Canadian 'Zip Code' Dilemma Solved?

Those of you who partake in traveling through the USA, will inevitably find themselves at a gas station, trying to pay with a Canadian credit card, only to be prompted to enter a USA zip code. This leads to the game of "Crack the Code" by entering random numbers like 99999 or other combinations, that all end in failure. The subsequent step sees the traveler stomping over to the kiosk to declare that they do not have a zip code as they are from Canada. The attendant - rarely all that personable - proceeds to roll their eyes, press a couple of buttons, demands your precious credit card, and orders you to go fill up the tank and come back and pay.

My recent travels through Soap Lake, Washington, saw me follow all of these steps to a tee including the declaration of my non zip-code status at the kiosk. The attendant responded curtly without skipping a beat on her chip aisle stocking "Yes, you DO have a zip code!" ...Intriguing. I wondered if she was crazy or brilliant?

It turns out she is brilliant, as she instructed me to take the three numbers that are in the postal code of the credit card billing address in the order that they appear, and then add two zeros onto the end in order to bypass the zip code. If your postal code is V6Y 2Z4, you would enter: 62400 for your zip code and avoid all the hassles I have described.

CAVEAT: This theory has worked for me at Safeway gas stations in Washington and Montana. I am still in the testing stages at other stations...other than BP .. and Exxon.

Yes, I am a bad person for driving a car, but here's hoping this tip helps my fellow road trippers who, like me, are slow to transition to leaving their car at home to walk across America, fuel free.

Packing for Your Vacation

It was at the point of teetering on mountain tops with sheer drop offs on either side of me, and tears of fear pooling in my eyes, that I realized that a "vacation," means different things to different people. It was during one of those moments that I realized that a vacation, to me, is something that does not include hyperventilation with fear, but rather is full of words such as "cabana," "massage," and "mai-tai (including virgin versions)." This blog is all about packing for a vacation - the kind where you will lose track of what day it is as opposed to knowing exactly how much longer a grueling "adventure," will take you to finish.

I write from Kauai, Hawaii, where I have just finished renewing my vows to the summer, jersey dress. This sacred event will help me remember that these gems are the must-have to every vacation suitcase. I have several jersey dresses with me and have used them as a bathing suit cover-up, a dinner dress, an easy throw-on to wear with flip flops, and even pajamas when the gorgeousness of the day has just been too much for me to consider changing.

If I had to choose one style that would be the best, it would be something in a bright colour that is not too low cut. If it is too low cut, then it may not pass for a dinner dress in some places, as well as not being able to cover up your chest from the sun as a beach cover-up. Again, my version of vacation includes a lot of dresses and a few pairs of shoes, so I don't really see the point of bringing just one dress. Dresses pack up tightly, and any wrinkles that might happen in transit, fall out nicely once it is touched by the tropical humidity. You could bring leggings and a layering tank, but in general, they require less pieces to complete an outfit than shorts or a skirt.

The key, as always, is to bring accessories like silk scarves, necklaces, shawls, cute jackets, cardigans, hair accessories, and shoes to give your dress the flexibility you are looking for from having to wear the same things during your vacation.

If you are lost as to what to bring on your vacation (& you live in Calgary or Vancovuer, Canada), book a free Diva Den at Changes. Bring in your favourite travel pieces, let me know about your trip, and we will find you some pieces that will complete your packing and make you walk with a skip-diddy-doodle of glee while you are in tropical paradise.

Surviving An Audit

If you are an entrepreneur of a small business then you most likely wear many hats. You are the head of finance, marketing, buying, advertising, plumbing, and refilling the soap dispenser. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything you need to (even with staff), so when you get a letter announcing that you are the lucky recipient of a "random audit," I don't blame you for being overwhelmed. I was.

