Late last year at a networking event I won three door prizes: 2 restaurant gift cards, one for Mexican and one for sushi, and an over night weekend stay at a local big name hotel. I was waiting for something special to celebrate and then the day was on the calendar.

It was my husband’s birthday and time to cash in on all these gifts.

There’s always more to life than only what we see in any situation. [Tweet “For most introverts, an extroverting day can be energy depleting with – people to see, places to go, things to do.”]

How do you get in the flow when you’re not in the flow?

My husband introduced me to the car hobby years ago. Since then we’ve owned a few collector cars and still have just one. The best discovery is car shows provide so much entertainment even when you are down to one collector and two daily drivers.

– First possible turn to move in the flow

Normally at car shows, we spend a minimum of about 90 minutes going through, and walk up and down each aisle. Every so often we stop and “oooo” and “aaahhh” at particular cars catching our attention for one reason or another.

One car at this show, a 2005 Cobra, gave new meaning to the phrase, “look under the hood.”

Our best guestimate is to oogle at about 300 different makes and models of cars and motorcycles took less than 25 minutes to walk through. Right. Not many oohs and aahhs happening.

Then we realized it would be an hour too early to check in to the hotel room, so what to do? How do we get in the flow again?

A celebratory dinner drink seemed to be in order. We decided to stop at a restaurant only my husband had been to before: friendly servers, and gorgeous woodwork at the bar.

The hour flew by (maybe it was that spicy rum and tonic) and we were ready to head to the hotel room check in.

– Staying in the flow with the hotel free weekend night

The hotel is in a shopping and business complex. The view from our room was splendid overlooking a lovely fountain and entrance to the shopping and new 12 choices movie theatre.

This kind of big theatre is new in our area. We bantied around some ideas of what movie we might want to see. But alas, out of the flow again.

Twelve movies to choose from and not one of them excited either of us. We discussed going if only one of us liked any movie. The unexpected bonus for the evening wasn’t going to happen. It was disappointing.

Leaving the theatre lobby we headed to dinner, an unexpected bump to get back in the flow. We saw a mime. In our area, this is a step up from a hot-dog and hamburger kind of life to steak and potatoes. It felt wonderful as our luck was changing.

It did indeed.

– Crowded restaurant but no wait

One of the restaurant’s gift certificate for was a favorite cuisine of both of us, but not anything we eat regularly. It was encouraging when this crowded, no doubt popular, Mexican restaurant had no line.

Our experience with Mexican restaurants is the service is always fast. And so it was here. We had a wonderful tasty dinner and then began a leisurely walk back to the hotel.

On the way we had a brilliant idea: with the evening still early, why don’t we just rent a movie in the hotel room?

Have you ever done this? We do it so infrequently but it seemed like a perfect end to a totally fun weekend adventure costing us very little.

– A hotel without a pay per movie option in 2014

When we arrive in the hotel room, we’re puzzled not being able to find “Movies” on the television screen. My husband asked me to try because he didn’t have his reading glasses. I tried, but like him, no movies option. There was the room book, in clear sight, so I grabbed it and turned to the section “In-room movies.”

The page confirmed, we were doing everything right.

Let it go, was what we each said to each other as I put the instructions down. But being curious, I wanted to know, had the instructions changed? Was our television not connected somehow? And besides, it was getting late and I needed to put the parking decal on our car’s rearview mirror so we wouldn’t be towed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I whispered as I left the room.

After taking care of the decal, I stopped at the front desk and asked, “Just how do we dial up a pay per view movie in our room?”

The two front desk clerks looked at each other. For that instant I thought, “Geez am I a ditz or what?”

“Well,” the woman giggled. “We no longer have in-room movie rentals.”

I couldn’t believe it, and that’s what I blurted out.

I shook my head and grabbed the elevator that happened to be waiting to take me back to our room.

My husband and I giggled about how silly that a hotel would not have in-room movie to purchase is in 2014. A movie wasn’t meant to be.

Making the best of enjoying the evening, we snuggled up, and fell asleep musing about our day and laughing about the worst parts.

Did we stay in the flow of the weekend? Indeed we did:

– We made lemonade from any lemons put in our way. Whether it was the disappointing car show or the lack of a movie to watch, we mostly giggled at what happened when it wasn’t what we quite expected.

– We experienced it all, including the unexpected treat of meeting a mime on our city street.

– We reminded ourselves that 90% of our weekend was free. Free! Why not have gratitude for one of the best parts. It’s particularly uplifting to be thankful for what is, instead of getting caught in being negative too long about what is not.