Nothing is Sometimes Better than Something!

Last week I was over at a friend's house for dinner.

She was showing me her new bedroom suite and had remarked how much trouble she had when purchasing the bed frame from a well-known retailer.

She bought the bed and was patiently waiting for the delivery guys to come four days later. When they finally arrived, she had to ask them to unwrap her bed frame. They were prepared to just leave the huge boxes in her dining room. They did the unpacking reluctantly and agreed to take the empty cartons too on her suggestion, but then it was only after they left my friend realized that her beautiful, new bed frame required six legs; not four. She was missing two of the legs and because of the size four legs would not support the bed.

She found the business card left by the delivery men and then realized that the only number to call when you have a problem is in Montreal. After a very frustrating phone call to the customer service department in Quebec she was told there is nothing they could do for her.

She then phoned the Calgary store in which she had made the purchase, but again was told there was nothing they could do for her either.

She phoned back to Montreal and left another complaint. A few days past without any solution.

My friend then left for a one week's vacation on the coast. She had a wonderful time with her children and decided not to think about the customer service dilemma in Calgary for a few days.

When she arrived home seven days later feeling rested and relaxed she listened to the several messages on her voicemail from the furniture company.

The first was a suggestion that she drive around the city to see if she could find other legs that would work for her new bed frame.

The second was a suggestion that perhaps she didn't need the legs and could just leave the bed frame on the floor and the third message informed her that the store did in fact find the missing legs and they would have them delivered the next day.

IF my friend had been in town for these calls...a few things may have transpired...
she might have reluctantly tried to find matching legs on her own time and gas money, but really, what are the chances?

She might have agreed to have her new beautiful bed frame sitting on her floor instead of the lovely chocolate and rich-looking wooden legs and then always been disappointed that she didn't get the purchase she had planned on.

Since my friend was unreachable and unable to accept either of these ridiculous solutions, the store kept trying to come up with solutions and in the end did what was best for my friend.

When my friend was re-telling her story to me, she said, "Sometimes by doing nothing gets you more than trying to do something."

I thought about this for a few days and wondered if her comment was good advice to women.

How many times do we try to come up with a quick fix for our children, our friends, or our partner because we want to make everyone happy?

How often do we start conversations with our boyfriends because we want them to reassure us that they love us when we think they are being distant or cold?

How many times have we wished that could have taken back a comment, or not brought up a subject with one of our girlfriends when it ended badly or not the way we planned?

Women are pleasers and we think what we are always doing is for the best, but sometimes I think we need to do NOTHING and just see what solution presents itself on it's own.

We might be pleasantly surprised and not have to deal with any regrets!

Are Those Spoons Mixed in with Your Forks?

So the other day Jenna, Sierra and I were invited to lunch by the mother of one of Sierra's friends. We were all really excited since it had been a few years since we had the opportunity to get together.

I of course, embarrassed my children before we even arrived. When we made the lunch date, I asked for the address, wrote it down and then left it on my desk at work, so I couldn't remember the house number once we arrived on their street.

I took a guess, jumped out of the car and rushed up the steps of the house I thought was theirs. Of course, it wasn't. The girls (who stayed in the car) told me I was crazy for ringing some stranger's doorbell.

Seriously girls, if you think that is going to be my biggest worry of the day...you are the ones who are crazy.

I doubt that lady told her family over dinner about the person who rang her door accidentally. I doubt I really made that much of an impression that she even remembered the situation ten minutes later.

We all worry too much about what other people think, but honestly they are too busy worrying themselves about what other people think, so they don't spend that much time thinking about us!

Anyway back to the lunch.

We walked into the correct home (next door, see I was close)and I was immediately impressed!

The mom had made wonderful egg salad sandwiches, homemade chocolate chip cookies, smoothies and had fresh coffee available with real cream.

Great..apparently my children don't like egg salad, don't like melon smoothies and don't care about making a good first impression.

We still enjoyed a lovely lunch (my girls made themselves peanut butter sandwiches) and then went the girls went to play outside we had an opportunity to talk.

We started speaking about marriage and the numbers of women we knew who were leaving their husbands. I suggested that all relationships are hard, but when you throw children into the mix they get even harder.

Everyone knows how much I love Jenna and Sierra, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize how hard they were on my marriage. Not because they were bad children, but because I was sleep deprived for years, worried about making the right choices, frustrated that I couldn't be everything to everyone and basically not the person I wanted to be.

My friend agreed with me and told me that she loves her husband and is in love with her husband, but sometimes she thinks he does things just to annoy her.

"For example" she says, "When he unloads the dishwasher, he just dumps all the cutlery into the cutlery drawer. He doesn't sort it!"

I looked at my friend, took a breath and replied, "I have to tell you...I do the same thing."

The look on my friend's face was priceless. She looked both shocked and appalled.

I laughed out loud and told her..."You know sometimes it just doesn't matter if you don't do something perfectly. Life is short...we all walk around spouting this well known statement, but then we still spend five extra minutes a day ensuring that all of our cutlery is lined up perfectly and in the right spot. Does that make any sense?"

How many strangers go into our cutlery drawer?

Who, but our loved ones is ever going to know that we took a shortcut and spent those five minutes playing with our kids, walking our dog or cuddling with our spouses?

