Showing Compassion 52 Weeks A Year

From Thanksgiving to New Years, for about 6 weeks a year we find compassion for others. Sure throughout the year we may do a random act here and there for someone. However, during the “Holiday Season” we take food to the needy, send cards, give thanks, offer words of kindness and give to charities. But, what about the other 46 weeks of the year, what do we do?

It does not cost anything to tell someone that we love them, to give thanks, to give your time to soup kitchen or visit strangers at the VA, a nursing home, patients in hospice or just to be kind to others. Most all of us have enough food in our cabinets to fill up a bag that we can give to someone in need. It cost very little to send a card to let someone know you are thinking of them or to even give as little as a $1.00 a month to a charity that is close to your heart.

For a lot of people we get so caught up in our everyday life during the year that we don’t even notice that we are too busy to pay attention to how we treat others. We don’t notice that we are sometimes rude to those around us. We forget to edit ourselves and what we say or the tone in which we speak. We disregard acts of kindness and instead of saying thank you we come to expect them. We listen to gossip and even participate in it. We make excuses for our bad behavior or even try to justify it.

The hard work is to acknowledge our short comings. While we may have good intentions, to others what they see is that moment when we act like idiots and seem as if we don’t have an ounce of compassion in our hearts.  We need to take a step back and define ourselves every day, not just 6 weeks out of the year. We have to decide to be more aware, be more kind; loving and true to whom we really are in our hearts.

I am the first to hold up my hand and say I fall short of the person I want to be. I remember a song I learned many years ago.

 “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father, brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother, in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me; let this be the moment now.
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment and live each moment, with peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

This is the person I want to be 52 weeks of the year. There is enough craziness, loneliness and hate in the world. My goal is to make a big change in my life and live every day with a purpose of compassion.

https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Customer Service

I understand the costs a company saves by having an automated customer service system, but in my opinion “automated and customer service” is an oxymoron.  I can’t even begin to list the number of things I have put off just because I did not want to deal with an automated and out sourced customer help service. Tech support with our satellite receiver, internet service, my new cell phone and getting my interest rates reduces on a credit card, are just a few examples.

I just do not have the time to call the company, enter all the requested info only to be given an answer that has no relation to my question. Yes I always hit the pound key and the star key like a mad woman in an attempt to get transferred to a real person. Most of the time one of two things happens. Either I get an automated “thank you” and disconnect or I get transferred to another automated system that tells me there is a 20 minute wait.

So I rolled the dice and called my cell phone company today to ask why, after following all the directions, I was unable to log on to my internet service at home. I went through the automated system and finely got to the option to talk with a real person. I had already invested 30 minutes into the process by then, so I waited the 30 minutes that really turns out to be 40 minutes of listening to a flute playing hard rock music. At last the moment came where an automated voice told me I am next in line. My victory of knowing that someone was soon going to be on the line was quickly followed by shear frustration because I could hardly understand what this person was saying. My call was put through to a foreign county call center. Somewhere in her thick accent and broken English I believe she said her name was Peggy. Peggy did not seem to understand anything I said. A little back and forth and I understood that Peggy wanted me to repeat all my account information that I had already entered in the automated system.

Several more minutes of attempting to communicate my issue and I got the feared phrase, “let me put you on hold while I check with someone.” This translated to another 10 minutes on hold. Peggy returned and began to walk me through some steps only to realize she was helping me set up my voice mail. Okay, l explained my issue to Peggy again.  I spent another 10 minutes trying to re-phase my inquiry in an attempt to get an answer.

I know you have all been in this situation. After investing over an hour in this senseless exchange and trying to remain easy-going, Peggy told me she had no idea how to do what I was asking. I know my tone of voice was getting edgy and I tried to refrain for fear Peggy would hang up.  We went back and forth until Peggy told me that I was being transferred to a supervisor. The dreaded transfer at best equates to several more minutes of flute music, at worst it means the call would be disconnected and I would have to start all over. I was lucky and the transfer was successful. Another person, a man named Jack claiming to be a supervisor, began by asking me in broken English for all my account information again, really?

About that time I had missed several other calls from people trying to call me, I had to run to the bathroom, let the dogs out and grab something to drink. I had been on the phone well over an hour and a half and was beginning to wonder if I really needed internet service on my phone. My spirits were lifted when Jack at least seemed to understand what I was asking. The answer was simple to him, if I could not log on to my home internet service with my phone after following all the steps in the manual, it had to be because my internet was down. I told him that my internet was working just fine because I had my laptop open and was logged on to my e-mail. Jack insists that it was an internet issue and asked me to reset my router.  That did not work so he wanted me to unplug the router and wait 15 seconds and plug it back in.

Jack tried to convince me to call my internet provider because it was a problem with them and not the phone. I lied to him and told him I already called them and they checked out my router and the issue was with the phone. Jack is stumped. He asked that I check to make sure I entered my router password correctly, I did. Next he asked that I shut my phone off and turn it back on, I did. Nothing. Jack declared that there must be a problem with the phone and wanted to send me another one to replace it. I explained that I had had the phone for two months and they had already sent me a replacement phone last month because they could not resolve an issue with sim card.

There was no changing Jacks mind however. He insisted it was a defect with the phone and he was sending me a new one. I asked that he look at my account for the service record so he could see that I had had this phone for two month and had not been able to use it much because after I first got it I had an issue and they had to send me a new sim card. Then there was second issue after I installed the new sim card so I had to wait while they sent me a new phone.  I did not want to wait another week for yet another phone. I told him to forget it I will use this phone without the ability to log on to the internet. We agreed and I hung up. That was two hours of my life I will never get back.

