Driving in the dark

The best conversations take place in the car in the dark. Two people or an entire family, facing forward staring into the dark with no place to go and nothing better to do.
In the dark and facing forward, not staring at each other it much easier to be honest and open. No one can question facial expressions or body language, that you think you might have just glimpsed. Awkward pauses aren't awkward in the dark. Drives are good for soul bearing experiences and conversations. No one gets distracted by TV , door bells or phones ringing, food in the fridge or household chores. You have no choice but to finish the conversation you start. Silence in the dark when you're driving with a good friend, partner or child is one of the most enjoyable times also. Listening to the radio, each lost in your own thoughts. Again no awkwardness needed, it's not like you're sitting across a table from each other ,looking in each others faces. Silence is totally allowable in a dark car in fact it's a wonderful thing.
Some of my best memories are of road trips taken with the kids when they were small. Hours spent in too close quarters with mom dad, son and daughter and a friend each. 4 twelve or eleven year olds should drive anyone insane. But after the first half hour and the necessary grumbling about space, heat and stinky feet they would all turn into hilarious comics, wonderful philosophers or awesome business planners. We have laughed until we could hardly drive anymore because of one liners that an eleven year can come up with. Rey and I have stared in awe at each other because of something so wise that was said by a twelve year old, that we said when we grow up we want to be just like him or her.
Things like that don't happen that often when your in your living room and there is Wii to play, movies to watch and facebook to check,. They are much more likely to happen when you are driving somewhere in close quarters with nothing for entertainment except each other
I miss the days of loading up the kids and going for a Sunday drive, or going to Edmonton or wherever on the spur of the moment. Life got so busy and hectic and we're all connected to our outside world at all times via cellphones and laptops. Very seldom is there a chance to just sit and listen to each other, and just be entertained by each others company. Life seemed so much simpler without our communication devices, but yet try and live without them. I feel absolutely naked without my iPhone or laptop close to me at all times,
I guess, times they are a changing and I now better understand when my parents speak of the good old simpler days
I wonder what our kids will call the good old simpler days when they are at our age?

Women in Business

We do things different than male business owners, we make things harder than they need to be at times and sometimes we wonder why our male counterparts make things as hard as they do, when us ladies think it's just so easy.
We take things personally too much and will have countless sleepless nights because of something one of our customers says, or because of some business decision we have to make.
We tend to make friends with most of our staff, customers, suppliers and even competition. We see our business as another child we raise. We don't quite trust any of it's babysitters to look after it, no matter how good they prove to be. We after all are it's mother and we know what's best for our baby don't we?: We take constructive critisism as a personal insult, we take unhappy customers or staff as a personal insult.
But at the same time we glow with pride when someone loves "our baby the business" and comments on all the wonderful things it can do. We love talking about our businesses as we love talking about our children.
We nurture and coddle our business, we scold ourselves and get that mother guilt-- I know the moms out there know exactly what that mother guild feels like-- when the business doesn't do something we thought it could do.
Things like staff issures become really tough because we all make friends with our staff and even when we as the owner know that something isn't right we have a horrible time telling our staff member that because now we've connected at a friendship level instead of employee/employer level.
Bankers, accountants,even the friendly voice on the phone that wants to talk to accounts payable, they all became our friends and mentors
That's what women do, we share, we mentor each other, we nurture. But it makes it so hard to deal with such situations as people coming through the door of our place of business asking for sponsorshops and gifts for the about the umptheenth good cause that day. How do you say no to a friend, and it is such a good cause,
Issues like staffing, I've had to make some really tough decsions this summer and I still get sick about it when I think about them. They are my friends, my mentors and I had to be a gasp employer and think of my business baby first instead of my friends.
Do male business owners deal with these same things? From where I'm stitting they keep friends and business relationships nicely seperated, or are they just good at pretending they do?
They say "no" much easier when they get asked for sponsorshops and prizes they see the bottomline much clearer. do we rule with our hearts more than our heads, unlike the guys?
Do they not see their business as their baby, and therefor keep it seperated so much easier?
I don't want to change things, I love working with and for my big network of "friends" but at times of tough decisions, and situations in which I should be saying NO, I'd like to have a little more seperation between heart and head.

