Living in H.I.Diff

A few weeks ago I joined Toastmasters. For your own entertainment I’m sharing with you my first speech, my icebreaker speech. It’s meant as a get to know me type speech. I hope you enjoy.

icebergTo break into this little iceberg, known as Remy, let’s start foundational. Every good house has a solid foundation, and I’m no exception. The three things that build my foundation are happiness, indepedency, and being different. In our world of creating acronyms (or acronymization, it’s a word I didn’t make up this time), we we call it H.I.Diff. You see your TV in HiDef, you can see Remy in H.I.Diff.

smileyface

Happiness – I’m an annoyingly optimistic person, but not irrationally so. Strange balance here. Being happy is what you personally make of it. It’s not what your family, your spouse, or stuff you have (crammed in your garage). It’s your personal perception of the world. Your family, friends, and maybe some of that stuff Crammed in your garage help enhance your happiness. But ultimately you are in control of your happiness. For over 20 years my daddy has lived in Asheboro and my momma has lived in Asheville. Every week my dad drives 2.5-3hours to see my mom for the weekend and drives back to teach English at RCC. My dad is in Asheville every school break to spend with my mom. This has kept my parents happy for over 20 years. They aren’t divorced or separated, this is just how they keep their marriage happy. Growing up their were few fights that I can remember. Seeing this as the norm, my own happiness magnifier is in Toronto. I don’t get to see him every weekend, but he’s my happiness. I get to focus on growing my business, he gets to focus on expanding his culinary wisdom. We don’t have to talk about the mundane daily tasks, we get to talk about planning the next trip or the occasional big frustration or the big wins. It’s our untraditional happiness. We’ve been together 6 years, doing this for 2 years.

RosieTheRiveterWeCanDoItA good reason I can keep up the long haul distance is due to my independence. Previously it could be considered extreme independence. This was independence that started as a hormonal teen, this independence started in the womb. I was due on Halloween. That schedule did not work for me, I needed to be fashionably late. I decided my big entrance would be December 2nd. Yep, a month. I do what I want. Between ages of 1 & 2 in those crawling not yet fully walking stages I easily figure out how to help my daddy cook while he was out of the kitchen. I would push the chair to the gas stove and start turning knobs like daddy did. Silly parents just didn’t understand I could do it my self and wanted to hold me back. They hung up the chairs above my head and beyond the reach of my little arm. No worries, I knew they were hiding the stairs in the walls on the sides of the stove. I will just pull out the stairs, adults like to call them drawers, and work on the sides of the gas stove. No more knobs for the stairs. Luckily for my parents’ sanity I was a age to go to the daycare and that quickly came a big option. By age 5 I realize the road to real independence is a car. Every few months until age 12 I asked when I could learn to drive. Age 15/16 CLEARLY is just a recommended age. I’m Remy, that is clearly not written for me. They caved at age 12 because my mom was doing the reverse drive and was extremely sick. If I knew how to drive I would have at least driven the rest of the way home. I was responsible and tall enough to pass for 16.

Though many of these stories can already illustrate the ways I’m different. For me it’s all about perspective. The norm for me can be seen as really strange for someone else. Maybe you are the someone else. To have something that is different you have to have a historical or agreed upon “normal” that is the base line. Something can only be different when you compare it to something else. Different can be good, different can be bad. But remember the first thing I said, your happiness is ultimately up to you. Every situation is different but the average for me different is good. I don’t want to be Center of attention, but I also don’t want to be lost in the herd. Some people might say I’m off beat and I tell them they’re listening to the wrong song.

Apple - think different

I consciously do things a little differently than many people you may know. It helps me stand out from the herd. Let’s me keep my independence so that I can live my happiness.
I hope you can find your drum beat that beats a little bit differently so that you can find your ultimate happiness.
You’re welcome to come live H.I.Diff with me.
Thank You. :)

Financial Inspiration Friday

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Now that half a year has gone by (CrAZy) think about what has changed. Do you feel like your on top of a mountain or down in a valley. Either way, make sure to prepare. Learn from the what got you down in the valley. If you’re on top of a mountain make sure to have a plan in place so you don’t fall all the way to the valley.

How is your financially fit life going this year so far? I’d love to hear an update!

Tech Tuesday – SeeClickFix

Seeclickfix app

So to explain this app I need paint you a picture.

