Author: JOYE

Since we have all been at home these past months, I’ve been doing alot of reading. I love my Nora Roberts, Danielle Steele, Harlen Coben, Jodi Piccoult, Nicolas Sparks to name a few. I’ve also embarked on some new authors who have inspired me to think more outside the box and look at alternate ideas for a second career.

The two most recent authors are:

Cathy Heller – “Don’t keep your Day Job” and

Chris Guillebeau – “The Art of Non- Conformity, Set your Own Rules, Live the Life you Want”

As I read thru the chapters, I started to consider my options about a part time career. I love my full time job – I’ve been with this one employer for over 10 years now – I get 4 weeks vacation a year, I’m close to home, I can ride my bike to work in nice weather and I really enjoy helping my customers.

I have no plans to quit this job even though both my kids think I should look for another one. The reality is, I’m in my fifties, I’m not going to earn that much more per hour than what I’m making and as I have ageing parents who will need more of my support in the future, I can be there for them as needed.

Anyway, I love to write, I love words and with a house crowded with one son and a dog taking up residence, I have little quiet time to devote to putting ideas and thoughts to keyboard. Thus I’m blogging at a public computer at our local branch library. What better place to write and be inspired to write than being surrounded by all of the world’s greatest authors.

In his book, Chris talked about alternate methods to achieve higher learning or expanded education. How?? – to read 30 non fiction books and read 20 of the Classic all-time novels.

So my first attempt at a classic was “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. I say attempt – as I read about 3 chapters and simply could not visualize the scene in my head and embarrassingly I had a hard time understanding the “old English” writing style. This book was written in the mid-1860’s. The english – grammar, sentence structure etc, was very formal and proper. I returned the book to the library and went back to the list…….

I’ve now delved into another classic – again written in the mid- 1800’s. This one is by Charles Dickens – ” A Tale of two Cities”. The english is the same, but here I can at least visualize the scene in my head and this novel is a story set in London and Paris at the time of the French Revolution. I must confess my knowledge of history leaves alot to be desired – definitely not one of my best subjects in high school. However with that being said, one can always learn if one is willing to put it in the time…..

How does reading the classics help me decide on a part time writing career?

Well -I want to build this career by blogging where I can share with the world what I’ve learned, where I’ve been, where I can use fun and interesting words to express myself, what I struggle with, how I cope, how I de-stress and how I stay positive, how I set goals, how I navigate thru life as an older single woman, how I go about achieving my goals, where I can share the pitfalls/joys of travelling alone, etc.

I leave you for now.

Thank you for reading and for letting me share with you a little bit more of myself.

Joye

As has been quite apparent, I have not taken fingers to keys for quite some time and for this I do apologize to all of you that have been reading about my adventures. The pandemic has thrown a curve into my daily routine and I will be back soon to continue our journey.

In 2018 – with one of my BFF’S in tow – I accomplished Parlee Beach in New Brunswick and Singing Sands in Basin Head, PEI.

In 2019 – on my own this time, I swam at Lake Manitou in Watrous, Saskatchewan and Devonshire Beach in Edmonton, AB

This year would have seen me travelling to Martinique NS and the Isle de Madeleine in Quebec, but alas, we are all at home staying safe from COVID19.

More on those journeys in next week’s post.

Thank you for reading and for letting me share.

Joye

This entry today is a public service message for the greater good and the safety of women and men alike who may have fallen or been prey to the online romance scam artists.

Right off  – this entry may or may not exceed my word limit, so bear with me.

However, to all of you that read this – you have my permission to share this with your bff’s, your guy friends, your parents, siblings, your children, your elderly neighbours, your social media groups etc.

We need to get the word out so that not one other person loses their livelihood to an unscrupulous, malicious, uncaring, and dishonest con artist. In Canada, we have a special division of the police -the Anti Fraud Unit. I plan to share the emails and instagram posts with them so that they can publish my experience to help others. I may also work to get my story out to out local news outlets.. spread the word, please!!

During this pandemic, we are all at home, surfing the Net, reading page after page of Instagram posts, while a few of us single ones are looking for that person to connect with online.

My story is a common one. To reassure you, I did not fall victim, in that I did not lose money, jewels, investments, etc. I chose to keep the facade going in order to share with you some commonalities about how these people operate.

I too, joined the Facebook Dating portal, in the hopes of finding my new Mr. Right and you guessed it, one of the men that contacted me, was a romance scammer.

Our conversations didn’t last too long as he never seemed to accurately answer the questions I had for him and they were very vague and not specific. This brief interlude lasted about a week until I caught on and then I ended the conversation.

