Betsy Carstairs

This weekend @ The BOLD conference I was fortunate to listen to a talk presented by Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer. Gerthe  recounted her younger years  living in Norway& acting as  decoy  by her parents to smuggle guns to the resistance movement during the WW11 occupation of Norway by Germany. Weaned by that fierce determination to stand for justice stood her in good stead for the life she was t ...

I attended a great workshop this weekend. One of the venues was a computer class with Mary Bryson. What a treat to have this level of talent. Mary is a professor @ the  University of BC. She was impressive not only in her knowledge on the subject of Social Media but in her ability to manage the full class & eloquently discuss  Blogging Twitter & Flikr. A lot of ground to cover in a short 2 ho ...

I have a friend who just moved into her beautiful new view apartment. She spent hours preconstruction painstakingly choosing just the right flooring, counter tops & paint coulours. Just when the "dust settled" a year later she had a flood. Now all the cork & tile flooring as well as some of the gyprock needs to be replaced. This type of stress & the mess from a flood can be avoided. Remember ...

With the hot weather this week I was up The Arm basking in the sun. Kayaking was lots of fun in my Hobie kayak that speeds along but swimming was not a option this week. There were billions of jelly fish!!! Often one sees a few jellies but never before have I seen so many of them. Thought it might be a jelly hatching but they were all different sizes as you can see so obviously not all babi ...

These  "Awareness Through Movement" classes with Irene Gutteridge are well worth the time . I have taken a few Feldenkrais classes with Irene and I find that the heightened awareness of how I move in these classes transfer into many different ways throughout my day. After a class I explore different ways to do otherwise routine tasks in different more efficient ways. Whether it is getting out ...

Almost summer but not quite with the new snow on the mountains. What a mixed up year weather wise. Shorts & kayaking for February's Winter Olympics & now at the end of May, at the start of summer we get new snow on the mountains!!!!! Here I am in a toque heading up to Helga Bay on the East side of The Arm. Lets hope we get kick started with some warmer weather soon.My kayak is polished & r ...

Here is a e-mail that Tracy Turnell mortgage broker sent to me .Know it is always a difficult decision as to what to so when taking out a mortgage or renewing a mortgage. From this article it looks like the low rates have hit bottom & are starting to nose upwards. If they raise prime a full .5% on July 1 2010 that is a big jump & for a lot of people holding mortgages it is headed in the wrong ...

Yesterday turned into a bit of a nightmare when the key for my 18 year old BMW snapped off in the door when we tried to lock up & head into Turks for a cuppa. My real estate buddy Adam Goss was able to pull the piece out from the door out so we did have a key albiet in 2 pieces so not functional. Adam ran up to the Hardware store on Commercial Drive to see if they could cut us a new key but n ...

This past weekend I attended Every Woman in Whistler with my 3 sisters.  This year was the best yet of the 5 years.  We attended Nia, Yoga, Hip Hop Classes, financial planning seminars and also classes on women's health.We all socialized and Saturday we dined out & after dinner we went to Buffalo Bills to practice our cool dance steps.  We stayed at the Carleton Lodge a great spot to survey t ...

I just listed a home that was cute but did not show off the positive features as well as it could have  so we decided to hire the expert to make it sparkle. Here is what Trish the home stager has to say..........What a wonderful sense of accomplishment I felt today!  I helped a great family stage their beautiful, but well lived in home for their upcoming open house.  Sometimes homeowners feel ...