my friends/clients who are coming home from their Disney vacation.  I can't wait to hear about their trip!

Have I mentioned how much I love my job?? ha ha

Until next time...

Joy in the Job!

I was in the office today for a double shift, from 9:30-5pm (which actually turned into 6pm).  It started out a pretty slow day with only one real task on my agenda, but as usually happens when I get there, the day takes on a mind of it's own.

I had intended to put together a package for my clients who leave the end of August for an Alaskan cruise.  I had purchased a small travel journal to give to my client so she could take notes of their journey as they prepare to leave their daughter in Vancouver after the cruise so she can start college at the University of British Columbia.  I packed wrapping paper, ribbon and the journal into my work bag and I came home this afternoon with it all exactly as I'd taken it.  (Oh well... tomorrow is another day!).

What thwarted my efforts of a quiet day were phone calls from friends and family asking for help in booking flights and hotels to the sunny South.  It's the phone calls and "interruptions" that make this job so enjoyable and interesting.  Just as I began doing one thing, another call would come in and task A would be laid aside for a few minutes while task B took precedence for awhile.

As I was getting ready to start thinking about packing up for the day I received a phone call from Expedia.ca with a potential cruise client on the other end.  Thoughts of going home were laid aside as I tried to navigate this woman towards a spectacular European cruise vacation.  Once I got as much accomplished as I could, I finally packed up my computer, called home and told Hubby and The Niece (who is living with us for the summer) that I was FINALLY on my way home for dinner!

By the time I arrived home from the whirlwind of a day, I was so pumped that my mind and mouth were running a mile a minute.  Hubby took my hand at the dinner table and said to me, "Breathe!" which I did... before blathering more about my busy day.

During my evening, dear friends who I'd booked on a WDW Resort vacation started posting pictures on Facebook of their day at Magic Kingdom.  Seeing their smiling faces enjoying their first visit to the Happiest Place on Earth brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart.  Like a proud Mama I ate up each and every picture.  THIS is why I do this job!!  (It sure isn't for the paycheque!).  About an hour or so after the pictures appeared, another friend called, who had just arrived home Monday from the WDW Resort vacation I'd booked for them.  With enthusiasm and excitement she shared about the amazing time they enjoyed at Disney World.  Again I was overwhelmed with joy at the blessing this job can be to both me and the clients I help.

The clock has just turned to "tomorrow" as I close up this day and I am reminded once again of God's blessing on my business.  I never dreamed when I started this dream job a year ago that I would love it as much as I do.  Never before have I had a job that I found it hard to leave at the end of the day... but leave it I must... until tomorrow (or later today) because this lady needs some rest!