The Perfect 'for me' Blog...stolen.

I haven't had time to type blogs much this week...I'm still swamped with year-end. Hard to believe, I know. But while I shoveled in my lunch today in between meetings, I caught up on some of my friend's blogs. Most of you know of my friend Jami/Niki that lives in NYC. She's a hoot. Absolutely hilarious personality...typically when she sends me emails or texts, I can 'hear' her saying them and I laugh out loud as if she was sitting right there. You have to really know her to 'get' it sometimes, but trust me, she's funny. Anyway, I ran across this blog that she posted several months ago and holy moly did it hit home for me. There's a reason her and I have been friends since grade school and can get together for a drink/dinner about once/year on average and NEVER.MISS.A.BEAT. We have so much in common...and although a few of the 'issues' that she lists below may not apply to me (I've put a line through the 'make from scratch' type of issues) the majority of them are SO ME. Cracks me up...so I thought I'd steal...and share! Enjoy!


Pressing the Easy Button.You’ve probably seen the commercials for Staples - the ones with the EASY button. In each scenario it has a customer attempting a tedious, difficult or overwhelming task - generally annoyed or mentally spent by it. The clerk says - you could do that… (the more difficult, time consuming or complicated way) or…. you could press the EASY button (which usually means Staples to the rescue.)Recently I’ve been giving myself permission to press the EASY button more often.

You see - I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself. (You’re saying to yourself: “You? Nooooo! Nevvvvver.) 2011 has been so hectic, and I’ve been stretched in a million directions. Admittedly, most of it is self-inflicted - and I’ll give you some examples of times where I feel the pressure to be a certain way:

- When I go to parties or outings, I feel pressure to be the one with the camera, and then I feel pressure to immediately upload the photos to Facebook. OMG...ding, ding, ding...so me.
- Before dance class I feel pressure to have the most. awesome. original. choreography. ever.okay, so i don't dance either...
- I feel pressure to say “Happy Birthday” to people on Facebook. every.single.day.
- I feel pressure to read every magazine I get in the mail, cover to cover, and clipping articles from each.
- When I throw a dinner party, I feel pressure that every detail is amazing and all the recipes are from scratch. Maybe not from scratch recipes, but I like to go all out on the setup and lots of 'fun' dishes
- When a trip is coming up I feel pressure to have a perfectly planned itinerary for the group. Spreadsheet anyone?!
- I feel pressure to make plans and/or RSVP “yes”. I rarely say no...I try, but it's hard.

Granted, most of the above are normal things that most people feel (admittedly the camera thing is probably just a ‘me’ thing).


Lately I have decided that I need to just give myself a break because all this pressure is making me crazy.

Sometimes I just have to press the EASY button.
- No one cares if I don’t have my camera. Everyone has cameras on their phones. It’s fine. (Thank you to Dinah for giving me this excellent self-talk). And if I do take pictures with my camera, I’ll upload them eventually. Who cares if it’s not immediately.
- Sometimes it’s OK to recycle choreography from other routines. The girls in my class just want to have fun - the whole purpose of the class is to be stress-free so why am I creating stress for myself? It’s unnecessary. Just show up and wing it. It’s fine.
- No one will even notice if I don’t say Happy Birthday on Facebook. And even if they do - so what - it’s not like they say Happy Birthday to every single one of THEIR Facebook friends. Who cares!? They’ll have another one next year.
- Sometimes magazines are going to pile up. For a while. And sometimes ::whisper:: I might even just recycle the magazine having not even read it. Guess what - there’s nothing THAT mind blowing in the November issue of Real Simple that I couldn’t find online.
- Granted, I’ve built a reputation as an excellent event-thrower. I take pride in my parties and events and do enjoy the accolades I receive from a job well done. However….. I have to remind myself that no one is going to love me any less or think any less of my event if things aren’t mind-blowingly-perfect. It’s OK to buy already-made dips. It’s fine if the decor is lacking and/or store bought. Who cares if the activities aren’t custom-planned and you lean more on board game standbys. People care about people. Good times with others….I have to remember this.
- You don’t need to plan the itinerary. The person you’re traveling with just wants to have fun with EACH OTHER. It doesn’t have to be a jam packed, moment to moment planned trip. Relax. Enjoy life.
- Sometimes you just have to flake. And that’s OK. As long as it’s not a habit and you don’t make it a regular practice of letting people down. And you don’t have to make up a BS reason as to why you bailed. It’s perfectly OK to say “I really wanted to go, but I found myself just needing a night of pajamas and DVR-watching. I’m sure you know the feeling!” Cause guess what …. EVERYONE KNOWS THE FEELING!!!

Many things prompted this blog post, but one of the main things was my friend Jenn Gorrie who blogged about her kids Halloween costumes. Aren’t her kids the cutest things ever? Jenn who consistently goes above and beyond in every aspect of her life actually APOLOGIZED for the kids wearing the same Halloween costumes as last year. Are you kidding? I have to APPLAUD her for pressing the EASY button because the kids look just as amazing, I didn’t even remember last year’s costumes (sorry!), and most importantly as she says in her blog - THEY LOVED HOW THEY LOOKED. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. Jenn, I’m proud of you for pressing the EASY button!

Sometimes you gotta just…
Keep it simple.
Skip it.
Say no.
Stay home.
Know when to say when.
Give yourself a break.
Take it down a notch.
Sleep in.
Have it delivered.
Go easy on yourself.
Use store-bought.
Reschedule.
Delegate.
Get it pre-made.
Cut out early.
Rewear it.
Not volunteer.
Ask for help.
Bail out.

Sometimes you gotta just PRESS THE EASY BUTTON! Try it, you’ll like it.

LOVE this blog, and although I could probably add another 10 'pressures' of my own to her list, I'm going to press the easy button and just steal hers and leave it at that.

Maybe my life would be less stressful if I pressed the easy button occasionally...I need to get one of those.