Month: June 2019

So this past weekend, I made the 130ish mile round trip to my parents’ house and in the course of trying to minimize my travel time, I will not deny having a wee bit of a lead foot while applying chap stick, eating a Sausage McMuffin, guzzling Diet Coke, calling people, and trying to get Alexa on my phone to keep a list of the things I think to do while I’m driving. Now just to be clear, I don’t do all those things at one time. That wouldn’t be safe.

But inevitably, along the way, I got myself a police escort. More accurately, a police tail. Now, I’m sure we were both just headed in the same direction, however, there is nothing like a police car directly behind you to encourage you to slow down, set your cruise control and put down your breakfast.

He eventually turned off. I did not get pulled over or even get his lights flashed at me but the incident got me to thinking. What if we all drove, all the time, like a police officer was following us?

Think about it, paying full attention to driving, wearing our seat belts, not speeding. How much safer would we all be? It’s a crazy idea, right? And think, if you always drove like that, you wouldn’t get all nervous when there is a police cruiser near you on the highway because you would already be on your “A” game.

So then I started thinking, what if we lived our whole lives like someone was watching and always did things the right way, you know, flossed your teeth every single night, always washed off your makeup, made your bed everyday and so on. It doesn’t seem like a bad way to live until the incident Sunday morning.

I was making a casserole for the week and I was shredding cheddar cheese with a grater and hypothetically speaking, I may have also shredded the tiniest bit of my knuckle on my thumb. Now I looked and I didn’t see any skin on the cheese and since this wasn’t on live TV, I did not throw out the skin cheese, but proceeded to put it on my casserole anyway. The way I figure out, the skin is probably stuck in the grater because after that, I used the other side anyway. Was that wrong?

So maybe living your life like someone is watching, isn’t always practical, but maybe we should think about upping our driving game….

So however many years ago, there was book written called, “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” by Gary Coleman. Although I have never read the book, I know people who have and I have skimmed many info-graphics on the five love languages while reading Pinterest, so I am practically an expert at this point.

Basically, the idea is that there are five different ways that people receive and give love. And it’s not just about romantic love but between parents and children, friends, any relationship where you care about someone. I, among other things, am a gift giver and want to talk about this.

Often, when gifts are given, there is some amount of monetary value assigned to the gift whether it’s the actual retail cost or the time that went into creating the treasure or some combination of the two. This value can, at times, cause the receiver to become uncomfortable if they feel unworthy of such a gift or in an exchanging situation if they offered a gift of a lesser value.

I’m here to tell you to knock that shit off. Personally, when I pick out a gift for someone it’s because I adore them in one way or another and most simply put, I found something that, in my mind will bring them joy. Don’t take away my joy of giving you something awesome by making it awkward. Smile. Say thank you. Put a picture on Facebook if you want. That’s all I and most of us gift givers, need in return. Enjoy the love we are giving you and let us love you in a way we know how to express it and are comfortable with.

If you are a person that loves by offering words of affirmation, an appropriate response to a gift would be a thank you note telling me I’m awesome. If you’re an acts of service person, do my laundry or make me meatloaf. I think the idea that there always needs to be an even exchange of like for like goods and services between the important people in your life is out dated. I’m not saying you should just give and give until your dry, but if you haven’t had to pump your gas in a decade, you might want to recognize that for what it is.

I know it might seem that I am making light of this, but seriously, every person gives and receives love in different languages and taking a minute to love people how they need to be loved and letting people love you how they need to show you, might help us feel more love in our lives in areas where we feel we are being neglected.

Here is one of the many info-graphics from Pinterest about the Five Love Languages. I strongly suggest if this idea is new to you, you take a minute to mull the idea over and maybe even read the book. My friends who have really got a lot out of it.

So as a product of the generation with movies like Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Say Anything and Sixteen Candles, a tiny part of me still thinks that at some point my life might resemble a modern day fairy tale. And although we all know I’ve given up on the birds cleaning my house, I still like to think that my prince charming is out there somewhere, just waiting to pick me up in a nice SUV for an all expenses paid trip to Target to furnish a nice three bedroom house with a pool where we will live happily ever after.

Since this is the digital age, and I don’t go to Balls, I realize that I might have to find him through unique means, (this is where you hear a chime in your head) hence – Craigslist Missed Connections. When I mention this, the first thing people say is didn’t they get rid of personal ads. In short, yes. You can no longer find ads where people are looking to and this is an actual quote “hook up in my roomy SUV”. They do however, still have the Missed Connections under the community section.

I do get much entertainment from reading the ads. I pretty much will tell anyone who listens about them and encourage them to read them as well. For a while, there was a woman who worked at the post office on Milwaukee street that was getting a lot of attention. Although I thought about it, I did never go there to see what all the fuss was about. Lately, there seems to be lots of encounters at the Kwik Trip along the lines of “I held the door for you and we smiled. You made my day with your blonde unwashed hair and pajama pants….”

I’ve taken some screen shots of some recent ones for your entertainment, just to give you a feel of what goes on.

I have actually been able to get one friend to read the missed connections with me and sometimes we compare notes and chuckle. Well, one day she was having a bad day and for fun, I posted what I thought was a very specific and innocent add for her. I was wrong. See below and FYI, these are the ones fit to print. Needless to say, I ended up removing the ad.

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