the good & the bad

Sara posted today about three things that she is good/bad at, and I thought it was fun so I’m going to try it out here. So here are my three good, three bad.

The Bad (aka the easy list!)

1. I am AWFUL at math. AWFUL. I get sweaty and panicky just remembering high school/college math courses, and nothing can make me feel more idiotic than being confronted by a sales rack and attempting to figure out where 30% off will get me. I struggled my way through Elementary Statistics and that is IT. Never again. (Until Madeline has to learn fractions and multiplication and I will somehow have to hide my own terror while attempting to help.)

2. I am awful at communicating frustration or upset. Most times I would rather chew my own hand off than tell someone that I’m unhappy/displeased/angry/frustrated. If it’s uncomfortable, it’s likely that I’ll avoid it. This is not a good trait to have in any area of your life, let me tell you, and I’m working on it.

3. I am bad in unfamiliar social situations. Some people are born to work a room and improvise, but not this girl. I have attended several networking and public speaking seminars and each time I have been intensely uncomfortable the whole time. Give me my friends that I know and love, please don’t stick me in a room of strangers and expect me to make friends, because the whole time I will be fretting over my hair/outfit/the idiotic thing I just said. I no longer have the capacity to create relationships out of thin air; I think I get more and more socially ackward as I age.

The Good

1. I am good with words. I like to write, and I like to think that I’m pretty decent at it. Creating original copy is actually part of my job description, so I feel pretty lucky that I get to do something (at least some of the time) that I enjoy. I’d like to write a bit more, and things that are more “my own” someday – and I’m working toward that this year. 2012 is the year of action!

2. I am a decent cook – that’s another thing that I enjoy. I love finding new recipes (hello, giant Pinterest board!) and trying them out, and I especially love it when they work and are something I’d want to make again. I love the happy litttle organizational routine of meal planning, even though I don’t do it every week – on the weeks when I do get it done, I feel very put-together.

3. I am good at keeping routines in place. Appointments, schedules – I am good with making sure that my family is where they need to be and get done what they need to get done. It’s not necessarily always on time (gosh, timeliness would be a good one for the “bad” list, I am not great with arriving on time) but I like to think that I’m mostly able to keep everyone ticking along as they should. I take a lot of pleasure in the night-before-school routine that Madeline and I have: packing lunch, backpack, bath, laying out clothes… it just feels great to get a head start on the day. (I imagine that this will wear off once she’s on a 5-days-per-week schedule.)

There! That wasn’t so bad. As Sara noted, it was much harder to come up with the “good” stuff.

(It was very difficult not to use entirely sarcastic answers for the good list, such as “I am excellent at eating ice cream” and “I totally excel at the Disney Princess game on the Wii.” Although that last one might be valid, have you tried to repair Cinderella’s clock tower? Sheesh.)

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