I celebrate like two or three holidays a year. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The reason? My family gets together for those and does the standard stuff. Costumes and candy, turkey and fixings, maybe more turkey and fixings with a side of gifts.
I offered the short answer because outside of those three, there are tons of holidays, and the question wasn’t the colloquial “the Holidays”. So, I chose to interpret the question in a much more general sense, because I don’t do anything special to observe or celebrate the vast majority of holidays.
There’s a lot of work depending on which ones a person chooses to celebrate, and I don’t have it in me to add that kind of effort into my annual routine.
Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.
I’ll be honest, it took me a bit to think through this prompt. I, personally, alone, have not had any baking or cooking fails that I would count as “epic”.
I do, however, have one with my siblings for a family holiday meal.
Some brief background: while my brother has not been diagnosed (to my knowledge) with any sort of gluten sensitivity, he has noted that he feels better when he doesn’t have any gluten products and made the choice to go gluten free.
So, every family meal we have typically has some gluten free component, which in general is easier than you think. This has been going on for several years at this point and is part of my family’s new normal.
One Thanksgiving my sister and I were trying to follow an instant pot mac n cheese recipe using gluten free rice-based macaroni. She said she had made it before, and I had no reason to doubt her, so I followed her lead.
We measured everything out, and placed the pasta and liquids (I think it was a combination of water and milk, but I could be misremembering the milk part) into the instant pot. She hit some buttons, started the timer, and went to work on some other dishes while we waited.
It can’t have been more than 10 minutes, MAYBE 15 at the most, and the noodles should have been done and ready for us to add the sauce ingredients. Unfortunately, we made a mistake somewhere, and when my sister went to vent the instant pot it started spitting a milky liquid (maybe that’s why I thought milk was involved) which caused us to panic a little and carefully throw a towel over it to prevent the hot liquid from getting everywhere.
As soon as the spitting stopped, we opened the lid. The pasta was still swimming in water. My sister said it should be fine and that we just needed to drain them, so she got a large spoon to try and get some out to check that the noodles were cooked appropriately before moving to the sink. To our horrible surprise we found that the noodles basically collapsed and rapidly turned into a mush. My sister quickly dug in to see if she could find any noodles that survived, but she only made it worse. She mixed the rice pasta macaroni too much, which in its current state didn’t take much at all, and the whole thing turned into a hot, sticky, homogeneous mass.
We looked at each other in mild shock and disbelief before we started laughing at the absolute disaster. We immediately wrote it off as a failure and played with it for a couple seconds. I tried poking it with my finger and it was almost like Oobleck the way it stuck to me.
As it cooled down and solidified more, I noticed the change in firmness and bounciness was almost like what I had seen in those videos of people making mochi. Then it dawned on me why. Mochi is made with rice flour, and as I had mentioned earlier the box of gluten free pasta was rice based.
Sometimes I wonder about how long it takes, how old I need to be, to learn valuable lessons that others seemed to grasp well before I did. When I look to them, I also wonder if they ever really learned them in the first place or if they were naturally adept and have no idea what it would mean to “learn” those lessons.
I almost thought about titling this post around self-respect and image instead of self-importance, but I decided against it on account of perspective.
As kids, as teenagers, and even as adults, we often worry about what others think of us. What we wear, what we say, how we hold ourselves in the company of others. We get so in our own heads about all of it. And yet, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. For myself, part of me always kind of knew this, but I still couldn’t get over it.
Where I’m trying to go with all of this is to say that the lesson I wish I had learned earlier in life is to stop worrying about others perception of me, and to stop letting it affect my self-worth, self-importance, and self-esteem. Something that helped make this click is a 2-minute clip from a streamer by the name of Negaoryx who shared it on Twitter (I still refuse to call it X) of a troll in her chat that she chooses not to ignore and instead rips into them about being a piece of shit. To be clear, this persons actions are actually on the other end of the “self-importance” scale/spectrum from where I was at. I had very little self-esteem, where this troll was much more arrogant (and misogynistic, as you’ll see is called out if you watch the clip.) The words that resonated with me most actually come from near the end of the clip.