A week later I was putting the phone in my purse and I dropped it. When it fell to the floor the back came off and the battery went flying. I pick it up and put it all back together, turn it back on and looked at the screen to make sure I didn’t break it. To my surprise I got an icon telling me that I was connected to my home internet service. I thought about calling Peggy and Jack to tell them the answer to my question was to remove and replace the battery. But then I decided I really didn’t have two hours to waste that day.  https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason 

Life Is What You Make It

I remember when I was a kid, my Mom babysat, ironed other peoples clothes and did typing so that she could stay at home with us kids. My Dad worked as much overtime as he could to make sure our family's bills were paid and to put food on the table. When we got older and were all in school, both my Mom and Dad worked full time. My Dad would often work 6 days a week,10 hours a day. My Mom would come home from work, change clothes, make dinner, do dishes and check that we had our homework done. On Saturdays, she would do laundry, go grocery shopping and us kids would help her clean the house. This was our routine.

At 18 years old I was sure I knew it all and had everything figured out. I got married and a year later found myself expecting a baby. I guess I was lucky, because I found out when I was a teen, that I knew nothing. My marriage was full of problems. My husband could not keep a job, there was domestic abuse and he drank. Those, believe it or not, were the easy problems in our marriage. My parents sat me down and told me to figure life out fast before my baby was born. I knew that was not the life I wanted for my child, so I left my husband and filed for a divorce.

I got an apartment about a block north of my parents. They urged me to go back to school, get a college degree and a job. They offered to help care for my daughter if I would do those things. It seem impossible and I looked around and saw other single mom's on welfare, food stamps and section 8 housing that appeared to be making out okay. But my parents insisted that I look at the big picture. So I enrolled in college and was lucky to find a full time job there as well.

One thing led to another and at twenty, I found myself in the police academy. I worked full-time as a police officer for many years. While working, I continued to go to school full-time and earned my bachelor’s degree. It was not the easy road but I was trying to build a future for myself and daughter. My parents were my biggest cheerleaders. There were no “party years”, no easy ride. My time away from school and work, for the most part, was spent with my daughter and parents.

When the opportunity to attend Law School came my way my parents urged me to take it. Within months of starting Law School, I got a job at a Law Firm working full-time evenings and weekends. By the time I earned my Doctorate in Law I thought I caught a glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel. After I graduated, I continued working at the Law Firm and also taught classes at a local college and at a University. I had bought a house, but spent very little time there. By now my daughter was in high school and a girls youth group. She was in the marching band and my social life consisted of attending her school events. My Tuesday nights and most weekend were spent with her youth group. It seemed that I was always on my way somewhere and slept whenever I could grab a few hours. I felt as if I should be doing more. Like I was letting life slip through my fingers.

In my late thirties I re-married and moved to a small rural town in Missouri. My daughter was in college by then. Jumping ahead to my fifties, I am still looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I could have done things differently. But then maybe I would not be where I am today and I feel blessed to be where I am at this point in my life. As a daughter, wife, mother and grandma I do the best I can. I have slowed down a bit, but still have a full plate. I have a job, help my husband on the farm and deal with some health issues.

I watch with awe as my baby has grown into a beautiful woman, wife, mother and daughter. I see her doing whatever she can to make a life for her family. She is always on the move. She home schools her kids, is involved in their youth activities, holds down a job, has her own business and helps her husband with his business. I look around at others her age and see a lot of them out at parties every weekend, then complaining about what a tough life they have. Every month these same people scramble to hit all the food pantries, family members, charities and government agencies to help them pay their bills.

Is there an easier way to live? Maybe. We all have to make choices in our lives.It's no one's job to make our life easy, it is up to us to do what we can to help our self. There will always be people standing on the outside passing judgment on our choices. But only we know the path we have walked. In my years I have learned that life is not always fair and that the things that are handed to us usually comes with strings. 

No matter how your life turns out, remember you are the artist and you have control. Don't let the canvas of your life stand un-painted and do not turn it over to someone else to paint. Pick up that paint brush and do the best you can. Then step back and admire the courage it took to paint your picture even if you have no artistic skills, it's still your painting.   https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Drive-In Movies

I remember my very first date. The boy was a kid I went to high school with, but I don't remember his name. He came to my house to pick me up in his truck and we went to to see a move at the drive-in. That was the place to go on a date when I was a teen. I remember when there were times that my girlfriends and I would go sit in a car outside the drive-in to watch a movie because we didn't have the money to pay to get in.

It was fun. Even though we had no idea what they were saying, we would create our own story to go with the movie we were watching. But going to the drive-in was about the best place to be on a Saturday night. They always played two movies. One not so new and then the feature film. You could buy a bucket of buttered popcorn and sit on the tail-gate of a truck or the hood of your car. Many times there would be an entire group of us that would take up a whole section of the drive-in parking lot.

Some of the best memories I have happened at the drive-in. They use to charge by the person, so we would get as many people as we could in the trunk of a car. I had an old Ford Galaxy and we could get 3 or 4 people in that truck. Once inside the drive-in we would find our friends and spend the night watching movies. On Halloween, they would always have an entire night of old horror movies playing.

I am sure they have drive-in movie theaters here in Missouri that are still in operation, but I have not seen one. I was watching World News Tonight on NBC and they did a report about drive-ins. They said there use to be over 4000 drive-ins in the United States, but now there are fewer than 400. The main reason is because they no longer make “film” everything is digital. The cost to convert a drive-in from film to digital is $160,000.00. Since Drive-ins are not as popular as they use to be, most just do not bring in enough money to justify the cost to change, so they close.

Funny, you hear about every one going tailgating at sports events. There people have to pay for parking, stand out in the heat or cold then pay for tickets to go in to watch the event. All of that can cost a family of four several hundred dollars. Wouldn't it be great if the drive-ins could make a come back by encouraging families to spend an evening tailgating, BBQ'ing even selling area's to groups to meet in, then end the evening with a great family movie. I would plan a community, church or family evening around that.  https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Embarrassing Moments

We all have had them, those embarrassing moments in our lives. You know what I am talking about. It’s those situations when you try to call on some non-existing super power to make yourself invisible. The other day I was talking with a friend and we were laughing about dumb things we had done in the past. Then the subject changed slightly and we began to talk about things that have happened in our past that embarrassed us.

