Missed Opportunity?

Lately my greatest fear regarding my own potential as a writer is the possibility of a past missed opportunity during College. I was and am so grateful to have parents who were willing to pay for my college costs…from the books to the beer. At the time it seemed reasonable and prudent to major in Accounting. I didn’t simply open the College Catalog to a random page and point. Instead this decision was agreed upon by all interested parties upon examination of the job market and discussion of my stellar math skills. As it would turn out, math is definitely not the same thing as accounting. I impart this wisdom to potential students all the time. Just because something has to do with numbers, that does NOT make it math. Also turns out that not only is accounting not like math, I really don’t even like it. For me, on a scale of Bees to Disney, Accounting falls only slightly above bees.


The biggest deterrent to College Ann deciding to major in something like English or Writing at UK was that College Ann didn’t even enjoy writing! She hated papers and essays and such. I assume this is because when I am forced to do something then the enjoyment gets subsequently sucked out. Cristy was telling me today that she is not looking forward to her Literature Class because when she is TOLD to read something her attitude wants to go the way mine did when I was forced to practice piano. But I don’t waannaaaaaaaaaaaaaa read it!!!

To make matters worse, I didn’t plan on my future self utilizing the knowledge I was learning in my few English and Composition classes. So while I did enjoy reading, grammar and analyzing stories and Shakespeare, a lot of that knowledge seems to have been filed in the “it’s ok to forget later” part of my brain. You know, where I put the stuff like chemistry and Football rules.

Sometimes I will be reading blogs about writing and things like “sentence structure” or “ethos” will come up and I start thinking “do I even remember what that is and if so am I doing it all wrong!?” Terrifying. Does it really matter though? Is it possible that it could turn out to be a good thing that I don’t have to conform to certain models or expectations? Is it possible that people outside of academia might feel my writing more relatable if it isn’t influenced by academic law? Was it truly a missed opportunity? Only time will tell; but I am willing to find out. I am willing to put effort in and to practice, read and study things on my own to find my own voice as a writer.

Regardless, the Income Statement route I ended up taking did bring me where I am now. From Auditor to General Accounting to Recruiting to Admissions/sales to wanting to be out of Sales – along that journey I have made friends, learned things, changed and grown as a person. You can never go back and change your life. And as I told my cousin yesterday: you wont ever have a perfect life but you should never stop striving to make it so.

Ridiculous Pinterest Ideas

I love Pinterest, really I do.  But sometimes I see things pinned on there that lead me to the conclusion that the pinner just didn't really think it through.  You guys, sometimes something might seem like a good idea, and it just isn't.  Here is a random sampling for your enjoyment. 

 1. Hope all you are storing is pillows because that little plastic lip isn’t going to hold much else!!  Ok plus why is this garage so tall?

2. Initials instead of tags on gifts. This is such a great idea…unless you have more than one person in your family with the same initial, as 98% of families do…



 3. So you drop the yogurt in little dots on a tray, freeze them and then have these cute yogurt bites to serve!!  Until they melt 10 minutes later and then you have just served your guests a giant bowl of yogurt.

 4. This is insane!!  First of all if that magnet has a loose hold then I am certainly going to knock the wrong knife off while reaching for the right one and that right there seems to be the number one best way to lose a toe.  OR if they are attached with a strong magnet then I am going to have to tug at that knife to get it off of there and then when it finally loosens and the knife and my arm go flying this seems to be the second best way to lose a toe…or a dog.

5. Place water with food color in a balloon in the freezer to freeze, right?  Then they will come out shaped like whatever they are laying against, not these marbles, right?  And what kid ever even said "I want a clown, a trampoline and some medium sized colored ice marbles at my birthday party."

6. This is wrong on so many levels.  First of all, do you even know how fragile glass Christmas tree ornaments are!?  This hostess is going to have 9 brown drink stains all over her carpet and multiple guests with hand lesions. And then also....also! no one would be able to put these wobbly globes down all night until they were completely done with the last drop.  What if they don’t like it for God’s sake!? 

7. Anyone who has ever made cookies with cookie cutters knows that this will yield about 7 cute patchy colored cookies as shown, and then roughly 25 dull brown cookies.  You have to gather the dough and re-roll it like 10 times, people!

8. The caption on this pin says "recycle your old DVD cases into activity boxes for car rides."  Do you eat your DVD's?  They are not consumable, so why would you have old DVD cases laying around?  Instead why don't you find me a use for empty egg cartons or something.   

Grief

I have discovered an effective weapon for fighting grief and figured that I should share it with the people I love (well, the people who read this blog. Probably you don’t all love me and probably some people who love me don’t even read this stuff.)


Rather than worrying about all those stages of grief and whether you have been through them all or whether there are more to come; you can take this simple approach and just forget about all that nonsense. I mean, I have been grieving in the past and had anger way before I was in denial and then been all sad and then angry again and thought: “Who organized these stages, anyway!!!”

So the weapon is this: plan a fabulous vacation you can’t afford. In order for this strategy to work you must have a vacation destination in mind that will completely relax you and one that is, for you, your “Happy Place.” We all know where my happy place is so I don’t even need to write it. Ok, wait yes I do DISNEY WORLD! Sorry, even writing it makes me feel a little better. You need to plan a vacation you can’t afford to somewhere that when you simply write down the name of the place it helps just a little bit. That is key.

When I say plan the vacation I don’t mean simply picture yourself there in your head and smile. I mean really plan that shit. I have been on the Disney Website all morning planning out which hotel I will live in and what parks I will visit. I have created a budget (even though I don’t have the money for said budget) and thought of who might go with me (Cristy has to work, boo.) It is most important to really commit to this planning. I have gotten to the point where I am even thinking of ways to raise money for this journey. (For example, I have about 400 FB friends….if each of them gave $5 to the cause…)

When I get home tonight I am going to sit down with some wine, gather together all of my Disney Vacation planning materials, books and DVD’s (yes, I will need like 3 tray tables and the coffee table to hold all of them, beat you to that joke) and plan some more. I am going to plan my little heart out until some of the hurt in the heart hopefully goes away.

                                          (Happy Place)

Warning: This theory has not been tested scientifically or even with anyone other than the author so the advice contained in this blog bears no guarantee of relieving your grief or that of anyone you suggest utilize this method.