The Write Stuff -- Southern Alberta

Top 5

In no particular order, here are the Top 5 entries for The Write Stuff, Southern Alberta, 2005.

Click on the titles to read each entry, or scroll through the entire content below:

I Spy: Adventures in Investigation
Shelley Boettcher, as told by Ali Wirsche and Marnie Milot

Bad Timing
Michael Davie

Hockey Players Don't Carry Purses
Val Hokanson

I'd Rather be Rich,...A Road Map to Where You'd Rather Be
Sheila Leonard

Round Trip
Cal Wiltse

Book Title:    
     
I Spy: Adventures in Investigation 

Author: 
    
Shelley Boettcher, as told by Ali Wirsche and Marnie Milot

Author Bio: 

The managing editor for Wine Access, a national food and wine magazine, Shelley Boettcher once had a psychic tell her she’d make a good used car salesman. Instead, she opted to become a writer, after stints as a short order cook, a chambermaid, a nanny, a health food store clerk and the only woman on a rural construction crew. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario, and her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across the country. She was recently presented with an Association of Food Journalists award in San Francisco.

Marnie Milot and Alda (Ali) Wirsche got their start in private investigation when they followed a friend’s philandering husband. In 1995, they started BackTrack Investigations, a private investigation agency based in Calgary. Since then, they’ve shared their stories and advice in newspapers, radio and television shows across North America, including Sally Jesse Raphael, Gabereau Live with host Vicky Gabereau and Open Mike with Mike Bullard. Both Milot and Wirsche are happily married — to their first and only husbands. 

Book Synopsis:

I Spy: Adventures in Investigation by Shelley Boettcher, as told by Marnie Milot and Alda Wirsche, is a behind-the-scenes look at the cases and adventures of two female private investigators who specialize in infidelity cases in Calgary, From the guy who had a wife and kids in two different cities to the dog-walker who had an affair with a neighbour two doors down, Milot and Wirsche have seen (and heard) tales that range from the heart-breaking to the hilarious. (And yet they still believe that true love exists.) Genre: Creative Non-Fiction 

Sample Selection: 

Although all the stories in this book are based on real cases that have come through the doors of Backtrack Investigations, all identifying details have been changed, left out or otherwise modified to protect the identity of our clients and their spouses. 

Chapter One

We were trying hard not to laugh. Or cry. Marnie fiddled with the buttons on her sweater, while Ali tried to remember if her life insurance policy said anything about being killed while on stakeouts. She was pretty sure it didn’t. 

Thump, thump, thump. The choir director — let’s call him Perry — and Susan, his, ahem, organist, were pressed up against the wall in front of us in the almost-empty church. A half-inch of glass — that’s all that stood between us and their sweaty, writhing bodies. 

Thump, thump, thump. Susan’s head continued to knock against the glass as she and Perry energetically slurped at each other’s faces. Without opening her eyes, she kicked off her worn black pumps. Perry — also with his eyes closed — undid his belt and let his pants (blue cotton Dockers, a couple of belt loops torn loose) drop. He was wearing boxers. Faded blue ones, with a bleach spot on one butt cheek.

“Of course,” Marnie whispered. “Oooh, you sexy thing.” 

Ali stifled a nervous giggle. 

“What are we doing here?” she asked Marnie. “This is ridiculous. If they find us, they’ll call the police.” 

The lusty pair was mere inches away from our faces — so close that we could see an orangey smear of foundation on her jawline — and we were terrified that if they opened their eyes and looked into the glass, they’d see us, staring in horror behind the mirrored window. 

“Get a look at that lipstick on his cheek. He’s practically as pink as her sweater. Think he’ll wash that off before he goes home tonight?” 

Maybe. Maybe not. God knows we’ve seen — and heard — it all. As the co-founders and owners of Backtrack Investigations, a private investigation agency in Calgary, Canada, we’re used to dealing with all sorts of adulterers. After all, we’ve been trailing them across North America since 1995. 

Nobody ever really wants to get caught. After all, chances are good that they’ll lose money, their homes, friends and family. 

Still, most leave a trail of incriminating cell phone bills, restaurant receipts, email messages and usually a broken heart or two in their wake.

Other adulterers are a little more careful. They keep their sordid side confined to the other side of the city, other cities, sometimes even different countries. They pay cash for meals and hotels, throw out receipts, and tell no one of their dalliances. 

