Are you looking for inspiration? Move along my friend because today is all about my no-thanks list.
Feel like sharing a few of your ‘things I won’t do’? Then please, stay awhile!
(Thanks Katie for the inspiration)
1. I don’t remember the last time I ironed a piece of clothing. According to my husband I have many skills but neatly pressing tops and pants is not one of them. Apparently when I iron, even at my tortoise-slow pace, it looks like I used a hot rock. I don’t care if clothing is wrinkly and I don’t have the patience to learn how to properly brandish the hot weapon of finger-burning torture.
2. I do not know how to turn on the BBQ. I’ve actually never used a BBQ. Despite being responsible for all the meal and snack preparation in our house I am not even a grill newbie. It’s possibly my fear of burning myself or blowing up the BBQ (I’m ridiculously clumsy) but it might also be my reluctance to take total control over all aspects of cooking. Either way I have no interest in being a grill queen.
3. Please just send me an email. We have a home phone that we rarely use and I rarely pick it up for several reasons: (a) despite having three portable phones I’m constantly losing track of all of them (b) the sight of me with a phone in my hand is the universal cue to my children to start yelling and/or fighting (c) I have three small people in my house who talk all day long and even by 9 am I’m kind of already talked out.
4. I have not read the Harry Potter series. Or Twilight. Or the Hunger Games. Or Fifty Shades of Grey. If there is a book band wagon I waved it on by. A critically acclaimed award winning novel? Nope, haven’t read that one either. Suggested by Oprah? Then I probably missed it. I read constantly but it’s purely for escapist purposes.
5. I live in yoga pants and jeans. It’s such a rare occurrence that I wear anything else that when I do my kids automatically ask where I’m going. In high school I wore jeans and my tops were usually grey, blue, or black. In my 20s I branched out to include a lot more colour in my wardrobe but I live for comfort. I blame 10 years of competitive horseback riding; comfy breeches and cotton T-shirts are a hard habit to break. If it’s trendy or remotely uncomfortable then you won’t find it in my closet.
6. I have no tolerance for anything scary or full of suspense. Scary movies or TV shows with cliffhangers leave me reaching for the off button. I can’t watch CSI or any mystery show and the thought of a movie where there’s screaming and something lurking around the corner makes me break out in a cold sweat. I have a ridiculously sensitive startle reflex and no interest in triggering it.
7. My thumbs are black. I love the look of a well-tended, flourishing garden but have no interest in weeding or gardening because as far as I’m concerned it’s outside housework. There are two plants in my house: one is a many years old cactus that I somehow manage to bring back from the brink of death every few months (either too much or too little water) and the other is a plant that was a house warming gift when we moved two years ago. We (friends and family included) are amazed that it’s survived as long as it has. I have already started teaching my kids how to pick the weeds out between patio stones and the plants in our garden in hopes that one day I won’t have don my gardening gloves (once I find them and dust them off).
8. I will not take my kids to parking lot ‘fairs’. I use the term fair loosely because as far as I’m concerned if there’s no grass or animals or agricultural events then it’s not a fair but a parking lot midway. It’s possible my 6 year old informed his teacher that these parking lot ‘fairs’ are tacky. I have no idea where he got that idea (hangs head sheepishly).
9. I will not dye my hair. I had highlights once (when I was 18) but it was the first and last time I dyed my hair. I don’t have the patience (or interest) to sit in the salon once a month to keep up with my rapidly growing hair and living through my roots growing out once was enough to turn me off the hair dying experience.
10. I am not a team player. Despite repeated attempts I have come to realize that team sports are not for me. Running as a group is fine because it’s just company and not competition. Classes at the gym and exercising with friends is okay too because it’s motivating. As long as we don’t have to work together for an end result I’m happy to sweat with you.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this list! Laughing at so many of them. I so regret ever highlighting my hair again. Ugh.
I could even get it done for free now (my MIL is a stylist) but (adding #11 to the list) I never sit still, which would make a long hair dressing appointment nearly impossible for me to get through.
I’m torn. You haven’t read HP but you aren’t a team player, can we still be friends? Maybe the 2 cancel each other out. I’m going to go with that.
The books are on the firefighter’s bookshelf and ready for us to read together. That’s gotta count for something, right?
oh.my.word. Other than the fact that I DO like mystery thrillers (but not scary make me jump films) and am now tempted to read the Hunger Games (cause I liked the first movie and the sequel won’t be out for like…ever!) I could have written this list. Up there in one of my top four or five LEAST favorite things to do is sit at the hair dresser. I’ve never met anyone else who doesn’t think I’m nuts!! This just made my day!
I will lay still for a massage but that’s about it! I’d consider sitting for a head massage but definitely not for extending hair-doing
Yes, gardening is just outdoor housework that you can’t control. I have no interest in it either, flowering shrubbery is the only thing I can handle.
It’s even harder to manage than inside housework because Mother Nature is way more unpredictable and messier than my kids. Hard to imagine
I love this list Sara! It could almost be my list. I am known to watch scary movies with my eyes closed and my hands over my ears, while asking if it is safe to look. Of course, my husband never answers, which means I occasionally glimpse something I’d rather not see. Also, I haven’t jumped on any of the pop fiction trends, but sometimes I am tempted. Team sports? No. Never. But, I do enjoy participating in group activities, like my reading group at the library.
My son cared about wrinkles and did all of his own ironing when he was in high school. We don’t even own a grill right now, but if we did, I wouldn’t have a clue. Gardening – I can’t grow a thing and I am waiting for the lawn guy to pull the weeds (I won’t poison the ground with fertilizers and weed killers). I live in jeans, t-shirts and wrinkly tops. I used to dye my hair years ago, but I don’t anymore and I haven’t seen a salon in a year. I know what you mean about parking lot fairs – no thanks!
Fun post!
It’s good to know I’m not alone
I think I should follow it up with a ’10 things I love to do’ post…some surprising things make the list!
I’m with you on the dying (tried it, currently growing it out), ironing, phone, anything scary, and black thumb. And I do not run, in groups, competetively, or otherwise. So there.
Well I don’t run at all right now so clearly I need to work on that!! I also don’t do brave things, like move to a new country…think I’d what I’m missing out on