I told my friend about a football game I attended when I was a freshman in high school. First, I have to say that like most high schools, Friday night football games were the place to be and be seen. This is especially true for the yearly Homecoming game. As a freshman, this was my very first Homecoming. Also, like most high school girls I had a crush on a boy that was on the football team. He and I had been friends for years, but he had a crush on this other girl.  However, I was determined to get his attention. And I did get his attention that night.

Friday after school, I met up with five of my girlfriends at one of their homes. Our plan was to get all dressed up, do our hair, makeup and attend the game together. As freshmen we had that pack mentality, power in numbers. The six of us did just about everything together. We met in Jr. High and had been friends for over two years at this point.  We were not the cheerleader popular crowd, but we all had each other’s back.

The fashion back then was blue jeans, bright colored tops, 2 inch dress heels, lots of eye makeup, pale pink lipstick and long hair that the girls would pin up and place a pre curled wig-lit over. We had all brought our stuff to this one friend’s house that morning and left it there during the day so we would have everything we needed for the big game that night. My friend’s mom made us all something to eat as we worked on ourselves and each other for this major event.

By the time we were ready to walk the few blocks to the game we were all dolled up and felt beautiful. Wish I had a picture of that night to look back on, but the picture that is ingrained in my mind, while not perfect, always brings a smile to my face. The time was finely right for us to make our entrance. As we walked through the bleachers we felt like social butterflies. We stopped and made sure to say hello to everyone as we found our seats, the forth row up on the 50 yard line.

My sister was a junior and on the pep squad. She hung out with the popular older crowd. She came over to where we were sitting and asked if I would hold her stuff. She carried one of the letters in our school’s name. Just before halftime all the pep squad gathered on the track to go out on the football field. During normal games, the football team would go to the locker room. But since this was Homecoming, the football team gathered on the track to watch the Homecoming Queen get escorted and crowned.

As all of this was going on I see my sister wave at me in a panic and I realized she had forgotten to take her letter with her onto the field. I grab the letter, which was about 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall, and I made a mad dash, in 2 inch heels, down the bleachers, along the rail, down the 5 or so steps onto the track and ran as fast as I could to the middle of the football field’s 50 yard line. There I stood under the bright stadium lights, in the middle of the football field, on Homecoming night, in front of the entire football team, coaches, parents, teachers, students, pep squad, band and all I hear is this roar of laughter. I handed my sister her letter and as she takes it from me she points back to the track about 25 yards away and I turned to look, thinking whatever was going on had to be very funny.

In an instant my life changed. There was some teacher holding a gob of hair in her hands and at that moment without a second thought I reached up to touch my head only to feel bobby pins, no wig-lit. The crowd roared. There was nowhere to hide. No way to undo what had just happened. I ran to the teacher to collect my hair. As I reclaimed it I noticed the two guys in the ambulance were doubled over, laughing so hard that they were wiping their eyes. There was no way I could go back and sit in the bleachers. I ran to the bathroom holding my hair and wishing I could become invisible.

At that moment in time I was sure my life was over. I would never be able to show my face at school again, how would I survive?. But my girlfriends showed up and we all walked back to my friend’s house where we spend the night together. At first my friends tried to make me feel better, and by the end of the night we were all laughing about it. I am pleased to say that I am still in touch with some of those friends. Looking back, if that would have been the worst thing that ever happened in my life, I would have been one lucky girl.    https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Slow Down You're Moving To Fast

Seems like every year the media and retailers roll out Christmas earlier than the year before. This year right around 4^th of July, the Hallmark channel had an entire weekend of Christmas movies. It feels like the older I get the faster time goes by and I think I have figured out why. When I was younger I looked forward to each holiday and season. But any more, the media and retailers are months ahead. By the time the actual holiday or season arrives I am ready to get it over with and move on to the next.

I was with my daughter and one of my granddaughters last month and we stopped at a store to pick up some craft supplies. It was July and they had their Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving displays all set up in the front of the store.  The first thing I thought of was that in a few months those days would be upon us. Then I snapped out of it and reminded myself that it was just the first full month of summer. No wonder time seems to fly by.  Christmas movies and Thanksgivings decorations in July, I guess I should be looking for the Spring vacation commercials to begin in September.

The stores already have summer clothes on sale and the new Fall clothing out on the hangers. There is no more living in the moment. It’s always what’s next.  I remember that on New Year’s Eve we would look forwards to the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. Then the next week we would return to school. Around the 1^st of March I would realize my birthday would be coming up and would make plans. A few weeks later Easter Vacation rolled around. We never called it “spring break”, it was always Easter week. I would make plans with my friends to spend the week at the beach as much as possible. But Easter day was always a family holiday with a ham and all the side dishes. Sometime in the middle of May we would talk about plans for Memorial Weekend. The first two weeks of June seemed to be the longest. They were the last days of the school year. Those two weeks alone felt like a year. Lots of studying and tests then summer finally arrived.

Summers appeared endless. Sleep overs at friend’s houses, weekend trips to Colorado River water skiing, and days at the beach surfing and sunbathing. There was always a 4^th of July BBQ somewhere and a parade, long lazy days lying out at the pool listening to music and then one last long Labor Day weekend at the beach.  A day or so before school started my mom would take us to the store and we would buy a few new outfits to begin the new school year off with. There were no big back to school sales or school supplies to buy. If we needed a new notebook we would get one, but most of the time it was a package of 3 ringed paper to put in the same notebook we used last year.

