Personality plus

The other day at work I took this personality test. One of the girls at work is taking a management course, and 'discovering your personality' was part of it.

I am blue. Mostly blue anyways, with alot of gold.

BLUE

Congratulations, you are a primary Blue. Your heart-felt communication style creates peace and harmony in the workplace. You know how to bring out the best in others.

Blue Personality:

Things that frustrate blues:	Things blues do to frustrate others:
· Lying	· Lack of planning
· Violence	· Being passive
· Personal rejection	· Avoiding conflict
· Lack of communication	· Suppressing problems
· Lack of close friends	· Being too generous
· Sarcasm	· Being overly sentimental

Hello.... can you say pretty close? Except for the lack of planning part....and, I used to love a good dose of sarcasm.

In the past, I have taken this one. Here, I am a Golden Retriever.

		Sensitive feelings Calm Non-demanding Avoids confrontations Enjoys routine Warm and relational Adaptable Thoughtful Patient Good listener	Loyal Even keeled Gives in Indecisive Dislikes change Dry humor Sympathetic Nurturing Tolerant Peace maker

And I have also done this one in school. I am ISFJ.

ISFJ: "Conservator". These people are service and work oriented - very loyal. They may suffer from fatigue and tend to be attracted to troublemakers. They are good nurses, teachers, secretaries, general practitioners, librarians, middle managers, and housekeepers. 6% of the total population.

**housekeepers? hello?!?

ISFJs respect established authority and they tend to accept others’ opinions and desires as their own. In work situations, they provide a stable and standardized service. Disorderly situations and constantly changing rules can cause them undue stress. At these times ISFJs need to be more assertive and direct because, owing to their kindheartedness and sensitivity, ISFJs can be taken for granted and even taken advantage of. This can cause them to feel resentment and anger — feelings that the ISFJ has a tendency to deny. If the situation worsens and uncomfortable feelings build up, the ISFJ will begin to feel insecure about their status. Worrying that they are not secure or protected enough, they may become overprotective and excessively nervous about foreboding events. This can cause others to feel resistant or defiant which then contributes to the disorder of the situation.

If stress continues, the ISFJ will experience increasing anxiety. Their fear that things will continue to spin out of control will result in a general feeling of dread and apprehensiveness. They become both wary of change and unrelentingly pessimistic about the future. ISFJs will eventually become immobilized by physical symptoms associated with their anxieties. Providing care for others will become secondary as their own bodily symptoms — resulting from their fears of abandonment — disable to such a degree that they cannot assume their responsibilities. Yet, abandoning service-orientated obligations prevents ISFJs from accessing opportunities that allow them to fulfill their basic needs.

**that's all doom and gloom!


Now, what is my point. Seems like I'm 'doomed' (sort of) to the life of being on the quiet side, passive, loyal, sensitive, calm, non-demanding, being too generous, thoughtful and patient. Most of the time, I'm really ok with that. In fact, I like it. But work these days has sucked beyond words, and I think all of my above listed qualities have contributed to my, um, lack of enjoyment in being there (to put it lightly). In other words, you can walk all over me, and I'll still be nice to you while you do it!

Anybody have any great ideas that could make us millions? (Or at least enough to quit?)

What's going on.

We're re-doing the entrance way in the house. Well, actually making an entrance way. Travis has framed the doorway (but there will be no doors) and we'll have some built in shelves on either side of the door. Where those pictures are on the left is where we'll have a coat closet. (yay!)

The new door will go where the window is below.

This is upstairs without the wall! The green masking tape is probably where our island will be. Imagine hard wood and tile, new lights, paint, refinished cupboards, counter tops and window coverings.

I know I am!!

Wha?!?!

Sarah walked over to us this afternoon with this in hand.

Generally I don't condone writing on her toys, but....

I knew she could verbally spell her name,
and
I knew that she knew her letters,
BUT
I didn't know she could put it all together!!!


She's probably been doing this at preschool for a month.

crazy kid.

Because it's been a while since you've seen them.

The bad thing about working out

Is that it makes me hungry.

For bad stuff.

I tried Nutella for the first time the other day, and can you say inside of a hedgehog IN A JAR?!?!?! It tastes pretty good by the spoonful.

I should try mixing it with peanut butter......

Randomness

I am currently experiencing what you could lightly say is bad hair.

Really, it is that bad.

Just before Christmas, my sister the hairdresser took one quizzical look at my bangs, and said, "WHAT did you do to your hair?!?!"

Turns out I burned my bangs.

They're fried.

I even cut them the other day, and parts are still frizzy. They won't cooperate, so I have to wear them back half the time so they're not sticking out at some crazy angle.