I am generally known to be extensively precise, organized, and efficient. That is, I am not one of those people who have shopping bags and shoe boxes full of unentered receipts, but rather, have always submitted everything on time and accurately, as far as I was concerned. I have had my business for 12.5 years and have been audited twice (once for PST, and once for GST / personal income tax). Both of my audits have been complete hell and a massive cost to my business, not to mention extremely stressful, so I cringe at business owners who avoid their business' accounting. If it was hell for me, it most certainly will be worse for owners who are not organized. So, I guess my number one tip is to get going, get accurate, and learn to be the expert of your own business if you are not already.

Don't Do Your Own Bookkeeping
The best employee you can have is to hire a bookkeeper who is excellent at what they do. I have found in both audits that the auditor can ask the bookkeeper things directly, saving you stress and time. It is my guess that by paying a GREAT bookkeeper to do your books, it gives you a better reputation for not wanting to try "cook the books," as the movies say. With an independent, third party working on things, it should be easier for auditors to believe that you are not making mistakes that benefit you on purpose.

Big Accounting Firms Do Not Mean Better Quality of Work:
Like anyone who you bring onto your team, it is important to interview your accounting professional and/or bookkeeper. Get a commitment from them that they will work on your books rather than leave them to rot in a corner while still charging you huge fees. My bookkeeper is spectacular whereas an accountant that I hired about ten years ago from a large firm was horrible, expensive, and didn't do any work on my file. At the time, I kept chucking money their way as I was happy to just have someone else deal with that job. In the end, a letter from Revenue Canada wondering why I wasn't filing anything let me know that the accounting firm loved my money, but had no interest in getting any work done for me. From that point on, I had to face this area of my business and take charge. I pay much less money now and have an enjoyable working relationship with my bookkeeper who is honest, hard working, accurate, timely, and has been a complete savior in both audits.

Neatness Counts:
Imagine yourself as an auditor and having to weed through ever receipt and every piece of paperwork imaginable in order to ensure that a business' books are correct. YUCK! I believe strongly that the easier and more organized you make things for them, the better your audit will go. I submitted my audit material requests in lovely matching duo-tangs, complete with title pages and legends. Between my books or some other chump who submits their whack of receipts in a torn up lunch bag, I feel that neat accounts will probably be treated with more respect. Trust me, anything you can do to get treated with more respect in an audit is a good thing. When you get the packages back, they are also a concise collection that you can more easily store.

"Fighting" the Audit Results:
Some of your friends who are not entrepreneurs, will tell you that you should "fight" the results to lower your bill. Perhaps if something is ridiculous or if your results cost you a lot of money, that might be something you could consider. In my opinion, however, surviving an audit is like surviving business cancer, so I was not interested in reliving that stressful, worrisome time all over again. People fail to realize that all of your main work in keeping your business going every day still has to be done by you, plus you have to try find time to gather every piece of information that they want from past years. Being blindsided by an audit forces you to concentrate on your business' past instead of its future, which is costly in time, energy, sleep, and sales. Keep this in mind when you get the final results.

Avoiding An Audit:
My organization and timeliness didn't prevent me from being audited. I believe that no audits are "random," and either someone reports you or something weird on your account will trigger an investigation. I had received a large refund at tax time, and 5 weeks later received a letter that I was being "randomly audited." If you are late on anything, you can pretty much guarantee yourself an audit at one time or another, and the stationery they use to announce your fate is not even a pretty colour to look at.

Small business owners make communities thrive. Most business owners make very little money compared to the hours they invest in their business and communities. It is important, I think, for audits to better acknowledge the cost to a business owner when it takes such a long time to complete. It is also the scoundrels out there who wreck things for everyone, making honest business people targets for audits solely due to sharing the same industry as the small few who are dishonest. It was recently reported that a few businesses in Vancouver bought special software to purposely pay less tax on cash sales. I refuse to go to any of these businesses now, as they have successfully made things more difficult for all business owners due to their greed.

May you be able to run your business audit free and full of prosperity. If the day comes when you are faced with an audit, I hope that my experiences can help you out.

The Job Hunt: It's Not Me, It's YOU!