One other experience involved a gent claiming to be some sort of engineer who was currently in the “high land of Ghana” to finalize some Estate dealings from his late father. After a while, I got bored with the daily expressions of love and devotion and was not going to wait for the “ask”.

There is always the “ask” – the point at which the scammer reveals why they have found you, how much they love you and what they ask of you.

One of my life philosophies is ” I know enough to be dangerous” and “Question everything”.

These are the indicators of a Romance Scam Artist:

They may claim to be:  in the Military, a civil engineer, a salesman, an architect, have their own import/export business, etc. They are either divorced or widowed, they usually have a “teenage son” or a child away in New Zealand or Australia in Medical school or the child is being cared for by a nanny. Their parents are no longer alive – so the whole premise of being “all alone in the world”.  Most notable about these scammers is their inability to write full sentences, spell properly, use proper sentence structure/grammar and they will use phrases that are just not part of the North American lexicon. I got the impression they were using a translation service to read my emails and then to respond back. Which should make you think – if they are all so educated, how can they be so illiterate.

They will tell you just a bit about themselves, without giving real specific answers, sometimes coincidentally their birthdays happen to be the same month or year as yours.  When you attempt to engage them in conversation, they take a long time to answer or show no real interest in your interests or hobbies. An example – this gent claimed his birthday was in June ( Gemini ). So I asked him – “what aspects of the Gemini sign do you most relate to?” His reply – “Sagittarius”. Uh what??????? So when I called him on it -he claimed to not have understood the question and thought I meant something to do with his son……

They will have some or very similar hobbies to yours, they will claim “they are new to Instagram” and found your profile. I never give them my full name nor the City where I live – usually just the province/country. I am very vague with my personal profile info – for obvious reasons.  One of my standard questions is to ask them what they know about Canada – most often, they claim to know nothing. Hence why I don’t reveal the city I live in. I usually tell them I am single – not divorced, separated, widowed etc. Within a few weeks of email exchanges, they will start to express their unconditional love for you, how much they miss you, they will send you cute flowers, or images of unicorns (??????), they will ask for your address, so that they can send you flowers or a teddy bear, etc. They will feel cheated if you tell them you don’t have the same feelings – how can you – you don’t even know this person and you haven’t met!!!!.

Now – here comes the ask and the whole reason behind the scam, in the first place…..

This man, claimed to be on a peace keeping mission in Afghanistan – he had been there for a few years and was hoping to retire soon. The first ask was – he wanted me to write to the United Nations and pretend to be his wife, so that he could get vacation time……Well that wasn’t going to happen and I quashed that right away.  The more serious ask, came a few weeks later, where he claimed he was so close to retirement now, ready to come to Canada and be with me,but oh – he has a trunk with millions of dollars in treasures, taken from an assassinated general in Kabul and he needed me to take possession of it and keep it safe for him……. All I had to was send a letter to this courier company in Germany, advising them that I was his Trustee and for them to send it to me…….

Ah – do you see what’s wrong with this request? So I told him – well send me a photo of the trunk, a list of the contents, the value of the contents, the Insurance Certificate, the B13 for Export, the Commercial Invoice and the Packing List. Surely he could understand that the Customs and Border Agents would need all of this info…..  Anyway, this is a condensed version of the Romance Scam Artist – these people all follow a similar pattern and line of questions and histories……

Please, please – don’t fall for them. I know some of you are lonely, you’ve lost your best friend, your spouse, your partner, your children, your parents, etc – but these scum bags prey on your desolation. Rise above them and find comfort with friends and family. Take up a new hobby – find your own joy in being alone. I have and my life is rich, joyful, fun, entertaining and full of treasured moments.

Thank you for reading and for letting me spread the word. Good luck, stay safe, stay healthy.

Joye

As I started this journey, I came to accept that I always need a goal or something to look forward to or work toward. I don’t always meet the goal and have had to push back those goals or dreams on more than one occasion, but that’s okay. Life is a Journey and everyday we can accomplish one small piece towards our goals.

After our East Coast Beaches trip in 2018, I set the goal to increase my lap swimming distance every week by 4 lengths. This goal tied in nicely to my current age, as i wanted to complete 56 lengths by my next vacation in 2019. I can easily swim 1 km or 40 lengths but could I get to 1.5 kms? that would be 60 lengths. I did achieve my personal best in May 2018 of 46 lengths or 1150 metres. Since then I faltered in my weekly swimming commitment and could not pull myself out of my slump..