“…because you think you’re the hero of your own story, but you’re a footnote in everyone else’s.”
Those words, though not directed at me, made me realize that in this great big world, I am nobody. Yet, the same applies to everyone else. It can even go deeper if you stop to think about the fact that there are going to be billions of people in this world who never even know you exist.
So, where the troll is being put down (rightly) for being a misogynistic asshole, her words were almost uplifting to me in several ways. I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me (to a certain extent) because I could just as well be a faceless nobody to them, but I still need to remember that I am not nobody TO MYSELF. The world itself doesn’t revolve around me, but my world is everything around me. There are things I have control over, and things I don’t. It’s not worth the emotional stress of worrying about things I can’t control (other people and their perspectives) and I should only be concerned with what IS in my power to control (how I act and present myself.)
Along with all of the self-worth, -importance, and -esteem comes some amount of humility. Stop putting so much more value into what others think of you than what you think of yourself. Be happy with yourself, and not with who you want everyone else to think you are.
Provided you’re not a misogynistic piece of shit. We just need to be nice to each other.
I’m a sucker for a good burrito. Not the frozen microwavable kinds you get from the store that are usually like 50% tortilla because they don’t have a lot of filling. I’m talking about the kind that risks falling apart or exploding.
They don’t have to be filled with anything crazy. Simple fillings like ground beef and cheese, carnitas and guac, or shredded chicken. As long as those simple fillings are done well and taste great then I’m good, however, I do enjoy a good burrito with interesting fillings like brisket and mac n cheese (again, provided they’re done well.)
Burgers fall into this same general area. With the right toppings/fixings, they’re good. Just don’t go overboard and do that stupid “cheese bomb” shit. I might be getting a little messy from eating a good burger, but I don’t want one that is intentionally made to not be eaten with my hands unless it has no bun (I’ve tried the bunless option at Five Guys before. Not the lettuce wrapped, it’s literally just all your toppings and patties in a foil tray. Makes for a good “salad” of sorts!)
Really, though, anything that is so highly customizable is good in my book.
I do at least a little bit of walking every day (oh hey, post title!)
I’m still sort of waking up as I write this post but to be honest I don’t need to be fully awake to answer a simple question like this.
If there is one thing I could do to help myself be healthier it would actually be to walk more and add jogging/running to my routine. When I worked at a “Big Red Circles” big box store on the overnight shift, I was walking 20,000+ steps every night. I think at one point I was even hitting 32,000+ steps fairly regularly. I walked so much, jogged a little bit, lifted and “threw” truck so often that I actually was in the best shape of my life for about a year. It was great being able to earn my paycheck and get in shape all at once, and it made a nice balance to my very sedentary hobbies. (If I could make the money I am today, or even more, and work out simultaneously, I probably would go back to that.)
Running is not something I do very often at all anymore, though, and I’ve never found joy in running for the sake of running. If it’s part of another activity, like a sport, then I don’t mind it!
Well, not a very thought provoking prompt and response, but that is all I can muster this morning.
Leadership can be such a hard concept for some people to grasp. They can go to all kinds of conferences, attend seminars, read books and still not fully understand what it means to be a leader (and end up just being another “manager”.)
Early on when I first started my current job, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a PMI Symposium (for those unfamiliar, PMI stands for Project Management Institute) and I got to meet with a wide variety of people from different industries. This experience is part of where I got a feel for different leadership styles.
From what I could tell, you could boil down what it means to be a leader into a few key elements. Do I exhibit them? Sometimes. Usually as the situation calls for it.
Some of those elements can be summed up with a simple image I snagged from the Internet.
Okay, so the image says “boss” in place of “manager” but whatever, same difference.
Anyways, the point here is that the leader is connected to and participating in the work versus the manager/boss who is disconnected and just telling people what to do. This may look different depending on circumstances of the work, but the core concept of working alongside the people they lead is what’s important.
