FRIENDS. Friends come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the best friends are the most unlikely of pears.

Friends make us laugh or hug us when we’re sad. Friends cheer us up or entertain us. Friends oftentimes will help to lift our spirit, encourage our spirit, or just remind us of our value. When they say opposites attract, that’s oftentimes true in relationships with spouses. So while one may be a jokester, the other one may be more serious. Or BFFs oftentimes will have some things in common, but often are also opposites.

As we travel this country, we are often making new friends or strengthening the friends and family relationships we already had, because now we have more quality time. Some of our friends, we do business together, others of our friends we do life together, and still others we do both. As you see in the above picture, this is one of our friends who was goofing off when it was Hat Day for us ladies and he was feeling uninvolved. So he decided to put on his wife’s hat and pretend to be her. Oh, the great fun we had with that when we put it into an app and spun it with music. As you can imagine, all of us ladies had a good time.

As you can see in the other picture, though, where it’s a hawk and a crow and you may not be able to see, but there is a squirrel there, they are all very much friends. I watched them completely work together so that when one saw food that the other would want, they would either flick it over to them or they would chase away a different predator that might want that food, or they would simply ignore it and move on, knowing that their other friend would want it. Literally. I sat there and watched the crow and the hawk talk to each other and owe the fun I had creating words for their conversations.

Then when the squirrels started chattering into the middle, I just busted up laughing because that’s when I saw the turtle. Although the hawk, the turtle and the crow and even the squirrel may seemingly have nothing in common other than they are all animals in the animal kingdom, they all still coexist. And just as we may have differences with many of our friends, family or others in our community, neighbors and such, we all still can coexist. But we can all coexist in a positive way, especially when we communicate.

Today we were dealing with some very poor customer service when they were doing work on a project and they just left and left the project and left everything, didn’t inform anybody what was happening, when they were coming back or anything. You can imagine the frustration and stress that this caused. Without knowing when the project was going to be finished and without communicating, we were unable to get that information. So then everybody is put on hold when a simple, “Hey, I’ll be back tomorrow, or I’ll be back in an hour, whatever would have sufficed. Increasing productivity, but also decreasing stress levels for others.

So as we continue to move forward around this country, we will continue to encourage others to communicate. But communicate well. Take the time. It does take a few more seconds to actually use your manners and use your words. But you’ll have less likely a chance of making a bad decision when you’ve made an assumption and looking like the assumption declares.

So let’s all take some more time. Spend one another using our words. That’s what differentiates us from the animals and reminding ourselves how to coexist with one another. Not creating more stress for others, but helping one another.

And in doing so, bringing smiles to all of us all across this country. Until the next time.