I have been watching “Why not, Shania Twain” on OWN and it has been very interesting watching her journey from her personal hell back to recording and now performing again.

This new song, which has been played on the local stations a lot lately, really spoke to me yesterday morning in the car on the way to work. So much so that I found myself crying while driving. Not out of sadness, but out of understanding about what the song means. What it meant to Shania personally and what we can take out of listening to it in our own lives.

Today is your day

You got what it takes you can win,

Today is your day to begin.
So don’t give up here, don’t you quit.
The moment is now, this is it
Because today is your day
And nothing can stand in your way
And today is your day
And everything’s goin’ your way

Oh today
Today
Today
Today

When somebody throws sticks and stones
All they can break are your bones
Cause life’s gonna kick around
And kick you again when your down
Because today is your day
And nothing can stand in your way
I said today is your day
And everything’s goin’ your way

Yeah today
Today
Today
Today


Just take one step at a time
Oh I promise that you will be fine
Today
Today
Today
Today


I say today

I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. I also believe that you are meant to meet certain people and they come into your life for a reason and at a specific time for a purpose. That has been proven to me over and over again.

It happened again last weekend.

I was with my friend Sharon for dinner on the Danforth. It was a great night and we were sitting outside and talking about all kinds of things going on in our lives. Different things that were going on in each of our lives.

During the meal, I brought up something about a past post that I had written in this blog (see below).
http://yyztravelgal.blogspot.com/2010/09/stamps-in-my-passport.html
I am not even sure why this came up, but once I said what the post was called, Sharon stopped for a second and then went on. About 15 minutes later, she said that the name “stamp in my passport” was a perfect name for a website. She pulled out her phone and checked if that name was taken. It was. Okay…moving on.

A little while later, she tried again, different combinations, and came up with thestampsinmypassport. It was available, and there it began, my first professional travel blog site – http://www.thestampsinmypassport.com/
was born!

When I got home, she helped me register the site and then the next night we set up the home page and the basic layout. The rest was up to me…….to create a professsional blog about all the travel related stories in m life. Things that I talk about every day. Bits and bites of information that someone not in the travel profession would know or where to find it.

This is one of those situations where I KNEW in my head and heart what I wanted to do, but didn’t know how to really make those thoughts my reality. And there was my friend….sitting across from me at the dinner table, who saw the vision before I did.

I hope you will check out http://www.thestampsinmypassport.com/ and be enlightened about what 21 years of knowledge and experience means in a career. If there are any topics you would like discussed, please feel free to contact me at any time and I will address them.

This is my personal blog, and will continue to be my personal life stories.

Feedback is appreciated as I embark on this new chapter of my social media life.

Staying with my theme today about the “new” era of techonolgy….and the advancements…I pose the following question: How many ways are YOU connected?

Define “connected”? Well, email, voicemail, text, tweet, bbm, ichat, anyway that connects you to others, that is what I am defining as connected.

Just sitting here today I have been figuring out how many different ways I am connected.

Here goes:

Work connections:
– 4 email addresses (for the different arms of the companies I work for to separate the brands and hopefully avoid brand contamination).
– at least 5 different phone numbers for people to reach me at (only 1 extension 3209) but different phone numbers to feed into the extension.

Personal Connections:
– 2 hotmail addresses (the one on facebook is only for facebook so I don’t get hacked and viruses spread to contacts. Other one have had for years, don’t check often, used when I sign up for online updates).
– 1 rogers account
– 1 twitter account – follow me @yyztravelgal
– 1 facebook account (which has its own instant messaging, direct messaging and public posting forums).
– 2 phone numbers, home phone has v/m, cell phone does not. Moving towards a bb so PIN and bbm is sure to follow very very soon.
– 1 linkedin account – ‘linkin’ with me if we are already not linked.
– 1 blog address – which of course you are following or you wouldn’t be reading this now!

I think that probably covers all of my ‘online’ connections.

So, I guess there are no more excuses for anyone to say that they can’t reach you! And when I say you, I really mean all of us….we are all connected via some sort of social media, cell or land based phone system.

How many connections do you have?