Today is the last day for October prompts, and since I missed a number this week, I thought I’d do a rapid-fire post; short answers for a bunch of small prompts.
Where I want to be in five years
Well, I hope to be a nurse by then! And I will probably be an empty-nester.
The last thing I apologized for
One of the girls made an error that I thought was funny (I’d have laughed at myself if I did the same thing*), so I started laughing, and she told me she actually was really embarrassed about the error.
So, I stopped laughing, apologized, and switched to empathy instead.
*not only would I have laughed at myself, I probably would have blogged about it, just like I did about this Walmart bathroom mistake. Ha.
Something that confuses me
I mean, a lot of heady concepts would probably confuse me if I tried to think about them. Rocket science comes to mind. But I don’t generally think about rocket science, so I don’t generally feel confused about it.
Here’s a less heady thing I’m confused about/don’t understand: We get to drop one exam grade in A&P, and apparently, some people just choose to skip an exam on purpose. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just do your best on all the exams so that you can hopefully bank the dropped exam for when you really need it. What if you skip an exam and then also bomb one later on?
Then you’d be in trouble!
Can you tell I’m kind of risk-averse??
Something great my family has achieved
Well.
Because of my children’s influence through my blog, families all over America (and possibly in other countries) now put eyes on their Christmas cookies.
This might not actually qualify as a great achievement, but it IS a fun one. 😉
How I wish I dealt with stress
Hmm, I don’t know. But I can tell you that I would like NOT to deal with it by ruminating on problems when I wake up at 3:00 am.
A road trip I’d like to take
Hmm. One day I’d like to drive around the Pacific Northwest with Mr. FG, because that’s an area of the United States I’ve never been to.
What you said about the cookie eyes is absolutely true!! 🙂
Something that confuses me: directional abilities. My husband could be blindfolded, forced to turns in circles for an hour and then dropped into the middle of a forest at midnight, and he would still be able to know instantly which way to face if he wanted to go east or west, north or south. I could be given a map and Alexa shouting instructions at me, and I still could not figure out which direction is where. It is humiliating.
My husband is the same! He can look at a map of a city that he’s never been to and be able to navigate thru it. I’m not that bad at navigation actually but when we’re in the car and he is driving, I don’t do well due to nerves. He doesn’t berate me or anything but as I know how good he is, I freeze. When we’re with our kids in the car I now make them do it.
I am confused by the directions on how to make labels with the new library software I got for the school. There’s a way to just drop the automatically generated codes into label templates on another website, but that sort of thing is just really intimidating to me. I’m going to have to watch the instructional video like five more times and probably screw up a few times before I figure that one out.
Lindsey: Right there with you. It’s a significant handicap.
I literally snorted when I read your eyes-on-cookies response. Well said. And true.
And… on the directionally-challenged topic, my husband and I and kids were listening to _Prince Caspian_ via Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre on a recent road trip when we heard this quote we had forgotten about:
“That’s the worst’s of girls,” Edmund said to Peter and the Dwarf. “They can never carry a map in their heads.”
*At this comment, my husband shot a pointed glance at me and I ducked my head. But then Lucy retorted perfectly for me.*
“That’s because our heads have something in them.” said Lucy.
And that point, we both cracked up laughing!
I’m responding to your comment about the exam marks. Psychology 2 was a requisite for my nursing course, and three tests were scheduled during the semester. The highest two test marks were counted, and there was no sick test. Some classmates skipped a test early on, knowing they had one/two more opportunities, some were genuinely ill for one of the tests. Some classmates wrote all three. Since I hadscored >85% for the first two tests, I could go to a Bob Geldof concert the night before the third test, and sleep late in the morning. I had a good semester mark, a good time, and no regrets!
The “eyes on the cookies” achievement made me laugh, too.
I get confused with written directions sometimes, such as forms have – “You must sign below if you are the respondent OR the respondent’s representative. Please note, only the actual respondent should sign this page.” That sort of thing. I often see ambivalence in directions, and waste so much time trying to figure out what they mean.
I’m not great at physical directions, but if I’m able to get an overview of the area in my head, I can usually figure out my directions from there. Men seem to do best at knowing North, South, East and West, but one of my daughters can do it, too. From the time she was about 8, I could ask in frustration, “Where on earth did I park my car?” and she would say something like, “We parked over there on the west side of the lot, facing east.” And she would be right!
Where I want to be in five years: Hopefully still gainfully employed. I know I’ll have a paid off house so that’s nice. I’m more worried about the health of family members and if I’ll have to start dealing with some of the issues related to that.
The last thing I apologized for: It’s terrible but I honestly don’t remember. Probably because of something I messed up on.
Something that confuses me: Popular Culture. I just don’t get so much of it. Like, why people get so excited about Star Wars or Marvel or whatever new show Netflix is pushing this week. I just don’t understand why I should care. To me it’s all just noise.
Something great my family has achieved: Being the “different” family, I guess. We live comfortably and don’t seem to give in to the rush to go on the flashiest vacations and buy the biggest and most expensive items.
How I wish I dealt with stress: Well, for the last couple years my body has decided that having nightmares literally every single night of my life is the way to deal with it so any other way would be better than that.
A road trip I’d like to take: I’d love to go to Gettysburg, Antietam and other important sites of the Civil War. I have ancestors who fought in the war and I’d like to see these areas before they are lost to time. Otherwise I don’t know about traveling that far. I really don’t want to be in a car for days at a time. It’s long stopped being fun since my daughter no longer sleeps most of the trip. In fact, for a variety of reasons, we’ve stopped our annual roadtrip to my in-laws’ house down south. Not that I’m welcome back there anyway. LOL!