attempting kindness

peekaboo!
Originally uploaded by Julep67

I’ve been exerting a lot of effort lately to be kinder in general and less snarky in particular. I wouldn’t have thought that being generally nicer would have been all that difficult. I realized recently that a lot of what I tweet, or sometimes write here, isn’t very nice. It’s sometimes downright mean and frequently snarky. It’s so easy to react quickly with a negative tweet or snide comment on facebook. Counting to 10 and cooling down a bit before I hit “send” it tough but I am feeling good about it.

A couple of times, very recently, I’ve had many snarky and mean-ish things to say about a couple of local contractors we are working with (one for our home and another is a vendor we use at our income property). I’ve been less than impressed with the customer service I’ve received from both. In one case, the contractor has actually endangered our dogs not once, but twice. Rather than name and shame, for the moment, I’m going to take a page out of the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” book. Honestly, more often than not in the past, I was more inclined to take a page out of “Steel Magnolia” and live by, “If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me” instead. I’ll say nothing at all for now, until the issues are dealt with and I can share a complete story, not just a bitter bit in the middle.

Now, rather than rant and rave about how frustrated I am, I thought I share something good instead. We are presently selling our rental property. It’s a great little house in a terrific neighbourhood and we’re had a terrific city councillor, Sandy Berg. Today, I contacted her about an issue with our driveway (the street has been ripped up a couple of times over the last year to allow for water and sewer works). She got back to me almost immediately about the issue and has put in a request with the appropriate folks to get in touch with me about resolving it. How nice was that? Kudos to you Sandy Berg. I think you’re doing a terrific job representing Kingscourt-Strathcona and would like to say thank you for everything you do District 8 in the City of Kingston.