Mad Love Monday | Alyssa Berger - Infinite Landscape & Design Ltd.
Combining forces and best-fit backgrounds to build a company founded in creativity and functionality.
We spent our summers performing landscaping jobs and quickly fell in love with the work.
Combining forces and best-fit backgrounds to build a company founded in creativity and functionality.
We spent our summers performing landscaping jobs and quickly fell in love with the work. After pursuing post-secondary education, we quickly recognized we both had not only complementary educational backgrounds and experience but also strengths.
Megan was the creative one; I was the functional one. We knew they had something unique to bring to clients: A realistic approach to landscaping that caters to our unique Alberta climate while providing visually appealing outdoor spaces. As the name implies, Infinite Landscape & Design gives clients a beautiful, usable outdoor space created for a northern climate and built to last a lifetime.
As young women in the construction industry, it often takes time to gain customers and trade partners confidence that we are able to design and construct as well as, if not better, than many men in our industry. As we complete more projects, we continue to impress and change the view people have about women in trades. We love the challenges that come with seasonal construction, it makes success all the more rewarding.
While the company is new & our family life isn’t demanding, we are able to put in long hours without worrying about work-life balance. Hopefully, putting in the hours early on in the company will provide us with the opportunity to take a step back once home life ramps up. Networking with like-minded women provides us with the opportunity to explore partnerships & create supportive friendships. YBB is a place where women don’t compete but lift one another up & we are happy to be a part of the community.
learn more about enhancing your landscape with all four seasons in Alberta
When planning for any landscape project in a northern climate, it is crucial to consider not only what the project will look like in the summer months, but also year-round aesthetic. Spending our warm summers outdoors is the obvious reason to have nice landscaping but what happens once the weather cools and the leaves start to change? We are still going to look outside and what better than to have a beautiful yard even once the snow starts to fall. Let’s flip through the calendar and provide insight on how to maximize your property all year long!
Spring
After a conceptual design of your property is complete, we need to consider which plants will compliment your design and vision. When selecting plants for a project we have to consider plant size, shape, texture, foliage and bloom times. Springtime brings on lots of new colours that we missed during the long winter. It is the time and most plants tend to bloom bringing birds and bees back to your yard. It is important to select these blooms to be diverse in size and colour to get the most out of your landscape. Blooms come in many different shapes and sizes from the large bunches found on hydrangeas to the tiny flowers of forget-me-nots. It is important to choose a variety of sizes to add varying textures to your yard in addition to the diverse colours.
Summer
Short and sweet, Albertans need to make the most of our summer months. Although many plants bloom in the spring there are also lots that will bring some colour to your summer landscape. It is equally as important to find plants that will have varying colour and texture throughout the summer months too.
Multiformity in your plants ensures balance amongst your project and creates more variance for the eye. We try to layer short pants in front of tall plants to create appealing depth. This practice allows you to use more plants in a design while also ensuring they don’t end up hidden from view. Height changes also translated into the winter months, but we will get to that later.
Autumn…
Continue reading full post here.
Email Address info@infinitelandscape.ca
Website www.infinitelandscape.ca
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/infinitelandscapeanddesign/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/infinitelandscapeanddesign
Submission by Infinite Landscape Design
Mad Love Monday | Aisha Turna - Fairly Dental Staffing
My name is Aisha and I am the Founder of Fairly Dental Staffing. I was born in Toronto and my family and I moved to Montreal shortly after. I was raised there until the age of 9, and then moved to Edmonton. My family is from Tanzania, Africa and my roots are traced back to India.
My name is Aisha and I am the Founder of Fairly Dental Staffing. I was born in Toronto and my family and I moved to Montreal shortly after. I was raised there until the age of 9, and then moved to Edmonton. My family is from Tanzania, Africa and my roots are traced back to India.
My interests include travelling, picking up new skills, and getting creative. I love dental hygiene and how much value I bring to patients by keeping their teeth in their mouths!
I'm a total people person. I went into the field because I didn't know what to do after high school but for some reason I wanted to study in Toronto where my home town is! My mom is a dental assistant and she recommended a program in Toronto specifically for Dental Hygiene. I hadn't even researched properly what the job entailed, I just got excited to move to Toronto and agreed to go! I was 19 at the time and had finished high school 9 months prior to going. Oddly enough, I was one of the younger students in class at the private school I attended.
Toronto is like my second home, I visit the city frequently. The city is very lively and I love the vibes.
I was a Temporary Dental Hygienist most of my career because I cannot stay in one office as I feel my growth is limited. Exploring different offices, meeting fellow dental professionals from dental offices, and meeting patients from all walks of life is very rewarding. It made me very happy knowing that I was referred to as "gentle hands" from my patients!
I was working with Dental Temp Agencies and gradually became self employed and worked between a few offices. I loved being independent and having a flexible work schedule. I wanted the flexibility because I love travelling! I've traveled around Europe, USA, Canada, and Africa. My next ventures will be India and Thailand, hopefully when COVID-19 clears up.
I graduated dental hygiene in 2012 and have been working since. I can adjust well to my surroundings and work with alot of dental offices in Edmonton currently.