Now some people will never be able to sleep well at night knowing the spoons are mixed into the fork slots, so for those people I say...fine keep your cutlery organized, but then please find some other little guilty pleasure to make you feel vindicated. I promise being a little bad sometimes feels really great.

Here are some thoughts.....

Don't bother matching every one's socks...just throw them in a big bin in the closet.

Don't pack up and refrigerate the leftovers that you know you are going to throw away in three days anyway.

and

Don't forget life really is short...enjoy every moment!

Things I Know for Certain during Stampede

Well it's day eight of the Calgary Stampede and I am wondering if it is time to think about passing the torch...what I mean by this is....since living in Calgary my entire life, this ten-day event is something I look forward to each year. The chance to reconnect with friends, make new ones and let my hair down, but at what age do I stop enjoying the music, the mud and the crowds that are all part of the Stampede?

As a child my parents took me to the Stampede Parade, as a youth I worked for a several years as an ushette for the Rodeo and Grandstand show and even spent a couple of summers working in one of the casino tents on the midway.


The first Friday of Stampede started the festivities off with a bang. Dozens of us would reserve VIP tents at one of the coveted bars (Dusty's, Coyotes or Cowboys) and spend the next thirteen or fourteen hours mingling, dancing and drinking until the bar closed. I heard someone remark recently that it takes weeks of training to be able to pace yourself through stampede week.

The next nine days revolved around hitting as many breakfast, lunches and parties as we possible could (and until recently those breakfasts usually consisted of various liquids rather than pancakes and sausage)

This year is different...I have only attended one event.

We were able to secure the much sought after Stampede Round Up event at Fort Calgary where dispite the torrential rain we enjoyed the music of LoverBoy, Our Lady Peace and Steve Miller Band.

As I looked around the party, I decided no it's not time to pass the torch yet, but I do have some advice for those just starting to stampede.

First, Ladies it's a hoe down, not a Ho down. Tight jeans, western shirts and tanks are great, but invest in a pair of cowboy boots and leave the stillettos at home.

Second, This is Calgary....it can be sunny at lunch and pouring rain by six o'clock. Many of our events are outdoors, so prepare for the weather and the mud.

Third, Drinking is a large component of stampede, but there is nothing worse than resembling some girl from Lady GaGa's "Just Dance" song. Staggering around, blurry eyed and messy is just not attractive...pace yourself, but if you can't....leave the business cards at home.

And finally it's more than coincidence that Calgary has more births in April than any other month of the year. Hmm. July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April...do the math.

I sometimes hear people remark what happens at the Stampede stays at the Stampede. This is just not true...yep, it's a big city, but not that big, so be aware of your surroundings and don't do anything you wouldn't do if your mother, partner or boss was nearby.

Happy Stampeding!

Creative Financial Planning

I stopped over to a friend's last week for lunch to find her frustrated and depressed about her current relationship. She has been dating a great guy for the last year, a guy who is great with her kids, kind and eager to be around her and her friends.

When I started probing her with questions it seemed the problems they were facing were about money issues and insecurities. (Not unique in this economy)

My friend was feeling like her new guy was pulling away from her. He often remarked that he was worried about his job and since he works on commission, his recent pay cheques weren't covering his expenses, so he often was unable to take her out for dinner or pay for a movie.

It's not that my friend is a gold digger at all. She is always willing to treat and pay her share, but she has three kids to take care of, a mortgage and her own debt.

I am not going to start talking about debt or credit counselling since I like my friend have my own consumer debt problems, but knowing that money issues and problems are one of the leading reasons for marital break ups and divorce, I did offer her some advice which she thought about, tried, and found to be not only easy, but actually quite enjoyable.

I told my friend to go out to the dollar store and purchase a package of index cards. White ones, coloured, fluorescent - it doesn't matter.

I then suggested her and her partner divide up the cards between them and begin to write one item on each index card. This item must be something that costs money.

For example maybe my friend wants a new set of pots and pans, or she wants a weekend away in Vegas. It doesn't matter how expensive or trivial the item is. It also doesn't matter if this item seems like something that is never going to be possible like a European Vacation or swimming pool in the backyard.

I told her to complete this activity fairly quickly without putting much thought into the items she and her guy were writing down.

I explained to her the next step in this exercise was then to share one-by-one all of the index cards out loud.

I told her is is important not to comment on each others cards. Just to listen.

After all of the cards are read aloud, I told her that each of them must take the index cards and rank them in order of importance together. This important step allows her and her boyfriend to determine values and will help them both understand what each of them determines is important and valuable. Maybe her boyfriend wants a home gym because he is finding that since having her in his life he would prefer to work out from home then go to the gym every day, or she can explain that by purchasing a tent trailer they would be able to accommodate both of their families on a summer vacation.

The last step I recommended in this exercise was for both of them to come up with a timeline for achieving these items.

I told her to take a piece of paper and write the following headings:

Six Months

One Year

Two Years

Three Years

Five Years

Ten Years

They then together they would decide what item fell under each heading.

For example:

Six Months
Home Gym

Two Years
Weekend in Vegas

My friend dropped by last night and told me this activity gave them a chance to share their goals, plan their future together and communicate in a non-threatening, creative way.

I told her that it will also be great to watch their goals become realities since they now are top of mind for both of them.

Comments always welcome!

Cindy