It may take weeks, months, sometimes even years. But no matter when, where or how they have their trysts, they eventually slip up.  

That’s when we swoop in. About 80 per cent of our business — at least 2,000 cases in the past decade — involve extra-marital affairs.

The hours are completely unpredictable. The job description is strange. The stories can be even stranger. Still, we love it. We meet (and get to help) all kinds of people, from every walk of life — and we end up in some of the most interesting and unusual situations. We may not be able to name-drop with our friends, but as long as we leave out the specifics, we always have plenty of wild and wacky stories.

Most of our cases follow a certain pattern: wife (or husband) suspects long-time spouse of fooling around. Why? He’s never home. His cell phone isn’t turned on. (He can’t find it. Or he forgot it in the car. Or it has a dead battery.) She finds unusual receipts for restaurants that she’s never eaten at in his pockets when she’s doing laundry. (“I took someone from work there, my friend Jeff — haven’t I talked about him before? No? Oh, well, no big deal. We just went there for lunch. I mean, dinner.”) No matter what the situation is, he (or she) always has a litany of excuses.

Family and friends are dropping subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) hints that they understand perhaps there’s a problem with their marriage. 

Chapter Seven 

Stake-outs were exciting for about the first five times. Now, they’re dull, really dull — at least at first. Most of the time, we look out our car windows and wait for the suspect to appear. You count the number of people who walk by with dogs. You count the number of flowers in the front yard closest to you. You count the number of times you hear the same song on the same radio station. You count how many times you count stuff.

Then, the adrenaline rush! Our man appears.  

Chapter Ten

Art gave the details of his double life away when he and his wife, Michelle, went for dinner with another couple. After pounding back a few drinks, he brought up a new hit movie that had only recently opened in theatres. He talked about how amazing the two lead characters were, and how both he and Michelle had thought it was one of the best films they’d ever seen.

“I just looked at him, wondering what the hell was going on,” she later told us. “Was he losing his mind?”

You get the picture: Michelle hadn’t seen the movie. In fact, Art and Michelle hadn’t been to a movie together in years.

Not half an hour later, Art began to talk about the four — count ‘em, four — exciting trips to Las Vegas that he and Michelle had made in the past two years. Michelle, still reeling with shock about Art’s movie gaffe, was stunned yet again, but she didn’t bother to correct him. They’d only been on three trips together to Sin City. Ever. 

Chapter Eleven 

Every city has its landmarks, and Calgary is no different. There’s the Calgary Tower, a once-impressive concrete monument that was the tallest structure in Canada back in the 1960s and 70s. In the northwest, the dramatic rise of Nose Hill comes immediately to mind, and the panoramic sweep of the Rocky Mountains dominates the western horizon.

But for us, the city’s landmarks are a little less predictable. They include seedy apartment buildings, tiny corner stores, hole-in-the-wall pubs, rundown motels, classy restaurants and vintage mansions. They’re found on every street and in every neighborhood, and they’re inextricably linked with our clients and cases.

Take the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. The internationally renowned rodeo, which takes place for 10 days every year in July, is a chance for the entire city — along with a few thousand tourists — to party like mad.

Not a lot of work gets done — unless you’re a private investigator. But it’s not an easy time to follow a suspect. From a distance, everyone, men and women alike, tend to look alike when they’re dressed in cowboy hats and jeans.

Yet it’s definitely a time when people let their inhibitions down, get drunk, get crazy and, well, fool around. Yes, the effects of those wild Stampede parties linger long after the tequila supplies have dwindled and the hangovers (and, for that matter, the bronc riders) have gone away. Every corporation, it seems, throws a major bash those first few days in July. Show up to the festivities without your spouse on your arm, and you’re just begging to be approached by inebriated singletons (or other spouse-free partiers). After a few drinks, all hell breaks loose and suddenly that quiet and well-behaved co-worker from the cubicle next to yours is confessing his undying love.

How does one go about starting an affair with someone who’s already married? It’s not that difficult, it seems. You simply need to suggest that the two of you go for a drink sometime. If they’re interested in a fling, they’ll call.

One recent case involved a client who married the love of his life in January. Six months later, he was planning a divorce. An oil executive in downtown Calgary, his wife found every excuse to stay out at night during the Stampede. When she wasn’t at a party, she claimed to be walking the dogs, a couple of small yappy poodles named Francie and Jojo. Even after the Stampede ended, she spent a lot of time walking those two little critters.

