I’m sure if I had one absolute favorite drink I would probably be trying to drink it every day. Sadly, I don’t. Some kind of come close, but not all drinks are created equal and I have cravings for different flavors all the time.
Soda, as a category, is definitely home to a large number of the drinks I enjoy. Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew Baja Blast, and 1919 Root Beer are the ones I always seem to get.
I also bounce back and forth between soda and bubly. Preferably Lime and Pineapple. I can use those with something like MiO if I really feel like I need a sweet beverage.
If all else fails, or I’ve been working out, the go to is always water. Ice cold. I really should just drink more water in general and cut out the sugary drinks, but such is the choice I’ve made.
Ever have those days where you go through things in a fog of boredom? Not the kind of boredom like you have no energy, but just indifferent energy? The world feels dull and you just plod along. Then you get that chance to spend time with friends or family and suddenly the world comes into sharper focus. Those people who can drag that out of you, they are my favorite people to be around.
My friends that I play Magic: The Gathering with can do that for me. Even though we chat almost daily through messages, things really kick up to high gear when we’re in the same room and playing the game.
My siblings and I have a similar arrangement. Daily group chatting, sharing memes, etc. and then we get together for family time on weekends. Playing games and laughing our asses off at the stupid jokes we come up with.
There’s almost nothing better when it comes to being around your favorite people.
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
I don’t think I’ve ever owned more than 3-5 different pairs of shoes or boots at any one point in time that were in active rotation. I might have more than that right now but several are packed away either for emergencies or gently worn donations because they no longer fit my needs.
Black dress shoes and brown shoes for office work, two different pairs of cross trainers for everyday and gym-specific wear, and a pair of steel toe boots. That’s the general lineup of footwear I keep.
As for designating any as a favorite pair? I don’t know that I could. I’ve never had to retire a pair of shoes or boots and thought about how I was going to miss them, or try to replace them with an identical pair only to be disappointed the new pair didn’t feel the same.
I’ve had some shoes that lasted only six months, and others I managed to wear for many years. In fact, the black pair of Asics I have is probably the same pair I’ve had for the last five years unless I replaced them with an identical pair. In either case, those are probably the closest I could get to having a favorite pair. If it’s truly the same pair as I had in 2019 then those ones went with me to Colorado and California (mountain hiking in the former, San Diego for TwitchCon in the latter) so they’ve seen some serious wear.
Aside from that, I honestly cannot think of a specific pair of shoes that I could figuratively cry over because I loved them so much. I’m basically a shoe heathen. They’re just shoes.
I struggled to come up with a solid example for this prompt. My mind kept thinking “the best” and not “one of the best” which threw me off.
Since it doesn’t have to be the absolute BEST gift I ever received, I think I can manage.
To establish some context, my younger brother and his family have an orange cat named Paul. I am one of Paul’s favorite humans. Over the last several years he has taken to jumping from the ground up to my shoulders where he will perch for a long time, sometimes even just laying across my shoulders and sleeping.
This past Christmas I received a very amusing and thoughtful gift from my older brother. He found one of those neck pillows that was designed to look like an orange cat, and relatively close to looking like Paul.
When I pulled it out of the gift wrapping it only took me a second to realize exactly what it was I was looking at before I burst out laughing. This got everyone else to look at the neck pillow in my hands and they, too, quickly realized what it signified. So I put it around my neck and wore it the rest of the day.
Suffice to say, Paul was jealous. I tried to put him on the pillow to see what he would do and he didn’t seem too thrilled.
When I came back the next day, he was very happy and possessive of my shoulders.
On the whole, my budgeting sucks, simple as that, but I still have some sort of method to follow.
To start with, I have a spreadsheet that I put all my numbers into for tracking, and I keep it up to date almost daily. In this age of technology, it’s super easy to do with my phone. I can access my bank, credit cards, Paypal, Venmo, etc. so that I can keep tabs on any new transactions. Then I also have access to my spreadsheet through my phone, so it’s just as easy to bounce between the apps.