We always had a 3 day weekend in October for Columbus Day and the last week of October we would take notice of what day Halloween fell on and either plan to go to Knott’s Berry Farm or to a party at a friend’s house. In November we would have a 3 day weekend for Veteran’s Day. Thanksgiving never entered our minds until the weekend before when we would go shopping with our mom and she would buy a turkey. We would spend Thanksgiving with all our family, eat until we were full, watch some football, then eat some more.

 I don’t remember Christmas commercials on TV until the end of the first week in December. Christmas lights would begin to go up on house and decoration in yards about two weeks before Christmas. That is about the time Christmas trees would start to appear as well. Two week for Christmas shopping was more than enough time. 

We had two weeks off of school for Christmas. With any luck there would be some snow in the mountains and we could spend our time skiing. The stores were crowed but people were not rude or pushy. There were a lot of sales, nonetheless stores were well stocked and there were no Black Friday’s or “door busters” that caused riots. The day after Christmas, the tree came down and life returned to normal until New Year’s Eve when I would get together with a bunch of friends and go sit out on a cold curb all night in Pasadena drinking hot chocolate waiting for the Rose Parade to begin.  And the year had come full circle.

Looking back it is as if we lived a lifetime in each year. Instead of the way it feels now, that we are living a year in a month’s time. Now days it seems as if everything is done at warped speed. It is as if we go thought twelve months is a few weeks. We never seem to live in the present or enjoy the moment. We have become media and retail driven. So the next time you wonder why things seem to be moving so fast take a step back and cease the day.               https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Take Control Of Your Life

My Bachelor’s degree is in Behavioral Science. It is a combination of Psychology and Socialogy. Even though I graduated eons ago, there are lessons I learned that I carried with me throughout life. We all have those people in our lives that seem to have a life full of drama and spend whatever time you have with them talking about their issues. Some of them are insecure; we all have a little insecurity. But, there are those people that truly believe that the world is out to get them. Other people have low self-esteem. We all question ourselves now and then but in the end we believe in ourselves. Then there are those that appear to be oblivious to the entire world and feel as if they are the center of the universe. Each of these groups of people are often referred to as toxic.

I read a book by Carlos Castaneda, The Fire from Within, not long ago. A quote from that book popped out: “Self-Importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it—what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.”

Most people attempt to go out into the world wearing a strong mask. It is the first thing they put on every day. It is their defense. When they step out the door, they are ready for battle, looking for a battle. They are always on guard, on the defense. They often come across as if they have a high level of self-importance. But in reality they are actually very weak. Our only defense to these people is to remember that we are in control of how we chose to react to their them. It would be nice if we could just rid them out of our lives. But the reality is that we can't. They maybe family members, co-workers, customers or others that we have to inter-act with in our lives. But we can control how we react to them.

We use our own experiences as a base of how we think others should behave. It is as if we hold up a mirror whenever we interact with others and expect them to act as we would. Over the years we have built up a set of guidelines that we live by that are based on our past experiences and influences. When others go against the way we think, it often results in us getting disappointed or irritated. It is often difficult for us to take a step back from the situation. This is especially hard when the other person seems unreasonable. It is at that split second in time that we often fall into the other person’s drama and unwillingly give them control over our actions.

By doing that we are playing right into their hand and enforcing their self-imposed right to be defensive, hurt, miss-understood or indignant. They are using us to give them that “fix” they are looking for to justify their the way they view themselves. They need us to react in a certain way and they often will try to push us in a direction in an attempt to get the reaction they are looking for. They do not want us to see that they have any weaknesses, are vulnerable or have flaws. They are toxic.

I use to feel as if I always had to be heard and understood. When I felt as if someone was not giving me the attention that I deserve or at the very least taking the time to hear my side, I would find that I would lose my tempter, get more pushy, louder and demanding. Most of the time, at the end of the day, I would replay the situation over and over again in my head. I could not comprehend why others did not understand me. I wondered why every day seemed like a struggle. I wondered what was wrong with everyone else. I felt miss-understood and wondered why I never seemed to make any progress in achieving the life I wanted. When the truth was that I never took the time to sit down and set priorities and clear goal to focus on. I didn't realize that I was toxic.

I don’t know exactly when in my life all that changed, but thankfully it did. I learned to have clear attainable goals and that it was not important to win or be right all the time. It was more important for me to find my focus, take control of the direction I wanted my life to go in and to tune out all the noise that use to distract me. I learned the art of “kill them with kindness”. I try to give others the benefit of the doubt. But most importantly I learned that I have complete and total control over my actions and reactions. Now when one of those toxic people cross my path, I pick my battles. There is a lot to be said about that old saying “sticks and stones”.

I know who I am and it does not matter if everyone else knows or understands me. I have nothing to prove, no one to impress. I am at peace with myself. I refuse to allow anyone to drag me into their drama. I stand up for myself when the issue is important to my personal goals and walk away when it’s not. I do my best to keep toxic people at arms length. I live in the reality that not everyone is going to like me and that not everyone is going to be my best friend. Now when I come in contact with a person that is toxic, I take a deep breath and make sure my reaction is in line with my goals and avoid falling into their drama.

https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

Negotiating Life

If you want life to go as smooth as possible the first skill you should master is the skill of negotiation. If you stop and think about it every thing you do, every interaction is a negotiation. You can set the tone and direction of each interaction as long as you keep in mind that you are always in negotiation. When you talk with your spouse about what color to paint the house, he may say “Whatever color you want dear.” And that may not seem like a negotiation but it is. Next month he may approach you and say “I picked out a new front door that I am going to install.” You may not like the door and ask him why he did not consult you first and he will say well I let you pick out the color so I picked out the door. Never assume that because it was simple and you got what you wanted that you are not in a negotiation.

