When you’re putting your property on the market, you want to make it seem as big and comfortable as possible. After all, buyers are attracted to space. However, you probably have at least one room in your home — and perhaps even more — that feels small and a little cramped. Of course you don’t want the buyer’s first impression of the room to be its size. Since it isn’t practical to be knocking down walls and renovating, what should you do? Here are some ideas for making small spaces seem larger and more comfortable: Remove any items and extra furniture that make the room feel smaller than it really is. Remove any obstructions near the entranceway. You should be able to open the door fully and walk in without bumping into a desk or bookshelf. Don’t use heavy curtains on the windows. Let the light in. Use soft light bulbs with enough wattage to fill the room with full and pleasant (but not blinding) light. Less is more. Keep knickknacks, pictures and other décor items to a minimum. Keep the door fully open during viewings. Make sure there’s enough space for two people to walk in and move around without bumping into each other. Give the room a purpose. “This is the home office.” Or, “This is the comfy reading nook.” If a small room doesn’t have a reason for being, it will seem like wasted space. Want more ideas for preparing your home so that it will sell quickly and for the best price? Call today.

If you’re planning on moving, you’re probably focused on how much your new home is going to cost. However, it’s also a good idea to understand the real costs associated with selling your current property. In fact, there are some costs and expenses you may not have anticipated. Here are a few examples: Home inspection. You might think you’ll only need a home inspection for a home on which you’ve made an offer. However, it might also make sense to have a home inspection completed on your current property in order to identify potential issues that might get in the way of a sale. Buyers feel more confident when considering a home that has had a recent professional inspection. Cancellation costs. There may be extra expenses associated with canceling internet services, newspaper subscriptions, home security systems, and even lawn care services. Repairs. You should budget to get any maintenance issues, such as a broken door handle, dealt with before your home goes on the market. Staging. Tasks like getting rid of clutter, arranging for the carpets to be professionally cleaned, having the hedges trimmed, and doing other things to make the property look attractive to buyers all fall under the umbrella of “staging”. You can do much of this work yourself, or hire a professional. Moving. It’s a good idea to budget for the costs of moving. Even if you’re using a friend’s truck and planning to do most of the packing and hauling yourself, there may still be costs, such as packaging materials, gas, and perhaps even pizza for your crew. At the end of the day, these costs may turn out to be negligible when compared to the value of your property. As your REALTOR®, I can help you understand all the costs and help make the selling process go smoothly.