Back to the prompt itself, do I see myself as a leader? Sometimes. It’s just a matter of circumstances. If I’m on a project and I own a piece/deliverable/objective that requires me to work with and coordinate people then I end up doing a bit of a mix. I’m not usually a Subject Matter Expert for the work that needs to be done, so it’s not like I get to participate the same way as the leader in the image above, but I’m not just going to tell people what to do and expect results without trying to understand the work they’re doing. I want to work alongside them so I can better assist in the ways I am able to, whether that be in coordination efforts or communications with other people. Whatever it is they need, I try to help.
One of the other things about the image above that I like to point out is that the leader is in front of their people. When I look at that it reminds me that leaders I’ve seen and worked with who stood out are the ones who stand in front to represent and protect the people doing the work. Mind you, one thing that can’t be conveyed in the image is credit. Leaders, in my mind, don’t simply take all the credit for the work that gets down. This is where I like to see myself as a leader (when it’s necessary for me to step into the role) because I fully recognize that if I’m not the one doing the work then I want to lift up the people who ARE.
After all that’s been said, I do want to point out that I’m not the kind of person who enjoys being the center of attention, which is often why I don’t automatically and immediately raise my hand to take on roles of leadership. I’m much more comfortable doing the work because I find it more rewarding and satisfying to learn, understand, and be capable of doing it.
I suppose, after sleeping on this prompt, that I can try to answer, but it’s probably going to be a less inspiring effort. Partly because my favorite word, right now, is probably a bit cliched these days.
Fuck!
Plain and simple. One word that can be used in so many situations with a wide variety of intonations to provide impact and meaning.
I know I’ve seen a lot of social media posts and memes in the last few years or so that cover this. So, I’ll go grab one and drop it here.
Now, to be clear, I don’t use it so frequently that it’s in every sentence I speak (or write, obviously) because I do try to maintain a balance in my vocabulary usage between professionalism and personal. Well, that, and because if I hope to be an okay writer then I need to be able to describe situations in a variety of ways and not use the word “fuck” as some kind of crutch.
Honestly, I haven’t yet thought too much about my evening plans. My usual plans might include a post-work nap.
I do have to finish a 3D print I started, but I should actually be able to run home at lunch and get that mostly squared away before tonight. (I’m hoping it turns out okay and I can finally assemble and paint it. I’ll share a post about it later.)
I have some cleaning to do, some laundry to catch up on, and a new game to play, but I also need to catch up on some reading. Plenty of things to do tonight! Just a matter of what I feel like prioritizing when I get there.
What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?
Unfortunately, there isn’t just one personality trait that trips the red flag alert with me, however, one of the biggest ones for me is deflecting in order to dodge accountability.
For anyone who doesn’t understand what I mean, I’ll explain what that looks like. Buckle up, because this is about to get long. (And I’m keeping things vague on purpose because it’s not entirely my story, but a friends. I can only really share my perspective.)
Someone you know, a friend, fucks up. They admit it to you, but don’t elaborate too much, and talk about trying to do better. They ask for advice, you kindly work with them to develop a loose plan so they have some direction, and off they go. They ARE your friend, after all. Simultaneously, you are talking with the friend who was hurt, who is also withholding information but telling you they don’t mind if you and mutual friends still talk to the friend who fucked up, because they don’t want to cause problems or reciprocate the hurt in some way.
Several months later, you learn some new information from a third party regarding what happened, but you take it with a bit of skepticism because this third party may have been part of the problem. They admit that, in part, they were involved in some situations where your friend was acting suspiciously, to the degree where this third party was your friends focus, but they don’t do anything about it nor make any mention of trying to put off your friend from whatever it is that was going on. They just keep talking about your friend and the things they had seen them do.
So, the red flag has been tripped by the third party about themselves, but you’re still skeptical and willing to give your friend the benefit of the doubt because they’re trying to do better and following the plan you worked out with them.
Given this new development, though, you’re being cautious with your friend. They never did tell you the full story. Until they do, a few more months later.
So, half a year or more has gone by, and your friend finally admits what really happened. They fucked up, but not in the way you thought. They did something that hurt another person, mentally and emotionally, but they don’t see what they did as wrong because in their mind it isn’t the same as what other people do.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there, because you learn it isn’t the first time this has happened. They hurt this same person in the same way multiple times, and claim that the victim (who they are trying to work with and reconcile with) can’t get passed the first time which means they can’t even begin to address the other times, and blames that on the victim.