“I don’t want company,” she said. “I’m really tired and I just need to spend some time thinking about work and bonding with the dogs.”

Thinking about work? Bonding with her dogs? She was bonding all right — just not with the dogs. After her husband noticed an unfamiliar number on her cellphone bills, he gave us a call. She was marching every night to her lover’s house, two blocks away from home. The randy pair had hooked up at her company’s Stampede party. Apparently she figured she’d never get caught if she had a fling so close to home. She was wrong. 

Chapter Thirteen

As our reputation as infidelity experts grew, we were asked to make guest presentations in criminology courses and security guard programs. We loved the fact that our shocking stories of foiled lust often simultaneously drew gasps of horror and laughter from our audiences.

Once, however, those gasps came from us. We’d spoken several times to classes at the local college, but we hadn’t had many specific details about our latest assignment. As we walked into the college, we gave the instructor a quick call on our cell phone, only to see a young pretty blonde girl bound out of the room in shorts, sandals and a T-shirt to escort us in.

“The students can’t wait to see you,” she said. Her ponytail bounced while she talked. “They’ve been bouncing off the walls for the past two hours.”

Then she muttered something cryptic about nine to 11.

“Are we late?” asked Marnie. “We’re so sorry. We were told to be here at 11 a.m.”

The instructor waved her hand and ignored the question. Convinced we were late, Ali also began to apologize and we begged to be allowed to speak for at least an hour, until noon. We’d cut our presentation short and we’d talk fast.

“Of course,” said the instructor. “Not a problem. They’re all yours. Do what you have to do.”

The three of us walked in to the class. There, in front of us, sat a room filled with rowdy kids, aged nine to 11. They were part of an enrichment program for children that was being offered at the college that summer.

“We can’t talk about screwing around!” Ali whispered, pointing out the obvious.

Marnie, who had planned to speak first, stood up and spoke only once the entire hour.

“I’m Marnie. I’m one-half of Backtrack Investigations. This is my partner Ali and now she’s going to talk to you.” 

Chapter Fifteen 

Ali’s cell phone is beeping. It’s Marnie. We’re out on yet another case, but we’re not having much luck tonight. Ali’s sitting in her car, in a parking lot in front of a busy suburban bar. A steady stream of people is heading in and out of the building.

Ali watches and watches, but she doesn’t recognize anyone.

Bored, Marnie’s around the corner, waiting in her own vehicle. There’s no sign of our target’s car, and we’ve both walked through the bar several times looking for him.

“I can’t find this guy anywhere. What do you think?”

“I think we’ve lost him,” Ali says.

Then, just as we decide to head home, Ali’s cell phone rings again. It’s Sal, our client. She hasn’t seen her husband all night, and he’s not answering his phone. Would we mind hanging out for another hour? Or two? And could we make a quick loop past a local watering hole?

“Of course,” Ali says. She has a hunch that it could be a long night.

Read the Judge's comments on this entry

Book Title:
        
Bad Timing

Author:     
 
Michael Davie

Author Bio: 

My story is the culmination of over five years of writing, endless reworking, and the guidance of several well-known Alberta writers.

I have taken numerous creative writing and script writing courses at the Victoria School of Writing (Rudy Wiebe), the University of Calgary English Department (Suzette Mayer, Nicole Markotic, Rosemary Nixon), Mount Royal College, and the Alexandria School of Writing.

-My stories have been published in the Victoria Times Columnist, Peripheral Vision, and WordWorks

-I won a scholarship at the Victoria School of Writing in their Short Story Contest

-I finished third in the Tainted Tales Short Story Contest

-I finished seventh in the Alberta Views Short Story Contest

-I was short-listed in a Writers Union of Canada Short Story Contest
 

Book Synopsis:

Kenny Rogers once sang that there’s someone for everyone, and in the mining town of Bellevue, Alberta, Kenny Rogers’ word is gold.

Desperate to discover what love is, seventeen-year-old Bacon Sobelowski embarks on a search for his someone. His father runs off with a tour guide, his mother is emotionally distant and bitter. With only his knowledge of fishing and the lyrical wisdom of Kenny Rogers to lean on, Bacon is left to make sense of the challenges of adolescence.
He searches for his someone not actively in women of his choosing, but instead in the women who choose him. He’s hauled into relationships with a middle-aged property manager, a violent runaway, and his Korean step-cousin. All fail.

