Sometimes you get lucky. And sometimes, one little thing will remind you just how lucky you are…

I don’t need a reminder to be grateful for the friendship I share with Mark & Leslie Adams. They are truly genuine — not only in their business practices, but also in their personal lives. Separately or as a couple, they always cultivate good things.

I don’t always remember that I’m grateful to also have them (Adams Funeral Home) as clients of mckainerwin. It ain’t easy to love a client that sends you work on a Friday afternoon at 5:05 PM when you have something planned for the evening, or on a Sunday afternoon when you have family gathered for dinner. But let’s face it — their clients don’t schedule appointments.

You can see in the image I shared above a note I received. What you don’t see is the check they included. Even though I’ve earned the money, if I weren’t juggling two households in challenging times, I would write, “I LOVE YOU GUYS” on the check and mail it back to them. Crazy, huh? And, I’m willing to bet that they have no clue how much that note of appreciation means to me — AND I’m also willing to bet they do this for other business transactions as well. Mark and Leslie are on their game, and are cool like that.

Yes, the check was payment for services rendered and was from Adams Funeral Home. The note was from Mark and Leslie. Do you do that in your business?

It doesn’t matter if you work for someone else, or if you’re an entrepreneur. A personal note of thanks/appreciation can create a loyal bond not only to you, but also to your organization! It will make your clients GRATEFUL they have the opportunity to do business with you.

It was almost 7:00 PM when I stopped working to take the dogs for a walk. Today hit 70 degrees and it was sunny — and even this evening, it was warm enough to walk comfortably in shorts and a sweatshirt. Really awesome weather for the burg in early March. On the trip back, I noticed what looked like a red strand of Christmas lights draped across the horizon. No camera this time, but you can take my word for it, it was beautiful.

In this geographic location, it’s easy to make excuses in the wintertime for sitting at a computer for a ton of hours every day — and it’s compounded when you work from home and don’t HAVE to get out-and-about at all if you don’t want to. Really, what are you going to do in the winter with a short amount of time that removes you from your work/home atmosphere that doesn’t include being uncomfortably cold? Nada.

But I gotta tell ya, it’s amazing how a simple short walk helps to release the day’s tension, and I’m thrilled it’s warming up here to the point I’m not making excuses. Even short walks make you healthier! The other awesome thing? When the hounds get that walk, their tension goes away too…

The burg just experienced the best couple days we’ve had since last November. Sixty degrees with full sun. Libby still remembers what “go for a walk” and “get your leash” means. Gracie knows when Libby jumps around barking and wagging her tail, something reeeeally good is going to happen. She joins in.

A big fan of US Weekly’s “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me” features, I thought on this awesome day, I’d shorten the list and share 5 things you probably don’t know about me.

• I can’t stand dry hands or dry lips — I should own stock in SoftLips winter mint and Nivea Body.
• My writing style is mostly print and sometimes I need help deciphering it. I hate fine point pens.
• I once hit an ex-boyfriend with my car. It ripped his pants off. It was an accident. Probably. He’s now my friend on Facebook.
• My love for animals came from my Mom. We always had at least one dog in the house and one outside, and cats in the barn along with horses and cows and ducks and…
• My first car was a 69 Volkswagen with a 67 engine. We used to see how many people we could pack in to cruise town. Its nickname was “Grunt”.

I hope that y’all had a wonderful weekend too – no matter what part of the world you call home.

I received an email almost two weeks ago and I forgot to reply to it. I’ve thought about it on more than one occasion, but since it didn’t make a “to-do” list, it simply didn’t get the attention it deserved.

The ironic thing is that the email I’m talking about said in part, “...I never want to get so caught up in the business side, in the “doing,” to neglect the people side of my business. Success rests in part by what we do collectively but nothing is possible without God. As a team, I pray for God’s blessing on us all, in whatever it is we’re doing today … !”

I’m so busy making certain that our clients receive an Ultimate Customer Experience™, I have little time left for business and personal friendships. If you need assistance, you’ll get attention — but when it comes down to personal connections for no reason at all, I suck out loud.

Now that I recognize the problem, there’s hope that I can fix it. Thanks for the reminder, Jason. You truly rock (even though you’re not a Colts fan).

Happy weekend everyone!