FUN is a Three Letter Word

Too often most people spell fun the following way M-O-N-E-Y. Do you need money to have fun? The short answer is no! Think back to your childhood, if you are like most people, you will have many fond memories of some fun times. More often than not, the fun you had probably involved little or no money.

So what is fun? It will be different things for different people. Generally fun will involve the following traits – an activity that you can be absorbed in with high spirits, passion, zest, zeal, and exuberance. For some, fun could be a solitary activity like doing a crossword puzzle.  For others, it could be playing a game or a sport with friends. It does not matter what to you is fun, only that you find some everyday in your life.

One year we were heading out on holidays and an acquaintance told us to have fun and we replied we always do. To which they replied “that seems like you”.

We are always on the lookout for opportunities. We were in Jasper for July 1st one year and stopped by the local fire hall (we have been involved in the fire service for a number of years). After chatting with the firefighters, they said they had no one to ride on the back of the Pump to throw candy to the people watching the parade - would our family be interested? We were and it was amusing to watch our youngest daughter struggle with the idea of throwing candy to the crowd (she was four years old at the time and wanted to keep all of the candy). In the end, we had a fun and memorable time being in the Jasper July 1st parade. The cost to us, some time chatting with firefighters, the experience – priceless.

You have to look for fun or the humor in your day to day life. We have always tried to take vacations every year and stay within our finances (we never borrow money to go on a trip). At times we did not have a lot of money and were always looking for ways to economize and save. While we would not encourage people to do everything we have done, it has created some memorable times for us.

Early in our marriage we went to Banff to ski. Since we did not have a lot of money, we economized by cross country skiing one day and down hill ski the next. To save on eating out, we had brought our portable butane backpacking stove with us. We were heating some water for hot chocolate on a table in our hotel room. We did not know that the connection to the butane canister was leaking and next thing we knew there was a pretty blue flame across the entire surface of the table. After a few anxious moments, we were able to put the fire out with no damage to the table or hotel room (thankfully the smoke detector and sprinklers did not go off!). We went downtown and bought some hot chocolate, thankful that we were OK, the hotel was OK and no damage was done. Immediately after the panic of the fire, we did see the humor in it and were still giggling (actually we still giggle about it today).

Life can be a very serious business, but try not to take life so seriously, as someone once said “nobody is getting out of here alive”. Memories are fleeting, tomorrow is but a promise – so you might as well enjoy today. Have fun!