Increasingly frustrated at being a mere audience member in his own life, Bacon flees to the tiny resort town of Waterton. There, encumbered by the hierarchy of a haughty fly fishing culture, befuddled by the conflicting pressures of male sexuality, and vigorously pursued by a passive aggressive pimp seeking settlement of an outstanding account, Bacon is cornered into confronting himself and taking control of his life. As he does, he inadvertently discovers his someone—himself.

Sample Selection: 

Excerpt 1

When I was ten my father left and so my mother gave me a fishing rod. Not a brand new fly rod, but a green and brown secondhand spin-casting rod, the kind with the closed-face reel and thumb button trigger. She got it at a garage sale. I scowled at it and asked for a fly rod—a new one, but Mom rolled her tongue all around the inside of her lips and said I sounded just like my father. She said he liked new things too, and if I wanted to play with new things I could just walk right out that same f*****g door he did. I wanted a new fly rod, but I didn’t want to walk out that same f*****g door my father did. Actually, I wasn’t even sure which f*****g door he walked out, the front or back.

The wind was only blowing a little that day and most of the snow was gone, so I decided to find out what spin-casting was all about.

Robert Redford never made a movie about spin-casting. And if he did, you can bet Brad Pitt wouldn’t have stared in it. Spin casting boasts none of the grace or romance of the fly-fishing cast. It’s choppy and crude. But still, spin-casting can be a difficult skill to acquire—especially at ten. Over the next few weeks I snagged my shirt, my hair, my ear. Occasionally I’d hook people fishing next to me. Once I even tangled my line around my shoes and floundered into the river. Eventually though, I was able to harmonize the snap of my wrist and the thumb button release—at least enough to hit water. I learned that spin-casting is all about timing.
Over the next few years I spent most of my time fishing. Growing up along the Crow’s Nest River, in an old mining town with closed mines and empty cracked sidewalks filled in with weeds, fishing was the only thing worth spending time on. At least until I turned fourteen.

At fourteen my casting became awkward and crude, my voice would sometimes suddenly whir and screech like the drag on my fishing line, and I had to begin carrying my tackle box in front of me because the crotch in my waders was rising more often than a brookie in a mayfly hatch.

Something was happening. We had a whole two-week course about it all at school but I never made it past two minutes of a single class. Every time Mrs. Jorgensen called out “ejaculatory gland” or “testicles” or “gonadotropins” I’d either throw up a bowl’s worth of Count Chocula or all the blood would slide out of my head until my whole body would slip right down out of my desk and I’d nearly pass out on the sparkled linoleum.

Mrs. Jorgensen said I’d figure it all out if I’d just review the handouts she gave me. The handouts had cross-sectional diagrams that looked like the inside of a whitefish, only nauseating instead of neat, and there was all kinds of medical terminology listed that made my eyes roll back in my head. I wrapped rocks up in all her handouts and sank them in the river.

I still had no idea what all the strange stuff was that was happening to me. My mother said it was all because I wouldn’t eat her bok choy. But Grandma Magic Can, who lived with us, told me to never mind and to just relax, my body was just getting ready for love.

My body spent the next three years getting ready for love and no matter how patient I was or how much bok choy I ate, my casting never recovered.
When I turned seventeen, I couldn’t wait for my body anymore. I was ready to be ready for love. I just needed to know what it was. So I decided to find out what love was all about.

As with spin-casting, I had to discover what love was all about on my own. My mother didn’t really feel one way or the other about fishing, but she sure as shooting knew what she felt about love. A fat-assed, dirty-bum lie is what she called it.

 “You’re better off on your own,” she’d lecture, often when I wasn’t even in the room. After my father left, my mother gave me two rules:

1. Keep quiet when her soaps were on.
2. Stay the hell away from girls.

“Girls turn boys into men,” her coffee breath poked my cheek. “And men are pigs. So stay the hell away from girls.” But Grandma Magic Can said my mother was full of shit and that I was sure as hells bells gonna need a girl in my life. The stinky part though, she said, was that there wasn’t any out there. So we needed to get me a catalogue, she said, and then we could order me one when I was ready. I wasn’t sure who to believe. Then I remembered Kenny Rogers singing something about there being someone for everyone, and both my mother and grandmother always say that Kenny Rogers sure as shit knows how things are. So I decided to believe him.

I needed to find my someone.

Now, three years later I may finally have figured out what both spin-casting and love are all about—and I think it’s the same thing. Timing.

