Three Things I'm Scared to Try

Three Things Thursday.

1. Cauliflower- It smells TERRIBLE and has basically the same texture as broccoli. Also, its just plain white, and doesn't that mean it can't contain much nutrients? Not worth it. When people talk about cauliflower pizza, my only thought is, "Are you crazy?" I've also seen buffalo cauliflower all over Pinterest, that's supposedly better than buffalo chicken. HAHA GOOD ONE.
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show- I watched the movie in high school and it was the opposite of what I enjoy in a movie. I can only imagine that going to see the live show is even worse. Especially since they call out newcomers, that's my idea of a bad time.
3. Yoga- Have you ever come across those super yoga people on Instagram? It is terrifying. I like stretching, and I naturally like to sit in weird positions. That's enough for me. I have no desire to become a contortionist or attempt uncomfortable positions for a prolonged amount of time on a millimeter thin squishy mat.

L-A-U-G-H

When-I-Was-A-Dummy-Wednesday

Once upon a time, I moved in the middle of third grade. We moved to a suburb of New Orleans, and I started at a new school, and my mom HATED my new teacher, Ms. Burg. She was the "gifted" teacher, which probably meant she was excited she had the better behaved kids and didn't have to work very hard. She taught by writing notes on the chalkboard, in cursive, in an outline format, and we copied it word-for-word into our composition notebooks. Other than that, we did silent work at our desks. I also remember one time she tried to put a grape in her mouth, and I saw her miss her mouth, and I was amazed. That wasn't the only time she missed the mark.

One time I was writing a story and asked my teacher how to spell the word "laugh." She told me she would not tell me, and handed me a dictionary to find the word. I looked up L-A-F and didn't find the word I needed. I asked the teacher again and she wouldn't help me. How could a third grade teacher be so heartless? My friend Vicky whispered to me that it's L-A-H-F, or something like that. I still couldn't find the word. I misspelled it in my project.

That afternoon I switched from my "gifted" teacher Ms. Burg to my regular teacher Ms. Fischer. I was not in gifted Math class, which is ironic since I later was a math major in college. I asked y regular teacher how to spell "laugh," and she wrote it on an index card and handed it to me, and told me to memorize it.

When I was a dummy, I couldn't spell the word "laugh."
When I was a dummy, I thought all grown-ups (even the mean ones) were infallible.

For Somebody's Sake

Tuesdays: When I give "you" (myself) a pep talk.

You can do it. You can and you will. Even if it seems unimportant, even if it seems mundane, even if you just don't wanna spend your afternoon playing laser tag with twenty fifth grade boys. Even if you don't wanna write five lesson plans about the same little Bible story for five different age groups. Even though it seems the opposite of important, take notice that it's important to somebody else.

Isn't that how you want to live? Holding other people's needs higher than your own laziness? Yeah. If it's important to somebody, then it should be important to you. If it matters to somebody, it matters to you. So let it really really matter. You can and will do it.

Clean Week

Last week's goals:

1. Get all of my music from my old computer onto the new one. (A-) I did exactly what my goal says. I got all my music off my old computer and onto the new one. But I had greater intentions to also update my phone with the exact music I wanted, and I did not succeed in that.
2. Get all of my photos from my old computer organized onto the new one. (B-) I did get many photos off my old computer and roughly organize them into a few folders: "High School," "Camp," "College" "Engagement & Wedding," etc. The problem is that I know many of my photos are missing and I didn't take time to track them down on my backup hard drive. So my old computer appears to be cleaned out, but I still need to recover and organize missing photos from 2009 spring break and a 2011 road trip to Knoxville with my college roommate. Those are the ones I know are missing, but I'm convinced there's more. At least I found some awesome/embarrassing gems I can't resist sharing: 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Organize my work computer. (A) On Wednesday my work computer crashed twice and I got paranoid I was about to loose all my documents. So I frantically got everything saved onto the shared folders. Great motivation helped me complete the goal in about 45 minutes!

Upcoming Week's Goals:

Whenever I decide to "clean," I usually do the bare minimum: Toilets, countertops, and a quick vacuum. Over time, the overall yuckiness has built up, and I'm frustrated by how dirty I've let the house get. Time to take charge of that!

1. Vacuum every room.

2. Clean each bathroom thoroughly. I've gotten into a bad habit of just quickly "cleaning" the bathroom: scrubbing the inside of the toilet, wiping down the sink, and wiping any spots that look gross in the shower. I need to hold myself to higher standards of cleanliness.