The idea of creating an app came to me one day when I was sitting down doing my year end paper work. I had been so use to getting texts and emails for shifts and having to fill out lots of paper work per shift just to get paid. There would be times where I would get 15-20 texts a day just regarding new shifts! A few times, the texts would get lost in translation between Temps/Temp Agencies and I would show up to offices with no shift or being double booked. Yikes! As I was putting together my year end paperwork, I thought to myself "wait a minute.. why isn't there an app for this?!" I began to write the idea down. I sat on this for a year and then one day it occurred to me that I wanted to take a chance at doing something I am passionate about before I leave this world! An invention of my own. And thus, Fairly began. Fairly was a random name I came up with. It made me think of the word FAIRY and FAIR. I love the idea of tooth fairies and I wanted to create a system in which the pricing is fair, the app is fairly easy to use; and I combined them and that's how FAIRLY was created. Random. But it seemed to work! Dental Offices have a Web App in which they create shifts. Temps pick up the shifts with a Mobile App.
Fairly has been successfully running for over a year now. I'm a one woman show bootstrapping my way through! I ran the business in Edmonton and now I am looking to expand to the rest of North America. I will start with major Canadian cities such as: Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto. If you are reading this and you are a dental professional, please join us by downloading "Fairly Staffing" on Google Play or the Apple Store.
It has been such an amazing journey going from being an employee to self contracted to a business owner helping people find work! I've built some amazing relationships in this past year and will continue to do so. I recently reduced the placement fees of the web app for Dental Offices from $35 to $25 a placement. In the dental field, everyone knows that getting a Temp can be quiet expensive and can take time. With the use of Fairlys technology, find coverage with a faster turnaround and let us do the work of finding the right Temp for your office. Using our built in review system, registration ID verification, and work experience - we will help you find the coverage you need at a low cost.
Save time and money and create a shift when you need coverage. Instantly, over hundreds of Temps will get notified at once and be able to pick up a shift quicker. Temps, get a peace of mind knowing that you will get paid much more than a typical Temp Agency because Fairly is a shift filling platform that does not take a significant chunk of your hard earned wages.
This has been such a lovely journey and I look forward to connecting with more amazing dental professionals and dental offices in the near future!
Email Address support@fairlystaffing.com
Website www.fairlystaffing.com
Instagram instagram.com/fairlystaffing
Facebook facebook.com/fairlystaffing
A Message from our Co-Founders
As two white-privileged women, this week has been a real eye opener for us. It has been a time that has left us sitting with uncomfortable, even overwhelming feelings. When we stumbled through our responses, frozen with fear of saying the wrong thing, and sometimes acting ignorantly we were knocked off our rockers to say the least.
As two white-privileged women, this week has been a real eye opener for us. It has been a time that has left us sitting with uncomfortable, even overwhelming feelings. When we stumbled through our responses, frozen with fear of saying the wrong thing, and sometimes acting ignorantly we were knocked off our rockers to say the least.
We made mistakes that disappointed and hurt feelings of our fellow community members, and because of this, we have taken the time needed to deeply reflect on how we could do something more meaningful than just respond and post platitudes on social media.
We want to show up and fight racism and help make this a turning point for ourselves, and the community we respect and champion so dearly. As such, we will continue to make everlasting change that supports diversity and inclusiveness within our business and the community we have created.
Upon reflection, we have come to understand that growing up, we did not have conversations about systemic racism and our white privilege has been blind to us. And while we have not been perfect in advocating change to address this issue, we are trying to advocate now.
We want to burst this bubble of white privilege we live in. To help make this time in our history a turning point, here is what we are working on. We will continue to engage in difficult conversations, especially with those who have challenged us. Listen as much as possible, which includes reviewing the feedback you have shared. Educate ourselves by using all the resources available to us.
We will continue to support Black women within our community, as members, as contractors, and as collaborators while we elevate our understanding of not only their personal struggles but the struggles they face as small business owners in our community! We will also remain sensitive to the reality that the journey for small business owners is not a one-size-fits all experience.
Learning more about the systemic barriers women of colour encounter is a vital step. Determining how we can support those facing those systemic barriers is what we will put into action. We will use our platform to advocate in ways that is authentic to us on Anti-Racism and Systemic Racism Education.
We know we will get stuff wrong along the way, but we will learn from those experiences. This will be a long road as we need to unlearn much of what has been instilled in us, but our drive to make ourselves better, to challenge one another, to improve society and to change is real. We are sorry it took so long for us to get here. Our ignorance is not bliss. It’s a sick-to-your- stomach feeling of how disappointed you feel for being uneducated of the human experience of others and therefore ignorant in your past thoughts and actions. It’s heavy. But we won’t stop because of how important this is.
We invite you on this journey with us. Please review some of the resources we have shared on our online platform to become better informed and comfortable in sharing your knowledge with others. We are pleased many of our community members are already taking action and swiping up, clicking links and taking the time to learn more. Let’s keep moving forward and have meaningful conversations not only on social media, but in our homes, community and businesses.
Kirsten MacDonell & Kayla Kaliszuk
YEG Boss Babes Co-Founders
Epicexperiences.ca is the online platform that specializes in unique experience gifts and adventure tours that bring excitement, fun and a “Wow!” emotions to any special occasion. We are on a mission to simplify gift shopping and provide a convenient gift-giving solution. And my goal is to bring those positive emotions and precious moments to as many people as possible in Canada and beyond through Epic Experiences.