So humble it hurts

As a small prairie town, isn’t Neepawa so humble it hurts? And I mean that pretty literally, we actually hurt our own town with our humility. When visitors come and they ask what is there to do in Neepawa, we shrug our shoulders and go: Here? Hah! Nothing ever goes on in Neepawa. Nothing to do here!
We cause our visitors to move on and never come back, why, after all would you come back to a town where there is nothing to do?
I think it’s time that we stand up with pride and boast to all who want to hear about our little gem of a town.
This year alone, we’ve hosted some great events that people from all over the country have come to attend. Manitoba Homecoming, the July 1st Fireworks, the Lilyfest, the 10th annual Runway Drags, the Smoker, that’s just of the top of my head, I’m sure there is lots more. And then we haven’t even mentioned socials every weekend, everyone in Neepawa knows that we put on socials like no one else can!
Between the few afore mentioned events we’ve impressed thousands of visitors with what Neepawa can do.

Would we have a housing shortage in Neepawa, if this old town was so boring and so dumb? Why does everyone want to live here?
Would we attract thousands of visitors to our town if it was so boring here?

I think we have to start appreciating our own backyard! We have so much to offer in this town and our area.
As a store owner I see carloads of people come in on a daily basis from places like Winnipeg, Brandon, Austin, Virden, Steinbach etc. They come to Neepawa because of our stores, our golfcourse, our restaurants, our doctors, our machinery and car dealerships. They comment on how lucky we are in Neepawa to have all this right at our fingertips. And they rave about the variety of services and products available here and how it’s not cookiecutter like the large shopping malls in the cities.
The guys go look at machinery or cars, the women shop and do coffee, and later they meet up for lunch in one of our great places to ear and then on to our beautiful golfcourse.
They come from all around because we have optomotrists, doctors, dentists, new age healing places, health food stores, chiropractors, physio therapists, etc. etc.
And we haven’t even touched upon the huge job market available here.
But we as Neepawa inhabitants don’t see the treasure that surrounds us.

We have Big Valley, the Langford and Rosedale trails, we are a central point in the Trans Canada trail, a gem of a campground in Riverbend, a beautiful park and bird sanctuary at Rotary Park, a wonderful museum. We’re a hop skip and a jump away from Riding Mountain National Park, Sprucewoods Provincial Park, Minnedosa Beach. We are mere couple of hours away from anywhere in Manitoba.

We should be putting away our humility when it comes to our town, because the real danger lays in the fact that we start believing it ourselves.
Stand up fine citizens, be proud, we live in the best little town in Canada

Random Thoughts

Does anyone else have those days where you run and work all day and you seem so busy, then when you sit down at the end of the day you realize you didn't get a thing accomplished?
Did you not use your time wisely? Did you come across things that weren't on your to-do list but needed done anyway? Did other people have other plans for your day than you did?
I call those days "my headless chicken days" I run around like chicken with my head cut of, all flappy and in a panic about something but not having a clue what do to about it. I think I even cackle a bit on those days, which is odd because a chicken without a head wouldn't do that.

And then there is days that you wake up with all this ambition and great plans, and ready to take on the world. And by about mid morning all of a sudden you ran out of steam and come crashing down with a pile of projects you've started and now don't have the energy to finish them. And you don't even really know why you thought you needed to do that in the first place.
Maybe those mornings I've made my coffee too strong?

How is it that stress can build up for an entire week, sometimes even two. Then one nice relaxing day in the sun near the water takes it all away. What is it about sunshine and water that makes it so relaxing? It's so cleansing to my spirit. Sometimes even just imagining myself sitting on a dock with my feet in the water and the sun warming my shoulders, will make my heartbeat slow down.
In the winter, when my favourite lake is frozen solid and the sun is not that warm on my shoulders, in time of need a nice long hot bubblebath will do.
But a trip to somewhere tropical, with sun sand and surf and a lot of tequila would probably be better

Why is sometimes the thought and the anticipation better than the real thing? Some afternoons all I can think of is a glass of wine and my kindle in the windowseat, in my mind it's all so perfect. I can feel the weight of the kindle in my hands, and the taste of a Riesling wine on my tongue. I even feel the pillows in my back. All afternoon long I look forward this scene that is so vivid in my mind.
Then after work, I get myself all installed in the windowseat with all the paraphernalia of my daydream, only to find out that really I'd sooner have a cup of coffee and play bubble puzzle on my laptop until my eyes bleed.

When you bang your shin, or stub your toe and it hurts so bad, you feel like crying, and then when you check out the damage there is not even a mark. Doesn't that make you feel like a wimp?
But then the next time you whack yourself and it didn't even hurt that much, but a huge bruise appears anyway. Doesn't it hurt much more all of a sudden?
And is it wrong of me to use that bruise that I received rather effortlessly to get my husband to wait on me for the rest of the night?

defrag and delete?

