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.
Everyone has ideas on how they would like to have unique things in their home. I’m no exception. I’ve already talked about the ideal location for where I would like to live, and the ideal office type arrangement, in previous posts. Now I can go through the rest of the house!
I’m not entirely certain I would want some absolutely massive mansion, but depending on the “sum of its parts” it might just turn out that way. The reason I wouldn’t want such a large house is because of the need to clean it. I’m not made of money and can shell out for a cleaning service, but I guess if I had the money for this dream home then I probably have the money for the service.
Anyways, let’s dive in!
The entryway to the home would have a nice open space with a large closet for guests to hang coats, and a couple of chairs or a bench that people can use to sit on when they need to get their shoes on. Oh, and a shoe cubby. Can’t forget the shoe cubby. There would be stairs on one side that go up and stairs on the other side that go down. Not sure of the exact layout or design there but you probably get the idea. Then a couple hallways that branch off.
The kitchen and dining room would share a partially open layout somewhere in the middle of the house down the hall directly ahead of the entryway. A simple living room would be next to that space, and somewhere between the two would be a way to the backyard patio.
The backyard patio would almost be like a large three-season covered space. The walls would be similar to those garages that have the two layer doors where there is an interior one that’s a screen. There would be a section of the patio that is setting up for cooking/grilling with a few different implements. A standard grill, a big flat top, and a smoker to start. There would also be some seating and small tables.
Back inside the house again, the upstairs would have bedrooms with a couple of bathrooms, one of which is in the master suite. The master suite would also be connected to that really cool two story library, which would also be connected at the first floor through the kitchen.
Downstairs would be a large entertaining space with a secondary office for streaming, because honestly if I have the kind of money for this dream house then I probably can afford to stream for fun more. The main area of the downstairs would have all of the tabletop gaming space for my friends and I to play D&D or whatever else (probably Frosthaven, which we still need to start.)
Somewhere in the mix of all of this house would be a fun slide or something, and a couple of secret rooms or passages. That would just be amazing.
Well, I’ll stop there with the dreaming because otherwise I could probably just go on writing about it for ages, and I’ve already tried to keep myself from getting TOO detailed. So that is that. Just going to leave it there for now.
I feel like this prompt approaches the idea too simplistically. Personally, if I’m getting amazing news it would really depend on the kind of news it is to determine what I would do first.
If the news I got was something along the lines of winning tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars from the lottery then I already have a plan thought out, and it wouldn’t involve telling anyone close to me right away. If I found out I was going to be a father (which isn’t likely to ever happen under current circumstances) then I would probably also consider the ramifications of how I got to that place in my life, like if it was an accidental or intentional pregnancy. Do you see where I’m going with all of this?
You can’t just ask people something so vague and open ended without expecting a variety of answers. Unless, of course, someone is at a point in their life where there is literally only one possible thing at that given point in time that would qualify as “great, amazingly fantastic news”. But really, how likely is that?
To be honest, I don’t even know what kind of news I could receive right now that would even be remotely considered to be THAT good, but I can tell you that one of the first things I would do (but maybe not the FIRST first thing, just one of them) is write a post here about it. Unless I won the lottery, because I’m not opening up that Pandora’s Box HERE.
Thankfully the prompt is automatically at the top of the post or else I would feel the need to start with “Nobody panic, I’m not losing interest in a CURRENT hobby.”
Now, to be honest, I don’t have an exact answer because I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but yes there are definitely activities I’ve grown out of over the years. As a kid, I used to love riding my bike all over the place, playing with LEGOs for hours, probably some other things that kids typically lose interest in as they get older. Moving the clock forward to college, there used to be more alcohol in my life. More parties with friends. Not anymore, though, because I had a great (negative) role model about alcohol and I came to realize that I didn’t like the way it made me feel. All of those things are activities or hobbies I outgrew or lost interest in, although I really should consider getting a bicycle again and just riding the bike trail that loops around my city.
Funny enough, there is one hobby that I “outgrew” that ended up coming back. Pokémon cards. Unfortunately, when you’re a kid you don’t have a disposable income, so I couldn’t feed that cardboard crack addiction of buying booster packs. I didn’t come back to the game until more than 20 years later when my niece and nephews started to get into it. I don’t actively buy packs for that game these days, so I guess I still sort of outgrew it, however I do collect and play Magic: The Gathering instead so I would say I came back to the hobby eventually. Just in a different way.
The Dragon's Grove 