Over the past two months, I have received many resumes by email and in person, that have left me shaking my head. Some people seem great on paper, but have zero communication skills when speaking with them. Seeing as all jobs that I know of service people, communication is a key component to success. Furthermore, I have seen a plethora of outfits and resume presentations that have made me wonder whatever happened to the concept of dressing up for an interview and to selling yourself in the best way possible!?

It is completely up to the job candidate to sell themselves, rather than being up to me to force information out of them! I have had mumbling, fumbling, people come knocking with boring resumes that are written in the universal default font of Times New Roman, and who speak quietly to the point where I can barely hear them, or have others who yell and laugh nervously like hyenas. People have shown up dressed in torn jeans, dirty jackets, muddy runners, running outfits, and the Vancouver special - the sporty rain jacket - to a fashion boutique where I am hiring a fashion stylist / sales associate. Why would I want my customers who I love, to work with that?

Even if you are applying for a job where the dress will be casual or be of a sort that will need to get dirty, it shows total disrespect to the business in question, in my opinion, to show up in anything less than your nicest outfit when handing in your resume or for an interview.

Here are a few things that I would have loved to have interested candidates do before applying at my business:

* Do some research before going into a business that you might want to work in, or you may never get your shot at the job due to attire, demeanor, and your resume layout.

* Look at the company's website and go in as a potential customer to see what they sell, and what the other employees are like before applying.

* Learn about what the company does from a social standpoint to ask yourself if they are a company you would be proud to work for.

* practice speaking clearly and introducing yourself. You will most likely need to speak with others and communicate on the telephone and by email in any job, so fine tune these skills and practice them regularly if you are someone who has trouble in social settings.

* Don't apply to a workplace just for the sake of applying as you create extra work for the owner or person in charge of hiring. Get serious about where you want to work and go for that job instead of handing out resumes like cards in a game of 52 Pick-Up.

* Every company needs to sell their product or service, so make sure you tell the business how you plan on selling their specific services or products. Highlight any sales and service awards you have won.

*References should be from previous customers of yours and employers rather than any personal references. The employer will care about your work performance, not how much your Mother or Aunt Bessie loves you.

*Answer your phone professionally instead of sounding like you are high on Quaaludes, and change your email address to something professional instead of "sexypants@..com!"

Once you have done all of these things, get your best outfit together and get ready to sell yourself. Those who present themselves in their best way possible, will never be out of a job in any field and in any economy. Some of the people who I have had apply to my business, have made it clear that I would rather work all of the hours myself than to give a job to someone who can't even take the time to find out what I sell before applying for the job in an outfit that looks like they have either just been mugged, or have just gotten out of bed.

Thank you to those out there who try their best and respect the businesses that they are applying to, regardless of the size of them. Employees make or break any business, so thank you to every employee out there who gives 110%!

Use Your Makeup As An Accessory!

I have recently re-discovered black eyeliner, which, when applied correctly with some fantastic shadows, makes your whole outfit sing a song of fashion delight. Think peacock feathers as an inspiration rather than a toddler’s crayon rendition of a rainbow. You want to blend colours rather than being able to see the layers.

To practice, draw a line of black eye liner on your hand and then soften this with a tapered, detail shadow brush to smooth it out. From here, practice applying different combinations of the eye shadows that you already own. This makes it easy to see what colours you like together rather than trying to squint in the mirror to see your eyes.

Most of the time when I go to makeup counters, they suggest things that make me look about 30 years older, and they fail to hear what I am looking for. I am looking to have fun with makeup – especially eye makeup, and want their help in making this happen. Most times, I tend to get dumped for wrinkle-free college students in mid query, only to be mobbed if I do happen to buy something, so that the clerk can claim my sale as her own hard work.

Last July, I happened across a makeup artist who was great. She explained which shadow colours would bring out my blue eyes as well as showed me how to conquer black eyeliner. This makeup expert let me in on the trick to eyeliner; apply it however it goes on and then use the right brush to smooth it out to for perfection, rather than trying to apply it perfectly in the first place. This was an eyeliner “a-ha” moment for me.

