Quirks Tag

Warning: This post is long, self-centered, opinionated at times, and will most likely be considered lame by my husband (he gives his unsolicited two cents on my posts).



So I got my first tag a while ago and I started this post. I was supposed to talk about 6 things, but I keep thinking about these quirks posts I had read and so I'm going to do that instead. And I came up with more than 6, so I guess that means I'm pretty quirky.



1) I cannot get over the matchy matchy 80's. I love matching my accessories, makeup and on a good day, shoes to my outfits (when I wear make-up and accessories, which happens less and less these days). At least I'm not still wearing two pairs of colored socks with Keds. I've thought about why I get such a kick out of matching and I am going to blame it on my 6th grade teacher. Her daily uniform was an assortment of mix and match essentials. Solid colored tee shirts, with solid colored pants, jeans or jean skirts. Then she had all these thick gross-grain ribbons she used as belts with a big bow tied in the front and matching Sam & Libby shoes (various colored flats with a bow at the front, Mervyn's had the knock off brand Jeff & Kristies -- those were the ones I had in black and cream). Anyway, I thought she had the cutest sense of style and loved how everything coordinated, so I wrote down what she was wearing every single day in the back of my journal. Crazy, I know. Especially because there really wasn't that much variety. Now that I think about it, maybe she's to blame for my boring daily uniform of a solid colored shirt with solid pants. At least there is usually some cute matching jewelry to go with it, and eyeshadow on a good day! -- I also LOVE themes and matching for parties, lessons, decorating, etc.



2) I am a picky dishwasher. I need rubber gloves. I got that from my mom. It does save your hands, especially in dry Colorado weather. It's also a lot less disgusting when it comes to touching dirty dishes. I must have one of those scrubbing wands with the soap in it and the sponge on the end. When I'm at other people's houses and they don't have one of those I just don't even know where to begin. And I am anal about what gets put into the dishwasher. Everything I put in there is pretty much clean already, because I don't trust it to get the gunk off, so I do it myself. And none of the prep. dishes get put in. I always wash big bowls, knives, spatulas, cutting boards, pans, measuring cups, etc. by hand. I know I'll need them again before it gets run. I have thought that if I put all that stuff in, I'd run it more, so then it might be clean if I need it, but I still can't do it. I hate needing something and realizing it's dirty in the dishwasher, so I just wash it by hand so it's ready for the next time. We only run our dishwasher about twice a week. And I am an air-dry kind of girl. I know lots of people think it still looks like your dishes aren't done if they are sitting out air drying, but that's how I grew up and it doesn't bother me at all. I know they're clean.

3) Bad grammar/spelling, strong Utah accents and improper praying practices really get to me. Not to say I'm perfect at grammar, but I can't handle blatant things like, "It's broke," "acrost" (instead of across - seriously people where is this t coming from? It's not a past tense verb), "we was," pluralizing things that shouldn't be, like "the girlses room" instead of the girls' room, "exspecially," "supposebly," etc. Also, I just do not understand how all the vowels in Utah got assigned new sounds. A long "a" became a short "e", and a long "e" became a short "i". For instance, "I got a great deal at the sale," would be pronounced, "I got a great dill at the sell." There is also this strange, almost British sounding "a" sound that tends to come from people in Southern Utah County, in words like ham and plan. I'm sorry to all my Utah friends. I still love you, and I don't know why I find other accents to be so much more endearing than the Utah accent.

Now, about the praying. I hope I don't get struck down for being so critical, but here goes. First of all, I don't like it when people ask for volunteers to pray. My dad told me the handbook or a general authority said that you're not supposed to do that. No matter what, it always makes for an awkward, guilt-filled silence in which someone finally reluctantly says, "I'll do it." Just ask someone to say it. Usually, people are more than happy to pray, if you just ask. Although, Nate now assigns the prayers for sacrament meeting and I have been surprised how many people don't want to do it. I guess some people get really nervous. I'd rather they just admit that then come up with the crazy excuses he's gotten. For me, praying in public is really no big deal, so I'm not very sympathetic. I also don't like it when people assign prayers as a form of punishment. "Well, Jane was late for class, so she gets to say the prayer." Seriously, since when is praying a bad thing that we have to do?




Sorry, I'm almost done on this rant. When praying for a group, you're supposed to use plurals. And people need to teach their kids the proper lingo. It's "we thank thee" or "we're thankful for", not "thank you" or "we're thankthee for." And lastly, only end "in the name of thy son" if you are praying. Otherwise, you're not talking to Heavenly Father, and Christ isn't the son of whoever you are talking to. Plus, then I'll have to listen to my husband lean over and whisper, "He's not my son," for the thousandth time.

4) I am not a good driver. I hate driving and usually let someone else drive (even if it's my car) whenever possible. I have lots of nightmares about driving and I am convinced a car wreck will be the death of me (but I need to quit saying that or it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy). I especially have an intense fear of turning left when I'm driving. It stems from getting in an accident doing that maneuver when I was practicing the night before I was supposed to go take my driving test. Really busy streets are the worst. If I know I'm going to one of those places sometimes I get nervous hours in advance. I've been known to pray about it, wait forever, or go way out of my way and do a u-turn.

5) Some of my senses are abnormally strong. I have a very sensitive sense of smell. I think this also contributes to my super sensitive and discerning palate. I can pick flavors out of things like nobody's business. Also, if I've been asleep and then I get awoken, then I have what Nate and I have named, "super-sonic hearing." I can fall asleep with the TV on, wake up 10 minutes later and it seems like it is totally blaring. I am known to get upset and sometimes yell in these situations.

6)I love to sing LOUD in sacrament meeting. Especially if my voice sounds good that day. More than once people have turned around and looked at me. I just feel like I'm getting more out of my worship if I sing loud, plus, I hate it when the congregation doesn't sound loud, so I just do my part!

7) When eating multi-colored candies, I have a system. First, I set aside one of each color and save them for last. Then I even the rest out in an orderly fashion (so if there are 5 blues, 4 reds, 2 yellows and 1 green, I'd eat the blue down to 4, then the blue and red down to 2, then all of them down to 1). Then when I'm left with one of each color, I eat them in order of my least favorite color to my favorite color, saving the best for last (or flavor, if the flavors are different). I also eat around a sandwich, piece of pizza, cake, cookie, etc, saving the best bite for last. But most people do that, right?

So now you know WAY more than you probably ever wanted to about the inner workings of my mind. I'm sure there are many more quirks that I just didn't think of. I would love to hear the quirks of anyone who reads this. Consider yourself tagged.