Parents negotiate with their kids over chores, homework, friends and activities. Teachers negotiate with students. Employees negotiate with employers, husbands and wives negotiate, as do doctors and patients, buyers and sellers, friends and every other relationship you can think of. Have you noticed that some people seem to have an easier path in life? Most of the time, whether they know it or not they have learned the skill of negotiation.

Rule one, everybody wants to win. Never make an ultimatums, always leave some wiggle room. Rule two, even if it is personal issue, don’t make the negotiation personal. People close you off and stop listening to you when you make it personal. Rule three, be a good listener. Even acknowledge what the other person said to you by repeating part of it in your reply. Rule four, the most important part of negotiation is to get as much as you want without giving up your objective.  Find a way to pin point what is crucial to the person you are negotiating with and give them as much of it as you can in exchange for receiving  what you need. Rule five, control the tone on the negotiation. Do not let it get off topic, loud or emotional. If it does, take a step back and take a different approach.

Remember you have to be willing to discuss things; explain what you want and the reason why you want it. Be logical in your approach that includes your timing. Know your purpose, you mind and heart. Know your limits. Just as important you have to also know the boundaries of the person you are negotiating with. If you are asking your boss for time off, don’t ask on a day when you know they are swamped with work. If the answer is, I will think about it, don’t push because they can shut the door on your attempt.  Always understand who you are dealing with and have a clear attainable goal. Don’t go to your best friend and ask them to help you move the weekend of their wedding. Be thoughtful and considerate, it goes a long way. Instead tell your friend how excited you are that they are getting married that weekend. Clearly, no matter how good of a friend they are, they are not going to miss their wedding to help you move. Ask someone else to help you and avoid losing a friend over an unattainable goal.

When I was in Law School I took a class on negotiating. One of the books we had to read was “Win-Win, the art of Negotiating”.  The main points were to always know your bottom line, always find out what the other party wants, pick your timing and never make it personal. Those key points will help you no matter who you are dealing with. But it is imperative that you don’t take advantage of relationships. Don’t twist someone’s arm just because you can. That is not negotiating that is strong arming. Don’t use guilt to get you what you want. It may work in the short term but in the long run it will end up harming the relationship. 

If you use these tactics you will find that you avoid disagreements and get more of what you are after.  Try and negotiate with your credit card company. Point out to them that you always make your payments on time and have never missed a payment. Ask them to take that in consideration and to reduce your interest rate. In retune you can offer to continue to use their card. Go to your best friend that is planning a baby shower the same day and time as your anniversary party. Explain that instead of having your mutual friends pick which event to attend, that while neither of you want to change the date, maybe you can stager the times. That would be a win-win for both of you as each of you would also be able to attend the other’s party as well.

Ask your husband if he would be willing to help you paint the house and in return you will be willing to help him with one of his pet projects, like organizing the garage. Ask your boss for a raise and in exchange list some additional responsibilities you are willing to take on. Ask your kids to help you clean the house and let them know if everything gets done then you will take them on that picnic at the park they have been asking for.  Figure out what the person you are negotiation with really wants and if possible, offer it to them. Both of you will walk away happy.                                https://www.facebook.com/ForSuchASeason

How I Met My Husband

I was watching a television show the other day and two women in their twenties were talking about love. One of the women was married and the other had been dating a man for a few years. The single woman was talking about getting married and asked the married woman how she knew her husband was “the one”. In typical movie dialogue, the married woman answered, “You just know it.” I don’t know why that answer bothered me so much. Maybe because I thought it was a cop out answer. So I started to think about it a while.

I thought back to when I met my husband and how I knew he was “the one.” First, I would say that if I needed to ask someone else about the man I was dating, marriage would not be part of the discussion.  If you can’t answer that question on your own, then I would say either he is not the one or you do not know him well enough to be thinking about marriage. Putting that aside and taking marriage off the table I thought about when I met my husband. Ours was a very unusual relationship. I lived in California and came out to Missouri to visit a friend. I was not looking for love. In all fairness, he was not looking for a relationship either.

So we met and right away I noticed things about him that I was very attracted to. He was thoughtful, honest to a fault, considerate, hardworking and kind. Our first date was not really met to be a date. Every August there is a big meteor shower. Because of the clear skies and the rural area the night sky is bright and clear, perfect for star gazing. We were both in our 30’s and I was surprised that he had never watched a meteor shower. We lowered the tailgate of the truck, he placed a thermos of coffee between us and he sat on one end while I sat on the other end of the tailgate. When I saw the first shooting star I told him to make a wish and he asked me why. I could not believe he never heard of wishing on a falling star. We sat like that looking at the sky for hours and talked about everything and anything.

When I returned home to California, there were a dozen red roses delivered to my door from him. He called to see if I got the roses and asked if he could call me again. I said sure. He called every night thereafter. Each night we would talk on the phone for hours. He invited me to visit again in November for Thanksgiving weekend. Again a complete gentleman, I stayed about 4 days and enjoyed every minute I was with him. I knew I was falling in love with him, but had no idea what he was feeling. I returned to California and we continued our nightly phone conversations. We both enjoy sports and a lot of our conversations were about life and sports. In our conversations we would kind of talk about what life would look like if we were to get married.

By the first week of December he said, “If we are going to get married I better get out to California, meet your family and ask you dad”. I never questioned whether things were moving too fast, if we really knew each other well enough.  I knew I had never met anyone like him before and there was an ease about him. Besides enjoying each other’s company, we also shared common values. I knew I was in love with him and not just the idea of being in love. I found myself thinking of him constantly, rerunning our conversations over in my mind several times a day and waiting for the phone to ring every night so we could talk again. He was due to arrive in California the week before Christmas and I was nervous that my family would think this was moving too fast. As it turned out, they saw the same things in him that I saw. They loved him from the minute they met him. Next thing I knew we had plans to marry on New Year’s Eve. Almost 5 months from the day we had met.