Where I use to swim 3 times a week, now I was down to 3-4 times a month and every week when I didn’t go, it got harder and harder to stay motivated and to push myself to even swim the one kilometre. Yet, every single time, I stepped into the water, I could feel the energy and was reminded of just why I love to swim – the calmness and the exhilaration at the same time, the feeling in my arm and leg muscles, the quietness of the water as I sliced through it. Not even these feelings were enough to push me into the pool every week.

Lost days, turned into lost weeks, turned into lost months and in May 2019, I was in a car accident. My fault. The damage extensive enough that the Insurance Company wrote off my car. I’ve said before – “Everything happens for a reason – Good or Bad”.

Stay tuned for more on this routine altering event.

Thank you for reading and letting me share. Joye

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It is July 9, 2019 and as I walked from the bus stop this morning on my way to work, I reflected on the last 10 years. As this month marks the 10th anniversary of when I chose to take up swimming as my preferred form of exercise.

I felt it would be appropriate to to publish a new post today on this monumental anniversary – at least its monumental to me……LOL…

Alas, now as I sit here, I am stumped by bloggers writer’s block…..

I am also one month away from my next vacation! On Aug 9 I will already be in Saskatchewan – to swim the final two provincial beaches on my list.

I will be at Lake Manitou in Watrous, Saskatchewan. Now this body of water, is not really designed for swimming, as the mineral content makes it less ideal for swimming/wading but very perfect as a “healing” type of water. The last beach on my list is Devonshire Beach on Slave Lake in Alberta. I will be posting more on this trip as we go along…..

I haven’t been swimming as much as I would have liked over the last few months. I was in a car accident in mid May, my car was written off due to the extent of the damage. So I have been walking and using our local transit and my bicycle to get to and from work and to run any errands. I figured I could use this type of aerobic exercise during the summer and before the snow falls in November, I’ll have a new car. Not a new one- at this stage in my life, I don’t need a new car and I definitely do not want to lock myself into a new car loan. I’m sure I can find a decent used car.

My flights are booked – I got them at a great price!, my train cabin is booked and the rental cars are secured. My hotels are those that are local to Saskatchewan and Alberta. I endeavour to always support the local businesses of the places I travel to.

Again, as in vacations past, I hope to find a friendly soul who will be willing to videotape or film me in the water and not walk away with my IPhone or video camera.

Thank you for being interested and stay tuned for more.

Joye

An important aspect for any woman to consider when travelling alone, is what sort of accommodations are available. For the purpose of this post, I refer to our safety.

We are vulnerable as soon as we get to the airport, or the train station or the cruise ship.

For my first trip, to Manitoba, I had already prepared my itinerary and mapped out all the places I wanted to visit. With this info, I sourced both Bed and Breakfast places and hotels. At a hotel, I would just be one other guest. They wouldn’t care, that I was travelling alone, that I planned to drive from the west part of Manitoba to the east!. There wouldn’t be anyone to ask how my trip was, what places did I visit, did I run into any difficulties,  I couldn’t provide them with an Emergency Contact list, nor could I call the front desk if I ran into a problem whilst driving everywhere. Plus I would have to eat restaurant food 3 times a day.

For these reasons, I chose to stay at two separate Bed and Breakfasts. The first one was located in Morden, Manitoba- “A Wee Bit of Heaven B&B“. The owners are Carolann and Joe Krohn. The 2nd one was located in Selkirk – “Evergreen Gate B&B” owned by Laurel and Rob Sarginson.

I spent 3 days at each home and laughed so much, shared so much and learned so much from both of these couples. Homemade breakfast and coffee with lively conversations first thing in the morning. A care package of water, fruit, snacks to take with me on my day’s journeys. A phone call later in the day, to ask if I would be home for dinner, shall they save me a plate.

While in Morden, I visited Riding Mountain National Park, I drove thru Holland, I visited the Canadian Mint and spent one day in downtown Winnipeg. I drove along the TransCanada Highway – which I had never done before and to realize that one could cross our entire country by this route, is both inspiring and motivating, to say the least.

Once I made my way to Selkirk, I visited the Lower Fort Garry Historic Site, I spent an afternoon in Gimli where I did a tour of the Gimli Glider exhibit. Alas I did not make it to the factory where they produce Crown Royal…… On the day before I headed home, I spent the afternoon at Grand Beach!

You will recall earlier I mentioned that I only had a small phone with limited capabilities. The day I drove from Morden to Selkirk, I had booked a horse trail ride at Miracle Ranch. Well, whilst driving along the Perimeter Highway, I got lost and had no idea how to make my way back. I used up valuable travel time and very valuable phone time, and had to cancel my reservation. By the time I found a local restaurant to get my bearings, it was too late in the afternoon and I had to get Evergreen Gate B&B.