My name’s Bacon Sobelowski. I have bad timing.

Excerpt 2

At that very moment, I noticed a fish, not eight feet from me, cruising the swirl I’d just been fishing. A good–sized trout, a rainbow, though oddly it didn’t have a trout’s face. It had my mother’s face: her aspirin pallor, her sleepy eyes, her tiny tent-shaped mouth.

I turned back to Sara who was leaning back on the picnic table, stretching out her legs—long as spaghetti.

The trout with my mother’s face shot bubbles from its mouth and as the bubbles reached the water’s surface and burst I could hear the echoes of my mother’s caw, “Stay the hell away from girls!” The trout drifted towards me, almost brushing my waders, it drifted down the river and out of sight.
I almost turned around right there, but I could still hear Kenny Rogers singing that line “…there’s someone for everyone.” I stumbled over in Sara’s direction.

My mouth opened and closed several times trying to find a word but I instead sneezed on her chest. She cut me off before anything else left my mouth, introduced herself, and suggested we go for a stroll down the river. I had never even had a conversation with a girl before much less go for a stroll with one! I couldn’t look at any part of her, not her eyes, not her moles, not even her legs. I kept my glance pinned to the ground, terrified of each shuffle-step in those wet and squeaking waders; certain my feet would fail and I’d collapse into the dirt.

“Are you tired?” she asked.

“No,” I shook my head

“You look sleepy.”

“Everybody says that,” I said. “That’s just the way I look.”

In my peripheral, I could see her hand swaying beside her as we walked. I imagined that hand brushing against mine. What did a girl’s skin feel like? What did Sara Mulligan’s feel like? My boot caught a root in the path, I lurched, but caught myself. Sara just kept walking as if I wasn’t there.
I followed her down the river. It was just around the first bend when Sara turned, knocked the green and brown secondhand spin-casting rod with thumb-button trigger from my hands, heaved herself onto me, knocking us both over, and plunged her tongue into my mouth.

Behind us, the river thrashed over rocks and sweepers, and I could hear in the midst of the rapids a distinctive splashing, not of water over rock, but of a fish flipping and slapping. The splashing grew louder and more frenzied but soon was drowned out by the choking gurgle of the rapids.

Sara’s tongue rooted all around my mouth, sweeping over regions my own tongue had not yet found. Unsure of my role, I stretched my mouth open as wide as it would allow; diligently I held the position and tried to remain calm. I imagined I was at the dentist. It helped me keep still.

Sara pulled her knees up, driving one into my side; strangely, it seemed deliberate. She then pushed a thumb into my eye, sat herself up, and through my blurred vision I saw her throw off her shirt.
The river now sounded more distant, softer, like tiny shearing scissors. I held my mouth wide, though I desperately needed to swallow.

A hollow clang sounded off to our side. Another. Two more and then a sharp shattering. It was the sound of empty beer bottles crashing into some designated heap not far from where we lay. I was worried a can or bottle might hit the drunken girl who, when I darted my eyes to the right, I could see was now down on one knee, unsteadily, propping her bowed head against an aspen.

Sara tore a rip in my shirt pulling it over my head. She had a terrible time freeing me of my hip waders, lifting me off the ground with each heave till one of the shoulder straps snapped, whipping back and flogging me across the forehead. I was holding my brow when the waders finally gave, peeling off and sending Sara stumbling onto her back. Left in my shorts, my legs revealed themselves thin, clammy and pale. Sara threw the waders in the river behind her and I watched them float off with the current.

Throughout it all I held my mouth open, never sure when her tongue would be thrust back in again.
When she pounced over me, I tried to cross my ankles, but she pried them apart, then tore off my shorts and finally my underwear. She straddled me on her knees, glared down, clawed at my chest and then shook me by the shoulders; she screamed for me and at me and, for whatever reason, even drove her elbow into my head.

It was cold without clothes on and the ground was damp.

I shut my eyes and tried to visualize my dentist. Sara adjusted her naked self over me. I imagined people whispering across the waiting room, readjusting their overbite, exploring their teeth with their nervous tongues, while Sara—in dental assistant attire—leaned over them flossing. I kept my hands mostly still, too frightened to touch Sara, I heard the dentist’s voice, “Bacon put his hand where?” and “Of course you screwed up, idiot, you don’t do that when you’re doing that!” What was that? I certainly didn’t want to do that.