You’re driving to work and every day you avoid this large annoying pot hole half way there. Annoying, but you think, “I’m sure it’s going to get fixed soon.” You stay late to work about once a week and the street light closest to your parking spot outside your office is out. UGH, of course… “GAH! I just want to see where I parked!” you think to yourself. Days and weeks go by and the hole is still there and the light is still out. But what are you going to do about it? You don’t have time to go to community meetings, yell at the city council or even at times it’s hard to remember to gripe about it to your neighbor. As Sweet Brown might say “Ain’t nobody got time for that”

Well, I learned something very *AWESOME* this morning from the wondering Mrs. Jennifer Suarez. Seeclickfix App (or website if you don’t have a smartphone) to report an issue. The issue can be the pothole, street light out, animal body in the road, or insert another local community issue that can be put on a To-Do list you don’t know how to get fixed.

Launch SeeClickFix App.

When you select Report you will get this screen:

It will use your GPS to locate where you are (yay! you don’t have to figure it out!). You can take a picture of the issue and then write a description. On an off beat request for the troubleshooter in me, please write a detail description, don’t just assume it’s “obvious.” “Dead deer” doesn’t really mean anything, but “dead deer in center lane of glenwood ave” will put a fire in someone’s tush.

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to see all the issues submitted you can check out the issues tab. May be a little Christmas-like with the colors but it’s great to see so much green (issues resolved) than red (unresolved issues). Good job Raleigh keeping it so green!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now make sure to go out and make your little bit of community a little bit better.

Let me know how this works for you and if it’s helped you out!

Until next time!

Financial Inspiration Friday

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As you tell your friends about your goals and dreams and how you’re getting there, remind the not to compare your progress with theirs if they’re just beginning the journey. Let them know and understand your journey with its pitfalls and successes, but make sure they know only compare their own journey with their own progress. It’s not fair to compare the progress of a novice runner with a runner that has been training for a marathon for months.

Have a wonderfully productive weekend!

Financial Inspiration Friday

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No matter how hard the journey gets, it’s just going to help you become stronger and makes the goal even more worth it in the end. You’re working hard at it so the reward is going to be even more sweet. Just when the caterpillar thinks its all over, poof he turns into a butterfly. So don’t forget that in the hardest moments of the journey your goal is right around e corner waiting for you.

Have a great weekend!

Tech Tuesday – Remote Phone Android

Remote phone (marlove)- android
Great tool to help find your lost phone with some extra bonus features.

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Remote phone is a free app for a few features, but to get all the features you will probably need it for, it’s just $2. If losing your phone is almost a habit at this point, $2 is worth the investment.

I originally purchased it for my mom because I let her start using the droid global I used to have. It’s her first smartphone and she lives 4hours away so this should help me help her by letting me download apps I think she would enjoy. Now with remote phone on there set up for her I can help her locate her phone when she looses it. The biggest thing I have come to love about some of the features is that even if you have your phone on silent or vibrate (which is 90% of the time for me), you can switch the ringer on, vibrate or silent without being near the phone. This will help my mom find her phone in case the couch or car decides to eat it. The couches and cars in Asheville seem to be especially hungry for phones I have found.

A few of the other fun features:
– Take a picture with any camera you have on the device (front and back)
– record sound from the phone
– review text messages that have come through
– make calls from the phone itself
– view contact lists
– hide the application so someone can’t uninstall it
– remotely wipe the device
– put a pass code on device to lock anyone out

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To fully set up the app on your phone you will need to make sure you have a Dropbox account to link it to already on you device. I had to set up one for my mom and it was easy to do.
You may use my link to get an extra 500MB worth of storage:

http://db.tt/DSjSFf9

Apple-iCloud-Logo

iPhone/iPad users: though you may not have the full featured list that remote phone has for android, you have something similar already built in, free of charge through iCloud.
Step 1) log into iCloud on your device (settings>icloud) with your appleid (if you don’t have one by now, you can create one from the iCloud screen)
Step 2) turn on “Find My iPhone”

When your phone has been lost /misplaced/stolen, you can log into iCloud.com with the same appleid to locate it on a map, make a sound go off (it sounds like a sonar), put a lock on the phone that shows the person who has it how to return it, or you can remotely wipe the device all from iCloud.com