Fast forward 20 years and every day I still see that same farm boy I met so long ago. He has never tried to be anything other than who he is. Neither of us were looking for love, love found us. I believe that because we were not looking for someone to complete our lives, we were able to be ourselves. Every relationship is different and while I would say that marring someone 5 months after you have met them is not the advice I would give to someone, the most important advice I would give someone is to make sure you are getting married for the right reasons. Don’t marry because you are lonely, because all your friends are married or because you are unhappy with your life. Marriage will not solve any of those issues. Have a good sense of the person you are going to marry. See how they handle disappointment, anger and hard times. Make sure you don’t see their potential and think you are going to somehow change them. If there are any red flags do not think that marriage will take care of them. If you do not love them as they are then love yourself enough to walk way.

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Life on the Farm

Living on a working farm is a 24/7 job.  Most people only know about farm life from what they see in the movies and on TV. They show some of the hard work in the hot sun, but they always tie up the loose ends and show the family sitting down to dinner, sharing great holidays together or sitting out on the porch swing in the evening sipping ice tea. I am not saying that those moments do not happen, but they are far and few between.

Life on the farm is often romanticized, but the truth is that it is a lot of hard work, long hours with little profit and no employment benefits. I see my husband get up very early in the morning, make his own coffee and breakfast then leave for the day. Before he leaves he always has his day planned out in his head, what he needs to do and what he would like to do. However, it is a very rare day that he is able to follow his plans. The “farm” always has plans of its own. This time of the year is very busy trying to get the last of our crops planted, cutting raking, baling and hauling hay as well at harvesting our winter wheat. The focus of his day is getting all the above done.

But, the weather, livestock and equipment usually forces him to change course. It seems if he plans to plant crops or cut hay, it rains or it is to dry and he can’t get in the fields. If the weather is great so he can get in the fields, the tractors or combine brakes down and he has to spend two or three days working on the equipment. Then there are those days that the weather is great and all the equipment is running well but the livestock is out and he has to stop everything to chase cows or pigs back in their pastures and fix fence. To try to keep things on track he often works until midnight or later and is lucky to get a few hours of sleep before he has to start it all over again the next day.

Most of the time in lieu of lunch he grabs some fruit off of a nearby tree or will pick a few ears of corn out of the field. Dinner is usually after 9 pm but often closer to mid-night. Plans to get together with family or friends are regularly canceled or interrupted because of the workload or livestock.  If it is 110 or -10 the work has to get done. Every season has its set of chores. In the spring the fields need to be worked and readied for planting corn, bulls need to be moved out of the pastures  away from the cows, livestock has to be vaccinated and planting has to begin. Summer is the time to finish planting, mow hay, harvest winter wheat, plant beans, and put the bulls back in with the cows. Fall is harvest time for corn and beans, plant winter wheat and weaning calves. The winter is calving season, haying the livestock, breaking ice so the livestock can drink, mending fences and getting equipment ready for the spring.

Farmers take a lot of pride in their work, are self-motivated, hardworking and always have time to lend a helping hand. It is sad to say that looking to the future there is no “next” generation of farmers ready to set up and run the small family owned farms. It is hard to convince them to become a farmer when they have grown up watching their families work long hours, earning  just enough money to keep the farm operating, with no health benefit, no paid vacations, holidays or sick time. There are no retirement or pension plans. It is exhilarating when there is enough money to buy a ten year old car to replace the 25 year old car you have been driving. It is easy to see why the next generation has no interest in farming. They watch as their friends work 9-5 jobs, where they are ensured a paycheck every Friday. They have the money to buy new vehicles, have weekends off, holidays with their families and vacations with their friends. They get to spend their days working in heated offices in the winter and air condition in the summer.

With big companies moving in and taking over and small businesses unable to compete, I truly believe that family owned farms will cease to exist in the next 25 years. Like so many other small businesses such as blacksmiths, shoe makers, Mom & Pop diners, independent gas stations, shade tree mechanics, family owned grocery stores, doctors that make house calls, quilt makers, seamstress, the milkman, handyman, clock and watch repair, lamplighters, icemen, typesetters, telegraph operators, newspaper boys, and newspapers for that fact family farms are part of the past. Newer, faster and bigger business are moving in and taking over. The world is always changing, sometimes for the better. At this rate in my lifetime, I believe that most the food that we buy will be imported from other countries and family farms will cease to exist.

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Electronic Advances During My Lifetime

My husband and I were listening to a radio station the other day and they asked, “What were the top three personal electronic created in your life time”. After giving it some thought I would have to say the personal computers, cell phones and digital cameras.

Personal computers have been a part of my life since the early 80’s. I bought my first home desk top computer back in 1982. It was a “Tandy” which was Radio Shacks brand name. The thing weighed a ton and costs a few thousand dollars. The only printers were dot-matrix.  They basically had no memory and everything had to be saved to a 5 ½ inch floppy disk. There was no ability to multitask. You put in a game disc and played that game. When you were done playing that game you put in your word processing disc, at the time “WordStar” was the most commonly used program. There were a few other very basic simple programs you could use like a budget calculator. But most all programs costs a lot of money so you only bought what you had to have.

I got my first modem around 1986. It was an external modem that hooked up to your computer then to your phone jack. It was a 300 baud dial up modem and the Internet consisted of a few bulletin boards you could call into and talk “chat” with other computer geeks. It took so long to boot the computer up that unless you had a specific task; it sat there like a big eye sore in the room. Getting on the Internet was always a gamble. Often the lines were busy and you could not log in. When you were able to log in it was a long drawn out process and long distances charges were applied to your phone bill.

