Membership renewal

I recently decided to let a membership that I had go because it wasn’t meeting my needs, so I figured that the cost of the membership wasn’t worth it. I decided to see how long it would take for the association to let me know that the membership had expired and I needed to act upon it to make sure that it didn’t expiry.

Once my membership passed its expiry date, I did receive a reminder that I need to renew to keep my membership status (no expiry date was given). Of course, with no end day for that reminder given why would I do anything because of course, I could still sign in as a member so there was nothing urgent that I needed to do. If you want someone to act within a specific time you need to tell them the specific time and not just assume that they will jump on it because of the reminder.

Here it is 30 days after my membership expired, I can still log in with my existing membership. Sure, my membership card it says it expired 30 days ago, but I still have the access that I didn’t think that I should have at this point. A day ago, I received a reminder that my certification would expire in 60 days but given that I haven’t paid my membership my certification should have become void. I know that I have let both my membership and certification expiry and a lot of that is due to the cost/benefit that I was finding for this association.

If I am paying $400 Cdn. a year for a certification and I am required to do 20 hours of professional development; you better make sure that the professional development is worth it. Of course, there was one ethical training that was required but the last time I say that training was in October 2024 and there hasn’t been once since. That training was not recorded so that meant that if you weren’t able to attend the training you were out of luck. Also, the CPE’s that I was required to achieve meant I had to continually hear the same things over and over again. A lot of the sessions where vendor specific and sometimes they didn’t meet the needs of my business.

Yes, it was a difficult decision to walk away from the association and my certification, but I had to make a decision and to the cost and the benefit for my business. If I was having to pay a lot of number and also spend a lot of time trying to maintain a certification that didn’t benefit my business, it was time for me to walk away. It was a hard decision to make but I made it for both my business and for myself because what was the benefit I was receiving?

 

 

Writing and the challenges

For someone that tries to write every day there are going to be challenge and some of the challenges is just getting the words down so that someone else can understand the feelings and thoughts that you are dealing with. It doesn’t have to be any major it is just sitting down and being able to write about the various thoughts and feelings. 

This evening, I was listening to a bunch of songs about feelings and being there and understanding what someone else is going through, but we also have to think about what we are going through at the same time because we might be able to be there for someone else but we also need to be there for ourselves.

As I am sitting here trying to get a bunch of thoughts, ideas and feelings out of my head, I know that there are a bunch of others that are trying to do the exact same thing and it can be such a challenge. Being able to sit down and just write and not let what anyone else says get in the way can be such a challenge and I know that I have done just that. I let some simple get in the way of me being able to write but I am now working on getting back to the writing that makes me happy.

When you are a writer and you want to write because that is what makes you happy you need to understand that even if someone says something that you think might be negative you need to step back and think about what the person might be saying. The person might be surprised at the amount of writing that you are able to accomplish, and they just messed up what they are trying to say. You also have to accept that a person might be jealous of what you are able to accomplish on a daily or weekly basis and you just need to accept that and move forward.

There are a lot of challenges that a writer needs to deal with and being able to accept the various comments either good or bad doesn’t matter because as a writer we need to do what makes us happy and if you let someone else’s comment stop you from writing that is a major problem. I know that I started to let a comment stop me from writing like I did before but after a simple conversation I have learned that the comments came out the wrong way and this person is encouraging me to write because that is what makes me happy.

How social media can impact people

Have you ever looked at social media and thought, boy would I love to have their life because it looks so much better than mine. Well, what you aren’t seeing is what the individual or family is going through outside of that post or video that they just posted. Everyone is going through some sort of challenge, and we must remember that that post or video is just a glimpse of a person’s life.

There have been times that I have watched videos and said they seem so happy during these few minutes of their life, but what is happening outside that bit of time. Some posts can show a happy person and that is the few minutes of happy they had for that day.

During the time that I have been watching YouTube videos I have seen a lot of heartache that is also shown and I think that makes the people true to themselves and true to their audience. If you are also showing the few happy moments, you are not even being true to yourself. What someone that posts on any type of social media is to lie to their audience. If you say one thing on one video and then you say the opposite on another video your audience is going to pick up on that.

 Inn one case, I was watching someone and they said they chose to leave their position and then suddenly they are saying that the company made the decision to let them go. Instead of saying they chose to leave their position, they could have simply said “it was decided it was better for me to leave my position”. This adds a level of untrust to the person because they aren’t being true to their audience.

Social media in some ways can show a false sense of always happy when the truth is that everyone has their good days and bad days and at least mentioning a little bit of the rough times will show an audience that you are human instead of showing them the false side of you. 

Something else that you must remember especially looking at Instagram posts there are a lot of filters and image correction that can be done to an imagine so the person lots different than they do in real life. Being able to look at some of those pictures and understand that they aren’t a true imagine goes a long way of realizing that the individual in that post is just the same as everyone else. Thinking that everyone on social media is beautiful and always happy is so wrong and I have heard people say that x person is always happy and is so beautiful, but when you look at them in real life, they are just the same as everyone else.

When craft stores become a spot for too many premade items

I think for some crafters we are finding that the stores that were the spots where we would pick up supplies to make things have turned into places that sell mostly premade items. Where did the supplier of arts, crafts framing floral and home décor go? 

I agree that there are going to be items that a store might want to promote a premade item, but I should be able to find the supplies available in the store to make this item myself. If you are showing me floral arrangements or display pieces, I should be able to pick up the parts of this piece to make it work for me and not just accept that the display that is in the store is the only way that this item is to be sold.

