What was your hardest parenting or partner moment?

Since I don't have a child I'll have to go with the latter. 

This is difficult because I have so many difficult partner moments. My marriage was young and short but filled with intense love and equally intense fighting. A lot of it is extremely personal so I don't want to get into details. 

Even though we had some fierce arguments, the hardest part was always forgiveness. I am filled with compassion, empathy, and love but it's hard for me to forgive. In fact, I still have some things in my heart I need to forgive him for.  Don't misconstrue this though, I am glad to be divorced now and I have moved on with my life and I no longer want to be with him. But I still have bitter grudges in my heart that I need to let go of. 

I'll finish this with some quotes I've collected from Pinterest that help me remember what's important.

 

List 8 reasons it's okay to lie

The original prompt is to list 8 reasons when it's okay to lie. I don't like to lie. Life is easier and better without it.


Instead of the original prompt, I will tell you 8 lies I have told in the past. 


1) When I was 4, I was living in the Philippines at Clark Air Force Base. My younger brother Jason, was probably 2 or 3. I went into my parents room and dialed 9-1-1. Someone answered and I hung up. A few minutes later a couple of policemen arrived at the door. My mom was really flustered and asked me if I called them. I said, "no, it was Jason". Since he was such a cute kid, he didn't get into trouble. And that was that. 


2) When my family moved to Florida a year or two later, my parents took me and my brother to Disney World. The whole time my dad was telling us how awesome Space Mountain was going to be so Jason and I were stoked, even though we had no idea what it was. It turns out that Space Mountain is an indoor rollercoaster. All I remember about the ride was that I was terrified out of my skull and I never screamed so much in my life. After the ride was over, my dad teased my brother for screaming so much. Jason denied it of course since it was me but I kept quiet and let him take the teasing. 


Man, I seem like an awful sister. I cannot continue. I can't think of any other harmless lies I've told.

What skill have you learned in the past year that you are proud of?

Expressing my feelings. It seems elementary that this is something I only learned in my 26th year on this planet. To be more precise, the better lesson I learned is that my feelings matter.

I grew up walking on eggshells, making sure I didn't upset my father. It didn't help much, he was chronically angry about anything and everything.

Until this year I've always followed the lead even if it wasn't what I wanted because what I wanted didn't matter.

I'm not sure when my eureka moment happened but I realized that I do matter and my feelings matter.

Slowly I "stood up" for myself.

"It upsets me when you don't call me back."

"I'm sensitive about _______. Please don't tease me about it."

Maybe I'm only learning this now because I'm surrounded by such great people and have built myself a support system that I've never had before.

I'm grateful to the people in my life and I'm grateful that I learned how to voice myself.

What are your favorite decorative items/pieces of furniture/household features?

This question is just too broad for me, especially since I live in an apartment and I haven't really had a chance to show my decorative skills and flair.

This doesn't stop me from collecting images and ideas for my future home. I have a board on Pinterest dedicated to such things. It's common among men to make fun of pinterest use among females. But if anyone were to look on my Pinterest boards, you'd see that my "Fantasy Wedding" board only has 61 pins compared to my 303 pins on "Future Home Ideas".

Most of these pins are ideas that are functional or ergonomic is some way. For instance:

Slide out doors for the kitchen for babies/pets.

Hidden cabinet for toilet cleaning supplies because I hate having the plunger just sitting out. 

Sometimes the pins are inspirational and serve as a reminder of a feature that I hope to create one day. 

I would like to have a family movie night outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather. 

This isn't the style I would like my house to be in but I love the  open doors and the feeling it brings to the home. 

Until I am able to build my home, I'll continue to pin and pine over on Pinterest.

Summertime favorite recipe

Who doesn't love to BBQ in the summertime? I love grilled meat, veggies, cool drinks and potato salad! I love potato salad but I haven't had any good potato salad in such a long time that I've sworn it off. It shouldn't be too hard to make a good potato salad, but yet people screw it up. Never use miracle whip, that is disgusting. You have to use a little bit of mustard but not so much that your potato salad is yellow. And the potatoes need to be cooked all the way through but not be mushy either. Store bought potato salad is even worse. One day I will eat some good potato salad again but in the meantime, I'll just make this grilled potato salad that I found via Serious Eats . 

I made it for Memorial Day and it was a hit. The Vidalia onions caramelized so beautifully. 

I only made a couple of changes. I forgot to add the thyme and I couldn't find sherry vinegar so I just substituted balsamic vinegar. Oh, and the potatoes. I used Idaho potatoes because I oops'd.

Despite the changes, it still turned out well. It even reheated well the next day too. 

Come up with a new Constitutional Amendment

Members of Congress live in a bubble. It's time to pop that bubble. If I could come up with a new constitutional amendment, I would propose a few changes. First I would implement a salary cap that keeps up with inflation along. Then I would limit terms, and monitor their finances.