3. Dust. (I need to remember to do this before goal #1)

4. Clean the oven and refrigerator, inside and out. Shouldn't I be doing this regularly? Yeah I literally have never done this.

Scrabble Queen

My Gran just got an iPad for Christmas, and all her grandkids downloaded "Words With Friends" to play against her. This reminded me of my Scrabble past:

The Summer between 5th and 6th grade, my family took a trip to Alaska. As you can imagine, and as you can infer from our coats pictured below, it is cold in Alaska even in the summer. So most of our trip was spent sightseeing from trains, boats, and busses. We played lost of cards and some board games.

My immediate family cheesin' in 2003.

My aunt teaching me to make a s'more.

I don't remember much about the trip at all except for a few things:

• I shared a hotel room with my brother, sister, and aunt. The room had two sets of bunk beds that flipped down from the wall. It was awesome.
• One of the Harry Potter books (Order of the Phoenix) was released during this trip. We were in a small town without a bookstore but we got a taxi driver to take us to a grocery store to buy the book. My aunt tried to take us to McDonald's and I threw a fit and she got me a Lunchable from the grocery store instead.
• We took a train ride, and my brother and sister made friends with some old ladies and played cards, but I was too shy to talk to strangers.
• We tried to pan for gold and found nothing.
• Everyone was obsessed with salmon but I hated fish and still do.
• At some family-friendly barbeque, there was a lady singing folk songs about hunting a moose. We didn't buy her CD but my whole family still remembers her dumb song, "If you wanna catch a moose you gotta get up early. You gotta get up early if you wanna catch a moose."
• My dad and I played Scrabble on a train ride, and I actually beat him.

The day I beat my dad at Scrabble, pre-braces half smile.

When I beat my dad at Scrabble, I immediately gained the reputation in the family as the Scrabble Queen. As a fifth grader, I was proud for five minutes and then decided not to care anymore. I honestly think I have not completed a full game of Scrabble since then. My dad definitely still cared, and my reputation was born. 

Every year at Christmas I can count on some scrabble-themed gift. PJ pants, a coffee mug, chocolate letter tiles, you name it. If something is scrabble themed, they assume it should belong to me. It's not a bad title, but I just don't think it still suits me.

Sarcasm and Bullying

On Saturdays, I find a post from PostSecret and make a response to it.
Top image: sent to PostSecret from someone anonymous.
Lower image: made by me in response to the one above it.

In middle school and high school I was mean to my friends until my youth pastor called me out on it. "I'm just kidding" is a very empty excuse for saying hurtful words. I gradually started to catcg myself, and gradually started to notice it more in others. I made new friends in tenth grade whose humor was based on being goofy, not mean, and tried to adopt for myself. 

I think sarcasm can be a really brilliant type of humor. I also think way too many people who don't understand sarcasm pride themselves on being sarcastic. Exaggeratingly insulting someone is not sarcasm. True, real, witty, respectable sarcasm says one thing and means the opposite (this comes from the definition). 

For example, if someone spills coffee on themselves they might say, "Great, just great. I'm having the best day ever." They say one thing and mean the opposite. 

Rudeness and bullying is often mislabeled as sarcasm. Here's an example: Harry Potter trips on the moving staircase and Ron Wesley says, "Wow you are the klutziest person I've ever met." Here, the intention of the joke is to actually point out Harrys's klutziness. It's not clever and it's not sarcasm. It would only be sarcasm if he were really trying to convey the opposite, "You are very graceful, Harry."

Insults can only count as sarcasm if the meaning of them is their opposite. Here's an example. 

Hermione: Oh my gosh, I can't believe I only made an A- on my potions exam! I know I should have studied harder. 

Harry: You're right Hermione, you're such a stupid loser. Only an idiot would make an A- on her potions exam.

This counts as sarcasm because Harry calls Hermione stupid in order to make the point that Hermione is smart. 

To the people who are reading this blog: you are probably someone I know in real life and you are probably someone I count as a friend, which would definitely place you in the category of, "Doesn't insult Kirby for laughs." So, thank you for having a smart, kind sense of humor.

Saturday Morning Coffee

My favorite photo I took this week is one with Brian.

On Saturday morning he got up, started the coffee pot, and then walked away distracted. While coffee was brewing, I set out our matching coffee mugs and then walked away distracted. Brian came back and poured himself coffee, then I came to pour mine. For approximately 1.5 seconds I thought he had taken the wrong mug on accident, then I realized of course he took it on purpose. He tries to annoy me; it (almost) never works.