MAKE A NOTE!! -- DECEMBER 16, 1997

CIRCULATION 54

Well, folks this has been a tough month to try to sort through all the requests & everything sent to share. I think I need to do this weekly in December from now on. :-) So thank you for all the interest & please don't be offended if I don't have room for what you sent. I will probably try to sneak it in in later issues. Excuse the length of this Make a Note, but after this we should return to the regular 2 pages.

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BETTER BUTTER (COURTESY OF HARRIETT SHOOTER)

Harriett shared that she lets butter soften to room temp, then mixes w/equal parts of canola oil. Then put it back in the fridge for a soft spread. She uses a food processor, but I tried it with my hand mixer & it worked fine that way too. I used canola/corn oil blend & it tasted like butter, but was easier to spread, & has 1/2 the salt and cholesterol of butter, & none of the trans fat that margarine has. POST IT...in your recipe box.

DE-CLUTTERING TOYS (READER REQUESTED)

The day before you open presents is a great time to pull out toys that need to be thrown away or taken to Goodwill. W/ the new toys coming in, the kids usually don't even notice when you pull things that are broken or they don't play with anymore. If you have young children, do it the night before you go to bed. W/ older children give them a grocery bag & ask them to fill it with things they don't want any more. In most homes this wouldn't be difficult at all. For some kids having them do it after they open presents might be a little easier, it just depends on the kids. And before you ship things off to Goodwill, look a little closer to home, does your church nursery need some of those toys, could the church kitchen use the appliance that you never use?? POST IT...on your calendar.

OPENING PRESENTS/DE-CLUTTERING CHRISTMAS (READER REQUESTED)

Consider having the family open presents as early as possible on Christmas Eve. Then the kids can play w/ their gifts before bed & hit the Christmas Eve services that night. Then there won't be the mad rushing around on Christmas Day, while mom looks at her watch thinking of all the dinner preparations she has to get started & wishing the kids would hurry up. Knowing she has to clean up the house before the company arrives. So on Christmas Day we can focus on the real meaning of the season, a special birthday, a special gift, God's Son. POST IT...on your calendar.

TIPS/GIFTS (READER REQUESTED)

The going rate for tips for service people is as follows (taken from magazine article)...haircut 10%, box boys 25 cents/bag (but watch for baggers who only partially fill bags with this in mind), waitresses at self serve places or waitresses who do a poor job 10%, waitresses who do average job 15%, waitresses who do a great job 20%, car wash staff $1-$2 depending on job done. One thing that I differ on in the article is tips for food delivery people, like those pizza guys who bring the good stuff to your door. Most people think that 10% is a good tip. However, an editorial in a newspaper made me reconsider. He pointed out that often the food delivery people face more dangerous situations than people could ever realize, sometimes being roughed up, mugged, or even killed. He suggested that 20% would be an appropriate tip and I agree. I think we get our pizza a lot faster since we started the 20% too. :-) POST IT...in your wallet.

THANK YOU'S (READER REQUESTED)

Especially at this time of year it is important to remember to say thank you. Call the people in your life who mean so much & tell them that. When you are invited to a Christmas party or gatherings at other times of the year bring flowers or a small gift for the hostess, call the next day & thank the people who did all the work. Everyone says thank you as they leave the party, it is just the thing to say, but if you call the next day, they will really feel appreciated. Make up or buy some goody plates for your mailman, UPS man, trash guys, mechanic, doctors, teachers, neighbors, landlords, pastors, Sunday School teachers, etc. Most of us are ready to complain if our service at a restaurant or other business ISN'T up to par, but how often do you tell a manager when a waitress/worker has been really great? The next time you go in, ask to be seated on that waitress' station if she is working again. If you are receiving poor service don't forget to look for possible causes. For example, is the waitress assigned too many tables? Is the problem with the cook/food preparation rather than the server? Can you tell I used to wait tables for about 6 years? If there is a problem, complain, but try to make it specific. If the waitress/worker does a great job, leave a good tip and tell the manager. You'd be surprised how many managers tell us that they have NEVER gotten a phone call complimenting a worker before. Write a letter to the business commending the good worker. If you have a problem with the manager ask for the number/address of the headquarters of the restaurant, if there is one. But be sure to do the same if the manager if really excellent. Sometimes I have called an 800 number to praise a new product that I bought & enjoyed & they ended up sending me a coupon for it just for calling. And don't forget your spouse & children when showing appreciation. POST IT...on your calendar.

CHRISTMAS/GIFT THANK YOU (CONTRIBUTED IN PART BY GLORY GILL)

Someone once asked Miss Manners how long it was appropriate to wait to write a thank you note after receiving a gift....she said 20 minutes. I think that is fine for adults, but may be a bit cruel for younger children at Christmas time or special occasions, but I certainly think the next day would be an appropriate time for children. Even if a child is too young to write one themselves, they can color a picture of them enjoying the present and dictate something for parents to write on the picture, in an email, or snail mail. They should tell why they liked the gift or if money, then how they plan to spend it. One article even suggested withholding the gift until the children wrote a thank you note, and if the note wasn't written within 7 days, then tell the kids you will send it back to the giver. :-) Let's remind our kids and ourselves that showing appreciation & giving thanks isn't an optional thing, but should be a way of life. Keep a Polaroid camera on hand to take a picture of the kids w/the gift to include in the note. POST IT...on your calendar.