It has become a challenge to find supplies to make different items because too many of the stores think that they can just sell the item and everyone is going to just purchase it. For me, when I look at a lot of the premade items in these crafts stores, I find that there are things that I would like to change in my version, be it colour or even some of the items that have been selected. When, I am in a store that says there are craft supplies, I should be able to find the supplies to make the item that they have on display with my variation to it.

One of the things that I have been finding when I got into the specific store that I am writing about is there are just too many premade items and not the supplies to make the items. If you are going to show me the premade items, please ensure that I can pick up the supplies to make this same idea my own. I might love the overall idea of the piece but the colours that you are showing me aren’t my colours, so I want to pick up the supplies and make that same my own.

For someone that is looking for items at Christmas that are teal, it is going to be a challenge to find something premade but if you can provide me with the pieces, I know that I can sit down and make something very similar. So next time you are in a craft store and see all the premade items, remember that there are a bunch of us that would like to be able to make a version of that same item but meeting our colour requirements.

Please, craft store understand that there are going to be individuals that want to just pick up the premade item that you are showing but then there are those of us that want to make that same item our way. I like seeing the various ideas that those stores show but I would really like the opportunity to make this item my own. Let me pick the colour or items that I want in my display because not everyone is doing to fit into a mould that you are trying to fill.

Your planner

A lot of us use a planner to stay organized and see that we are getting things achieved. I know for me I have found that the planner helps me know what needs to get done as well as what I have been able to get done.

Over the last couple of years, I haven’t been able to find a planner that I liked and was the size that worked well for me. So many of the planners don’t have a lot of space to write notes for each day which makes it difficult when you are managing both work and personal life. I decided last year to set up a calendar that I thought that would work on me and I found it did so once again this year I set it up and it has been working great.

Something that I have realized through having a planner is I need to have some fun in the planner as well otherwise I am just looking at boring pages each day and that doesn’t help at all. What I have found is if I can add some stickers to some of the pages it makes such a difference. I have a variety of stickers from quotes, birds, animals and even just some borders and that makes the planner a little more me.

I don’t add a lot of stickers to the pages, but it is fun when you can do it ahead of time so when you turn a page you may see something a little different. As you can see, I have one day on a page and that gives me space to make all the various notes that I need to make without feeling like I have to write too small to get everything in.

My current planner is using the ARC books (5.5x8.5inch) that were available at Staples, and it works for me and 2026 is two books so that I have the room to flip the pages and not feel too overwhelmed with the size of the planner. Sure, I probably could have made the planner thinner by using a bigger (8.5x11 inch) book and half a page per day, but this is a nice size for me, and it is something that is easy to take with me when I know I will need to make notes in it.

Being able to have some fun with your planner especially if you use a paper planner can help a lot. You can find stickers in a lot of places so just picking up a few different ones can make such a difference to your planner. Don’t be afraid to have fun with your planner because it is something that you will be using every day so enjoy it.

 

 

When "Your Better Half" should not be used

Recently I was in a store which I have frequented for a number of years with my husband and I heard something that I didn’t think was appropriate from one of the staff. Both of us were there at the event and we were not standing together so this one staff said to my husband where is “your other half” and his comment was she is upstairs and you have probably walked by her.

Well, this staff member came upstairs and finally probably after another 10 or minutes finally decided to see me and said to me oh, I saw “your better half” downstairs. This same staff member had walked by me quite a few times before even saying hi to me and I had tried repeatedly to at least get a hello to her, but she seemed to avoid any of this type of recognition. At one point she was within maybe three feet of me and still didn’t see me and there were other times she seemed to be looking in my direction but didn’t see me or just didn’t want to acknowledge that I was there.

Hearing the words “your better half” is extremely bad and the only time “better half” should be said is when it’s from your partner not from anyone outside of the relationship. When you, someone outside the relationship, are referring to someone as “your better half” you are degrading the person you are talking to. You are implying that the other person, is a better person and who you are talking to doesn’t matter. 

What bothered me so much about this comment was I was the main reason that we go to this store, not my husband and I have known this person longer than I have been in a relationship with my husband. Maybe, now what I am seeing is what she currently thinks of me and that is fine because she won’t be getting my business any longer. I am very thankful that she no longer owns the business, and I get along very well with the new owner.

When you are talking to someone that you know both sides of the relationship, please refer to the other person as your “other half” instead of “better half” because when you say better half, you are implying to the person that you are talking to that they aren’t equal to the other person in the relationship to you.

Taking some down time

For a small business owner, it can be a challenge to take some time off when you have clients that need your attention. Something that you must do is try and take some down time when the clients are taking their break. 

For us one of the challenges of working in IT is that most projects that involve working on servers are going to be completed during the business down time which means normally around the Christmas holidays. It is something that we understand and have been dealing with since we incorporated but it is nice when things work out and no client schedules server work during the holidays.

This last Christmas break we found out that all our clients were taking the week between Christmas and New Years off. All the clients were also not going back to work until January 5^th so that was a nice break. What this meant was we were able to have some downtime where, yes, we were available in case of an emergency, but we weren’t having to do the server projects that normally happen.

This past Christmas break was so different for us because it was time where we could do the little around the house projects that haven’t got done and we enjoying doing some of the things that are normally just done on weekends. It was different not having the normal routine for those 11 days, but it was nice as well. The weather wasn’t the best but at least we were able to do some of the other things that we wanted to do.

It felt different not having the server projects, but it was nice as well because it gave us time to stay home and do things that we wanted to do. Now we will see what this coming holiday season will be like, and we will just deal with it as it happens. Knowing that there are years when all clients need help over the holiday season and then times when it is just one or none is something that as a small business owner you have to deal with, and you must be flexible.

Making sure you take the down time when you can be important, and you have to enjoy it when it happens. It may be a little different than you first thoughts but knowing that you are only around for emergencies for a few days is so nice.