I opened one eye, hoping to spot a misshaped nipple or something hidden and odd that I could threaten to tell if Sara wound up laughing about me with others. But her nipples were perfect, as rosy as the inside of a trout gill.

Sara pushed down over me, then lifted herself. The ground began surging below me, rising and falling. I felt so dizzy my head began listing to one side. The wind brushed through the trees with a sad wheezing sound, like air seeping from a malleted trout. She pushed herself down once more and I ejaculated.
When I opened my eyes, Sara was sitting atop me, whoofing and heaving like she couldn’t catch her breath; she bared her teeth and it was one of the most intimidating spectacles I’ve ever seen. As I shrank inside her, she settled her breathing, leaned down, pressed her lips against my ear and whispered, "Shut your eyes, Fisher-boy, or I’ll shut ‘em for you.” She stroked my hair. “Now, in fifteen minutes or so I'll wake you and we’ll do that all over again."

Read the Judge's comments on this entry

Book Title:
        
Hockey Players Don't Carry Purses

Author:     
 
Val Hokanson

Author Bio: 

I am a 33 year old Single mother of 3. I love hockey. I have been playing this sport since I was 16 and throughout my years have come into contact with tons of different hockey types. Playing with men against men with women. You tend to develop a though process that can manipulate your situation. I love hockey and think that writing this book will let people laugh at themselves and others. I think it can also give motivation to female players to go out and be themselves even if they are not at the top of their game.  

Book Synopsis:

This book will tell my story from when I first played female hockey up to being captain of my Men's hockey team. I will talk about the shinny games I played and the attitudes that I have experienced with playing against and along side of men. Playing on a women's team and also picking up games playing goal.

Sample Selection: 

I am not famous, and never has a game of mine been on TV. I never won an Olympic medal but I do have years of experience with men's and women's hockey.  For 17 years from small town to the big City, young players to old men and women. I have only once seen a hockey player carry a purse.

I am guilty on one occasion.

     My first hockey experience, was when  i was 7 in Montreal. I wanted so bad to play with the boys, so a family friend Steve put me in net. He told me when the ball was to my right I was to stand to the right of the net, and to the left of the net when the ball was over there. When it came to me, I was to keep my knees together and fall down. I think I surprised them at how well I did. When we moved to Alberta, I worried about other things in life then hockey. It wasn't until intramurals in school that i found out my true love. They split up the girls from the boys, and we all got told to take turns in all positions. I did ok on forward, most girls were afraid of me that I would run them over. My logic was hey they got the puck and I want it, basically my motto still today. Our team didn't do so great until I got in net, and nothing got passed me. Nothing. We won the whole intramurals that year. Once we started playing in Phys Ed i had to battle for net with a kid named Brian. I think I just found it safer than running over the boys because they had the puck and I wanted it. To me net is also a hero position. You can save the game, you get more encouragement and players don't dare blame a loss on the goalie. My nature, I don't want anyone hating me or feeling as though I let them down......

.........It's funny how you get different reactions when playing hockey with and against men. You get the "wow a girl playing hockey , she must be good" "not bad for a girl" and heh! she wants to play hockey with us men, we treat her no different" also I've heard this comment after getting hit "geez man it's a girl" I am a fairly tough player and I do hit at times. My team likes to yell out "you got hit by a girl" If I have been harassed by a male player on my men's team I usually have to annoy him enough to get him to take a cheap shot and then he has 15 other guys to deal with as they will stick up for me. You can say i am some what of a trouble maker......

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Book Title:
        
I'd Rather be Rich,...A Road Map to Where You'd Rather Be

Author:     
 
Sheila Leonard

Author Bio: 

Originally trained as an accountant, I designed my roadmap to freedom at the age of 29.  In only 8 years, I was free to leave the corporate world and study spiritual psychology.  After 5 years of leading healing workshops, I helped open the Oasis Spa and Wellness Centre.  Frustrated with being slotted back into accounting, I left the spa to become a financial planner.  Today I am a Certified Financial Planner and lead workshops in the design, implementation and achievement of participant's greatest dreams.

Book Synopsis:

Most people put more effort into planning a "road trip" than they do designing their lives. Working with the analogy of a road trip, the road map (work book) helps the reader explore their deepest desires. These desires are transformed into vision and then reality. More than an another goal setting book, it looks at why we don't set goals; why we don't follow through; why we so willingly settle for so little in our lives. And then we can make another choice.