Finding the right expert in any field is crucial to having a positive experience and for saving time, and money. Like hair stylists, fashion stylists, and now makeup artists, it is important to find the person who is all about you, instead of themselves. If you feel worse leaving a store or service than when you came in, you have not found the right expert to help you in the way you deserve to be served, regardless of the amount of money you are spending. Retail sales is one of the hardest jobs in the world, so when you find someone excelling at this job, please let it be well known to the people who employ them.

AMAZING Photo by Katharina Fösel of Germany.

Following Mother Nature For Colour Inspiration

Every season I get asked about 30 times a day what the

"hot" colour is going to be. Sigh....

During my travels this summer, I witnessed a lot of what Mother Nature has to offer us in the colour department. Now she knows how to design, I tell ya! Instead of just one shade of green, there are thousands in one forest...all worn together with a plethora of other colours thrown in. You don't see an all black tree unless disaster has struck it! Think of that next time you are wanting to wear all black for the third day in a row this winter. Sure, Mother Nature may use black as foundation colour, but in general, the main attractions are done up in plentiful colour.

This got me thinking how crazy it is that consumers are happy to have some designer somewhere choose just one or two colours to be the must-have trend each season when there are millions of shades of colour available. It is about time that designers expand their palette that they offer their clothing in, and time for consumers to get away from caring about what someone else has dictated that you wear this fall.

True fashion and style is having the confidence to try new ways to wear things, adding accessories in your own way, melding what you already have with new things you acquire, and having fun with the details of life and fashion. Adding textures, prints, and colours that you may not normally consider for fall, will allow you to have more fun this fashion season than you have ever had when it comes to getting dressed in the morning!

Next time you drive through a forest, try to count the shades of green alone, and let it be a reminder that colours should not have a season, they should just be allowed to thrive throughout our world to make it a brighter, happier place. I salute the women of Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico for doing such a fine job in embracing colour in their lives.

The Sheath Dress Revisited

The sheath dress has always been a must-have in my opinion as it flatters most women's bodies. Thanks to Michelle Obama, we have an alternative to the baby doll style that continues to be on the pages of this fall's fashion magazines. The baby doll, however, has made most of us look pregnant over the last 8 fashion seasons, regardless of how appropriate or biologically possible that can be.

Perhaps we should call Michelle Obama "Smart Lady," instead of First Lady as she is brilliant, but also knows what looks and feels great on her body. Remembering that confidence is the key foundation to true style, the sheath dress may just be the perfect addition to your wardrobe this fall / winter as they are one of the most comfortable dresses to wear, leaving you to think of changing the world, rather than wondering how many more minutes before you can change into your sweatpants! Sheath dresses are generally made of knit fabrics which contain a form of stretch to them - yes! Comfort is king when trying to get women to wear dresses, I find, so look at the fabric content on the labels, ladies, and make sure to get some stretch in that sheath dress of yours.

The key to making the sheath dress work for you is to adjust the length to suit your body. Most of us have spectacular legs, particularly from the knees down, so don't be aftraid to show them! The shorter you are, the more leg you may want to show, and the less you will want to wear shoes with ankle straps, as these will visually cut you off and make you look drowned by your outfit. Shoes without an ankle strap and with even just a bit of heel (the more the better... while still being comfortable), elongate the leg, so this is usually the best style for most of us to wear with dresses, in general. I would say that the sheath dress will keep its nice lines if hemmed somewhere between the calf muscle to just over the knee.

Sheath dresses are extremely versatile and usually travel well due to their knit fabric. You can wear the dress with boots, dress shoes, a blazer or jacket, a Pashmina, cardigan, belted, or with a blouse underneath. Never forget your accessories, of course, as these are what change an outfit around and make the finishing touches to it, like a cherry on top of a sundae. mmmm.... sundae.