Sunday, November 04, 2007

OD and NOJOMO

At the other journaling spot I inhabit here in cyberspace, I've joined a challenge to post an entry for every day in November. It's called NOJOMO. Each day has had a letter of the day, a word of the day and a writing prompt. This being the 4th our letter was D. Here's my entry from there, not just to duplicate, but because the Peeves list was what I wanted to share here. ")

Letter of the day: D
-Daisy: I’ve thought about this inspirational person several times this week. She was the mother of one of my best buds in high school. She died from breast cancer in 1974. In a moment of teenage angst she counseled me to “never give up.” Her words are tattooed on my heart.
-Dogs: I would love to have one. A smart one. A housebroken one. I will wait until I’m not working or working less because I want to have a companion not just a chore.
-Daughters: Mine are quite amazing and I love them so much. They’ve turned into good mothers. And one of them is now my boss (still trying to get used to that).

Word of the day: Dedicate
-I have dedicated my life to following God and serving others as He leads me to do. Most recently that has linked me to the ministry of Transformation Network. I believe people can change if they have enough want to and are given the right tools. I guess I’m in the uncovering “wanta” and “tool distribution” business.

Writing prompt: 10 Worst Peeves:
(I’m going to split this one 40/60: 4 of my irritations and 6 ways I’m sure I irritate others.)
-What peeves me:
-Drivers who pull out in front of me (especially when there is NO ONE behind me) and putz on down the road.
-Adults who sit in meetings and crack their chewing gum.
-People leaving one ice cube in the tray, or less than one bowl of cereal in the box, or two drops of milk in the jug.
-People who finish the toilet paper but don’t replace the roll.

-How I probably peeve others:
-I willingly commit to something and then forget to write it down and unfortunately forget to do it. (Happens way too often and I hate it—make sure I write it down!)
-I lose things. My mom always said, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” I must have too many “things” because I’m forever losing them.
-I think out loud. Which means in a conversation you may think that I’m telling you something I’ve already made my mind up about (and therefore think I’m committing) when really I’m just processing information. It also means I talk a lot (aka: too much).
-I can do a lot in a little bit of time. One of the ways this irritates others is that I put off starting something until the last minute because I don’t think it will take as long for me to do as for others. This looks like procrastination and frustrates others (particularly supervisors and spouse).
-I say I’m sorry for everything. This is something I picked up from my mother. It makes me crazy that she does it, and I know it irritates Nelson.
-I answer a question with a question. This too, drives Nelson crazy. I think this is related to one of my other peeving behaviors of thinking out loud. I’m trying to process the question and answer it right (probably my next irritating behavior) and so to be sure I have the question right and all information to make a right answer, I ask another question. Ticks him off every time. I’m working hard on this. Each time I get it correct, I’m quick to point it out. “)

This exercise was interesting to me. I started out by thinking that I was going to have this long list of things that peeve me from others. What I found out quickly was that I couldn't get past four, but when I started out writing about what behaviors I had that probably peeved others I was clearly going to exceed my list of ten. I found much to think and pray about.

3 comments:

daisy said...

I can sure relate to the peeving others. I do exactly the same things! I always have to tell my husband that it's just a conversation, not a contract. If I talk out loud about it, it doesn't mean that I'm committing to it. I'm just processing. I know I drive him crazy with that one!

One things that peeves me is judgmental people, and whoops, I am one of them! Something for me to keep thinking about.

Trisha said...

I irritate others a lot, too. Funny how most of the time we only see how others irritate us.

HeyJules said...

I don't even want to go there...