I’m studying, I’m learning about internet marketing, retail floor layouts, “branding” your store and so much more that will help me with the expansion.
It’s not as easy as it once was. Maybe studying is best left to the younger generations?
I feel like my brain is full, and in order to cram more information in there I need to let go of some of the previous stuff I put up there.
There should be a process that defrags the brain and deletes or backs up the no longer used facts that are stored up there.
I still know how to create a painting of a perfectly round apple, with highlights and shading, that’s information that could be backed up to disc, in case I would like to use it again sometime. Same with the things I know about Tridekon Cropsavers, their dealers and the different makes and models. Great information, just not needed at this time. But I don’t necessarily want to get rid of it completely. Or how to run a Massey combine.. Put it on the back up disc.
There is knowledge up there that really can just be deleted all together. I doubt I’ll ever need to know how to fold and iron a hanky or a pillowcase. Or I don’t need to be able to recall the exact sound my brothers car made when I rolled it end over end a couple of times, back in 1981. I don’t want to cringe anymore every time I recall slipping on the tiled kitchen floor when I was 5, hitting my head and giving myself a concussion.
There is however a few luxury memories that I’d like to keep up there in a file that only gets opened when I have half an hour of time to myself for pure basking.
The weight of my kids heads on my shoulders on that perfect day at the beach when they were 7 and 8. The way that wooden crate of freshly picked apples looked and smelled when my cousin and I picked it up at the neigbour’s orchard when we were about 9 years old. That breathless lightheaded feeling when I was trying to stifle a horrible case of the giggles at the most inappropriate time when I was a teenager and my friend made fun of the teacher. Those memories should stay in a locked file, and I should only remember the password for that file when I have a few minutes to daydream.
I need to clean and organize the new compartment in my brain for today’s information. The new fabrics that clothes are made of, and how they react when you heatpress or embroider them. What are the hot colours for this fall. How many tops should we be bringing in compared to bottoms? Who is a summer shopper and who is a winter shopper, what colour and size preference do they have? Do we order more boots or more shoes for the winter? I need room for new information such as online advertising, social network marketing. Things like how colours, smells and music affect customers. The best layout for the customer in a store versus the best layout for the staff at a store.
There is so much more but I forget now, because my mind keeps visiting the beach on that perfect day when my kids were 7 and 8. The way their hair tickled my face, and the way their tanned little faces smiled up at me…while I felt that sweet sunshine on my shoulders…

Argh where is the defrag button?

by my daughter Adrienne Mack

This was the letter to the editor in the Neepawa Banner earlier this spring.
I'm very proud of her!

I love Neepawa!I just got back from the 2nd “Ladies Night” at the Roxy. Tonight I enjoyed coffee, dessert, and a great movie with a full theatre. I looked around and waved at many friendly faces and it made me realize that this does not happen just anywhere. I was overcome with this warm fuzzy feeling to be part of this wonderful community. I wave to the same people at the same spot at the same time every day. I know where they have coffee in the morning and where they’re off to after that. It is neat to wake up with the town and be part of it’s daily routine. I love walking into any business in town and being welcomed by name and with a smile. I enjoy being able to chat with other customers in line and chances are they know what I’m up to before I tell them. I can pull up to a drive thru and be greeted with “What can I get for you today Adrienne?” A walk downtown will usually lead to many conversations. I can’t help but feel happy after running errands in our town. It’s not often I experience such hospitality anywhere else, including being offered rides when I’ve bought to many pink Christmas ornaments to carry home alone!I know this is happening in all small towns around the country, but I feel so happy to be part of Neepawa. Neepawa has given me a home, wonderful friends and boyfriend, and an awesome job, what more could I want? Having been to Europe a few times, I realize the importance of experiencing the world, but there’s nothing like seeing the Neepawa sign at the top of the hill after an eight-hour flight and two-hour drive home! I am fortunate to be part of the Yellowhead Roadrunners Auto Club and Rotary; as well the Manitoba Homecoming and Lily Fest committees. I enjoy seeing our community come together in one place, and to be able to contribute to such events. We live in a unique town and I hope to call it home for many years!Adrienne Mack

A trophy case of sorts....

We spent the weekend in the basement of our store, enjoying the breaking down part before the rebuilding part. We broke down shelving, walls and closets of businesses that have been there in the last decades.

The oldest sign we found was a signature of Sandra Strock, 1957. Strock’s hardware was in this building from 1954 to 1972, and apparently they built the bathroom downstairs in 1957.

We found signs from “the Denim Den”, “the Kids Closet”, Ebners men’s and ladies wear,

Posters of fashions from years ago (the seventies are really better left in the basement, especially the men’s fashions… leisure suits anyone?!) Decorations for sales events and grand openings. Customer appreciation gifts from businesses that no longer exist.