This first vacation was so much fun and the entire experience was made more rewarding and enjoyable due to the graciousness, kindness and courtesy shown to me by both the Krohn’s and the Sarginsons.

Thank you for letting me share my journey.

Come back again. Joye

July 2017

As the day grew closer to my first solo vacation, I would be remiss to not consider how to protect myself while away from home and in a distant province.

There are some realities a single older woman travelling on her own must be cognizant about and must be prepared for.

Copies of my full itinerary were given to my sons, my neighbours, my parents, my sister, the lady taking care of my cats and a few friends. This list included flight # and flight times, train # and schedule, contact info for my accommodations and a draft schedule of all the places I would visit. I purchased a special credit card holder that would protect my cards from any “illegal” tampering. I advised my credit card companies that I would be out of province. I carried an extra copy of my Emergency Contact List with me in my bag and I made sure to identify my ICE (In Case of Emergency) contacts in my little phone. I had my travel insurance taken care and my Will was already in effect. Not that I live by this motto but -“anything can happen to anybody at any time”. It’s a sobering thought, but one we all must consider. My decision to stay at a B&B or hotel also weighed on me, as I planned this trip.

Stay tuned and read my next post about the pros and cons – B&B or Hotel.

For added measure and peace of mind, I borrowed my son’s tablet and ensured I had  strong battery and a good charging system.

While in Manitoba, before I headed out for the day, I posted on Facebook what my plans were. Some of my family and friends “followed me along” and others just sent the proverbial – “Good luck” “Have Fun”, “Can’t wait to see pictures”. I even provided the hostesses of my B&B with a daily itinerary.

Remember, I did not yet own an IPhone, I possessed this tiny pay as you go, flip phone.

I could text, take some very small pictures and I could talk on it. It even had voice mail. No maps, no “Find Friends” feature, no “share my current location”, no Siri, no music, no unlimited data or unlimited minutes across Canada.  NADA!!!! So, of course, I brought along both a digital camera and a video camera……Oh the horror of it all…..

As luck would have it, the morning of my day trip to Grand Beach,  I ran out of phone time!. Sure enough, I could not get thru to Customer Service at the Mobile Service Provider. I was stuck – with no phone………..Driving a rental, in an unfamiliar area and I would not be able to call or contact anyone. This was a daunting experience to say the least. My only recourse, was to take along my tablet, find locations with free WIFI – even though I had no idea how to “turn on WIFI” and hoped I made it thru the day, without incident.

I reached out to my sister on FB Messenger and asked her to contact my kids and let them what had transpired. Cause of course, young men are not sitting reading FB on a warm, beautiful day  in July….. At least not my sons……

Thus in early 2018, before I embarked on my trip to the East Coast of Canada, my eldest was adamant that I finally purchase an IPhone. As he said, “Mummy, I cannot be worried that I won’t be able to reach you or that your Phone time card has run out.” “Just get the IPhone.” So, I did.

More to follow.

Thank you for letting me share. Joye

Grand Beach, Manitoba July 2017

As the year 2016 came to an end, I was determined that come July or August 2017, I would be in Manitoba for the first of the “Ten Best Canadian Beaches” Trip.

My sister and I are exceptional organizers – she as the “Hostess with the Mostess” for dinner parties and Birthday celebrations. Me, I am fabulous at the details for planning events, birthday parties, community events, financial planning, corporate workshops and business meetings. I would be in my element in the planning, execution and enjoyment of my first solo trip.

I requested travel brochures and maps from the provincial Tourism board, I monitored the airline website weekly to check out best dates and prices to fly, I researched pages and pages of B &B’s and local hotels, I considered what type of rental car I would need, I reviewed maps of Manitoba to ascertain how much travelling I would be doing, I sourced online reviews for various activities and places to visit, I checked out the local restaurants. I monitored the Via Rail website for pricing and specials. I even reviewed historical weather data from The Weather Network to determine whether mid July, late July or early August would be the optimum time for a dip in the lake.

I scrimped and saved, worked overtime, opened up a special Beaches Vacation Bank account. Any extra money went into that account religiously.

The only aspect left of my entire trip to sort out, was, once I was in the water and going for a swim, how the heck was I going to get evidence of such an accomplishment?