Now THAT is fucked up!
The sheer disrespect after having previously talked it out and (presumably) working through it the first time, only for it to happen again and again because “they don’t see that they did anything wrong”. The abuser, because that’s what they have now become in your mind, is trying to dodge accountability for their further transgressions towards their victim because the victim is having trouble coming to terms with the first time? That’s not how it works at all. They don’t get to magically render the other times as null and void when what they have effectively done is reset all the work the victim had put in (because obviously to you at this point, the abuser doesn’t appear to have tried at all) and shift the blame.
So, after these new revelations, you quietly simmer. You don’t let the abuser know that you’re pissed. Not yet. They’ve triggered the same red flag as the third party (and so many more.)
You talk things out with some mutual friends, and collectively help and support the victim as you have been on the side this whole time. You realize that all of you had been slowly distancing yourself from the abuser while maintaining daily contact with the victim. Then the day comes where the victim finally opens up and shares their side of everything that transpired.
Now, you and your mutual friends have been respecting the victims wish to continue talking with and helping the abuser (under the pretense that they were actually trying to turn things around) but the day has come to set the record straight and make sure everyone is on the same page. You share what you learned from the third party.
All that information you had been keeping to yourself because of your skepticism and not wanting to unnecessarily stir the pot while people are trying to (presumably) work on themselves for the better? It all comes out. Details are confirmed and corroborated. One of your mutual friends now feels weird about the situation because the abuser had recently reached out to see how they were doing. They hadn’t responded yet, and, now knowing all this, they don’t want to.
You and another mutual friend take it upon yourselves to prepare some confrontational statements (relating solely to how the situation is between you all and the abuser, and not as a way of attacking them on behalf of the victim). You call the abuser out, pointing to the fact that their “progress” isn’t what they had been making it out to be. That they had been lacking in accountability for certain things that they had promised you they were working on, dodging and shifting blame for those things.
Instead of coming clean, they give a rather lengthy, but hollow, apology and then run away.
Technically, the story doesn’t end there. The victim still has things to finish dealing with in regards to their connection with the abuser, but you all are there to help.
As you look back upon the whole situation, and look further back through the years you had known the abuser, you start to see the signs that you should have taken more seriously. The red flags. Complaining about how much effort things take and then shifting attention away from themselves. Giving half hearted attempts to do things that would progress their livelihood to a higher level, and then giving up and blaming something else.
Hopefully, for the future, you can catch these signs as they happen. They may not always be associated to mental and emotional abuse of another friend, but they’re something to keep an eye out for.
Days would be 28 hours long, and I would only work four days a week while still putting in the usual 40 hours of work. I would still work 8am to 5pm, but with the extra four hours in the day it would mean that clocks would go to 14 instead of 12 so that the extra two hours needed to fulfill the four ten-hour work days would be accounted for.
I would be able to sleep a perfect eight hours every night. I would sleep from 13 o’clock in the evening until 7 o’clock in the morning. Combined with my work schedule, this would mean I would have eight hours after work to get things done or have fun. Thursday nights would be game night with my Magic group, and instead of only getting a few hours to play we would get up to five or six.
Working Monday through Thursday for a four day work week would mean I have all day Friday to do whatever I wanted. I could probably pick up streaming again for about six hours on Fridays and then maybe three to four hours a couple nights during the week. I would also spend extra time writing and reading on Friday’s.
Saturday’s and Sunday’s would still be relatively similar to what they are now. Family time, grocery shopping, cleaning and doing laundry, maybe even some meal prepping.
Also, with the added time in the evenings, it would be easier to make a consistent schedule for going to the gym.
Any post-work hours I don’t have specific ideas for how to fill in can be flexible and used to play games or work on more writing. Probably more writing, so I can actually get stuff done.
Well, that’s how I would do it, and although it’s not possible, I can still dream.
The Dragon's Grove 