It was very interesting to say the least, but it made me sad and anxious for some reason.

I felt I was wading through people’s broken dreams, and unfinished plans. I felt that everything that had come to an end and was buried in our basement.

All day yesterday I walked around with a chip on my shoulder and a heavy hart. I felt a sense of doom and desperation, without really knowing why.

This morning all of a sudden it dawned on me, I was picturing our own burial in the basement! I was imagining our past before we even hit our future.

And then I started thinking how ridiculous it was for me to see the history we discovered as broken dreams and unfinished plans.

Aren’t they the opposite? Aren’t they accomplished goals and achieved dreams? I imagined previous business owners carefully storing away left over shopping bags with their store’s name proudly displayed on them. No longer needed but too good to just throw away, hours spent on coming up with just the right logo and just the right colour plastic bag to put it on. Posters with Starsky and Hutch look-alikes sporting tight leisure suits, smoking and looking so cool. Of course way to cool to throw away, better store them in the basement, because they were an important part to accomplishing someone’s very successful sales event plans. Balloons and little flags with a store name on them, no doubt used for a very successful grand opening.

Our basement is not a burial ground for broken dreams at all, it is a testimony to the entrepreneurs and dreamers that were here before us. It’s an entrepreneurs version of a trophy case. We’ve kept a few of everyone’s trophies and carefully stowed them away again.

Now “It’s Time” to achieve our own goals and dreams. I feel about 50 lbs lighter after my light bulb moment. Today is going to be a great day J

pretty plans to pretty reality

So today it finally feels real.

We're expanding!! Up until now it was a pretty plan in my head, I projected the pretty plan into my husband's head and into my staff members' heads.
Step one was give our basement tenants a 4 month notice, so in those 4 months the plans got prettier and prettier. But as with a lot of plans it seemed to just stay a plan.
Then all of a sudden the 4 months were up, and the tenant moved out.
A huge big blank canvas was created when they left and took all their things with them.

How exciting it is to walk down the stairs in the store and see this vast area full of possibilities and imaginary scenery.
Imagine new carpet, imagine new walls, new racks, new desks. Imagine too how organized and grown up we'll feel with an actual beautiful space for our promotional department of the business!

I can hear my husband taking down one more wall as I'm sitting here typing this.
When that last wall is gone we will have almost 2000 square feet to play with.
We can build and create a gorgeous showroom for all our promotional wares. We can even have mannequins dressed in soccer jerseys, or canvas work jackets, or sometimes even gymnastic windsuits! We can have t-shirt ladders, shelves piled high with soft and beautiful coloured hoodies, Racks of bright jerseys, warm winter jackets, fun windbreaker jackets and golfshirts. Shelves with stainless steel mugs and water bottles and all the other items we can do for our customers, a wall full of hats for the guys. Machines purring away contently in the back behind a carefully planned work counter.
All the computers set up just the way we want them, wherever they are handiest and easiest to get to. Staff members bustling around like elves in Santa's shop, creating wonderful embroidery and heatpress work for our customers.
Shelving along the walls, for receiving and sorting shipments of blank garments, and counters for packaging and shipping garments now proudly sporting our customers logos, names or team mascots.

Oh and upstairs on the main floor..... wow, all of a sudden a 1/3 more room for retail. Imagine the pretty plans for that!! A thousand square feet more to fill to the ceiling with fashions and fun. I envision a place where any woman regardless of size, age and taste ,will feel welcome and at ease. Sweaters, tops, dresses, pants, skirts...ahhh sigh!
And purses, purses and more purses, wallets, maybe some journals, some compact mirrors or pillboxes? Which girl doesn't want to open her purse and see beautiful things in it? Funky jewelry, bracelets, earrings and watches. colour coordinated displays with fashions, scarves, belts , purses and jewelry. I can see it now.
Oohhh and shoes and boots!! Such fun we'll have buying to fill the store for this coming winter with boots, leggings, sweaters, dresses and jeans and everything else.
We'll dot some seating areas around here and there, because us girls, we like to sit and rest when we've shopped. And we especially like to sit and watch our friends model the things they took into the much bigger new changerooms we're planning. Display tables, more mannequins?...yeah why not?!

As I hear my wonderfully patient husband hammering down in the basement on a Friday night at 9:30pm of the July Long weekend, it hits me: this is for real! The plans just kicked into action.
A month or six weeks of mess and construction, and the pretty plans will be pretty reality. i can't wait!

When is nice too nice?