Each bill or monthly charge is tracked as a line item, and I keep track of each of their relative due dates next to them. Those are the first two columns, and I freeze them in place for scrolling for the next part. The rest of the columns have the Pay Dates for the year and the anticipated amount earned on that check. Then I go through each bill and add the amount due for each pay check that will be closest in date before the bill is due. Everything gets calculated at the bottom, and I have line items for Food/Groceries, Gas, and Savings. Those last three are more fluid because there will be weeks I don’t need to drive as much, or I have extra grocery money because I didn’t need to spend extra on something like bulk laundry detergent. This is where I say my budgeting sucks. Because I don’t do a good job with having the extra money that I don’t ultimately put into savings. I take out cash for the food and gas to try and limit myself, but I will sometimes go over or find myself in a situation where I need to pay for something that I can’t use cash for, so it ends up on the credit card (because the bank account would overdraw otherwise.)
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
Honestly, no. And before anyone figuratively jumps down my throat let me explain.
The first entry of the Dictionary.com definition of “patriot” is “a person who loves, supports, and defends their country and its interests with devotion.”
If you were to dissect that definition into discernable criteria then I would only partially represent it. Then again, pieces of that criteria would also be subjective based on someone else’s values and logic.
If I were to take the word “country” out of the definition and replace it with “community” then I might fit more criteria.
Unfortunately, as things stand today, regardless of politics, our country is kind of fucked. We’re fortunate it isn’t worse (no matter what anyone else says) but we could be so much better.
All that being said, the second part of the prompt asks what being patriotic means to me. If I take THAT piece and run with it then I’m left with my own subjective values to define patriotism within the realm of ‘me’.
For me, just “sticking to my values” isn’t enough. I would want to look at the world around me and see that what I’m doing is having a positive impact. To recognize that it isn’t just me in this world, and that while I might be walking a different path in life, I won’t get through life alone. None of us will. We don’t think about it enough that someone, somewhere designed the smartphone I’m using to type this up. Someone else had to make it. Yet another person had to participate in its delivery. When I think about things from that perspective, I don’t automatically apply the word “patriotism” to it but it still feels like that’s what it should be. Love and support the people around you, and the people around them, and so on.
Nice try Feds! You won’t catch me admitting to something I may or may not have done illegally!
Alright, jokes aside, I’m sure there are some laws I broke unintentionally just like anyone else. Like speeding. Sometimes you find yourself going over the speed limit and realize you need to sloooooow dooooooown. Funny enough about those times, it is generally acceptable that you can go up to 5 mph OVER the speed limit and the police or highway patrol won’t stop you. At least, that’s the case here. Still, a lot of people will see a police cruiser and slow down to the speed limit anyways.
I couldn’t say if there are other instances of unintentional lawbreaking, because if I was aware of it having happened then I would assume that means I know what’s against the law in the first place, like trespassing, jaywalking, etc.
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
This must be like one of those jokes I used to see on social media, like “that’s the name of my next emo band” or “that’s the name of my sex tape”, something like that?
I never got into the habit of making those kinds of jokes or thinking about my life in the context of “name of my next whatever” so I have no idea how I would give an answer.
Let’s name my biography Active Mediocrity.
Why? I don’t know, because my life is mostly unremarkable and I semi-actively maintain a boring and mediocre lifestyle? That’s the best I’ve got at the moment.
Maybe I should ask my friends.
(Also, Active Mediocrity sounds like a good band name, or at least an album. I looked it up, nothing in the top handful of search results for it being used as a name.)
Well, this is going to be a short answer because to be perfectly honest, I don’t really know! When I was born, my parents were roughly the same age as I am now, so Dad was likely working and Mom was taking care of me and my two older siblings.
My parents were the tail end of the good old American Dream. Dad was still in the military but in the Reserves, so he was also working in his first non-military job as I understand it. Mom was the homemaker and never took on another job except raising us kids. Other than that, I couldn’t say.
If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?
I read this prompt and my first thought was how to cause a lot of chaos with changing “gravity” or the laws of physics, or even the law of equivalent exchange. (Full Metal Alchemist, anyone?)
I let it sit and here I am nearing the end of the day and I don’t have a solid answer even though I read the prompt shortly after midnight when the new one was presented.
The largest problem with why I couldn’t think of any law to change is because I’m not sure I’m educated enough on what laws we ACTUALLY HAVE. I could just as easily pick a law pertaining to major current events in our world, but I don’t want this blog turning political.
Maybe I would just change one of those antiquated and silly laws that were very specific about something. Like that tree that has its own land rights and the city or state can’t do anything to it. I wouldn’t change that exact one because I think it’s amusing that a tree (and actually it’s the tree’s offspring now) that owns the land it grows on. You get the idea. Something like “no hats on Tuesdays in August” or some equally bad law.
The Dragon's Grove 