NEW YEAR PREPARATIONS (READER REQUESTED)

Someone once said that selling organizing systems are total wastes of time because people who are organized always have their own system that works for them, & unorganized people may buy the systems but will never implement them. :-) So at the risk of wasting everyone's time, I have been asked for my system. I buy a date-book that is small enough to fit in my purse with a week spread out so if you open to any page of the book you are looking at a complete week. In December I start going through the book & write down dates I need to do things. Be sure to write down the date you need to DO them, not the date they are DUE. Don't write down to pay the electric bill on the date it is due, write it down a week before that when you actually need to mail it. Do the same thing for birthdays, write down on the day a week before the day to mail cards/gifts. Mark down birthdays, anniversaries, bill due dates, dates you need to schedule Dr.  appts, when to check your credit bureau records, when to check to see if you are getting the best long distance program, standing meetings, etc. Use the previous Make a Notes to mark down when to do your Christmas preparations for next year. As you get bills, or find out about other birthdays, then add them to the date-book. This may sound like a lot of work, but you can do it as you sit watching TV or in a waiting room somewhere. People always think I have such a great memory, but I really don't; if it isn't written down then I don't remember it. Also mark down on the first day of each month to check for things you need to buy (gifts) or do for the following month. Mark down when you need to do things in your yard or w/ your pets. Write down EVERYTHING you need to do, when to send birthday cards, email cards, make phone calls. Have a formal or special dinner coming up, write down 10 days before the date to "find a sitter". POST IT...on your shopping list (Date-book) or in your date-book. Keep the date-book w/ you when you are out, or by the phone when you are home.

MARRIAGE SAVER (READER REQUESTED)

Wives, when our husbands come in that door after work, our natural inclination is to give him the run down on everything that happened that day. And all this time they thought they were coming home to their home to relax. When your husband comes in the door give him an hour to unwind. Set the kitchen timer to remind yourself. Don't talk to him about anything unless it is to ask him if he would like something to drink or eat. If you Army wives really want your husbands to glow, take off their boots and rub their feet with a hot towel (guess it would work for other shoes too:-). Teach your children to give them him space too, have them wait for the timer to go off. I guarantee that after that hour, they will be much more interested in what you have to tell them about the day, than if you "attack" them as they come in the door. And for the husbands reading along, take the time to listen, that's what makes us glow. There is an old story about a woman who was ready to divorce her husband, but she told the counselor that she really wanted to hurt him first. The counselor told her that if she really wanted to hurt her husband she should think only of pleasing him for one month, serving him & being considerate of him, then she should leave & he would really suffer after she had treated him so well. A month later the counselor saw the woman & asked if she had left her husband. She said, "Are you kidding, he treats me like a queen." Many of us forget, notice I say US (as in ME), that if you treat someone w/love & the way THEY want to be treated, that often they will treat you in kind. A great book that talks about this in more detail is "Love Life for Every Married Couple" by Ed Wheat & Gloria Okes Perkins. Best marriage book I ever read, even has a chapter on saving your marriage alone. No, I don't always act that way, every day, or even every week. We all slip back into old patterns, so this is as much a reminder for me as a Make a Note for you. Try it just ONE day and I think you will be surprised at the results. POST IT...by the kitchen timer & put the timer in a prominent place. (By the way, I wouldn't advise posting this for someone else to see anywhere, the only person whose behavior you can control is your own. If you work on yourself & serving others, then they will usually treat you better in time. Remember the Golden Rule. Even the best of marriages requires hard work.)

REQUESTS

Please send me any requests that you have for further articles. 

JOKE (THANKS TO KYONG & TERRY:-)

There is a story of identical twins. One was a hope-filled optimist. "Everything is coming up roses!" he would say. The other twin was a sad & hopeless pessimist. He thought that Murphy, as in Murphy's Law, was an optimist. The worried parents of the boys brought them to the local psychologist. He suggested to the parents a plan to balance the twins' personalities. "On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their gifts. give the pessimist the best toys you can afford, & give the optimist a box of manure." The parents followed these instructions and carefully observed the results. When they peeked in on the pessimist, they heard him audibly complaining, "I don't like the color of this computer...I'll bet this calculator will break...I don't like the game...I know someone who's got a bigger toy car than this...". Tiptoeing across the corridor, the parents peeked in & saw their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure up in the air. He was giggling. "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's gotta be a pony!" --Source Unknown

QUOTE (Along the same lines...)

"So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard. 'For 3 years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree & haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, & I'll dig around it and put on manure. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'" --Luke 13:7-9 (We all know what manure is, & it sure isn't those pretty blue crystals we use on our houseplants. Even though manure stinks bad when it first goes on, it helps the plants to grow. I should know, my dad used manure on our yard every year. So the next time something happens to you and it looks like manure, smells like manure, and feels like manure, just remember that the smell will fade eventually and it may be there to help you grow.)

Have a wonderful Christmas filled with His love and His special Gift, His Son.

God Bless, Sharon

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