I'm an immigrant, I speak with a Dutch accent, so does the rest of my family
My dad has onset Alzheimer's, he repeats himself at times
My brother has Parkinson's he moves akwardly and somtimes without control
I'm overweight, and make my living selling fashions to gorgeous size 8 women
My daughter chose a career in a male dominated field, despite being a tiny little girlie girl
I have a little friend who is so intelligent she has a hard time being accepted by her peers
My son is openly gay in a small prairie town
Among my friends and family there are visible minorities, closet alcoholics, beautiful talented women, individuals with special needs, super intelligent women, and the list goes on.

My question today is, who is the one that decides some of these things are perfectly acceptable to joke about and others are not. And how nice is too nice?
There are lots of jokes about being a raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll world... that is so totally my situation. But had my parents protected me from every fat joke ever made would I be able to cope with life the way it is now? I am a size 16 and that is just fine with me, I can laugh at myself. I would love to be a size 10, but obviously I don't want it that bad, because I'm not doing much about it.
My dad will joke when something crappy happens, He'll say: Well it sucks for you, it's okay for me, I'll forget right away anyhow, I have Alzheimers. If everyone tippy toed around him and never mentioned his situation would he not be sitting there wondering and worrying? Isn't it better that he got used to the cruel world and is able to poke fun at himself?
My daughter choses to play up her girlie girl personality in the middle of an autobody shop, she will wear pink work boots and store her tools in a pink toolbox. She will giggle at herself not being able to lift as much as the 6 ft 230 lbs guys she works with, but will refuse their help. Instead will fabricate herself a jig or a stand to help with her work, preferably painted pink too. If we as parents had stood over her all her life and said be careful, those big boys can say mean things.... would she be able to cope in this world?
My son came out in a small town at the age of 19, without any incident or negative remark. He stood up straight told the world who he was and was proud of it. He beat the rumors and the slander by standing proud. If we as parents had paved his way, shielding him from gay jokes and anti gay opnions, would he have been so brave and prepared for his world?

I think sometimes our nicety-nice society is too much like anti bacterial soap.... the opposite happens of what you want to happen. Anti-bacterial wipes, soap, detergent actually chips away at our immune systems because we cannot produce our own immunity fighters. Does our over protective politically correct society cause individuals to not be able to cope with reality. And does it make the people who make hurtful jokes even sneakier and meaner?

Of course you can!

Im 60 years old, I can't wear leggings
I'm ove a size 16 I can't wear a short skirt
I'm over 50 I can't go sleeveless

We as front runners in the fashion retail, hear these pre-conceived notions and moans out of the changerooms, of what's right and what's wrong in the fashion world each and every day!
Quit listening to Oprah and Stacey and Clinton, I'm a firm believer in "If it makes you happy, Of course you Can!"
There is nothing wrong with a 60 or even 70 year old woman wearing leggings. Naturally you would not wear them with the flimsy little, cut to down there, t-shirt your 16 year old niece wears them with, but you'd pair them with an oversized blazer, or a long and lean belted cardigan. A wear a chunky long sweater and little boots and look spectacular with leggings at any age.
Something not quite suitable for stiletto heels and leggings for a 70 year old, but nothing wrong with a fun pair of flats or sandals.
Have you been in Europe lately? You will see any age wearing leggings with dresses, skirts and long tops. And they look great doing it.
It's not about what you wear it's about how you wear it.

Of couse size 20 can wear short skirts, again you wouldn't wear the tiny little belt sized distressed jean skirt and the racerback tank your size 00 17 yr old friend wears, you'd adapt it so it would play up your curves and made you smile when you look in the mirror. The leggings from the paragraph above, a wonderful solution to make you feel more comfortable in a short skirt. Get a pair of capri or full length leggings and wear them under your skirt for trendy and fun look. Chose a hemline that is a little bit longer than bottom of butt cheek. Pick one that stops about mid thigh, where your leg naturally starts tapering towards your knee.

Over 50 can't go sleeveless? Of course you can! There is a ton of really cute sleeveless blouses, dresses and tops out there that are just fine for you. If you are comfortable with your upper arms, wether they are toned or do the double wave, go for it! Wear a funky necklace or a gauzy scarf around your neck if you want to draw attention away from your bits that you don't neccesarily want people to notice.
Pile some jingly bangle bacelets on your wrists, those are sure to make people look at your gorgeous hands and fingers instead of the jiggle on the upper arm.

Quit worrying about what "they" tell you is right or wrong, who made "them" the boss anyway. You wear what makes you happy, any look can be adapted to any age or any size. When you look in the mirror and you can't help but smile back at yourself, you're on the right track.