I remember my first cell phone, I bought it around 1990. The thing is bigger than most handbags and weighed about 5 pounds. It had a case with a battery in it that was the size of a small car battery and two cords came out of it. One cord plugged into the car lighter and the other one was attached to a full size hand held phone with a dial pad. Reception was spotty at best. You could use it without plugging  it into the lighter, but the battery life was about 30 minutes. The only mobile electronic gadget that I owned that was bigger than my cell phone was my camcorder. The case was about the size of a carry-on luggage bag and weighed a ton. It also had a battery pack in the case (the battery was good for about 3 hours, if it was fully charged). You would prop this huge camera on your shoulder (like the ones they use to film movies) and a cord connected the camera to the battery. Good luck if you could hold that thing on your shoulder for 3 hours. It only took the full size VCR tapes, which you could run home and place in your VCR so that you could watch your amateur shaky movie on TV.

Fast forward 25 years, when I want to use the computer, I grab my laptop, open it and I am instantly online. I can have several programs at once and jump between them at will. It has more memory than I could ever fill, even if I downloaded every picture and song ever I wanted to keep.  And the Internet has the answer to just about any question you have.  You can find the most obscure things on it and even use it to “Skype” with people around the world. My cell phone fits in the palm if my hand and can be used for days without being recharged. And to call it a phone, by definition, does not even begin to describe all the ways it can be used. I love the games, calendar and alarm features. People use it as a GPS, to log onto the Internet and to send text messages. I also have a camcorder that takes still pictures or digital videos. It fits in the palm of my hand as well and runs off of 3 AA batteries. However, since my phone also acts as a voice recorder, camera and video camera, I very seldom have a real need for it. 

I remember back to the 80's and 90's when these three items were introduced to the public for personal use. I thought they were so advanced and made life much easier. I never dreamed they would advance so fast and become so much more useful, accessible, inexpensive, and part of just about everyone's daily life. I included pictures of what those first items looked like back in the day. Depending on your age, I am sure your answer to that question may be different than mine. But those are the three most helpful electronic advances during my lifetime. How would you answer that question?

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Living The Rural Life

I lived in the Los Angles, California area for most all of my life. Twenty years ago I met my husband and moved to Missouri where he was born and lived all his life. The farm has been in his family since before the Civil War. While I have visited farms and even vacationed at “Dude Ranches”, I could never have imagined all the work that goes into living on a farm. My first culture shock was living a rural life.

I remember I use to drive from L.A. to Las Vegas and would see those houses out in the middle of nowhere and wonder to myself, "how do they survive"? No neighbors, no stores or gas stations for miles. It had to be a scary and lonely existences. When I moved to the farm I found myself living in one of those places that I always wondered about. I soon found out it requires a lot of planning ahead. When the nearest store is 25 miles away, you make every trip count. I make sure that I have all my lists ready to go before I ever leave the house. I schedule doctor appointments, visits to the pharmacy, grocery shopping, getting gas and all the other odds and ends earns so that I do not find myself having to make an extra trip to town.

I am lucky that my husband has lived this life all his years so he is well versed in this life style and very self sufficient. Our house is all electric (some people out here have propane, but when we built the house my husband said that is just an extra bill so we went all electric). The only problem with that is we have live in tornado alley so we lose our electric power about once a month, sometimes for a few minutes sometimes for a few days. Knowing this, my husband put in a wood burning fireplace and hooked it up to the duct system. In the winter we can burn wood to keep warm. Even if it falls to 10 degrees outside, we can keep the house at around 65 degrees. We have a little propane camping stove that we can use to make coffee and some simple hot meals. We always have extra canned food and bottled water as well as extra 50 pound bags of dog food in case the roads are too bad to drive on.

In the summer it gets in the 90’s and 100’s with the heat index from 110 to 120 degrees. I can say I never thought I would ever look forward to a cold shower, but on those days there is nothing better. Since I have lived here I have done things I never dreamed I would do. I am my husband’s barber, I know one style, a buzz cut. Lucky for him that is the way he likes his hair. I have learned to groom the dogs, drive a tractor, run a riding lawn mower, build a fence and vaccinate the dogs and livestock.  Things I never gave a second thought about are now second nature to me.

 I use to go get my hair and nails done every month. I now do my own hair and nails. My wardrobe changed from suits, jewelry and matching handbags and shoes to blue jeans, boots and tee-shirts. As far as jewelry I have limited it to just my wedding rings. In the summer my wardrobe changes to cut off blue jeans and, tank tops and sandals. Handbags were replaces by pockets. My husband tells me if it can't fit in your pocket, you can make it through the day without it. To my surprise, he was right. I can make it just fine with my keys, phone and chap stick. 

When I compare my life in California to my life in Missouri, I think I like life in Missouri a lot better. It is far less cluttered and complicated. When I need to go to the Dept. of Motor vehicles I don’t have to have an appointment or wait in line for two hours. In fact most of the time I am the only one in the place and there is no waiting. Same thing at the post office and stores. The big difference is traffic. Often times I may be the only car on the road instead of always being stuck in a traffic jam. When I walk into a store, utility office, post office or just about anyplace else, they know me by name and I am treated as a friend rather than just another customer. 

While we do not have many neighbors, everyone knows each other for miles around and if I need anything I can pick up the phone and call any of them and they come running. But what I love the most is that I can walk out into my yard and during the day I can see bright blue skies for miles. At night I can look up at and see every star in the sky and hundreds of fireflies. I hear the crickets, frogs and birds, see wildlife run across the yard and hear the farmers on their tractors in the far distances.  It is very peaceful and quiet here in the country.  I still enjoy going to California to visit my family and friends. But I am always happy when it is time to return home to Missouri. 