I'm not sure what the cap should be at though. Minimum wage would be too extreme. No one is able to make a living off of minimum wage but congress members shouldn't be making $165,000 a year either. According to a report from 2008, the average congress member was paid $165,200. That is insane. I can't imagine why they need so much money to pass laws. Keep the cap low enough to deter people from running for office just for the money but high enough that people will not be tempted with bribes.

Too many congress members stay for life. I think this is bad. It stalls progression. The members are not current with life in America. Term limits would prevent the stale issue.

In addition, their finances need to be monitored so that they do not profit from insider knowledge and use that knowledge on the stock market. They also won't be able to accept any campaign contributions either. Everyone gets a fixed amount they are allowed to spend. No more buying votes.

Being a Congress member should be about serving the people but instead its become about serving their own needs or serving the needs of their friends.

What did people tease you about growing up?

What didn't people tease me about when I was growing up? I was teased about everything under the sun, my "Chinese eyes", my "accent", my Bennett hips and butt, my boobs, pretty much everything. 

Usually the racist teasing came from my classmates and peers. The appearance taunts came from family. At first, any kind of teasing would upset me. But as I grew older, the teasing affected me less and less. I developed a "thick skin"as my father would say. I can handle most any kind of teasing now. If someone teases me about something I am sensitive about, I know how to speak up to discourage it. 

My thick skin enables me to better "hang" with the boys since teasing is commonplace. But also because I used to be sensitive about teasing, I know there are certain subjects to stay away from. Teasing about things that people cannot control is cruel. A good instance is body appearance. People cannot control the shape of their eyes or if they developed early. Teasing about a grammar slip up is okay, as long as it's not excessive. 

There is good teasing and bad teasing that can cause low self-esteem and social anxiety. Be aware of which one you're employing before you silently hurt someone. 

Who are your role models?

Pat Stuckart is the first person that comes to mind. He is a friend I met at a Charleston photo group. Once a month, a small group of photographers met at a local greek restaurant where we showed our photos on a projector. There was always an optional theme. I loved this group. It forced me to take some photos just so I would have something to show every month. But I also loved the company of my fellow photographers, Pat especially.

Pat always has a smile on his face and a joke ready. No matter what was going on in his life, he'd face it straight in the eye and make a joke out of it. He's been undergoing cancer treatments for the past couple of years and I have been moved by his courage and ability to see the positives no matter what.

Some people use humor to avoid reality, but Pat uses humor to reconstruct his reality into something beautiful and fun. For that, he is one of my role models and above all, a friend. I love you Pat and I am so blessed to have you in my life.

What gives you nightmares?

The antagonist of my nightmares used to be my father. He was controlling, violent, angry, and emotionally abusive. Lately he has been replaced with my ex-husband. Although there was a lot of love in my marriage, he also emotionally manipulated me which I didn't realize until after we split up. 

Luckily, I haven't had any nightmares about him lately. 

My last nightmare involved getting eaten by sharks. I was underwater and saw a shark swallow another shark whole and then swim towards me with it's mouth wide open. In dream world, I thought that if I screamed (underwater) that it would scare away the shark. It didn't work. The shark's mouth closed in on me and I woke up screaming. At the time it was terrifying, but now I laugh at it. 

I will gladly have shark nightmares if I had a choice. 

With what fictional character (book, movie, TV, etc.) do you most identify? Why?

The first character that comes to mind is Peggy Olson from Mad Men. I'm still on season two though. So, I only identify with Peggy Olson from that season (disclaimer in case her character changes later on).

Mad Men is a drama set in the 60's about an advertising agency on Madison Ave. Peggy started as a receptionist but has slowly crawled up to being a copywriter with her own office.

Peggy's character has progressed throughout the show and that is what I identify with the most.

At first, her fashion tastes were very frumpy and also childlike. If I am not careful with my fashion choices, I can easily look frumpy. Although Peggy and I have different reasons for changing our appearances, we both have changed for the better. Peggy changes her appearance so that she will be taken more seriously at work. Fashion for me, is fun. I like paying attention to style blogs and dressing myself well. Although I am 26, almost 27, it's taken me a long time to establish what my style is. When I was younger, I haphazardly wore clothing, trying to follow trends and fads even though they didn't work for me. It made shopping with my mom a nightmare, we both hated it. Now that I'm older, I know myself more and dress for me rather than following trends.

Another reason I connect with Peggy is that she's innovator. She's the only female in her profession and she has to work hard to be taken seriously but at the same time, she doesn't apologize for her sex. In one episode, she asks her boss for the recently vacated office and he gives it to her even though her seniority isn't as established as her male peers but since she asked for it, it was given to her. Her boss respected how forward she was and mentioned to her that her coworkers would never have had the courage to ask for that office and for that, she deserves it.

Although Peggy and I live in different times and in different professions, I feel as if I have to work harder than my male peers.

I can't wait to see how Peggy continues to transform in later seasons.