Sample Selection: 

Just what is being rich?  It is different for everyone.  For some it is owning their own home, or providing for their children’s education.  For others it is the ability to travel in luxury.  Others would like to quit their current jobs and find a career that inspires them.  It could mean living in an exotic country.  It often contains a certain dollar figure.  What rich means to someone earning $30,000 per year, is very different from a person earning $500,000 per year.   As we keep creating more money, we keep raising the bar.  Being rich is not about the amount of money, but it is about how you use the money.  It is not about being rich, it is about feeling rich.  And for most of us, it does take some money to feel rich. To feel rich, I need to have a balance (underlying principle of this book) of security and freedom.  I want to know that I have the financial freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.  I want to make my decisions based on what I desire, not what I think I can afford. I also want to have financial security -- knowing that the financial freedom I have to day will be there throughout my life. 

Feeling rich is also about having a personally rewarding and full experience of life.  I want to live in peace, happiness and contentment.  I want to have my life full of passionate, loving, gentle and honest people.  I want to continually expand my knowledge and my experiences.  I love to try new things and explore new places.  I want to be surrounded with beauty.  I want to begin and end each day in gratitude.   

So you see, being rich is about the money and it is not about the money.  It is both.  Money cannot buy you happiness, but living without it is limits the experiences in your life.  I want it all!   

What does Rich look/feel like to you?

Pearl Bailey said “Honey, I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor, and rich is better” 

The Importance of Having a Plan 

Whether you are conscious of your life plan, or not, you have one.  Having no plan, is also a plan.  It is a plan not to have one.  It is a plan to drift through life, pulled along by your unconscious mind.  What is unconscious is out of your awareness and out of your control.  You literally have no power over it, as long as you are unaware of it.  You are making decisions based on decisions you made about life, so long ago that you no longer remember.  You are making choices you are not conscious about.  Sometimes those choices work for you and sometimes they don’t.  Life can be a hard teacher.  In this book, we are going to clear up some of those decisions that are not working for you and build new beliefs that will move you to where you would rather be, with greater ease and grace.  

I can assure you that if you are not making new conscious choices, you will keep repeating the same life journey over and over again, until you do.  You will continue to drive down the same road, traveling in circles, until you choose a new direction. 

I once spent a short time with a man who was very clingy.  He would constantly do things that pushed my buttons, and I would push him away.  Then he would whine and complain.  You see, in his mind, he believed that his actions would bring me closer to him.  His belief was so strong that he could not see the opposite results he was creating.  And because he could not see it, he could do nothing about it.  After many discussions, he still could not stop the behavior.  We eventually agreed to end the romantic side of our relationship.  But I do love the way the cycle of life works.  Even though he did not “get it” in our relationship, his next girlfriend behaved towards him, as he did to me. And then, he got the lesson.  He changed directions.  And actually, the same thing happened to me.  The Universe keeps putting situations in front of us to help bring our unconscious to consciousness.  The quicker we can become conscious, the easier our lives become.  We may still hit the potholes of life, but they will not be so deep, they will not hurt so much, and the damage will be minimized. Eventually, we learn to drive around the potholes.

So let’s bring some consciousness to your money and your life situation. 

What is your greatest fear around money?

What is your earliest memory of money? What did it lead you to believe about money?  About life?

What money memories hold the strongest emotions for you? What did they lead you to believe about money?  About life?

What did your Mother (or other female figures) teach you about money?  About life? 

What did your Father (or other male figures) teach you about money?  About life?

Looking at your life, how have you been effected by your early memories and teachings? Is there anything you would like to change your mind about, right now?

Where will you be in 5 years, if you do not take control of your destination?

Where will you be in 10 years, if you do not take control of your destination?  

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming………….

WOW, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!” 

Carrying Any Heavy Baggage? 

I often get the question, should I pay off my debts, or should I save?  The answer is always unique to a person’s situation, but I try encouraging a balance of both and here is why.  If you scrimp and save to pay off your debts, how do you feel?  Like you put out a lot of cash but got nothing in return?  This is sacrifice.  Whenever we allow ourselves to sacrifice, we simultaneously build the foundation for indulgence.  Early in my career, I met a couple who had just paid off their mortgage.  They were delighted.  Instead of then starting an investment program, they went on a spending spree.  They bought two new cars and a vacation property.  I have seen this happen time and time again.  Numbers may show that it is better to pay off your mortgage, but they do not build in the human factor, and that makes the biggest difference. 

