Category: Life

Ask (again)

Although I am waiting until the end of the year of blogging lessons to look for trends, I can already tell you that “Ask” is going to be a big theme!

I needed a new kitchen timer.  Just a simple countdown magnetic electronic thing.   My hardware store has them for $20.  Way too much!  Our Big Lots store had none.  So I went our local dollar-type store.  They seemed like the right place for this.  Nothing in the kitchen section.  Nothing anywhere that I could see. I was going to give up but I asked the woman at the register and she said she had seen them somehere else.  She went and found them in some random place.  ONE DOLLAR!

Keep Asking!

OK so I tried to get the deal from Eddie Bauer: 25% off and free shipping if you use your card.  And I had just remembered that I even had a card, so why not.  Worth one more check or a few payment clicks for those kinds of savings, right?  But then the website didn’t like my card.  And neither did the nice lady on the phone.  I asked for the 25% with my own card. She said no but she could still give me the free shipping with another card.  OK, whatever.

THEN she changed her mind and said what the heck and gave me the free shipping AND the 25% off!

The year is not over, but “ask” is definitely a trend that will be showing up in the summary!  Sometimes it’s little stuff, sometimes big, but there is world of difference between asking and not, I have learned.

Know Thy Meetings

If there is one practical thing that I have learned (or am learning) this year of blogging, it’s got to be: confirm meetings before making the 5-6 hour commute!

This week we were in the middle of switching meeting schedules for two ongoing project meetings.   I thought that they both started the new schedule next week, but no, one change was this week and the other starts next week.

The lesson is that I should have double checked and/or been crisper in my questions, because I ended up coming in on the “wrong” day for my objective, which is to have as many customer meetings face-to-face as possible, within my commute schedule.

 

An Attitude of Gratitude

I learned this from Yoga Journal (BTW I love Yoga Journal):

“Cultivating gratitude is less an act of creating something that isn’t there and more of a practice of realizing what is. It’s about reminding yourself of the miracles embedded in every second of every day—from the largest blessings to the smallest moments. By practicing shifting your attention to what is real (and not clinging to an idea of what you think should happen), you become more appreciative of even the most mundane moments in life, and for the richness all around.”

 

Funny Looking Maybe

I learned that not everyone thinks I’m funny.

So the dentist (the actual dentist himself) called to say he was running late and needed to change an appointment to 2:30 and I said “Oh my sister would love that!  She says the dentist’s favorite time is two thirty!  Get it?  Tooth hurty!” and the guy did not seem in the least amused.  He actually sounded kind of confused, as a matter of fact.

Oh well.  I was amused.  And she will be, too!