I guess the fact that the end of my blowdrier was melting in my diffuser should have given me a clue. ;)

*************

I'm spinning!

Not, spinny, or spun out, but Travis and I have joined a new gym, and have gone to 2 spinning classes. I thought I'd hate them, but it turns out that they're not that bad. The feeling of a good work out far outweighs the 45 minutes of pain. Plus, you can control the level of difficulty, so when she says 'medium-high' resistance, I can be on 'low-low'. As long as I'm going red in the face and sweating away, I don't think it really matters.

But this new gym is awesome. Our membership includes any classes we want to take, each piece of cardio equipment has it's OWN 17 inch tv, it has all new equipment -- free weights and nautilus -- and CHILDCARE IS INCLUDED!!!! Yes, we take the kids, drop them off, and practically have a date.

It's fantastic.

Even better is the fact that the class we've been taking is at 5:30 (pm), so we ate dinner today at 4:30 which is super early for us. The bonus is that Sarah was practically asleep on our way home at 6:45. I think she thought it was like 9 o'clock or something. We might be on to something here....

Coming soon, a Karen who can actually run some sort of distance, and maybe even lift a 40 lb child!! :)

**********

We always say grace before dinner, and lately Sarah has been taking her turn.

It has sort of turned into a tell all of the day and goes something like this:

"Dear Jesus,

Thank you for Mommy and Daddy. I love them soooooo much and they love me too. We're best friends, and red balloon. I love preschool. Thank you for Kate and Clara is my friend. Today Ben pinched me, and I love my brother.

Amen."

Peer pressure

Peer pressure. Remember growing up with it? Some of them big, some small. Who to hang out with, what to wear, how to treat the underdogs at school. And not only those pressures, but the ones that you impose on yourself. Pressure to do well in school, music, sports, socially. Well, I did anyways. Can you say oldest child?

Anyways, I can remember thinking as a teenager that surely, once I became an 'adult' those would disappear. Those are teen problems, right? ha! Now that I'm in my thirties, I have to admit, that I do care less and less about what other people think (though I'm not at the totally don't care stage yet, and don't think I ever will be), and find that I have lots in common with people that I didn't think I did 15 (yikes!!) years ago. And who cares what I wear, eat, or how I did in school.

That's what I thought until I entered MOTHERHOOD.

I can remember taking Sarah to swimming lessons when she was 8 months old. Now, Sarah didn't walk until she was (now I forget) about 16 months old. For a few months before that, she did this crazy schooching thing where she'd move around on her bum. It was so cute. And, I was so totally not worried about when she was going to walk. It would happen eventually, and it did. Anyways, there was this one part at swimming where we put all the babies on this big mat on the water, and of course this little 6 month old boy starts to crawl like crazy all over the mat, all around Sarah who's just sitting there happy as a clam. His mom looked over, and said, in such a cheerfully condesending way, 'She's not crawling yet?'. No. And she never did.

And so, to the story that needed all that preface. Which, by the way, I'm writing about because it's funny, NOT because I'm ticked off or anything! I wish that tone of voice could come over in writing.

Last week at Sarah's preschool, all the kids were exposed to RSV. Apparently it's a wickedly contagious virus that looks like a cold on most kids, but if a kid has asthma or if a baby or pregnant mom is exposed, it can get nasty. So the teacher put out a little notice on Tuesday, and was sending kids home who appeared to be sick. As we were dropping the kids off, Mrs. E, Sarah's teacher, another mom and I were just chatting about the RSV thing. Mom goes, I don't know why anyone would ever bring a kid to class who had a runny nose or cough. Just keep them at home! I'm thinking, 'Um, because my kids have alternating runny noses from November to March,' and in the background, Sarah starts couging and hacking away. Inside, I'm shaking my head. By the way, it is a WHOLE other post about how I go into sickness denial -- I'll tell you later.

So then the conversation turns to being so particular about what we feed our kids. Mrs E. (who we love and really is the nicest) said, "well I only feed my kids organic or homemade food." And she and the Mom are going on about aspartame being discovered by accident while someone was trying to make a pesticide, and chickens being on life support so they can grow big, tender, juicy boobs.

Guess what was Sarah's snack for the day.

Juice box (fruit and veggie, in my defence), Nutrigrain bar, and minigo.


Totally packaged. Totally processed.



Mother of the year, right here. You're looking at her!







*** in my defence, also, I really do try to feed my kids healthier stuff. They rarely, if ever, get pop, we bake cookies and muffins all the time, they'll eat pretty much whatever we're having for supper, and they eat their veggies etc etc. But, they have their share of store bought stuff too. I like a nice balance of homemade and easy. And, I totally agree with the principle of organic food, and do it when I can, but it's just so expensive.