Our New Dog

We had a dog that was a member of our family for over 8 years. In January we lost him to an illness. He was a beautiful 120 pound black lab. Duke was a rescue animal that and quickly became my husband’s farming and hunting partner.  He was a very well behaved gentle giant. Duke and my husband were connected at the hip. The only place Duke did not go with us was to doctor visits and grocery shopping. Our hearts were broken when we lost Duke. The one thing we were glad about was when the vet told us how serious his medical condition was but assured us he was not in pain. We decided not to put him down. We brought him home and set the alarm so we could give him his medication 4 times a day. We feed him by using a tube and he loved being outdoors so my husband would pick him up and carry him outside several times a day to lay under his favorite tree.

When Duke peacefully passed at home, we used the backhoe and dug a place under his favorite tree, in our front yard, and laid Duke to rest. Duke loved peanut butter wafer bars and we put two of them in with him before saying good bye. It was a very sad and difficult day for us. My husband missed Duke’s company so much. In April we talked about maybe looking at some of the shelters for a new friend. We have a 3 pound Pomeranian that we rescued the same day we rescued Duke. We needed to make sure that whoever we added to our family that Missy would accept as well.

In April and May we passively looked, asking a few friends of ours that were vets if they knew of anyone that knew of a dog. Everyone told us they would keep a look out for someone that had a litter of pups that they were not expecting.  Last week one of our vet friends called and said that someone had dumped off what appeared to be a 1 year old full blooded healthy Siberian Husky. We took Missy and went to meet this guy. He took to my husband right away and after a smelling game, Missy seemed to think he was okay as well. So Wednesday June 5^th we brought him home to our farm.

We have done a lot of reading up on his breed and have spent the last few days getting to know him.  It seems he has been kept outside on a chain and was surprised that he could come in the house and that he has his own bed. He seems very smart and full of energy. We have spent time taking him for walks around the farm on a lead and working with him to sit, lay and come to us. My husband decided to let him out to go for a run yesterday and boy did he run. We looked for him for well over an hour and thought he was gone for good. When we returned home he was laying at the front door waiting for us.

It is clear that we have a lot of work with him ahead of us but we are looking forward to him having the run of the farm. It is the start of a new chapter in our lives and his. He seems happy and at home here and we are happy that he is now a member of our family. We look forward to the day when he can go farming and hunting without being on a lead. I feel in my heart that he is looking forward to that day as well. We have tried a few names with him and the only thing he seems to respond to is Boy and Good Boy. So for now that is what we call him and that makes him wag his tail, which make us know we made a great choice for all of us.

Springtime In The Mid-West

Springtime in the Mid-West is one of the most beautiful yet scariest places on earth.  All of the trees, shrubs and grass turn a lush green. Spring is full of magnificently colorful flowers, baby farm animals, baby wildlife and birds chirping. Just as beautiful are the nights. Because there are so few lights in the countryside the sky is pitch black with a billion sparkling stars while here on earth there are fireflies, glow worms and an orchestra of frogs, crickets and owls. It is the most gorgeous happenstance that anyone could dream up and everyone should experience.

But with all that beauty comes a very real threat, tornado season. As the cold air tries to move out and the warm air tries to move in, the two collide. In the springtime our storm radio seems to sound off several times a week. There’s no alarm that will make you jump out of bed any faster than a storm radio. As an extra layer of protection we have the National Weather Service phone alerts. That means when everything starts to alarm, sound off and ring, one could say it gets just a little crazy around here. The storm radio alarms screams, the outdoor storm siren blasts while our home phone and each of our cell phones ring different tones. If we happen to have out of state company, they are paralyzed with fear during the entire process.

It is good to try to always be ready. We keep items in our storm shelter so that we are not running around at the last second. We have a basic wall jack landline phone (handhelds will not work without electrical power). A solar charger for our cell phones and laptop, bottled water, canned foods with a manual can opener, a few days’ worth of medications, a first aid kit, a pry bar, hammer and a few other tools. We also bought some of those cheap eye glasses at the dollar store and keep spare ones with our supplies. They are not our exact prescriptions, but they work in a pinch. A deck of cards, a few board games, a solar charged flashlight, a battery operated flashlight, matches, tennis shoes, socks tee-shirts and jeans, a 5 gallon bucket with plastic bags to line it and toilet paper, dog food, a battery operated radio, pillows and blankets that we keep stored in one of those air tight bags, an air mattress with a manual pump along with a few other miscellaneous items. It may sound like a lot, but it all fits in four plastic tot bins which takes up very little room.

At the end of every winter, I go thought the supplies to check expiration dates and to put in fresh batteries. Then when we receive a weather alert we grab our pets, cell phones, wallets and can be settled into the storm shelter in a minute or two. Most all the time we know well in advance if we are going to have bad weather. With few exceptions, we get about 5-10 minutes warning that our area is threatened.  The problem is that we get complacent and sometimes do not act on the alerts as we should. It took me a few years to even learn the difference between a watch and a warning. Warnings are more sever and my husband taught me a saying that reminds me the differences between the two, “Watch for the Warning to take cover.” A watch means there is a chance so stay on guard. A warning means take shelter now.

For those people that do not have shelters, when a watch is issued it is a good idea to go to the place where a shelter is located. If a warning is issued it is best to stay put, even if you do not have a shelter because you do not want to be caught outside traveling where you could get hit by flying debris, or worse. If you do not have a shelter and you are indoors they say to find the smallest room, on the lowest level, in the middle of the house and take cover there. It is like all other emergencies, having a plan in place helps to keep you calm and take action instead of reacting.

As soon as you have made sure the danger has passed and you and your family are safe then it is time to help others. I have lived in Michigan, California, Missouri and vacationed every summer in Idaho. I have witnessed firsthand how people respond to emergencies across the country. It is my opinion that when an emergency hits the people in the mid-west are at their best. There are no strangers or neighbors. We are all one  big family that would give the shirts off our back, the last dollar in our wallets and work days on end without rest to do everything in our ability to help anyone in need. Yes it is great to see help come in from across the country, but after all the help has returned home, we know our community is still there and that we will recover because we are surrounded by love and compassion.