The Day It Snowed on Our Parade

When it rains, it pours snows, and that’s exactly what happened to us on Saturday. I was so excited for two things: our first snow and Christopher’s family coming into town for an early Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, the snow decided to spoil our day.

The first thing I did when I woke up on Saturday was check my in-laws’ flight…and found out it was cancelled. By the time I called them, they had switched airports and airlines and found out that flight had been delayed. One delay followed after another until so many hours had passed that the flight crew was required to go home. Instead of going on a holiday boat tour to see the fireworks at the Mag Mile Lights Festival, they spent their day stuck at the airport while I sat in Chicago refreshing the website every 10 minutes.

This story has a happy ending: they landed at 10:30 p.m. (and then had to stick on the tarmac for 1.5 hours before they had a gate), and they made it to our place around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday.

It was a major cold bench (don’t know what I mean by that? Here’s the story.), and we could have let it ruin our weekend together. We had to consolidate our plans, but we ended up having a wonderful time.

It wouldn’t have always ended this way. There was a time where I would let little things ruin the big picture. I would have been so upset we missed a day with family that I would have had trouble enjoying the time we did have together. Having a positive perspective has completely changed my life.

I won’t pretend I don’t ever get upset or let little things ruin my day because that’s not true. I still have work to do, but days like Saturday remind me that even bad days have silver linings. We didn’t get to see family, but we did see our beautiful city covered in snow and watched Baylor beat Oklahoma State. Days won’t always go as planned, but I’m learning not to let every little thing rain snow on my parade.

Do you ever struggle with negativity?

Cold Benches & Positive Perspectives

I had a fun travel post ready for today, but I couldn’t bring myself to post it. Yesterday was a hard day. A rip-my-hair-out type of day. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything huge or major.  It’s just that all of these crazy situations popped up this week that made me feel like I’m about to lose it.  A few minutes before I left work, a fly flew into my ear, and I burst out laughing because it was such a great indication of how my day went.

Here’s the thing: I am good at making multiple small problems ruin something really great. Recently, a friend told me that she had asked someone who had just returned from St. Petersburg, Russia how she enjoyed her trip. This person replied that she hated it because she had to sit on a cold bench one time. She let that one tiny moment ruin her entire experience.

I had a cold bench moment today: my JetBlue flight to Boston was cancelled, along with four other flights that day. There was only one option left. Instead of getting there at 11 a.m., the new flight would get us there at 11 p.m. It was going to be our only day in Boston, I was meeting a friend there, and to top it all off, I had to pay even more than usual for a hotel that day because there is a 10,000 person convention in Boston that weekend, and I wouldn’t get to enjoy the city.

When I heard this, I was ready to throw in the towel.  I started looking into how much of the trip we could refund. We had already had to pay a change fee to get the flight we wanted in the first place, and then they completely changed it for us. I thought that with this cold bench, I couldn’t enjoy my trip.

Long story short is that we were able to change airlines, but we had to pay even more money to do it. It wasn’t close to an ideal outcome, but it was the only option we had. Our trip is special for so many reasons: we are celebrating our fifth anniversary (way late) and want to enjoy a week together before Chris flies all over the country for interviews. I could let this cold bench ruin our entire time together right now…or I could just find a warmer bench to sit on and enjoy our vacation.