Today, I stepped out of my comfort zone.

Earlier this week I was busy sewing(no surprise there) when there was a knock at my back door. I went up the stairs and found a man of about my age wearing a orange jump suit with reflective strips, carrying a small tool box and a electronic thingy. He was driving a town truck. I had seen him come out of one house and go to the neighbouring house earlier. He said to me "I need to do some work on your water meter." I must have given him somewhat of a blank look because he then said "it's down stairs." I responded with "if you say so". As I let him in and he walks down the stairs I think to myself how this is so classic "Criminal Minds". Some guy dressed up in official clothes(not that an orange jump suit is "official" but it does say "City employee") and driving a truck or van that backs up his clothes, comes to your door claiming to need to do some official business, but really he is just there to kill you. Anyways...I also head down stairs because I figure I am supposed to show him where the water meter is(which I wasn't exactly sure, I know I have lived in this house for a year. But seriously, I have never had need to look at my water meter). After we figured that out he said to me "so are you new to town?" What do you think was his first clue? "Yeah, we moved here about a year ago from Lethbridge." I get back to work sewing. Tansley comes downstairs and wants to know who this guy is and what he is doing. She goes into the laundry room, where I discovered the water meter is located, and watches him. He starts asking her questions, How old are you, what is your name, etc. I can tell by the way he is talking to her and answering all of her questions that he has kids of his own. So we all get to chatting about family and stuff. We discovered that we knew some of the same people, that he plays hockey and noticed that we had a hockey net out back and he had seen our rink when it was at it's prime, so he inquired if my husband played and if so he could get him into playing with his group of guys out in Warner. It also turns out he has a little boy that is Tansley's age, having a birthday party on Saturday(today). He tells Tansley that if it is OK with her mom that we could all come down to the Civic Center for the party.
 Now for all of you living in a real City, I am sure you are thinking how very bizzarre this all is. You likely would never even think about going to the birthday party of the son of the man who is doing some work on your water meter(that is if he even had a son...again the whole "Criminal Minds" thing comes into play here). But you must remember that I live in a town with the population of(one moment I need to go look this up) according to wikipedia, about 816(that's less than I would have thought). I have made a goal this year that I wanted to get to know more people in the community. I am at quite a disadvantage. I often meet people at the grocery store, the hardware store, the fabric store or just on the street that know who I am because of the family that I belong to(or married into). For those of you that don't know, Daniels mom grew up here in Milk River and most of her family is still in and around the area and have been since about the time her parents emigrated from Germany. I've got used to it now, I am no longer surprised when someone says, "oh yes, you bought Scott so and so's old house." or "Oh, you are Kaye's daughter in law", or "you must be Mandy", "yes, you belong to the Reese clan". After all there are only 816 people in town, how hard is it to miss someone new in town?
OK, so back to what I was talking about. Jeremy(the water meter guy) tells me that our common friends will also be at the party and that I really should come, since our kids will be going to school together. As he is leaving I thank him for the invite because I really would like to get to know more people in the community. As the week as gone on, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go. I am a complete chicken when it comes to meeting new people in an enviroment that I don't have any control over, or where I may not know anybody at all. I didn't tell Kathryn about the party, and thankfully Tansley had forgotten all about it. I didn't bring it up this morning, because I wasn't ready to commit. So, I could have been in the clear. But it nagged at me all morning today. The party started at 2pm, I had lots of time to find a reason not to go. I went about my day doing this and that. I told myself that I wouldn't beable to go because Kymberly would be napping. But I sewed up a doodle bag(a little bag that carries a colouring book and crayons), just in case. I had a shower and did my hair and make up, just incase I changed my mind. Kymberly woke up from her nap right at 2 and since I was already, I told the girls to get some decent clothes on because we were going to go to a birthday party. Off we went and I just hoped that the people that I knew were really going to be there. This is so not like me.
Well the people I knew were there, and I met some new people and the girls had a blast. It was nice to get out of the house and to let the girls run around wild for 2 hours. I was glad I went.
I don't recommend anyone doing such a thing if you live in a City of any variety, but when you live in a town the size of Milk River, it doesn't seem so strange. Infact I did not think about how others living in other places would react to this situation until I started thinking about blogging about it.