Spending my Prizes

Last year at this time I was telling you about the lovely basket of gifts I won from the merchants of Almonte. The contest was to promote the town, and it worked as I had not been there for many years and was surprised at the amazing changes in the place. It's not just a pretty village anymore. It's well worth the visit now, to shop and eat and spend the day.  We've been back several times since then and I've told lots of people about it.

So, while I had won some amazing prizes by this time last year, worth hundreds of dollars, this year I'm winning on a much smaller scale.  Yesterday I got to go and collect a couple of my freebies.  First, I had a certificate that I got from Kelloggs that I could spend on a $10 toy. I didn't figure I'd get much for that but when I walked into Toys R Us, one of the first things I saw was a game that the grandsons had been asking for just a couple of weeks ago. How could I pass that up? It's not the big board version but a compact one that folds into its own case and is easy to store. Just the thing for Nana's house! And hey, it was $9.99 so I got to spend the whole coupon, which is great as they don't give you change. I expect I'm going to have a break from our ongoing Mille Bornes challenge while I figure out who done it while playing Clue.

After that, I went for lunch and used a gift certificate I won from New York Fries for a free regular poutine. I asked if I could upgrade that to one with the works and was told that the regular, in this case, referred to the size, and I could have anything I wanted on it.

So while I had a calorie-laden lunch for free, my hubby ate more sensibly but it cost him over $10 for his salad.

I still have a $10 Walmart gift card to spend too, but I haven't decided what I want to shop for yet. I won it on Facebook from a page that promotes freebies called Mae-Mae's Freebies. A lot of the offers there are just for people in the United States, but I won it so soon after I joined the page I didn't realize that yet. Occasionally there is something for Canada or other places too though, and the odds are good for the contests as competition isn't all that big yet. But it is growing.

Anyway, I am still having some luck, though nothing like last year. That's fair. It's not good to be greedy. After so many years of never winning anything at all, I'm still quite amazed when I win something and actually thrilled with even these little prizes.

People are still asking me how I win. The only advice I can give is, you can't win if you don't enter.

That goes for life in general. You can't succeed at anything unless you are willing to go do it.

Learn to Play the Game of Life

There is something called the game of life. I'm sure you've heard of it. Most of you play it well without actually thinking about it. But what is it?

Like any other game, it has rules. You have to follow certain rules to play any game, especially if you are playing with other people. If you don't they will tell you that you cheat. If you play by your own rules you are just messing things up and the game won't go well. Either way, others won't want to play with you anymore.

Society has set up rules of etiquette which are meant to make people comfortable with one another and other rules called laws, to keep people safe. People who get caught breaking the laws are punished for doing so. People who don't follow the rules of etiquette are simply not pleasant to be around and are often shunned.

Some people don't do well in life and wonder why. They simply have not learned to play the game. If for instance, you hate your job, not because you don't like what you do, but more because you think your boss is stupid, then you have not learned that it does not matter if the boss is wrong. It only matters that you do the job he or she expects you to, in the manner they request. Your job is, in effect, to make your boss happy. That's called playing the game. If you cannot, in good conscience, do what is asked of you, find another job, or do that one so well that you get promoted to being the boss yourself.  A little warning here. There will always be another boss over you unless you own the business. Even then you have to follow the rules set out by the government or the business society. There is always a game to play. Only the players and the rules change.

Marriage is another game. You have to work together to make it work. The rules require that you do not insist on putting yourself first all the time. As in most situations, the happier you make the other person, the happier they are willing to make you.

These days a lot of technology has come into our lives and suddenly we are forced to learn new games. I don't mean video games here. All sorts of things we used to do every day are now done with this technology. Simple things like banking, check-out counters in some stores, and paying at the gas pumps have all become computerized. Some people aren't comfortable with these new technologies and refuse to play those games. They insist on doing things the old way. That can complicate life somewhat as time goes by and they fall further behind in what has now become standard technology.

The government has been trying to get us all to do our taxes online for several years, and since some of us don't want to play that game they have now made it harder to find the correct address to mail our forms to. They are also insisting that they should be able to automatically deposit all payments from them, rather than send out individual cheques. They are busy changing the rules we have grown up with. Not everyone is willing to accept these bullying techniques, and some people, can you imagine, are just not equipped for this sort of technology. Of course, that would make it more difficult to play that sort of game without actually hiring someone to do your taxes, etc.

But I digress.

If things are not going well for you, stop and consider just what area of life you are having trouble with. A life lived by one's own rules very seldom goes smoothly. Stop trying to play the game by your own rules and many of your problems will disappear. What are others doing that makes that life work well for them? Take time to learn some rules that will make your life easier to live and enjoy. Life is just a game. Learn to play it well.