You see, in 2017 I remained one of the few people in my kids’ circle and my friends circle, that did not possess an IPhone!!!! I still used a small flip phone with the capabilities for voice mail, talk and text. Sure it could capture pictures, but at the size of a postage stamp……..Well then, this would require some further investigation. I would have to get creative in finding someone that I could trust, within 5 minutes of meeting them on a strange beach in Grand Beach, Manitoba…. this person would have to follow me out to the water, stand in the water, listen to me present my “little spiel” about why I was swimming at Grand Beach Manitoba and then they would film me for a few moments. As well, I still had some anxiety about leaving all of my personal belongings on a beach towel, on a strange beach, all by myself in Grand Beach, Manitoba, with a rental car and its keys, tucked in amongst these personal belongings, while I swam in the water, way way out of reach of my stuff. A problem just waiting to be solved……

Stay tuned.

Thank you for letting me share my journey and my story. Joye

I love words – I love to learn new words and I like being able to use new words in my everyday conversations. My other passion – reading – always presents a new word for me to learn and use…. I so enjoy teaching these words to my sons and when, lo and behold, they use the word in a sentence, I’m flabbergasted…..

On the flip side, I abhor people that use words in the wrong context, spell words incorrectly or default to all of these clichéd words, expressions- a real pet peeve for me, especially in the 21st Century with all these technology, literally, at our fingertips….

I will never use the word “like” as a filler word in a sentence or describe a situation, or happening as being “crazy” – surely one can find the proper descriptive word to use in that context.

I love to spell words too. I have the unique ability ( only in my mind of course) that I spell as I speak. In any of my day to day conversations, I will see a screen “in my head” of the words coming out of the my mouth and I’m spelling them as I go along……

For years, when my sons were younger, I would boast that I could spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and they would always come back with the same retort – but mom, no one else knows, so how can we be sure you are right?

Anyway, I’m telling you all this because I hope to use this passion for words and writing  and embark on a new career – albeit maybe a part time one.

The specifics as to how I’m going to generate any real sustainable income, hasn’t been formulated or worked out just yet… The ideas are there. As I move forward with my re-commitment to blog, I hope the Laws of Attraction will put me in front of the audience or the person that can help me on this journey.

Right now, this media is for me to write, share, inspire, teach, encourage those who are interested in hearing about my story and my journey. I am still quite a novice blogger and am learning as I go along.

Thank you for reading and for letting me share. Joye

Here we are – it is Autumn 2015, the Pan Am Games are done and all of the volunteers have been invited to a Volunteer Appreciation Night – food aplenty, desserts and Raffle prizes. I’m excited to reconnect with those Fleet Drivers that I spent time with in the summer.

We gather under the big white tent once again. I got there just before they ran out of cake!. A raffle is being held and my name goes into the box……Prize after prize is drawn. I’m taken aback by the generosity of those that made these prizes available to us.

I Won!!!!! – $100 Gift Certificate for Via Rail to be used within the year!!!! How ironic is that? I want to travel by train for my vacations and now I have $100 to spend!!! I am SO GRATEFUL. I will use it for my 2016 vacation plan…..

Not so fast………

Early in January 2016, whilst driving home from the pool, late at night, my car started to shut down and the battery would cut out…….Appt at the dealership – $750 repair bill. OUCH…..

January 16 – the anniversary 2 years ago, when we lost our uncle, my dad’s favourite brother.

February 2016- my best friend and her husband lost his son to a brain aneurysm.

I decided then to use my Via Rail $100 Gift Certificate towards the trip for a spa day at Ste. Anne’s Spa in Cobourg Ontario.  I needed a day of pampering and indulgence.

So with money rec’d from my ex boyfriend the year before, I planned my day.

In February, it’s cold, dreary, lots of snow and driving is such a hassle. I would do the entire day using just transit… Hassle free travel, snow capped trees and landscape, kind and pleasant staff, serene surroundings, hot tubs, cool mist, warm terry cloth robe, body pampering treatments, chocolate tea and lovely desserts…..The day was the therapy and self care I needed.

Early March, I had given up on some of my other charitable work. I wanted to run for the Board of Directors for the Co-op where I live. Well, I was nominated, I accepted, I voted, I was elected.. A two year term – monthly meetings, additional meetings, letter writing, committees, etc.

Well then!! The Housing Agency holds an Annual Meeting in June and I was asked to attend. A week away from work and home – I had to use my vacation time for this trip.

Alas, no more vaca time for a trip to Manitoba……..

That’s the thing about setting goals and working towards them – sometimes life happens and you have to re-assess, re-plan and most importantly; re-commit to the goal.

Summer 2017 – trip to Manitoba will happen and NOTHING WILL STAND IN MY WAY.

Stay tuned, won’t you? Thank you for reading, thank you for letting me share my journey.

One must always have a goal or a dream to look forward to.

Joye