Name: Justina LeeStolz
What business or organization are you involved with? Century 21 Assurance Realty Ltd
What is your role with that organization? Realtor
What’s your favorite thing about living in the Okanagan? The incredible great out doors and wilderness. There are so many hiking, biking, and climbing spots, as well as some pristine and gorgeous lakes to camp at.
If you could have lunch with anyone in the world, who would you choose and why? Oh, that’s a tough one. Do you go with the celebrity train because it would be hopefully awesome, or do you stick with the sappy “someone I already know” because it’s guaranteed to be awesome?
I’m a bit of a sap so I’d say lunch with my parents and sister because I’m guaranteed to have a good laugh and a ton of smiles at that lunch!
What’s your go-to happy place? So many tough questions. I have several go-to happy places and it’s less about the place and more about the feeling.
When I need an instant pick-me-up all I have to do is engage in an activity that forces my mind to focus. For instance, latin dancing, rock climbing, snowboarding, and slack-lining are a few of my go-tos. Good music is also an instant cure; it can transport you, as they say.
What are you most proud of? I’m most proud of my family. We’ve experienced a lot of adversity over the past few years and the endurance with which we’ve managed to stick together and support each other is overwhelming at times. I’d say that I’m mostly proud of my mom; everyone says “my mom’s the best,” but in the world I exist in, there is no one who has the stamina for life like my mother.
What are the top three things on your bucket list? I might be flogging a dead horse by now with all the family sap, but the top thing on my bucket list is to take my whole fam-jam back to my mother’s home country of China and explore our heritage and culture.
Next on the list is to pull out my saxophone and really start playing again. Music is my soul food and I can’t imagine a world without it. Some of the most incredible feelings I’ve ever had are when I can take the thoughts and emotions from inside my body and transform them into music that others can hear. There’s a language there, a communication, like no other in the world.
The third thing on my bucket list is to travel to Ireland to visit some of the roots on my dad’s side. I’ve had an obsession with Irish folklore and fairies since I was a child and I can’t wait to see the place where it all comes from. Not to mention I’m a sucker for accents, so I’d probably melt with happiness being in Ireland.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? If I tell you, you might look at me differently. No, but really. I grew up in a multi-cultural household and quickly realized when I started going to “westernized” schooling that eating pigs ears, pigs skin, pigs intestines, chickens feet, cow stomach liner (tripe) and other such various organ meats wasn’t exactly what other kids thought of as normal.
Latest movie or book: The latest movie I watched and was absolutely enthralled with was La La Land. Not because it was a musical, although I do like those, but because it was an incredible combination of great jazz music, good choreography and very real conversations. It also wasn’t the conventional happy ending I hoped for so I may have been emotionally distraught in the theatre by the end of it. You could say that I’m a very engaged audience.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received? The best gift I ever received? I can’t say that there is any particular “one” that sticks out in my mind, but I can tell you that the gifts I always remember most are the ones that I never expect; the ones when you say you’re hungry to a friend and an hour later they show up with a burrito and a latte for you, or when you check your phone after a stressful situation and there’s a note from someone saying “just thinking of you and wanted you to know that you’re awesome” etc etc.
Those gifts, the small, meaning-filled ones, those are the gifts that really get me.
If today were your last day, how would you spend it? If today were my last day, you can bet your boots that I’d be trying to fulfill all three of those bucket list items above with my family right there with me. Ain’t nothing like a whirlwind adventure with the ones you love to make your life go out with a bang!
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