Looking to lose weight and tone your body? ? Train like a gymnast. I always talk to people who are wanting to lose weight, who tell me they started running and are trying to drop 30 pounds. My heart goes out to them but we are all guilty of doing this at some point in our lives. Not only is running hard on your body's joints and muscles through the repetitive movement and impact, but now they are doing it with what equates to an extra 30 or maybe 50 pound back pack on them. Why do we do this? Simple. It costs nothing and we can all walk upright on our feet so we go with what we know. No one wants to pay for a gym membership and walk around not knowing what to do, so we go to our comfort zone, even though it's boring and kills our body so we quit the next week because it's not enjoyable. Is there a better solution? Absolutely. Resistance training provides so much more benefits for your body and weight loss goals. Whether it's using your own body weight, dumbells, kettle bells, or whatever, overloading your muscles is the way to go. Let me explain as simply as I can. When you strength or resistance train, you overload your muscles. They break down and with proper nutrition and rest repair themselves and get bigger and stronger. This adaptation allows them to grow and develop. When this happens you begin to build lean muscle tissue. Lean muscle tissue incinerates calories like you wouldn't believe so you create a viscous cycle. The more you strength train the more lean muscle you build so the more calories your body burns on a daily basis. There is no pounding on your joints and you start shredding fat as it's converted back into calories your lean muscle is screaming for. It is proven that when you strength train, your body and metabolism is fired up for 39 hours after. This is called EPOC. Post Exercise Calorie Burn. Like anything in life, if you don't use it you lose it. This is true with your muscles. Atrophy or loss will set in. Look at someone's leg after they have a cast on for 6 weeks! ! The opposite happens with running or walking. When we do this it puts our body in a very catabolic state. This means breaking down, which is the opposite of anabolic (building up), as in anabolic steroids. In the absence of strength training, our body and muscles continue to break down which means less lean muscle tissue, which means less calories burned. In fact, 2 hours after running your metabolism and caloric burn is back down to normal. Not to mention that you will have to jog for an hour to burn the same calories you will doing high intensity interval training with weights in half the time. This is because when you do LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) training, like jogging for 40 minutes to an hour; you have to go at such a light intensity to keep the pace that your heart rate plateaus at about 50 to 60 percent of your maximum. Your body reaches LISS very quickly and stays there for the duration of your run. The worse part of LISS is that it converts or changes fast twitch muscle fiber into slow twitch. This not what you want! ! Unless your chosen sport is shuffle board I guess. Don't get me wrong, their is an aerobic benefit to your heart and lungs when you jog, but they don't out weigh the costs, for someone looking for weight loss. I know for a fact through the use of a heart rate monitor on clients and myself that I get closer to max HR for a longer time doing HIIT training with weights, which will give you a better aerobic benefit. Not to mention the lean muscle tissue you build that incinerates calories and the boosted metabolism for a day after. Add in the functional strength that helps you do better in every sport you play and life in general and it's a no brainer. There's a reason why gymnasts are the best athletes in the world. You can add MMA fighters to the mix if you want. They have the best strength, stamina, endurance, balance, flexibility and power pound for pound of any human being on earth. This is because they spend their day either holding up their own body weight, plus, or throwing others body weight around. To end, after reading this if you still are not convinced that you need to change your training methods, are still scared to go to a gym, or just plain love to run please do yourself one favor. . Stop going on the slow, tedious runs that take for ever and start doing HIIT anaerobic training where you sprint full out for 20 seconds then rest for 2 minutes. You will get far more benefits from this type of training in less time and it will save you the pounding. So step out of your comfort zone, join a gym, get a program from an expert, and get some results for a change! You pay a mechanic to fix your car when you can't yourself, so why would you think you can fix your body and health when you don't know how. You are a way better investment than your car will ever be!

You might be surprised that it's actually pretty convenient to fly from Brandon, Manitoba (YBR) to Atlanta, Georgia (ATL). We have this convenience and luxury of a single connection flight, thanks to the codeshare partnership between Westjet and Delta Airlines. This means that anywhere that Delta flies you can now fly from Brandon. You will get on the Westjet flight here in Brandon, then connect in Toronto, to a Delta flight. I'll give you one example. Let's say you are a Atlanta Falcons fan. Or you might just love the Green Bay Packers. Well, the two teams meet on Sunday October 30th in Atlanta. Fly from Brandon on Friday October 28th, leaving at 5AM and you'll arrive in Atlanta just after lunch time. Enjoy the city Saturday night, and a fabulous NFL Sunday at the Georgia Dome. Rest up and do some sightseeing at the Coca Cola Museum on Monday and you have a fabulous getaway. Your return flight leaves on Tuesday November 1st, at 5:45 pm and you will land in Brandon at 11:30pm. Booked through Expedia.ca, you can have flights for 2 adults, plus 4 nights hotel and all taxes included for under $2000. (That's $1000 per person.) All with the convenience of flying out of your home airport. Thank you Westjet!  

Well that's a wrap. I've made it. Of the 4 billion pictures I've spammed everyone's Facebook and Instagram feeds with, this is the moment I've (and probably some of you) have been waiting for. The last pictures I'll ever post. Kidding. I'm not stopping. Today, I have reached the ultimate goal, and no longer feel the need to compulsively take pictures of everything that moves. And doesn't move. Or moves sometimes. Or not. The ever elusive squirrel. (Read as "the actually can't swing a dead cat without hitting one squirrel"). Sure. They're all over. Adorable and furry. And of all the things I've learned about taking pictures, I could NOT get a clear shot of a squirrel. It shouldn't be that hard. It is. And note to farmers, I will not be shooting them with anything other than my camera, I'm so sorry. I love them. Thanks first of all to my Mom for lending me her new and expensive zoom lens. I'm sure you can easily order another one from Amazon. You're the best Mom. I already have all your other stuff, I know, I know... And now, I'm off to get a nice fresh and delicious loaf of bread so I can feed that fuzzy little bundle of cuteness, and maybe I'll be able to pet him someday.