Garmin Calendar is from Venus, Banter from Mars

The Calm Before the Storm
It starts the way it always does. In our case, it's a simple disagreement. Nothing really. She mentioned that the colors are all wrong. I, personally, was quite pleased with the way things were. It worked for us in the past, I couldn't see why it would continue to work for us in the present and future.

It's never really just one thing, is it?

Soon, she started to think that life was going stale. It was too repetitive. Too predictable. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the predictability. I liked knowing what to expect. There was comfort in familiar.

There were subtle hints that our paths were diverging. She would send requests and updates. I would read them, decide they weren't for me, and ignore them. She remained happy and upbeat on the surface but apparently she was a volcano waiting to erupt.

Last month, she Mt. St. Helen'ed. Like the tragedy back in 1980, she flipped her lid. I suppose I should have seen the warning signs and felt the tremors. I remained oblivious until the change was fully implemented. She blew her top off, and not in the good way.

Here's how she looked before the change:

I liked this version. Colors made sense. Information was clear. Still, she felt she needed a change. She wanted to 'improve' herself. Here's what she came up with:

Needless to say, I was most displeased with this change of events. I wrote her a scathing letter to express my feelings towards the new her.

Couples Counseling
We argued and fought. I was clear we were going nowhere. Since we both had a long history together, we agreed to seek professional help. Dr. "What's His Name" (Aside: Honestly, I cannot remember names efficiently. As a teacher, this is a real problem. If anyone has any solutions, please help a blogger in need of assistance. End Aside.)

She had changed and I was ready to break up.

According to the good Doc, we both had some interesting ideas. I wanted the colors back. She wanted more menus. I hated the left hand side menu. She liked it but loved the right hand side menu. I was mostly indifferent to the right hand side menu.

It took 12 sessions at $450 per hour (I may need to re-think my career). In the end, we came to a compromise.

• Returned are the colors.
• Kept is the right side menu, which I've grown to appreciate
• Kept is the left side menu, now with color coding capabilities (by my insistence)
• Expanded is the viewable information 
• I may have to scroll to see the bottom of the month
• I am comfortable with this

I'm a big fan of this new and improved product. The take home message for those of you in relationship trouble. Always follow the 3 C's of Relationships...

Communication- Make sure your significant other knows what's going on inside of that pea-brained noggin of yours. And by 'yours', I mean mine. And by 'pea-brained' I'm being generous.

Compromise- Be willing to make concessions. Know what you can live with and what you can cope with. At least, know what you don't care about (no use fighting over that).

And, when all else fails,

Cash- Like most problems, through some money at it. If all else fails, at least you'll be broke.

In our case, it was in the form of paying some bloke enough money to help us realize what we already knew. Money well spent.