When you decided to balance paying off your debt and also doing some investing, you start to expand your comfort zones.  You reduce the amount of debt you are comfortable with and you build the experience of actually having money.  As you get comfortable with saving money, you will see how it grows and you will be better able to nurture it.  I have found that in all areas of life, balance is the answer. 

If debt has been an issue for you, (it is an issue if you, or your spouse, is not happy with it) let’s look a little deeper into your unconscious.  I believe everything is a gift.  We may not like how it is wrapped, but there is always something in it for us.  How is debt a gift to you?  Debt is unconsciously held as a payback for something in your past. 

Who has hurt you the most?  What do you think they owe you for that?

Who do you think you owe, for something you did in the past?

How has it hurt to carry these debts with you?  If you don’t think it has, ask someone close to you.

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Book Title:
        
Round Trip

Author:     
 
Cal Wiltse

Author Bio: 

In 1987 I enrolled in a "write your first novel", class with an adult education course in Los Angeles with a lady named Karen Pershing. Karen thought I had some talent and invited me into a writers group. I lived and sailed in the Caribbean for 6 years and my first and only published article was a travelogue of our first family sailing experience to Honduras from the Cayman Islands. I have written some short stories and have completed about half of an historical novel of Romania. 

Book Synopsis:

The story is about an 8 year old boy, who in 1921 is forced to become a man at an early age. Circumstances lead to his having to take a team of horses and a wagon on a cross country trek to bring necessary supplies to a working horse-ranch in the foothills of Alberta. Coming to terms with the death of his mother, months earlier, and the challenges of traveling in hard country alone, become a test of the human spirit and a testament to the toughness of the people who settled in Alberta.

Sample Selection: 

May 19, 1921 

The afternoon was grey-cold and chill; the rain fell relentlessly. Luka wondered if his mom could hear the fat rain drops as they exploded onto the coarse wooden lid of her coffin. His father spoke-the words were soft, monotone-unrecognizable to the boy as he watched his mother's body being lowered slowly into the ground. 

Luka didn't care to know what was being said. He felt the words were private-husband and wife words-meant for his mom to hear and gladden her heart for the last time. He was thankful he didn't have to close his eyes and pretend sleep, like the nights when his parents could be heard in whispers behind the thin blanket that separated their rooms. 

It felt like a dream to the boy as the rain hammered the delicate new leaves on the birch trees, and left the smaller branches shaking like palsied hands, and as the strong smells of black earth and fragile prairie grass signaled new life, Luka could feel his own flowing away, like the small pools of rainwater that gathered and ran down the large mound of earth, that was destined to seal his mother away forever. 

He stood shivering in the downpour, the clothes she had sewn for him, for special occasions, stuck to his small, boyish frame like the skin on a rooster's legs. Luka concentrated hard on the coffin lid as he watched it being lowered, further and further into the ground, waiting for some sign, a noise or some sudden movement that would show them that she was still alive-- that it was all a mistake. 

He felt the bile rise in his throat and his stomach harden as the first shovels of earth struck the coffin with a deep, hollow, "Thud!" 

All at once-- he could hear his father's words clearly, the steady driving thunder of the rain in the trees, and the soft muffled cries of his aunty Jill-- he'd awakened from the dream; but the horror was still real. 

Luka stepped forward and grabbed the shovel from his brother's hands. His heart was racing faster than the downpour. "Everybody be quiet!" he screamed, his tears mingled with the rain on his cheeks. "We won't be able to hear her if we're making so much noise!" he cried, in a rage. "We need to be able to hear her!" 

Frank saw his son's pain through the thin veil of his own, and moved slowly around the end of the grave. As he approached Luka from behind, he could feel his boy's hopefulness. Frank's heart sank. He wanted desperately to bring Sandy back, for all their sakes, but death was a part of living and Luka needed to understand. He wrapped his arms firmly around the boy's chest from behind and hugged him tightly to his own body, pinning Luka's arms. The shovel fell free onto the ground. 

"She's gone, boy." he said softly.

Luka tried to pull away. "No, she's still here, Pa! We just can't hear her!" He struggled against his father's grip. His small voice cracked, "We gotta listen real close, Pa! We Gotta... 

Luka tasted the salt of his own tears as his legs gave away. He felt his strength flow downward with the rain as it washed all the hope he'd held so tightly, just moments earlier, into the grass beneath his feet.

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