November 21, 2008

Do's and Dont's

Because I'm suffering from a cleaning hangover & I want to blog then log off & spend the day in more fruitful past times, I am borrowing a lovely Meme from my lovely friend Mrs.X.

Five Things I Should Know How to Do But Don’t:


  1. Change a tire. I think I could fumble through it, but it would probably take hours & I'd injure myself & possibly the vehicle. Art tried to teach me to change a tire on my 1977 Ford Landau when we lived together. I didn't have enough upper body strength to loosen the lugs. She told me to stand on the lug wrench to get them started. I didn't weigh enough to do that.
  2. Mow the lawn. Growing up we only had a push mower. I didn't have the upper body strength to pull start it. I have mowed exactly once in my life & when the mower stopped because I had to let go of the handle, I never got it started again. Now it's Husband's job & I've never learned to run our riding mower.
  3. Speak a foreign language. Just not my forte. I've taken a tiny bit of Spanish (in 5th grade), quite a bit of French (6th, 7th, 9th), and 2 years of Latin. I do not grasp other languages. My initial problem was conjugation. They tried to teach us to conjugate verbs in Spanish. I had no idea what they meant by conjugate but everyone else in my class did, so I never asked. I think that cinched it.
  4. Make biscuits. Little BIL thinks frozen/canned biscuits are of the devil. He's a cook in the Army (and a darn good one at that). He can whip up a batch of biscuits in no time flat. I cannot. Every biscuit I've ever made has ended up the consistency of a hockey puck. I am not ashamed to say, I love Pillsbury Grands.
  5. Read sheet music. I too music classes all through school. Basic music, chorus, advanced chorus, beginning band....and in all of them I was taught to read music. I can sit down & tell you what most things on a sheet of music mean (or could 12 years ago), but I absolutely cannot do it with the flow it would take to play an instrument. I still have to break it down using Every Good Boy Does Fine & FACE.

Five Things I do very well, thank you very much:

  1. Breast feed. OK, so I know this may not be a talent, but I feel very blessed to have never had problems with this. For many women I know nursing has been a struggle or flat impossible. My sister tried, struggled, and in the end had to switch to formula for HT. I have never had any trouble with it. Maybe it's more my children than me. They all latched well & nursed well. I also do not take it for granted that we had such an easy time of it.
  2. Make French Toast. Seriously, I make a mean French Toast. The secret is Texas toast, an electric griddle (you can control the heat better than on the stove top & the lid helps trap the heat), cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and vanilla. Mmmmmm.
  3. Read aloud. I dearly love to read. I dearly want to instill a love of books in my children. I read to them every night. We've read everything from Good Night Moon & Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You Hear? to Peter Pan, and The Tale of Desperaux. I read part of the Little House series to Husband when we were first married. I was reading aloud to BabyGirl at the dentists one day when the tech came in our cubicle and said, "You have a lovely reading voice." I didn't realize how far my voice had carried (it carries very far & I always forget) and the entire office had been listening to Morgan and Me.
  4. Make people laugh. I'm not sure how this came about, but I seem to have a bit of a talent for it. I'm not saying stand-up is in my future, but I think I'm entertaining enough for living rooms & blogs (saying that makes me think of Gypsy Rose Lee...."Let me entertain you!" Not happening folks).
  5. Grow aloe plants. Don't ask me how or why, but I can't seem to kill them. I can kill anything, but aloes just grow & grow & grow for me. Anyone need some aloe plants?

Anyone want to play along? Let me know so I can be sure & read your answers!

1 comment:

areyoukiddingme said...

I used to be able to grow aloe plants, but then my mother in law infected me with her ability to kill all aloe plants. So if youhave any al oe plants you don't like, send them my way.